A comparative study of the lexical means of modality employed in culture and sport editorials of commendation on the USAtoday.com and the Vietnamnews.vn from 2010 to 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ THÙY A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE LEXICAL MEANS OF MODALITY E

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THỊ THÙY

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE LEXICAL MEANS OF MODALITY EMPLOYED IN CULTURE AND SPORT EDITORIALS

OF COMMENDATION ON THE USATODAY.COM AND

THE VIETNAMNEWS.VN FROM 2012 TO 2015

NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH NHỮNG PHƯƠNG TIỆN TỪ VỰNG CỦA TÍNH TÌNH THÁI TRONG CÁC BÀI XÃ LUẬN KHEN NGỢI VỀ LĨNH VỰC VĂN HÓA VÀ THỂ THAO TRÊN BÁO USATODAY.COM

VÀ VIETNAMNEWS.VN TỪ NĂM 2012 ĐẾN 2015

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201

HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THỊ THÙY

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE LEXICAL MEANS OF MODALITY EMPLOYED IN CULTURE AND SPORT EDITORIALS

OF COMMENDATION ON THE USATODAY.COM AND

THE VIETNAMNEWS.VN FROM 2012 TO 2015

NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH NHỮNG PHƯƠNG TIỆN TỪ VỰNG CỦA TÍNH TÌNH THÁI TRONG CÁC BÀI XÃ LUẬN KHEN NGỢI VỀ LĨNH VỰC VĂN HÓA VÀ THỂ THAO TRÊN BÁO USATODAY.COM

VÀ VIETNAMNEWS.VN TỪ NĂM 2012 ĐẾN 2015

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Tô Thị Thu Hương, Ph.D

HANOI – 2016

DECLARATION

I certify that the work contained in this thesis is the result of my own research, and this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution

Hanoi, October 2016

Signature

Lê Thị Thùy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the following people who have offered support and encouragement in all their different ways throughout this study

I am indeed thankful to my supervisor, Dr Tô Thị Thu Hương, whose sympathetic guidance has been the source of inspiration and knowledge for my research I am also grateful to other teachers of the Department of Post-Graduate Studies for their encouragement and valuable advice

My great thanks are also given to my family and my friends who have encouraged me a lot during the process of my study

ABSTRACT

The thesis analyzed the selected editorials of commendation on cultural and

sporty fields chosen from the American English newspaper, the usatoday.com, and the Vietnamese English newspaper, the vietnamnews.vn, to identify the

lexical means of modality employed in the two newspapers The study aimed at analyzing how similar and different in tendencies of using modality as well as the functions of modality employed in commendation editorials in the two newspapers The data showed that modality was realized in the two newspapers through modal auxiliary verbs, ‗knowledge‘ verbs, certain reporting verbs, modal adjectives and adverbs, and some modal nouns From the findings, the research also provided some suggestions in teaching and learning English

TABLE OF CONTENS

DECLARATION 1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Justification 1

1.2 Aim and purposes of Research 4

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Significance 4

1.5 Thesis outline 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Definition of modality 6

2.2 Types of modality 7

2.3 Linguistic manifestations of modality 8

2.3.1 Modal verbs 9

2.3.2 Modal adverbs 11

2.3.3 Modal adjectives 11

2.3.4 Modal nouns 11

2.4 Editorials and classification of newspaper editorials 12

2.4.1 Definition of editorials 12

2.4.2 Classification of newspaper editorials 14

2.4.3 Editorials of commendation 14

2.5 Previous studies 15

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Types of Research 18

3.2 Data Sources 18

3.3 Data Analysis Instruments 19

3.4 Data Analysis Procedure 20

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 24

4.1 Modal verbs 24

4.2 Modal adjectives and adverbs 31

4.3 Modal nouns 37

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 39

5.1 Summary 39

5.2 Pedagogical implications 41

5.3 Limitations of the study 44

REFERENCES 45 APPENDICES I UT1 I UT2 III UT3 V UT4 VI UT5 VII UT6 VIII UT7 X UT8 XI UT9 XIII

UT10 XV VN1 XVII VN2 XVIII VN3 XXI VN4 XXIII VN5 XXV VN6 XXVII VN7 XXX VN8 XXXI VN9 XXXII VN10 XXXIV

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

UT: the usatoday.com

VN: the vietnamnews.vn

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Table 1 Modality through modal auxiliaries in UT & VN

Table 2 Number of quoted direct speech & indirect speech in two newspapers Table 3 Comparative and superlative forms of evaluative adjectives and adverbs

