A study on the use of framing devices in some vietnamese and american front pages

This thesis aims to work out the definition and framework of framing, apply the framework for the analysis of some Vietnamese and American newspaper front pages and to analyze the journa

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN LINH CHI

A STUDY ON THE USE OF FRAMING DEVICES

IN SOME VIETNAMESE AND AMERICAN FRONT PAGES

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁCH SỬ DỤNG CÁC YẾU TỐ TẠO BỐ CỤC

TRÊN MỘT SỐ MẶT BÁO VIỆT – MỸ)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

HANOI, 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN LINH CHI

A STUDY ON THE USE OF FRAMING DEVICES

IN SOME VIETNAMESE AND AMERICAN FRONT PAGES

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁCH SỬ DỤNG CÁC YẾU TỐ TẠO BỐ CỤC

TRÊN MỘT SỐ MẶT BÁO VIỆT – MỸ)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

Supervisor: Prof Nguyễn Hoà, PhD

HANOI, 2018

DECLARATION

I, Nguyen Linh Chi, hereby certify that all material in my thesis, which is not, my own work has been identified and acknowledge The result of my research is the fulfillment of the requirement for Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies – University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi I commit that this M.A thesis has not been submitted anywhere for any degree

Nguyen Linh Chi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would first like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof Nguyen

Hoa, for his invaluable assistance, guidance and encouragement during the time I

have tried to complete this thesis He consistently allowed this study to be my own work, but steered me in the right direction whenever he thought I needed it

I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all lecturers of Department of Post

Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi

Without their passionate and helpful lectures, my study could not have been successfully conducted

I am in debt of many authors‟ works that help me to improve the quality of my research

Last but not least, I must express my profound appreciation to my family for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement

ABSTRACT

This Master‟s Thesis is based on the combination of Fairclough‟s concept of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Kress and van Leeuwen‟s Social Semiotic Analysis (SSA) CDA has become a separate field within applied linguistics and is continuously modified to new phenomena, one of which is multimodal text The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the use of framing devices, integrating the CDA framework by Fairclough (1989) as well as to prove that multimodal analysis is now taking a prominent place in news media analysis

This thesis aims to work out the definition and framework of framing, apply the framework for the analysis of some Vietnamese and American newspaper front pages and to analyze the journalists‟ choices in the use of verbal and visual devices

on the discourse level The methodology used in this research includes critical review of the existing literature on CDA and SSA, introduction of framing devices, and application of the theoretical guidelines to study a collection of data The data consists of some Vietnamese and American newspaper front pages The findings obtained in this thesis confirm the position of multidimensional analysis in news discourse analysis, and sketch out the composition of power and ideological relations on the discourse level

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CDA Critical Discourse Analysis

SSA Social Semiotic Analysis

SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

1.1 Overview of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) 7

1.2 Overview of Social Semiotic Analysis (SSA) 11

1.3.3.2 Salience 27

1.4.2 Organizational influence on media content 30

3.1.1 Structural properties of headlines 38

3.1.1.4 The omission of grammatical words 41

3.1.2 Discourse and lexical properties of headlines 43

3.1.2.1 The events and participants of the events 43

3.1.2.4 The use of rhetorical questions 45 3.1.2.5 The use of metaphor-based word plays 46

3.3 Summary of the chapter 57

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

For a long time, there has been consistent attention paid to the monomodal discourse of texts In spoken communication, the facial expression and gestures are ignored Many serious and highly valued works appear with densely printed pages and without much interest in visual illustration, layout and presentation However, the situation has now completely reversed Multimodal discourse analysis is now taking up their central position The importance of paralanguage, i.e., the way in which speakers show what they mean by non-verbal qualities of speech other than

by the words they use, is now highlighted It can be seen in newspapers, magazines, reports, books and many other kinds of texts that the processor has written and designed multimodally The idea is that different modes in any multimodal discourses are not strictly restricted and framed specialist tasks, but they can perform the other‟s tasks The verbal and the visual can explain the same meaning

to fulfill and expand one another, or they can even argue and disagree For instance,

in a movie, it is possible for music to express emotions and encode action Obviously, the semiotic modes may interrelate in various ways and they create a positive effect on the listener and the reader Seeing this trend in speech and writing practices, it is important to cultivate a theoretical framework appropriate to multimodal modes of discourse analysis, which can sufficiently characterize the interaction between verbal and visual modes and analyze their precise meaning

In the age of digitization, the dominance of monomodality has been replaced by semiotic practice, especially in the field of mass media While the media or news media plays an essential role in the life of millions of citizens, it is not exaggerated

to say that the media is a cornerstone in our society regarding its considerable influence on the way it forms public opinion by framing events and problems in specific ways

