The vietnam war syndrome in “forrest gump” movie scritp a critical discourse analysis

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------ TRỊNH THỊ VÂN THE VIETNAM WAR SYNDROME IN FORREST G

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

TRỊNH THỊ VÂN

THE VIETNAM WAR SYNDROME

IN FORREST GUMP MOVIE SCRIPT:

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Hội chứng chiến tranh Việt Nam

trong kịch bản phim Forrest Gump:

Một phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán

MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

Hanoi, 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

TRỊNH THỊ VÂN

THE VIETNAM WAR SYNDROME

IN FORREST GUMP MOVIE SCRIPT:

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Hội chứng chiến tranh Việt Nam

trong kịch bản phim Forrest Gump:

Một phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán

Trịnh Thị Vân January 05 th , 2019

I need I would also like to give thanks to all the lecturers at Faculty of graduate Studies for all their adorable knowledge which made me broaden my mind to the world of language Special thanks, finally, to my husband and my son who stand by me throughout the time I did my research, without whom I could never be motivated enough to fulfil my work

Post-ABSTRACT

The fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975 is a turning point that put the Vietnam War into an end after 20 years of conflicts Considered the most controversial war in the 20th century, the Vietnam War deeply divides the American society Especially, it causes the Vietnam Syndrome which still is an obsession of American people until today The research is carried out on a movie script of one of the most famous Hollywood films about the Vietnam

War, Forrest Gump The collected data are analyzed on the basis Fairclough’s

three-dimensional framework for critical discourse analysis As a result, the study reveals the different aspects of the syndrome considered as a psychological trauma expressing in many factors such as the topic, the plot, the characters, the setting, the genre, the theme songs, and the language of the whole movie Moreover, the movie script exposes a long period of problematic and tragic time in the history of the United States Hopefully, the study will be a firm ground for further CDA research on the same topic

Key words: critical discourse analysis, Vietnam Syndrome, movie script,

Vietnam War, American Studies

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Methods of the study 3

5 Background of the data 3

6 Design of the thesis 5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

Chapter 1: Literature Review 6

1.1 The Vietnam Syndrome 6

1.2 Discourse and Discourse analysis (DA) 9

1.2.1 Definitions of Discourse 9

1.2.2 Discourse analysis 12

1.3 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) 14

1.3.1 History of CDA 14

1.3.2 Definitions of CDA 15

1.3.3 Aims of CDA 17

1.3.4 Key notions of CDA 17

1.3.5 Tenets of CDA 19

1.3.6 Fairclough’s approach to CDA 20

1.3.7 Differences between CDA and other approaches to DA 20

1.4 Review of previous works 21

Chapter 2: Methodology 23

2.1 Research objects 23

2.2 Research method 23

2.3 Research procedure 26

Chapter 3: Data analysis 28

3.1 Topic, plot, and characters 28

3.2 Setting and genre 31

3.3 Language 33

3.4 Theme songs 39

3.5 The symbol of Forrest’s running 41

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions 45

4.1 How is the Vietnam War Syndrome reflected in the movie script from CDA perspective 45

4.2 What are the implications of the study for teaching the Vietnam War concerning texts 47

PART C: CONCLUSION 18

1 Summary of the study 48

2 Limitations of the study 48

3 Suggestions for further research 48

REFERENCES 50

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

To be a young Vietnamese of the post-war generation, have you ever raised a serious question about what happened to the generations of our fathers and grandfathers during the Resistance War against America, that is called the Vietnam War in the US, from the 1950s to the 1970s? Or you only just heard about a war in which Vietnam was against the American Empire’s invasion And that the Americans brought tons of bombs and Agent Orange to flow down to our country, which made us be deep inside years of depression and smokes of war The war, as all we know, has caused many disasters to our country such as starvation, poverty, disability, homelessness, and etc The grief and loss of the war will last forever in the hearts of the Vietnamese generation after generation