Editorial is considered a part of news website contents where the editorial writers and readers provide their personal comments on the happening events To convey these private assessments into the news, modality could be an effective

means because of its nature Saeed (2009, p.138) claimed that ―modality is a cover term for devices which allow the speaker or writer to express varying degrees of commitment to, or belief in, a proposition‖ It is possibly said that with this type of mass media, modality is vigorously expressed Because of that reason, modality in newspaper editorials have attracted many attentions recently Biber (1998), Westin and Geisler (2002) and Morley (2004) were the huge names in the area Those researches provided sufficient guidance for the language users to employ modality in their texts Furthermore, those also became the foundation for the next researchers who would conduct research in exploring and assessing the phenomenon of what happens in newspapers or social media It was obvious that most of the researches on this subject were conducted in foreign countries or they focused on criticism editorials only although editorials were divided into different sub-genres The researchers looked for the use of modality in editorials of criticism because of its popularity amongst all the types Moreover, this also was a potential area in using modality since this type of editorials aims at criticizing policies and decisions that are considered as controversial by the newspaper staffs In spite of the fact that the editorials of commendation which commend people and organizations for something done well are not as common as the others, it should be put in consideration because our ancestors ever taught that ‗criticism is easy, and art is difficult‘ It seems effortless for us to criticize someone for what they made, but to crown someone from the bottom of our heart is not as easy as we suppose Moreover, praise plays an important role in motivating and engaging people in their work The more respected and appreciated people feel, the more motivated they are They will do better than those who think their efforts go unnoticed They are more

engaged in their work because they know they are making a real difference An interesting aspect about praise is the chemical reaction it causes in us O′.Arias-Carrion and Poppel (2007) showed that when we heard something we liked, a burst of dopamine was released in our brains Dopamine was a neurotransmitter, and it was associated with feelings of joy, pride, satisfaction, and well-being, giving a positive impact on the individual In culture and sport areas, there are many people who are ready to devote their lives for the development of their own country in particular and the development of human beings in general, so they deserve to be praised An appropriate compliments will be the best present

to encourage people to get better results in their works Mark Twain ever said ― I can live for two months on a good compliments‖ However, giving praise publicly and regularly might be frowned upon in some cultures It means that there are different ways to commend someone and each of newspapers has their own ways to express their opinions and feelings The thesis compared two editorials: an American English and a Vietnamese English with the purpose of demonstrating what English linguistic categories of modality the writers used in complimenting athletes and celebrities in culture and sport areas because many individuals got achievements in those fields Moreover, the study was done with the aim of comparing the similarities and differences in employing lexical expressions of modality in the two newspapers The results of the research could

be a guide in teaching and learning English reading, writing and translation generally and in journalism particularly

1.2 Aim and purposes of Research

The study aimed at finding out the similarities and differences in employing lexical means of modality in two newspapers so that the results of the research

could be a guide in teaching and learning English reading, writing and translation generally and in journalism particularly

Based on the above 2 research questions, the purposes of the research were:

1 to clarify kinds of lexical carriers of modality employed in cultural and sport editorials of commendation in the two newspapers

2 to analyze how similar and different in tendencies of using modality as well as the functions of modality employed in commendation editorials

in the two newspapers

1.3 Research questions

There were two research questions to guide this thesis:

1 What are the lexical means of modality commonly employed in culture and sport editorials of commendation in the two online newspapers, the

American English newspaper, the usatoday.com, and the Vietnamese English newspaper, the vietnamnews.vn?

2 What are the similarities and differences in the use of lexical means of modality in these editorials of the two newspapers?

1.4 Significance

The significance of the study was to explain the similarities and differences in employing lexical modal categories in two editorial newspapers, an American English newspaper and a Vietnamese English newspaper, in complimenting the athletes and celebrities The achieved results could be applied in teaching and learning English

Chapter 2: Literature Review

The review of literature explained some theories which were related to the topic

as a guide to write this thesis It included Definition of modality, Types of modality, Lexical means of modality, Definition and Classification of newspaper editorials, and Previous studies

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter consisted of Types of research, Data sources, Data analysis instruments and Data analysis procedure

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion

The findings and discussion chapter provided the results of the analysis of the collected data to answer the 2 research questions and discussion of the findings

Chapter 5: Conclusion

In this chapter, the writer provided the conclusion of the research as well as some teaching and learning implications based on what had been found

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provided an overview of theoretical background that guided the researcher during conducting the thesis