The term „framing‟ is referred to “a communication source presenting and defining

an issue.” The use of frame analysis in studying news discourse has been steadily expanded since the early 1990s, giving opportunities to investigate the media content and the relationship between media and public opinion, i.e., the forces that create public interpretations of reality and how they can affect audiences‟ attitudes The use of framing as a theory to study news frames so far originated from a sociological approach, in which frames are considered “social constructs and outcomes of journalistic norms or organizational constraints, as well as sponsored

by social and political actors” (Bateson, 1955) According to Goffman (1974), frames are defined as “schemata of interpretation” that allows people to perceive specific events and “to locate, perceive, identify and label occurrences.” He states that this schema of interpretation is primitive because of its capability to make a meaningless aspect of a scene meaningful While the journalists take responsibility for employing the framework for the coverage of events in the news media, they can lead the audiences‟ cognition of events and information the way they want This situation has triggered extensive researches on the interplay between news coverage and ones‟ interpretation of events and information and has opened up the expansion

of several theories to the notions and analysis of frames

This study cites evidence in supporting an idea that being knowledgeable of various types of framing is crucial to figure out how, when, and why they function properly and effectively It shows how news framing devices may be identified and used to recognize cross-national dissimilarities in news The study is based on the analytic paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) proposed by Fairclough (1989) and Social Semiotic Analysis (SSA) proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) According to Fairclough, discourse is connected with conceptualizing, researching language, and other semiotic forms in a certain way; therefore, media discourse should be analyzed in a multidimensional way in which texts and semiotic aspects,

as well as discourse practice and social practice cannot be separated For this

reason, CDA allows us to incorporate textual analysis within social analysis of news discourse

2 Aims of the study

In studying a collection of Vietnamese and American newspaper front pages, the reseacher would like to investigate how framing is applied in newspaper front pages; find out the similarities and differences in the use of framing devices in the selected data; and offer some implications for readers to read and understand newspaper front pages and for journalists to write and design front-page layouts that are attractive to readers

3 Scope of the study

On the basis of the principal theories and approaches introduced by famous critical discourse analysts, the writer am going to do a research on the use of framing devices in some Vietnamese and American newspaper front pages The theories of the study is based on the analytic paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) proposed by Fairclough (1989) and Social Semiotic Analysis (SSA) proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) The rational for choosing newspaper front pages is that they are great choice as an instrument of analysis because they are capable of mutually exchange complex ideas Kress and van Leeuwen assert that newspapers

“are the first point of „address‟ for the readers” demonstrating the most highlighted events and issues of the day for the paper and its readers The Vietnamese front

pages are extracted from Tuyen Quang while the American ones are taken from the

New York Times

4 Research questions

In examining the use of framing devices in some Vietnamese and American front pages, the researcher would like to figure out how the front pages are designed and the relationship between the visual mode of representation and communication, and whether cultural and social origin is involved

The study aims at answering the following questions:

1 What kinds of devices are often used to frame news in Vietnamese and American newspaper front pages?

2 How do the framing devices construct the ways the reader capture a news story?

3 What are the similarities and differences in the ways framing devices are used in Vietnamese and American newspaper front pages?

5 Methodology

There are a variety of fields of inquiry within CDA, hence the aim of the study is to give a comprehensive description, explanation and critique of the strategies journalists use to make media discourses, in this case, newspaper front pages, appear common-sense and apolitical CDA provides a cluster of approaches to discover the relationship between language, society, power, ideology, values and opinion; therefore it is significant in the field of language and communication In CDA, ideologies result from differences in position, experience and interests among social groups, which then lead to ideological conflict in terms of power The ideological meaning systems are introduced and usually operated in the social institutional discourses Fairclough (2003: 24), believing that language is „an irreducible part of social life‟, states, “the dialectic relation between language and social reality is realized through social events (texts), social practices (orders of discourse) and social structures (languages).” His model offers an explanation of a cognitive process on how people share and explain meanings in texts within several different social contexts Texts cause the effects upon and are partly responsible for changes in people, actions, social relations and the material world Fairclough makes an effort to discover ideological and power patterns in texts Therefore, CDA appears as the principal framework for this study

Different scholars make use of different methodological strategies to analysis in general and frame analysis in particular In analyzing framing, while some researchers use quantitative analysis, others favor qualitative approach or in other

words, a text-based interpretative Applying framing as a methodological approach demands for the construction and process features of a discourse or a discourse itself Moreover, framing strategy links the striving trend of social analysis toward ending debates and making things public, hence that may be considered one of its advantages Framing approach accomplishes the following aims within the context

of media study: to identify issues, to make proper assessments, and to propose solutions According to Wimmer and Dominick (2006: 152-153), framing strategy

as a scheme of qualitative analysis should be carried out to achieve the following media researches objectives:

 giving a detailed account of the communication content;

 describing the resemblances between media content and the real world; and

 raising a starting points for researches on media effects

Pan and Kosicki (1993: 58) point out the four distinctions that make news framing analysis diferent from other strategies to news Framing perceives news texts as a composition of organized symbolic emblems that connect individual agents‟ memory and meaning explanation rather than just as a psychological stimuli bearing identifiable meanings Frame analysis agree on the power of rule-governed nature

of text composition and the multimodality of news texts that will facilitate the cognition in news construction and consumption Moreover, the validity of framing holds the systematic procedures of collecting data of news in order to recognize the symbolic components which may be used by the audience Finally, in framing analysis, the existing of frames in news texts is connected to its readers

6 Structure of the study

The study contains of three main parts that are arranged as follows:

Part A: Introduction includes the rationale, aims, scope, research questions,

methodology and design of the study

Part B: Development consists of three chapters

Chapter 1: Literature review provides a brief review of CDA history and

development, Fairclough‟s framework, an overview of SSA and other background

knowledge related to the study

Chapter 2: Methodology presents the empirical data and provides analytical

framework of the study

Chapter 3: Findings and discussion describes the process of analyzing data and

enters into discussions

Part C: Conclusion gives a statement on the findings in the analysis procedure and

provides significance and implications of the study for further researches

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

The chapter is devoted to a detailed description of the CDA framework, with an emphasis on Norman Fairclough‟s CDA model, a theoretical background of SSA, a short description of „framing‟ and other related issues

1.1 Overview of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

1.1.1 The notion of CDA

The word „discourse‟, originated from Latin, which denotes „conversation‟,

„speech‟, is used by various linguists for the analysis of linguistic phenomena that range over a unit of text According to Ruth Wodak (1989), discourse is defined as

“a cluster of context-dependent practices that are: situated within specific fields of social action; socially constituted and socially constitutive, related to a macro-topic; link to the argumentation about validity claims such as truth and normative validity, involving several social factors who have different points of view.” Discourse is definitely arranged with various meanings, conveying the speaker‟s ideologies, belief and ideas Due to the complication of the discourse regarding both its surface structure and meaning, discourse is said to be multidimensional structure To understand it completely, discourse should not only be examined on lexis, grammatical features but also on different modes The examination of discourse must be the combination of discourse analysis and discourse theory The concept of discourse analysis has been widely used since the connection between language and context was noticed in the field of pragmatics with concentration on interlocutors‟ socio-linguistic competence, sentences and components of sentences It needs to handle at least three factors including a language, a practice and a context working together in the triangle as follows

Figure 1 The triangle of discourse analysis: language, practice and context

In late 1970s, linguists completely focused on analyzing technical figures of

language such as language variation, language change and the structures of

communicative interaction and overlooked the problems of social hierarchy and

power The beginning of pragmatics gave support to examining the interdependence

of language and some aspects of social contexts However, the effort was still limited as in the field of pragmatics, sentences and elements of sentences were considered the elementary units and it concerned with utterances alone rather than with the real comprehensive discourse Consequently, the analytical instruments are

Language

Context

Discourse analysis

Practice

made to review discrete elements of language rather than analyze them in a cultural, political and social context Thanks to the evolution of Critical Linguistics (CL) ascribed to the work of Roger and his colleagues, the situation was significantly changed CL concerns with getting the meaning in texts as the comprehension of social processes, giving texts the ideological and political functions in connection with their contexts Its hypotheses, foundations and procedures are supported by many different theorists such as Kress and Hodge (1979), Fowler at al (1979), van Dijk (1985) and Wodak (1989)

1.1.2 Fairclough’s framework of CDA

During the merger of CL with social semiotics and pragmatics in the 1980s, Critical Discourse Analysis, a cross-disciplinary access to the study of discourse, has been cultivated to offer the opportunity to adopt social perspective, critical thinking, and many other essential factors into the investigation aimed at addressing social issues The term CDA begins to be known in the 1980s after Norman Fairclough published

his book Language and Power regarding “language as a form of social practice”

and concentrating on how social and political influence was reproduced by the means of language His definition of CDA which is widely agreed and used among CDA practitioners can be quoted as follows: “Discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and tests, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power; and to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony” (Fairclough, 1995: 132)

The theorist accelerates the introduction of the critical study of discourse by displaying fundamental theory of CDA including its aims, objectives and model building on the theory of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFL) by M.A.K Halliday

SFL is an approach to linguistics that has major influence on linguistics and serves

as fundamental authority for pragmatics and CDA Moreover, SFL deals with language in its social context, as an agent of social interaction, and investigates the ways speakers and hearers use language for communication From this perspective, language is seen as a social interaction rather than a formal set of rules Basing on this model, Fairclough (1989) stresses the authority behind discourse rather than just the authority in discourse and how individuals with power form the order of discourse and the social order in general and control what takes place in particular situations CDA builds people‟s awareness of the ways language involves in the control of some people by others Accordingly, the author focuses heavily on contextual knowledge and the combination of CDA and explanation how it figures within and contributes to the existing social reality

One of the greatest successes in Fairclough‟s contribution to CDA is the practical

framework in which he analyzes three stages namely description, interpretation and

explanation matching to the three dimensions of discourse including text, interaction and context respectively The first stage – description regards the formal

properties of the text while the interpretation deals with the connection between

text and interaction regarding the text as the outcome of a process of production, and as a supply in the process of interpretation The first stage involves the means for the genuine representation of textual factors so it is the basis for making interpretation possible by combining textual factors and the member‟s resource, such as phonology, grammar, vocabulary, background knowledge, etc Accordingly,

interpretation can be seen as a stage in which the clues make factors of the

member‟s resource work Fairclough (2001: 117) states that interpretation has its

attention to the “discourse processes and their independence in background

assumptions.” The last stage – explanation works on the connection between social

interpretation of the outcome of the processes of production, social context and their social influences, as Fairclough calls it “the relationship of discourse to processes of

struggle and to power relation.” Discourse is thought to be settled by struggles for power and the link to power results from the struggles