In the United States today, ―Vietnam‖ is shorthand for their longest and most divisive foreign war, and it is often evoked as little more than a political

or media cliché, a grip reference to a controversial war that ended badly, a time of domestic turmoil, a history to be avoided in the future For many Americans, the war’s meaning has been winnowed down to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC where they stand in silence, filled with emotion, but unsure how to move beyond their private reflections to a broader engagement with this daunting subject

They, the same as many young Vietnamese in our generation, are still going to find the answers to the questions how the war began, why it bred so much dissert or why it lasted so long As a result, many American filmmakers from Hollywood have worked for years to find out the reasons why the United States got bogged down in the war, also acted out the real nature of the

war under different points of view It has been 43 years since the last US combat troops left Vietnam, but the conflict continues to play an outsized role

in American politics and popular culture From John Wayne’s stern-jawed

performance in the 1968 propaganda film The Green Berets to Robert Downey, Jr.’s antics in the 2008 meta-comedy Tropic Thunder, the war’s

complexity and social impact have made it an irresistible subject for generations of filmmakers and moviegoers

Among those, Forrest Gump, one of the most famous films about the

Vietnam War, is an epic American film detailing a history of an America that was locked in the revolving orbit of the Vietnam War Also, it clearly and deeply indicates life of veterans coming back from the war who suffered from

a serious disease called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or the Vietnam Syndrome Although in a speech on 1 March 1991 after the Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 17 January 1991), the US President George Bush

declared ―By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all‖

(Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 1991, p.549), it actually does exist

in American veterans’ mind and soul who came back from the Vietnam War, and in the whole society as well

So how exactly the Vietnam Syndrome appears in the script of the

Forrest Gump movie, in order to find out the answer to this question, I manage to do a research called ―The Vietnam War Syndrome in “Forrest Gump” Movie Script: A Critical Discourse Analysis”

2 Aims of the study

The research is able to argue the nature of the continuing effects of the Vietnam War as reflected in American cinema and the extent to which the Vietnam Syndrome is still relevant in American culture Another aim of this

study is to provide experiences in applying CDA methods into cinematic texts, especially movie scripts

To fulfill these purposes, the study will answer the following research questions:

(1) How is the Vietnam War Syndrome reflected in “Forrest Gump” movie script from CDA perspective?

(2) What are implications of the study for teaching the Vietnam War concerning texts?

3 Scope of the study

In the framework of the study, this thesis only focuses on analyzing the

Vietnam Syndrome represented in the script of the film Forrest Gump which

was released in 1994 by Paramount Pictures The factors such as the topic, the plot, the characters, the setting, the genre, the theme songs, and the language

of the movie are analyzed to figure out the syndrome hidden inside

4 Methods of the study

This research is conducted based on a Critical Discourse Analysis approach which will be further discussed in the next sections The qualitative method and content analysis are applied for the research After collecting data

in the movie script, the analysis was exercised on the basis of Fairclough’s

three-dimensional framework: Description – Interpretation - Explanation

Details of the analysis procedure are presented in the Methodology chapter

5 Background of the data

Among a series of films about the Vietnam War, Forrest Gump was

chosen because it is interesting - a six Academy Award winner Also, the film

is in English And, it is a film with a strong Vietnam War theme It not only shows the criticism of American involvement in the conflicts but also an extremely realistic Vietnam War combat scene It also presents a cozy view of the war by portraying it through Forrest’s innocent, uncritical, and child-like eyes The film honors the army and portrays the soldiers as normal, decent young men who were doing their duty for America Forrest’s heroic actions add a patriotic view to American involvement in Vietnam and make the army and soldiers look brave, loyal and chivalrous Their innocence is also shown

in their will to get home, creating sympathy for the US Forrest’s lack of knowledge regarding the ―Vietcong‖ is suggestive to the lack of knowledge displayed by the whole army regarding the policy of containment