2.1 Definition of modality

Modality has been seen as one of the most complicated areas both in English and

in other languages It is considered a semantic category By means of modal expressions, the speaker can evaluate a particular situation in terms of

possibility, probability, permission, volition, obligation and necessity Lyons

(1977) pointed out that modality referred to people‘s opinions and attitudes towards propositions expressed with language or circumstances described by propositions while Quirk (1985) regarded it as the speaker‘s judgment on the authenticity of propositions Palmer (1986) considered modality as semantic information associated with the speaker‘s attitude or opinion about what is said From his point of view, modality could also be analyzed as the validity of relativity of a sentence meaning through a set of possible words, or it could be said as the ways in which people could understand a different word In other words, modality gave the language a function to express what is happening, what will happen, what might happen, and what they should do

Generally, all of the authors had an agreement on the definition of modality and they tried to explore the functions of modality in the proposition It is possible to define modality as a means that helps the speaker or writer show their attitudes towards a certain piece of information

2.2 Types of modality

Despite the fact that there are numerous ways to classify modality into different types, most of linguists such as Hoffman (1976), Jenkins (1972), Perkins (1982), Sweetser (1982), Coates (1983), and Huddleston (1988) agreed to divide

modality into two basic subtypes: epistemic and deontic Epistemic modality was

concerned with the speaker's relation to proposition, whereas deontic modality was concerned with the speaker's relation to events and actions Both types of modality signaled a speaker's judgments With epistemic, the judgment was about the way the real world is; with deontic, it was about how people should behave in the world Deontic modality expressed future; meanwhile epistemic modality was connected to the present Epistemic modality showed the meanings

of possibility, necessity and prediction while deontic modality carried the

meanings of permission, obligation and volition

von Wright (1951) and Quirk et al., (1985) had the other ideas in classifying

types of modality The former classified modality into four types: Alethic, Epistemic, Deontic and Existential while the latter distinguished between two types: ‗intrinsic‟ which involve some kind of human control over events, and

„extrinsic‟ which involve human judgment of what is or is not likely to happen

Rescher (1986), apart from these types, referred to one more type which he

turn could be of two types, Deontic and Dynamic ―Evidential modality, in which, instead of making a judgment about the truth-value of the proposition, the speaker offers evidence for it‖ (2003, p.7) If with deontic modality, the control was external to the subject of proposition, dynamic one was in contrast with internal control

In the research, the researcher used Palmer‘s theory in clarifying the functions of modality in the English culture and sport editorials of commendation between two newspapers due to the several reasons First of all, there was no doubt that Palmer was an expert of this field His achievements were the basic theory for many studies Moreover, apart from some common meanings that modality expressed, the reseacher would like to find out whether the editors give the evidence for what is said and evaluate the internal and external controls that contribute to the people‘s achievements

2.3 Lexical means of modality

Fowler (1985) gave a brief list to illustrate the lexical categories of modality Modality was manifested in a number of forms: mainly, the modal auxiliary

verbs may, shall, must, need, and others; sentence adverbs such as probably, certainly, regrettably; adjectives such as necessary, unfortunate, certain Some verbs, and many nominalizations, were crucially modals: permit, predict, prove; obligation, likelihood, desirability, authority

Furthermore, Nuyts (2001, p.29) pointed out that modality could be expressed by the use of modal adverbs, predicatively used modal adjectives, mental state predicates and by modal auxiliaries It was said that certain types of main verbs

as well as adjectives, adverbs, and certain nominalizations could be used to express modality

From two above authors, it was possible to conclude that modality could be manifested through different linguistic categories such as modal auxiliaries, lexcial modal verbs, modal adverbs, modal nouns and modal adjectives The

following discussed the linguistic categories of modality in English

2.3.1 Modal verbs

First and foremost, modality was not mentioned without modal verbs Modal

verbs, called as modal auxiliaries or simply modals, created a relatively small and closed group of verbs that significantly differed from other ‗ordinary‘ verbs Regarding the semantic, in contrast to lexical verbs, the meaning of modals depended on context Leech (1969, p.203-204) gave us a general look on the

meanings of modals as in the following table:

Ought to

Will / ´ll Weak volition/willingness, strong volition/insistence Would / ´d

Must Obligation, logical necessity

From the table above, it was seen that modal auxiliary verbs can, could, may, might express permission, possibility and ability; modal auxiliary verbs must,

ought to, and should indicated obligation and necessity; will and shall as well as would denoted volition and prediction

Moreover, according to Biber et al (1999, p.483), there were nine central modal

auxiliary verbs that were used to express modality: can, could, may, might, shall,

should, will, would, must Besides, many authors also mentioned ought (to) among the group of the modal auxiliaries and dare, need, used (to) were often

referred to as semi-modals

Recently, according to Downing & Locke (2006), modality could be realized through the following categories:

- modal verbs; semi-modals: need, dare, wish;

- lexical auxiliaries (chain-like structures with primary verbs be and have): be able to, be apt to, be due to, be going to, be liable to, be likely

to, be certain to, be sure to, be to, be unlikely to, be supposed to, have

to, have got to, had better, would rather, would sooner;

- phased structures composed of a catenative verb, such as need, want, regret, try, manage, hesitate, happen, chance, tend, seem, appear, pretend, followed by a nonfinite verb form;

- lexical verbs such as allow, beg, command, forbid, guarantee, guess, promise, suggest, warn

The above list meant that apart from modal auxiliaries, modality could be expressed through some other lexical verbs These authors also provided other lexcical means of modality such as adverbs and sentence modifiers, predicate adjectives and nouns

2.3.2 Modal adverbs

Although modal adverbs had not received much attention from the researchers, they were still an important expression of modality Matthews (1991) claimed that together with other modal categories, modal adverbs ―may be taken to represent, at least in part, the ‗natural‘ conceptualization of modality in English‖ and they constituted a part of ―a basic network of modality concept for English‖

In Quirk et al.‘s work (1985, p.583), they also called these adverbs as ―common emphasizes‖ and classified them into 2 small groups The first one included

actually, certainly, clearly, definitely, indeed, obviously, plainly, really, surely, for certain, for sure , of course suggesting what is being said is true The second one with the manifestation of the items as frankly, honestly, literally, simply, fairly, just had the value that what the speaker says is unambiguously true

2.3.3 Modal adjectives

DeLazero (2011) argued that modal adjectives not only combined with nouns describing situations and participants in situations (entities in context) but also expressed modality when they are combined with to + infinitive or a that clause They were also included in the generic phrases which were mentioned in

Alizera‘s paper (2011) According to him, the adjectives, frustrating, tragic, unlikely, likely, certain, conceivable, clear, unclear, and hard, appeared

commonly in English editorials Along with these, the other modal adjectives

could include possible, probable, absolute, complete, essential, definite, etc

2.3.4 Modal nouns

As far as mentioned in the studies, modal nouns could additionally express modality Halliday (1976), Greenbaum (1996) and Palmer (2001) noted that

modality might be also marked by non-verbs such as possibility and perhaps

They were often followed by a ‗that clause‘ or to + infinitive It was hard for a modal noun to operate on the level of the whole proposition they take part in However, combined with a ‗that clause‘, to verb, or verb (usually verbs with more or less auxiliary function), these nouns could replace modal verbs

Modality could be manifested with such modal nouns as chance, possibility, probability, necessity, capacity, certainty, opportunity, obligation, etc

2.4 Editorials and classification of newspaper editorials

2.4.1 Definition of editorials

Not as far as the history of human beings, newspaper seemingly appeared in the

17th century and developed widely with the invention of the printing press The first newspaper writers were not allowed to break the principles of journalism by including their assessments into that piece of news Since 19th century, the newspapers have been written with various communicative purposes so that the language used in this type of media has also been changed

Yaasa claimed that the editorial started around 1830 (cited in Ate, 2008) Nowadays, when the word ―human rights‖ appears everywhere around the world, it is easily acceptable for people to raise their voice and show their thought about what they see and hear It is also why the editorial becomes an important part in any newspapers It can be said that the editorial has a significant role in any newspapers nowadays because it not only informs the readers with news but also attaches the writer‘s attitudes and opinions on that piece of news There are numerous definitions of editorial Each of them stands out the contents and the duties of this type of newspapers

Okoro and Agbo (2003, p.125) defined editorial as ―a critical evaluation, interpretation and presentation of significant, contemporary events in such a way

as to inform, educate, entertain and influence the reader.‖

Hoffman, M (2007, p.113) specified editorial as a ―statement of opinion from an editor or publisher about you and your business Media coverage generated by news staff‖

Simply, Ate (2008) described editorial writing of any newspaper as the voice, reputation, ideology, public assessment channel to the audience and mouth piece

of the newspaper

In general, editorial is a kind of news which conveys the writer‘s opinion on discussed matter He may hope to provide the news and deliver his comments about that piece of news as well