Though scholars like Fairclough (1995), Wodak (1996) and van Dijk (1998) may pursue different approaches to CDA, they all seem to share the same opinion that CDA is a persuasive tool to examine both spoken and written language in order to clarify “the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality, and bias and how these sources are initiated, maintained, reproduced, and transformed within specific social, economic, political and historical contexts” (van Dijk, 1998) Theoretically, what Fairclough calls „constitutive‟ is a historical and social shaped action that helps to maintain and produce the social status quo again and to transform it As a consequence, CDA provides the analysts with the opportunities to comprehend the social problems, which are negotiated by prevailing ideology and power relationship and how the dominant forces in a community shape variants of reality that fulfill their expectation In the field, each discourse is considered to have its own life; therefore, CDA is chosen to be the theoretical background for this study

1.2 Overview of Social Semiotic Analysis (SSA)

Theo van Leeuwen (1947), a well-known critical discourse theorist and analyst, accompanied with Gunther Kress, is the co-founder of multimodality, which is a research area interested in the meaning-making potential and use of several semiotic resources, consisting of communicative modes such as language as well as visual design and media His work has brought considerable effects on the enhancement of multimodality, social semiotics and critical discourse analysis to fields including education, media, and culture and business studies

Van Leeuwen defines social semiotics as “a form of enquiry” that is neither pure nor self-contained because it is recognized when it is used to explore particular cases and particular situations Semiotic resource is drawn on Halliday‟s (1978) attitude towards language as “a social semiotic resource whose meaning-making potential is dynamic and simultaneously shapes and is shaped by the social contexts

in which it is employed.” Besides, van Leeuwen also emphasizes on Gibson‟s (1979) idea of „affordances‟, which refers to a use or purpose that a thing can have that people can notice or feel with their senses when they experience it In other words, the uses will become real in factual social contexts “where their use is subject to some form of semiotic regime” (van Leeuwen, 2005: 285)

Given the idea by Hodge and Kress‟s (1988) Social Semiotics, van Leeuwen pays

attention to the connection between the agencies of meaning-makers and how particular institutional and wider social contexts influence individuals‟ use of semiotic resources Based on Halliday‟s idea (1978) language is only “one of the semiotic systems that constitute a culture” and on his description of the vital link between text and context, van Leeuwen outlines the basis for expanding a social semiotic theory, which could support integrative conversation in all its forms and across several contexts Hodge and Kress (1988) construct a theory that “texts and contexts, agents and objects of meaning, social structures and forces and their complex interrelationships together constitute the minimal and irreducible object of semiotic analysis.” The work has inspired to apply the social semiotic tradition to multimodal and critical discourse studies and initiated efforts to investigate the function of non-verbal modes and their interplay with language in creating or disputing social norms and stereotypes

The social semiotician pursues and establishes institutions for the two main ways in multimodal research:

 investigating the use and arranging the interest of meaning-maker of single semiotic resources, and

 discussing the directions they cooperate to make a meaningful multimodal communication

One thing that makes van Leeuwen‟s contribution different from the others is a great curiosity in the meaning-making possibility of material resources, for instance color, texture and sound and their capability to take part in language and visual works Into semiotic resources, it is greater and easier for users to establish more

conventions and express their feelings or opinions Today, his work plays an important role in examining the relationship between modes and the media, which is

a challenging task in the field of multimodality research and semiotics

In their book Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, Kress and van

Leeuwen (1990) present an analytical framework built on two fundamental principles of Halliday‟s Systemic Functional Linguistics The first tenet is that every text at the same time notices three types of meaning, or in other words, it displays „metafunctions‟, namely ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning While the ideational represents model of experience, as compositions of processes participants and circumstances, and the logico-semantic connections, for instance addition, temporal sequence and causality, between them, the interpersonal meaning performs social communications, relations and values The last meaning – textual interlaces the two other meanings into cohesive and coherent texts The second principle is that the capacity to express meaning of semiotic modes could be displayed paradigmatically, as systems of related alternatives, each of which is recognized through a special form Building on Arnheim‟s (1974) concepts of

„volume‟ and „vector‟, Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) introduce the two main types

of process identified in visual representations (figure 2) Narrative processes present one or more vectorial relations among volumes, or visual entities realized as distinct, for instance, two people standing across the stress looking at each other, where the directions of their gazes form vectors Conceptual processes include entities without vectors, for instance a portrait

Figure 2 Two main types of process in visual representations

(based on Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006 [1996]: 59)

Despite accepting that SFL is a useful framework for considering all modes of representation, Kress and van Leeuwen suggest that linguists should not take it for granted that any categories promoted for language are suitable for investigating other modes They clarify different semiotic resources may perform to create the same common types of meaning, but the formal structures and fundamentals, for instance temporal or spatial organization, through which they assemble meaning are dissimilar Hence, their affordances and limitations are dissimilar By way of illustration, language as well as images can interpret accounts of reality that bear different truth values for peculiar communities Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) show that a meaning quality in SFL‟s system of „modality‟ for English grammar To realize modality, linguistic resources including modal verbs and modal adjuncts can

be consumed to build up degrees of certainty in the middle from two points of the polarity values of „yes‟ and „no‟, for example degrees of certainty and uncertainty

In semiotic modes, Kress and van Leeuwen capture modality based on the intricate interaction of separate clues such as degrees of color saturation, color distinction, brightness and detail All these clues may combine together to attract viewers to construe a visual representation as more or less realistic, conceptual, auditory or technical Having a great consistency with their knowledge that semiotic resources are incommensurate, the two analysts place less emphasis on the use of the term