The conditions of war in the film are displayed as tough and the guerrilla warfare that takes place is shown to have a high human cost The movie is only slightly critical of US involvement in Vietnam, but as it is shown entirely from the US perspective, it is a largely romantic and patriotic view of the army and the war

The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial armed conflicts during the 20th century It ended in 1975 after 20 years of fighting and more than 55,000 Americans and between three and four million Vietnamese dead Unlike earlier wars, however, the Vietnam War did not unite the nation to a common cause, but tore it apart Many people were against the war as they believed that the soldiers were only being sent to their deaths, and that the war was not very productive for the United States Many of the soldiers returned home only to be called by protesters as "baby killers." The war first started towards the beginning of the Cold War when the United States attempted at eliminating any Communist Presence in Vietnam The main presidents during this war were President Lyndon B Johnson and President Nixon who were

known for authorizing hundreds of thousands of troops to be sent to Vietnam President Nixon was known for his idea of "Vietnamization" where he would gradually bring troops from Vietnam home and end the war soon

6 Design of the thesis

There are three main parts in this research paper

Part A - INTRODUCTION - presents the rationale, aims, scope,

methodology, background, and design of the thesis

Part B - DEVELOPMENT - consists of four chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework and Literature Review

In this chapter, the brief introduction of the Vietnam Syndrome and the context of the film will be mentioned It also gives out the theoretical background of CDA including brief introduction of the history, definition and methodology

Chapter 2: Methodology

In this chapter, the theory of CDA in chapter 1 is applied in analyzing the movie script to uncover the relationship between power, ideology and language

Chapter 3: Data Analysis

The collected data is analyzed in this chapter

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion

In this chapter, the finding from the study is mentioned and discussion on them is also indicated

Part C - CONCLUSION - summarizes the study and suggestions for further

studies

References

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 The Vietnam Syndrome

In fact, the term ―the Vietnam Syndrome‖ is used widely in America However, the title of this study refers to the ―Vietnam War Syndrome‖ because the author wants the readers to have the initial understanding about the content of the thesis Therefore, ―the Vietnam War Syndrome‖ will be used changeably with ―the Vietnam Syndrome‖ as can be seen below

The Vietnam Syndrome, like other post-war syndromes, was first used

in early 1970s to describe the physical and psychological symptoms of veterans coming back from the Vietnam War, later known scientifically as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) By the end of 1970s, the Vietnam Syndrome was no longer a purely medical term and it came to have a political meaning, coined by Henry Kissinger and popularized by Ronald Reagan to describe the US’s reluctance to send troops into combat situations overseas This happened because the US was afraid that they would get bogged down in

a quagmire again, like they did in Vietnam, and this which would lead to a loss of support for the government

They argue that bad memories of the Vietnam War such as massive protests and riots, the Watergate scandals as well as images of killed and wounded soldiers and civilians, have caused the American people to distrust any type of foreign intervention As a result, any attempt by the United States

to engage in a military conflict would be viewed by the American people as

―another Vietnam.‖ American leaders were also afraid of involvement in other nations’ problems

The Vietnam Syndrome also led to many problems in American society and people In other words, it is a problem of the whole society Many veterans came back from Vietnam had been failed in efforts to have an ordinary life More Vietnam veterans committed suicide due to psychological problems after the war than those who had died during the war At least three-of-quarters in a million veterans become homeless or jobless.

Nearly 700,000 draftees who came from poorly educated background hardly received honorable discharge Even worse, many Vietnam veterans find it too challenging to get new jobs to maintain support for their family There are many movies, documentaries and television programs depicting Vietnam veterans’ difficult lives and their sad memories – what they suffered when fighting in the war and how badly they were treated when they came back from Vietnam

There are considerable debates whether the war in Iraq (2003) is

―another Vietnam‖ The appearance of that phrase has caused many to believe that Vietnam Syndrome is still alive After the Gulf War (1990 – 1991) and its relatively decisive victory, President George H W Bush declared that Vietnam Syndrome was finally ―kicked‖: ―By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all‖ It is believed the U.S had recovered from the disaster in Vietnam This idea is backed up by the broad support of government in battles in Afghanistan and Iraq in first decade of 21st century However, those signs did not mean that the US had completely overcome the Vietnam Syndrome American foreign policies are usually decided based on the political orientation of the incumbent president Presidents who are Democrats usually try to avoid intervening abroad unless absolutely necessary For example, American troops were withdrawn from Somalia after Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 under Bill Clinton’s tenure Barack Obama’s

administration was also careful when assessing problems in Libya and Syria

in 2013 They showed that Vietnam Syndrome still exists on American foreign policies to a certain extent Apparently, the United States decide that they would only use military force as a last resort – where national interest is clearly involved; when there is strong public support; and only if they could achieve a relatively fast, inexpensive victory

Intrinsically, the Vietnam Syndrome is a collective psychological sickness caused by the conflicts between ideological powers and reality

By ideological powers we mean the belief in the ―Noble‖ American Values, Dreams, Just Cause, Strength, etc These powers decide the way they speak, live, and behave in their life (Remember Thomas Paine’s statement that the cause of the Americans is the cause of humanity) The reality is what they see: the American soldiers went to Vietnam to become ―baby killers‖, drop napalm, and to cause bloody massacres

The question is whether the American government continually tell lies

to their nation in committing all these awful actions that generate psychological disorders in the whole country while and after the war

The demonstrations of the Vietnam Syndrome are different, but the essential is the doubt and disbelief of American people in the so-called American values They raise questions such as: Is America really such a free and great country? Does the American Army go to Vietnam to liberate a miserable people from communists’ suppression? Does the merciful God exist

as they used to think? In general, it is their disillusions in the future and in life They lose their directions to the future and do not know how to move on

The syndrome appears everywhere in every fields of American society including in artworks, literature, newspapers, especially in movies, of which

the film Forrest Gump is a very interesting example

1.2 Discourse and Discourse analysis

1.2.1 Definition of discourse

The Russian linguist, V.N.Volosinov is the first author to use the term

discourse in the sense we understand it today In his article ―Discourse in Life

and Discourse in Art‖ (1926), Volosinov claims that verbal text, whether it is oral or written, constitutes only a part of the language communication The other part is context The unit of language communication, therefore, in not sentence, that can be repeated, but utterance, that includes both the sentence and the context in which it is produced, is unique In the same way, text can

be repeated, but discourse, that includes text and the context, is unique Volosinov put it clearly: ―verbal discourse is clearly not self-sufficient It arises out of an extra-verbal pragmatic situation and maintains the closest possible connection with that situation Moreover, such discourse is directly informed by life itself and cannot be divorced from life without losing its import.‖

According to Volosinov, in order to disclose the sense and meaning of

the discourse, we must understand the ―extra-verbal context‖ that makes the

utterance a meaningful locution for the listener The extra-verbal context of the utterance is comprised of three factors:

(1) the common spatial purview of the interlocutors,

(2) the interlocutor’s common knowledge and understanding of the

situation, and

(3) their common evaluation of that situation

He points out the relation between the extra-verbal purview and the verbal discourse is that ―the discourse does not at all reflect the extra-verbal situation in the way a mirror reflects an object Rather, the discourse here resolves the situation, bringing it to an evaluative conclusion, as it were.‖

The behavioral utterance actively continues and develops a situation, adumbrate a plan for future action, and organize that action It always joins the participants in the situation together as co-participants who know, understand, and evaluate the situation in like manner The utterance, consequently, depends on their real, material appurtenance to one and the same segment of being and gives this material commonness ideological expression and further ideological development Thus, the extra-verbal situation is far from being merely the external cause of an utterance – it does not operate on the utterance from outside, as if it were a mechanical force Rather, the situation enters into the utterance as an essential constitutive part

of the structure of its import As a result, a behavioral utterance as a meaningful whole is comprised of two parts: (1) the part realized or actualized

in words and (2) the assumed part

Of course, context is known before Volosinov, but it was seen as something outside and separate The new in Volosinov’s theory is that he sees context as a constituting part of discourse