„grammar‟ to suggest that the visual semiotic resource neither is arranged similarly

to language nor has analogous grammatical structures They stress the differences between earlier semiotic approaches to visual analysis, which appears to emphasize

on the meaning potential of separate objects and visual elements, for instance a singular or shape, that is to say what may be realized as analogous to „lexis‟ in verbal mode, and their analytical framework, which lay focuses on the structures constructed by essential features within a visual structure like a photo or the front page of a newspaper

1.3 Framing

1.3.1 The notion of framing

The notion of frame analysis is based on sociology, psychology and linguistics and

is also widely used in any domain where „meaning‟ matters such as politics and media studies In sociology, the term „framing‟ is often connected with Gregory Bateson and of Erving Goffman‟s (1974) work of face-to-face interaction They pay particular attention to the communicative events occurring within a frame, which refers to the descriptions and promises that people grasp and consume to make sense of any circumstance, which they have to face expectedly or unexpectedly in their everyday life According to Goffman (1974), frames are “the principles of organization which govern events – at least social ones – and our subjective involvement in them.” Frames make it easier for people to “locate, perceive, identify, and label” ordinary occurrences Especially, in the field of media, journalists can apply this schema to “organize strips of the everyday world, a strip being an arbitrary slice or cut from the stream of on-going activity” (Goffman 1974: 10-11) Gamson and Modigliani (1989) have expanded the concept They define framing as “a central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events The frame suggests what the controversy is about, the essence of the issue.” Chong and Druckman (2007), Gross and D‟Ambrossio (2004), Iyengar and Simon (1993) share the idea that frames show a prominence or salience of various aspects of a issue They are signified to facilitate complicated topics by lending more weight to particular qualities and active schemas that give support for audiences to think a in certain way Framing is significant is media analysis as news is a way of seeing and learning about the world, and through its frame, individuals can become aware of themselves and others, of their culture and society and of other nations and people News intends to provide people with the information that they need to know and should know; therefore, news framing may

be questionable as it is possible for journalists to mediate the issues, especially the

discourse, news is discursively constructed by language Distinctions in representation support different ideologies and different expression According to Tuchman (1978: 193), an accident is reconstructed into an event, and then the event

is reconstructed into a news story As news frame arranges ordinary reality and at the same time is piece of ordinary reality, the public feature of news becomes essential Framing is a useful medium for journalists to transform huge amounts of facts quickly and usually present those facts for effective transmit to their viewers The frame analysis is also applied to issues in cross-cultural communication Watanabe, in her research called “Cultural Differences in Framing: American and Japanese Group Discussions,” puts the question of why Japanese students in American classrooms have to deal with difficulty in taking part in small group discussion, which is a speech activity preferred by many American teachers By analyzing Japanese and American students working in small group discussions on the same topics, Watanabe recognizes two types of framing, which are bracketing and specific conversational moves in Japanese students‟ communicative strategies Her observation carries intriguing implications for the issue of gender and understanding of differences in Japanese and American discourse strategies in particular and cross-cultural communication in general Lee Smith‟s “The Pulpit and Woman‟s Place: Gender and the Framing of the „Exegetical Self‟ in Sermon Performances” also concerns with gender and language topic area She discusses the finding that women and men are not significantly different in the issue of lexical or syntactic choice, but the more complicated level of footing, that means the arrangement they make to the material about which they are addressing and the hearer to whom they are giving their discourse

Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) provide a different way of perceiving the concept

of framing, which they define as “a compositional resource in visual communication.” From their perspective, framing is the theory that, on the one hand, any semiotic entity or meaning-entity is arranged with internal wholeness and internal coherence, but on the other, semiotic entity is apparently characterized as

disparate from other events of the same kind and at the same rank in a larger event The term „framing‟ or „to frame‟ comes into existence from an attempt to indicate and/or set a limit a „space‟ visibly or conceptually which creates a domain of concern at a definite level All components in that space are considered essential and have to be illustrated in their connections with all other components in that space The components and their connections symbolize the meaning-potential of the chosen meaning-entity Each mode of portrayal and communication is able to create a discrete set of framing devices appropriate for the materiality of that mode Framing devices set up borders between components by a range of devices such as

by indicating the border itself or by creating comparisons between the framed components at the same level A full stop indicates a boundary between sentences in

a written text while in an image, a box, a bubble, an empty space or contrasting colors can be used to show the boundaries between textual entities of the particular kind and level In spoken language, a pause or gesture may be seen as a mark to separate other elements of meaning Kress and van Leeuwen examine framing in more specific aspects and analyze the framing devices that appear in different texts and contexts Especially in social semiotic multimodal system, the concept of framing is recognized as a compositional and multimodal resource for both dividing and joining displayed entities Frame can be taken to indicate that specific components in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional composition are isolated from each other; therefore their connection is broken In a similar way, other components, which reside the identical space, even they are inside or outside the

frame, may be realized as associated In Reading Images (1996: 214-218), the two

analysts introduce the realization of frame by different kinds of frame-lines and empty space Physical frame-lines denote „segregation‟ (van Leeuwen 2005: 15-17) that may be more or less complete determined by the thickness of the frame Frame-lines can surround an image within a bigger structure of the layout of the newspaper, or they can be a part of a whole by representing items in an image such