In another masterpiece written in the 1920s, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, Volosinov states that expression-utterance is

determined by the actual conditions of the given utterance – above all, by its immediate social situation Utterance is constructed between two socially organized persons, and in the absence of a real addressee, an addressee is presupposed in the person, so to speak, of a normal representative of the social group to which the speaker belongs (1986, p 85) He emphasized that the immediate social situation and the broader social milieu wholly determine – and determine from within, so to speak – the structure of an utterance (1986, p.86) The utterance is determined immediately and directly by the participants of the speech event, both explicit and implicit participants, in

connection with a specific situation That situation shapes the utterance, dictating that it sound one way and not another – like a demand or request, insistence on one’s rights or a plea for mercy, in a style flowery or plain, in a confident or hesitant manner, or so on

In the second half of the 20th century, Michael Foucault, a key theorist

in Europe about discourse analysis, defines discourse more ideologically as

―practices which systematically form the objects of which they speak.‖ (1970: 49) He also announces that discourse is way of organizing knowledge that structures the constitution of social relations through the collective understanding of the discursive logic and the acceptance of the discourse social fact For Foucault, the logic produced by a discourse is structurally related to the broader episteme (structure of knowledge) of the historical period in which it arises However, discourses are produced by effects of power within a social order, and this power prescribes particular rules and categories which define the criteria for legitimating knowledge and truth

within the discursive order These rules and categories are considered a

priori; that is, coming before the discourse. It is in this way that discourse masks its construction and capacity to produce knowledge and meaning It is also in this way that discourse claims an irrefutable a‒historicity Further, through its reiteration in society, the rules of discourse fix the meaning of statements or text to be conducive to the political rationality that underlies its production Yet at the same time, the discourse hides both its capacity to fix meaning and its political intentions It is as such that a discourse can mask itself as a-historical, universal, and scientific – that is, objective and stable In

―The Order of Things‖ (1970), he points out that in every society the

production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role is to ward off its

powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality

Going even further, the postmodern thinkers, like Jacques Derrida, claim that discourse is the nature of the whole humane society: Everything is discourse In general, discourse refers to how we think and communicate about people, things, the social organization of society, and the relationships among and between all three Discourse typically emerges out of social institutions like media and politics (among others), and by virtue of giving structure and order to language and thought, it structures and orders our lives, relationships with others, and society It thus shapes what we are able to think and know any point in time In this sense, sociologists frame discourse as a productive force because it shapes our thoughts, ideas, beliefs, values, identities, interactions with others, and our behavior In doing so it produces much of what occurs within us and within society

1.2.2 Discourse analysis

The term discourse analysis was first introduced by Zellig Harris

(1952) as a way of analyzing connected speech and writing Harris had two main interests: the examination of language beyond the level of the sentence and the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic behavior He examined the first of these in most detail, aiming to provide a way for describing how language features are distributed within texts and the ways in which they are combined in particular kinds and styles of texts An early, and important, observation he made was that connected discourse occurs within a particular situation – whether of a person speaking, or of a conversation, or of someone sitting down occasionally over the period of months to write a

particular kind of book in a particular literary or scientific tradition There are,

thus, typical ways of using language in particular situations These discourses,

he argued, not only share particular meanings, they also have characteristic linguistic features associated with them What these meanings are and how they are realized in language is of central interest to the area of discourse

analysis

Discourse analysis is a broad term for the study of the ways in

which language is used between people, both in written texts and spoken contexts Whereas other areas of language study might look at individual parts of language, such as words and phrases (grammar) or the pieces that make up words (linguistics), discourse analysis looks at a running conversation involving a speaker and listener (or a writer's text and its reader)

It is "the study of real language use, by real speakers in real situations," wrote

Teun A van Dijk in the Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Vol 4 (1985) The

context of the conversation is taken into account as well as what is said It can include where they are speaking and involves a social and cultural framework

as well as nonverbal cues, such as body language, and, in the case of textual communication, images and symbols

Brian Partridge in his book Discourse Analysis: An introduction (2012) defines that discourse analysis examines patterns of language across texts and

considers the relationship between language and the social and cultural contexts in which it is used Discourse analysis also considers the ways that the use of language presents different views of the world and different understandings It examines how the use of language is influenced by relationships between participants as well as the effects the use of language has upon social identities and relations It also considers how views of the world, and identities, are constructed through the use of discourse

According to Michael Foucault, discourse analysis, in contrast to the Marxist tradition (the ruling class produces the dominant discourses), is not concerned with discovering the truth but the truth effects among different discourses and practices, among complex power relations: ―In seeing historically how effects of truth are produced within discourses which in themselves are neither true nor false What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted is simply the fact that it doesn’t only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse.‖ (Foucault M., 1977)

1.3 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

1.3.1 History of CDA

In the 1970s, a form of discourse and text analysis that recognized the role of language in structuring power relations in society emerged At that time, much linguistic research elsewhere was focused on formal aspects of language which constituted the linguistic competence of speakers and which could theoretically be isolated from specific instances of language use (Chomsky, 1957) Where the relation between language and context was considered, as in pragmatics (Levinson, 1983), with a focus on speakers’ pragmatic/sociolinguistic competence, sentences and components of sentences were still regarded as the basic units Much sociolinguistic research

at the time was aimed at describing and explaining language variation, language change and the structures of communicative interaction, with limited attention to issues of social hierarchy and power (Hymes, 1972) In such a context, attention to texts, their production and interpretation and their relation to societal impulses and structures, signaled a very different kind of interest The work of Kress/Hodge (1979), Van Dijk (1985), Fairclough

(1989) and Wodak (ed.) (1989) serve to explain and illustrate the main assumptions, principles and procedures of what had then become known as Critical Linguistics (CL)

An account of the theoretical foundations and sources of CL is given by Kress (1990, 84-97) He indicates that the term CL was ―quite self-consciously adapted‖ (1990, 88) from its social-philosophical counterpart, as

a label by the group of scholars working at the University of East Anglia in the 1970s (see also Wodak, 1996a, Blommaert / Bulcaen 2000) By the 1990s the label CDA came to be used more consistently to describe this particular approach to linguistic analysis Kress (1990, 94) shows how CDA was by that time ―emerging as a distinct theory of language, a radically different kind of linguistics ―He lists the criteria that characterize work in the CDA paradigm, illustrating how these distinguish such work from other politically engaged types of discourse analysis Fairclough / Wodak (1997) took these criteria further and established 10 basic principles of a CDA program (see also Wodak, 1996b)

1.3.2 Definitions of CDA

There are several identifiable ―schools‖ or groups within CDA, and not all the points that will be made apply equally to all the groups or individual practitioners It is particularly important to distinguish between the initial British approaches embodied by Fairclough (1985, 1989) and Fowler (1991) and its later, more developed and coherent form explained in Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999); the so-called ―socio-cognitive model‖ of critical discourse analysis epitomized by van Dijk (1991) and his group; and the Viennese

―discourse historical school‖ led by Wodak (Wodak et al 1990; Wodak 1996, 2007)

According to Van Dijk (2001, p.352), ―critical discourse analysis is a type

of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context.‖ He also figures out the aims

of CDA are to focus primarily on social problems and political issues, rather

than on current paradigms and fashions More specifically, CDA focuses on the ways discourse structures enact, confirm, legitimate, reproduce, or

challenge relations of power and dominance in society

In Fairclough’s point of view (1995, pp 132-3), CDA is defined as

follows: ―By “critical” discourse analysis, I mean discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events, and texts (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.‖