as a wall or a house On the other hand, empty space is more concerned with

„separation‟ (van Leeuwen 2005: 17), in other words, it shows that particular elements in an image is to some extent separated Empty space may differ in strength corresponding to the amount of space between entities In comparison with physical frame-lines, this means of framing is usually seen as more fragile Besides these two, Kress and van Leeuwen introduce a variety of other assets of connection and disconnection under the title „framing‟ such as vectors, discontinuities of color

or shape, visual rhyme, which means the repetition of color or shape and other features (1996: 214-218 and 225) Regarding the significance of framing in multimodal analysis, it might be argued if it is the most appropriate combining category, which covers both the framing created by physical frame-lines and empty space in visual composition and three-dimensional space, and the connection and disconnection of „visual rhyme‟ and „contrast‟ In speech, the notion of framing may also be relevant to dissimilar types of break that take place in the period separating rhythmic phrases – breath groups, and to the pauses between the turns in communication Kress and van Leeuween (2006: 203) state that framing and rhythm may combine and they may be perceived as multimodal semiotic resources in temporally integrated text In other words, in time-based texts, rhythm is caused to happen by framing Between the moves in any conversation, the cycles of rhythm are disrupted for a very short time by a pause, a rallentando, a change of gait, and these turning points signify unconnected units, distinct stretches of speech from one another to a higher or lower degree When those turning points are not present, it can be understood that the components are united as a continuous flow

In the field of media and communication, framing is definitely a valuable approach

in both theory and methodology due to its application to news construction and audience reaction According to Van Gorp (2010), frames can be situated at various levels such as public discourses, news production practices and audiences‟ information reception, hence news framing analysis can provide an accurate and deep understanding in the decisions and judgments journalists make when they

construct a story These decisions and judgments are important as they can basically characterize the nature of one issue and cause the audience to interpret an issue

 comparative assignment of occurrences to categories/frames;

 illustration and enhancement of categories/frames;

 looking for connections and themes among categories/frames; and

 clarifying and combining data into a coherent theoretical structure

Alozie (2005: 66) suggests a similar three-phase-technique

 Phase 1: doing an overall multiple reading of the texts while making descriptive notes of the content;

 Phase 2: doing a second reading to find recurring themes, frames, values and topic categories; and

 Phase 3: making in-depth analysis of the texts

According to Gamson and Lasch (1983: 399), in order to know what to look for when identifying frames, the researcher must analyze the texts for “„symbolic devices‟ or „signature elements‟ that are located within news stories.” There are a variety of devices used to frame a particular event, based on the research problem, the research will know what to seek for, for example, a single framing devices (like news sources) or multiple framing devices

For the purpose of this study, the framing devices are divided into two categories,

1.3.2.1 Linguistic devices

Journalists use linguistic devices in order to make the headlines more intrigue and appealing the viewer to read the articles and for limited space in the front pages Being aware of these special features helps the reader to understand the headline better and interpret their meanings in the first place

In order to attract the reader, headlines have to be short, simple and appropriate to the style of the paper Hence, sentence types play a huge role in newspaper‟s headline features

 Simple sentences, consisting of one main clause and one subordinate clause, convey a complete meaning of an idea;

 Compound and complex sentences are significant components of both Vietnamese and English language While compound sentences consist of two independent clauses that are related in meanings, complex sentences contain

an independent clause and at least one dependent clause;

 Rhetorical questions are figures of emotion that are used not for the purposes

of asking and answering, but only for the purpose of declaring or disagreeing something According to Leech (1969), rhetorical questions do something that are understood by the addressee and cannot be disclaimed They can be asked for attention and thought provoking;

 Elliptical sentences are those with an auxiliary verb, with the subject, or with the subject and part of the predicate or with articles omitted These elements are absolutely important in sentences but sometimes they can be omitted to make the headlines less lengthy and create special effects on the reader;

 Nominalization refers to the use of a word, which is not a noun as a noun, or

as the head of a noun phrase, with or without morphological transformation (Wikipedia) It can be understood as the process of making a noun from a verb, an adjective or an adverb

Other linguistic devices that can be used for the purpose of impressing the reader

consist of word choice, metaphors, exemplars and other devices such as the

presence or absence of certain keywords, stock phrases, sources of information, and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgment

(Entman 1993: 52)

 Metaphors include two elements The first part is the principal subject, which the metaphor is determined to highlight and the second one is the associated subject, which the metaphor enforces to improve viewers‟ understanding;

 Quotations sum up personal opinions or interpretation of issues conveyed in strong or loaded words They bring a degree of personalization in headlines that provides “authenticity and makes a greater impact than an accusation issued by a third party” (Keeble, 1994: 74);

 The use of word play makes the sentences more interesting by using words in

a clever or amusing way;

 The help of various stylistic phonetic devices such as alliteration, rhyme and rhythm

1.3.2.2 Technical devices

Technical devices comprise not only a variety of elements of news-writing but also technical elements such as layout and visuals The technical framing devices can be listed as follows:

News sources are regarded as important framing devices because who is mentioned, how they are described, and where the quoted is situated in the news is crucial Besides, quotes are believed to be efficient framing devices as by quoting specialists

to assert practical factuality and by quoting reliable sources to join peculiar viewpoints to force Headlines are another significant mark of news frame as they are the most salient clues to operate particular semantically related concepts in the audience‟s minds Therefore, headlines are the most effective framing indicator of syntactical structure