In the opinion of Wodak (1996, p.16), CDA highlights the substantively linguistic and discursive nature of social relations of power in contemporary societies This is partly the matter of how power relations are exercised and negotiated in discourse It is fruitful to look at both ―power in discourse‖,

―power of discourse‖, and ―power over discourse‖ in these dynamic terms

In summary, as a self-conscious movement with an explicit agenda, CDA abounds in definitions of what it purports to be and do These declarations range from the highly politicized: ―to explain existing conventions as the outcome of power relations and power struggle‖ (Fairclough 1989: 2), to the almost anodyne ―to answer questions about the relationships between

language and society‖ (Rogers 2005: 365), depending on the stance of the individual researcher However, the general consensus is that Critical Discourse Analysis contains two essential elements: A more or less political concern with the workings of ideology and power in society; and a specific interest in the way language contributes to, perpetuates and reveals these workings Thus the more explicit definitions all emphasize the relationship between language (text, discourse) and power (political struggle, inequality, dominance) ―CDA takes a particular interest in the relationship between language and power ( ) This research specifically considers more or less overt relations of struggle and conflict‖ (Weiss and Wodak 2002: 12)

1.3.3 Aims of CDA

Critical discourse analysis is a special approach in discourse analysis which focuses on the discursive conditions, components and consequences of power abuse by dominant groups and institutions It examines patterns of access and control over contexts, genres, text, and talk, their properties, as well as the discursive strategies of mind control It studies discourse and its functions in society and the ways society, and especially forms of inequality, are expressed, represented, legitimated or reproduced in text and talk Furthermore, CDA does so in opposition against those groups and institutions who abuse their power, and in solidarity with dominated groups, e.g., by discovering and denouncing discursive dominance, and by cooperating in the empowerment of the dominated

1.3.4 Key notions of CDA

Key concepts needed for everyone to understand this new linguistic

approach are critical, power, and ideology

The notion of critical in CDA program is understood very differently

In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (2001), Ruth Wodak states that critical is to be understood as having distance to the data, embedding the data

in the social, taking a political stance explicitly, and a focus on self-reflection

as scholar doing research CDA is critical in that it views discourse as a form

of social practice and criticizes the way discourse reproduces socio-political inequality, power abuse or dominance Nowadays, this term is also used more popularly in everyday language to mean the use of rational thinking to question arguments or prevailing ideas

Fundamental and central to the discussions in most critical studies is

the notion of power Power is about relations of difference, and particularly

about the effects of differences of structures The constant unity of language and other social matters ensures that language is entwined in social power in a number of ways: language indexes power, expresses power, is involved where there is contention over and a challenge to power Power does not derive from language, but language can be used to challenge power, to subvert it, to alter distribution of power in the short or long term Language provides a finely articulated means for differences in power in social hierarchical structures CDA takes an interest in the ways in which linguistic forms are used in various expressions and manipulations of power For CDA, language is not powerful on its own – it gains power by the use powerful people make of it

Ideology is another important notion in the reference to critical theory’s

contribution to the understanding of CDA For Thompson (1990), ideology refers to social forms and processes within which, and by means of which, symbolic forms circulate in the social world According to Fairclough (2003, p.128), ―ideologies are representations of aspects of the world which contribute to establishing and maintaining relations of power, domination and

exploitation They may be enacted in ways of interaction and inculcated in ways of being identities Analysis of texts is an important aspect of ideological analysis and crique‖ Simpson (1993, p.161) considers ideology is

―a mosaic of cultural assumptions, political beliefs, and institutional practices‖ Since language is regarded as the physical form of ideology and language is thus an indispensable part of any attempt to study ideology Ideology, for CDA, is seen as an important aspect of establishing and maintaining unequal power relations

Some of the tenets of CDA can already be found in the critical theory

of the Frankfurt School before the Second World War (Agger 1992b; Rasmussen 1996) Its current focus on language and discourse was initiated with the ―critical linguistics‖ that emerged at the end of the 1970s (Fowler et

al 1979; see also Mey 1985) CDA has also counterparts in ―critical‖ developments in sociolinguistics, psychology, and the social sciences, some already dating back to the early 1970s Besides, CDA may be seen as a reaction against the dominant formal (often ―asocial‖ or ―uncritical‖) paradigms of the 1960s and 1970s

Critical discourse analysts take explicit position, and thus want to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social inequality Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 271—80) summarize the main tenets of CDA as follows:

1 CDA addresses social problems

2 Power relations are discursive

3 Discourse constitutes society and culture

4 Discourse does ideological work

5 Discourse is historical

6 The link between text and society is mediated

7 Discourse analysis is interpretative and explanatory

8 Discourse is a form of social action

Of eight main principles above, the first tenet that CDA addresses social problems such as discrimination, racism, class conflicts and post-war syndromes are one of the most important and distinctive of CDA

1.3.6 Fairclough’s approach to CDA

The approach of Fairclough (1989: 42, 1995: 7) to CDA based on the idea that the use of language is a social practice He defined ―discourse‖ as a form of social practice which was created from ―a dialectical relationship between a particular discursive event and the situations, institutions and social structures which frame it‖ (Fairclough and Wodak 1997: 258, Fairclough 1995: 19) This dialectical relationship suggests that discourses are socially shaped but also shaping the social context (Fairclough 1993: 265) Discourses are capable of reproducing and changing people’s knowledge, identity and social relations (Fairclough 1995: 18) At the same time, it is also constituted

by ideology, social practices, and structures Therefore, social context plays

an important role in CDA because particular social situations shape and influence discourses differently Thus, Fairclough reminded critical discourse analysts to deliberately ―historicize‖ (Fairclough 1995: 19) their data so as to

be clear about the historical context of the analysis

1.3.7 Differences between CDA and other approaches to Discourse Analysis

According to Rebecca Rogers (2004, p.2), CDA distances itself from other discourse analysis approaches because it includes not only a description

and interpretation of discourse in context, but also offers an explanation of why and how discourses work

Adam Jaworski and Nikolas Coupland (1999, p.33) also claim the difference of CDA when comparing it to other traditions They argue that several approaches to discourse have mainly descriptive aims with an intention of providing an exhaustive structural model of discourse organization CDA is much more different than those This critical approach

to discourse really sets itself from descriptivism of this sort It foregrounds its concern with social constructionism and with the construction of ideology in particular

Ruth Wodak & Michael Meyer (2009, p.2) indicate that the significant difference between CDA and other DA approaches lies in the constitutive problem-oriented, interdisciplinary approach of the latter CDA is therefore not interested in investigating a linguistic unit by itself but in studying social phenomena which are necessarily complex and thus require a multi-methodical approach

1.4 Review of previous works

There have been many researches on the Vietnam Syndrome in the world However, the CDA researches on this issue are not really plentiful In

2011, Laura Elizabeth from University of Glasgow conducted a study titled

―Kicking the Vietnam syndrome? Collective memory of the Vietnam War in fictional American cinema following the 1991 Gulf War‖ which concentrated

on the analysis of relationship between memory and history in fictional

American films after Gulf War 1991 In another study, ―Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome Narrative: Human Rights, the Nayirah Testimony, and the Gulf War‖ by Joseph Darda published by Johns Hopkins University Press (2017),

the author also tried to figure out that the Vietnam Syndrome still existed in American society after a long time

In Vietnam, there are many researchers conducting research on DA and CDA, especially Professor Nguyễn Hòa, Doctor Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, or Professor Hoàng Văn Vân from University of Languages and International Studies They are excellent authors of many international articles and studies

in the approach of CDA However, it seems that there is not still any study carried out in the field of cinema, particularly in a movie script The topic of the Vietnam Syndrome is also not mentioned in any research Therefore, my CDA research on a movie script is new and potential to bring precious information about the Vietnam Syndrome as well as the Vietnam War to readers and learners