1.3.3 Signifying the framework in layout

In Multimodal Discourse (2001: 2), Kress and van Leeuwen demonstrate “a view of multimodality in which common semiotic principles operate in and across different modes” Although semiotic features do not determine a specific order of reading, how they are arranged in the visual space is not random They pass messages that

do not depend on any reading order In the layout‟s illustration, semiotic features work to construct the text and to combine several different elements of the page like headlines, blocks of text, photographs, to make them coherent and meaningful as a whole In order to discuss the semiotics of composition, it is significant to underline three main accompanying components or three signifying systems, namely

information value, salience and framing

1.3.3.1 Information value

The position of components in a layout bestows these components with the peculiar information values, which are allocated to several different areas of the visual space In fact, one component does not construe the same meaning when it is put on different positions such as on the right or on the left, in the center or in the margin

of a page Each of these areas grasps peculiar values to the components located within it

Given and New

According to Kress and van Leeuwen, when placing one component on the left and another component on the right of a layout, the one on the left is seen as Given while the one on the right is presented as New Given is the information that the reader already perceives, something the reader are familiar with and share the same opinion on the information By contrast, New means that the information is not yet given to the reader; therefore, it is the important part of the message, the part that requires great concentration The Given is realized as obvious and common while the New is considered puzzling and debatable In spoken language, the Given-New structure also exists and can be recognized by intonation (Halliday, 1985: 274ff) However, it does mean that the visual Given-New structure is built on the linguistic Given-New structure It suggests the existence of functions that can be appreciated

in different ways in various semiotic modes, for instance by a time sequence structure in verbal mode and by a left-right order in visual mode The model of Given-New is unnecessarily applicable, it is actually culturally specific, for instance this form of structure works on the community in which writing is from the upper to the lower part or from right to left However, there also exist models in which linguistic features are not clearly parallel to each other because there exist linguistic compositions that have no visual parallel

The New York Times front page on April 28, 2018 (figure 3) features on the left part

an article about election perils in the U.S and on the right is an article about the results of a referendum in Ireland Given, can be seen as a bad news, is what the reader have already been informed of because the election took place months ago New is the good news, that Irish women now have the right to make decisions about their own health care Within the article, a salient and attractive image of the celebrations after the results of the referendum is Given, the detailed story is New

Figure 3 Front page of the Times

Ideal and Real

In Kress and van Leeuwen‟s analytical framework, when a layout is separated top and bottom, locating dissimilar components in the upper and lower section of the page, the items in the upper part are regarded as the Ideal and those in the lower part are regarded as the Real Ideal conveys that the element is demonstrated as the idealized or generalized significance of the news, hence it bears salient features By contrast, the Real conveys more detailed and exact information and/or more sensible and practical information such as maps or charts or diagrams, directions for action, etc The polarization between Ideal and Real forms text-image connection When the top is filled with text and the bottom is occupied by more specific information like photographs as evidence, the text is, ideologically, responsible for the author‟s shine of Ideal and the photographs hint the author‟s shine of Real If their positions are changed completely to the opposite of what it was before, so that the photographs are put on the upper zone of the page, then the Ideal is given visually and the text helps to clarify and make detailed It is necessary to pay careful attention to the term Ideal that it does not inevitably show a positive value opinion

It is likely that in a specific society or culture the worth of Ideal and Real is established in a hierarchical relation American is widely believed to value individualism, equality and privacy; therefore the strong and unbiased statement may be more valuable for the viewer Similarly, the reader in other communities will appreciate the pages considering their usual valuations

This can be seen in figure 4, a Tuyen Quang front page from June 2018 Two salient

images of the two events that taking place in the day is presented as the Ideal They visually formulate the essence of the day‟s events The bottom half of the page features other events of the day However, the top section of the page is itself separated into an Ideal and Real, with the masthead making up the significance of the newspaper‟s content and the images supporting the day‟s particular illustrations

of its accomplishment of that content

Figure 4 Front page of Tuyen Quang Centre and Margin

Visual structure may also be composited along the extent of Centre and Margin While in Western layouts, the polarization of Given and New and/or Ideal and Real

is relatively common, the dimension of Centre and Margin appears to be significant

in the visual fantasy of young Asian designers When working on a media design course in Singapore, Kress and van Leeuwen note that young Asian designers‟ work have “strong, dominant centers, surrounded or flanked by relatively unpolarizes elements.” The reason that centering is a basic organizational law in their community is related to a considerable emphasis on hierarchy, social agreement and progression in Confucian thought They also find out that in the West, centralizing designs are more common in particular domains like the religiously inspired artworks of the Virgin and Child, or of the Adoration of the Magi that are forebears

to visual representation in which central position is given to the objects of longing

or of admiration In a layout that is of noticeable use of the Centre, the element placing in the middle is seen as the Centre and the other elements around it are the Margins Being the Centre means that this element is the key part of the information while the others remain less important Hence, the Margins are auxiliary and reliant elements, which provide necessary supports to the nuclear part It is relatively frequent that the Margins are very much alike or even identical to one another in some features in order to reduce sense of separation and opposition between Given and New and/or Ideal and Real

The triptych is one familiar mode of connecting Given and New with Centre and Margin This mode in the layout of contemporary newspaper are mostly divided with a Given on the left, a New on the right, and standing in the middle of the page

is Mediator, which connects and ties the two extremes

1.3.3.2 Salience

As the basic capacity of layout is textual, it lays several different meaningful components into the whole and brings ordering and coherence among them It is also responsible for providing degrees of salience to the components of the page Salience can form a hierarchy of significance among the components, choosing some as more crucial and more valuable of immediate concentration than others, for instance the New may be assigned more salient than the Given and vice versa Viewers are able to measure salience on the ground of visual clues and the „weight‟

of a variety of components of the layout The heavier the weight of a component is, the more salient it is The judgment on this salience is not objectively made, but

based on a intricate trading-off link between a number of aspects: size, sharpness of

focus or amount of detail and texture shown, tonal contrast, color contrast, placement in the visual field and perspective Besides, some specific cultural factors

like a potent cultural symbol may also be an aspect to measure the salience The interpretation and resultant evaluation of salience is a complicated process It is, in fact, significantly affected by psychology and physiology as well as cultural and social factors As usual, specific cultural factors supply the reader with specific trainings, for instance older and middle-class Western viewers may appreciate written text more than the visual composition Hence, evaluation of the salience of components on the same page varies between readers from different backgrounds and cultures: “not anarchically, but on the basis of cultural histories.”

1.3.3.3 Technical framing devices

Framing devices such as frame-lines or white space between components can make the components of a layout affiliated, linked together or disjoint, separated from each other Framing devices set up components within the frame to be read together and simultaneously framing devices compel those in different frames to be seen disconnected and independent However, the state of being connected or disconnected is a matter of degree Connective devices, such as the repetition of formal parts of the connected components, vectors created by parts of illustrated objects, the tilting of layout elements, the duplication of shapes or colors, etc have the influence of indicating that the components are affiliated with each other in some sense, as constant or integral Components may be completely or incompletely linked, and the more complete the link is, the clearer one unit of information belongs together

Disconnection can be recognized in various ways, for instance the thickness or color frame-lines can express the complete of the framing The break of color or shape, or simply the empty space may also be the tool to disconnect the components

Components may be completely or incompletely framed, and the more complete the framing is, the more the components in dissimilar frames are signified as independent or even contrasting units of information The context can then impact the clearer and more accurate essence of this separation

1.4 Newspaper front pages

Newspapers are the major source of distributing information They keep a significant role as agenda-setters in modern society According to Althaus and Tewksbury (2002), newspapers play an important role in a democratic society as they supply the public with shared collective experiences, popular symbolic anchors and representations of the community They feature a demonstration of codes including linguistic, typographic and graphic and provide their audience with facts and news of the world (Carter, 2000) Newspapers perform to present a selection of the highlighted events and social issues to their communities, and a set of attitudes

of the most significant happenings to their society and the world (Utt and Pasternack, 2003) Gandhi (1946) adds that newspapers aim at understanding the common feelings and give explanations to it, arousing among individuals certain advantageous sentiments and exposing popular imperfection Another attempt is to provide the communities with the facts and analysis that help the reader to make productive and responsible choice in a complicated, information-saturated society The most outstanding location to find such representation of the most critical events and issues is a newspaper‟s front page

1.4.1 The importance of front pages

The definition of the word „front page‟ is retrieved from Oxford‟s dictionary: “the first page of a newspaper, where the most important news is printed” The first page

of every newspaper is what catches a reader‟s attention, thus, editors put much effort in discovering which news stories should be located on the most valuable page of their publication (McQuail, 2010; Singer, 2001) It is generally regarded as

a means to “attract readers, inform them and set the reader‟s agenda” (Pasternack and Utt, 1986: 29) This is critical that the front pages can visually suggest to the

audience what pieces of news are the most important events of the day (Reisner, 1992) Hence, the reader tend to be attracted to the stories featured on front pages more than on stories presented elsewhere in the paper When designing the front-page layout, a complicated process is at work Reisner (1992) states that the choice making of story news is critical The most significant stories should be presented prominently and saliently to allure impulsive buyers However, news stories are not the only essential components to be featured on the front page Other verbal and visual elements, such as headlines, photos, typographic decisions and graphic features, are also given sufficient consideration to achieve particular purposes of the writers Lowrey (1999), Shoemaker and Reese (2013) confirm that much of these design choices demonstrate a newspaper arrangement‟s values regarding what is regarded as the core news items of the day that worth being featured to the reader

For instance, news stories presented on the front page of the New York Times are

considered to be the most crucial works by that particular news arrangement So it is necessary to explore how newspapers feature information on their front pages, which perform a specifically important function in informing the public on issues of their immediate concern

1.4.2 Organizational influence on media content

The front page of a newspaper, also seen as the introduction of the publication, is an enlargement of the key values of the newspaper‟s staffs Hence, there are organizational elements that may affect the content of the news Many have led to the creations of news, or the internal and external forces that may direct news selection (Shoemaker and Reese, 2013) Lowrey (1999), when studying news organizations and the routines, concludes that they are tied to organize everyday events in order to manufacture news for efficiency and profitability Other media sociologists, such as Tuchman (1973), Gans (2004) and Schudson (2012), propose that “news is a manufactured product; news organizations follow routines for efficiency; external forces impact the news product; journalists suppress personal values and embrace professional values to serve organizational routines; and