However, the writer‘s opinion might be delivered in different ways Merrill (1965, p.74) expressed that the most obvious kind of subjectivity is explicit opinion and he provided a parallel between explicit opinion and Hayakawa‘s term judgment, all the author‘s agreement and disagreement of the phenomena being discussed (1978, p.37) Hayakawa named another way of delivering the writer‘s assessment ―slanting‖ This made certain opinions unavoidable through one-sided selection of details (1978, p.41-42) Slanting could be considered an implicit opinion which might be manifested through the selection of topics, the importance given to different topics and features of styles (Van Dijk, 1988a

&1988b) In addition, the writer‘s opinion was often hidden by employing some means like the use of numbers to indicate precision, presenting opposite views

on a matter, eyewitness accounts of events and the use of quotation marks

especially (Tuchman, 1972 & van Dijk 1987a) It was concluded that the writers‘ assessments could be achieved through many different devices among which quotations and reported speech seemed one of the effective one

2.4.2 Classification of newspaper editorials

It was clear that ―for everything under the sun, there must be a purpose‖ (Ate,

2008, p.58) and this type of newspaper had to surely follow this rule Editorial could be written in the hope with persuading, amusing and amazing the readers

In the thesis, the researcher used the classification suggested by Hall (2003) Based on the suggested classification, it was possible to classify the newspaper editorials into editorials of Criticism, Attack, Defense, Endorsement, Praise, Appeal and Entertainment He also provided the definition with vivid examples for each type It seemed that Hall‘s classification was clear and easily understandable; therefore, this framework had basically been used in numerous research papers

2.4.3 Editorials of commendation

Amongst these types of editorials, praise or commendation editorials were written with the aim of complimenting some individuals, groups of people or even some organizations who have a lot of devotion in specific areas

According to Hyland (2000, p.44), a commendation is defined as ―an act which attributes credit to another for some characteristic, attribute, skill, etc., which is positively valued by the writer‖ Such a positive evaluative act was clarified as a positive remark on what that athlete or celebrity had done or achieved, their professional skills, their personal characters, their efforts to overcome difficulties

or even their potential results

Hall et al (2015, p.120) claimed that the editorials of commendation ―obviously points out the merits of an idea or the superior qualities of a person‖ They also added ―papers should strive for a balance between praise ad criticism in editorials‖ It meant that to find an editorial with a pure commendation was hard and the writers might mix this type with the others

In the research, the researcher compared similarities and differences in employing the lexical means of modality in culture and sport editorials of commendation between two newspapers, an American English and a Vietnamese English

2.5 Previous studies

There have not been many researches relating to modality in editorials Most of them paid much attention on modality in editorials of criticism and some others were for modality in general editorials Modality referred to attitudes and judgments expressed in newspaper texts and is characterized by the use of modal linguistic carriers Modality had been categorized as a language argumentative strategy Analyzing modality in Arabic and English editorials, Biber (1998)

claimed that modals which expressed necessity such as „must‟, „should‟, prediction such as „will‟ „would‟, and possibility such as „can‟, „may‟, „could‟

were often used in English editorials Additionally, Westin and Geisler (2002) also suggested prediction and necessity modals as argumentative strategies used

in editorials Furthermore, Morley (2004) concluded that editorials employed

such argumentative strategies as necessity, probability and prediction Probability referred to modals like can, could, may and might while prediction was manifested with shall, will and would He also covered phrasal modals such

as: be able to, had better, be going to, have to, ought to, used to, etc The results from Qun‘s study showed that should and could were the outstanding features in editorials Contrasting to scientific papers‘ tendency of using „may‟, editorial writers preferred to use „perhaps‟ to present a fussy semantic stance to shun

possible criticism (Qun, 2010, p.40-51)

Alireza‘s paper entitled “Linguistic manifestations of modality in newspaper editorials” (2011) revealed some specific results of using modality in this media

discourse The comparison of the two editorials, The New York Times, an American English editorials, and The Tehran Times, a Persian English one, in terms of employing auxiliary modal verbs showed that both of the papers

preferred mostly predictive auxiliary modals such as will or would to the other

kinds of modals On the one hand, the predictive modals were used with higher number to identify what would happen in the future On the other hand, the modals of necessity were preferred by editorial writers in Tehran Times with the main concern about what should be done This research was done with modality

in criticism editorials The findings showed the similarities and differences in applying modal carriers of the writers of two newspapers such as modal verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns and generic phrases

Hien et al‘s research (2014) contrasting English editorials and Vietnamese ones showed that modality instances were commonly used for a persuasive purpose in both editorials Nevertheless, the number of modality instances in English editorials was higher than those in Vietnamese ones She also claimed that the finding agreed with the previous study, revealing that the prediction and possibility modals appeared more often than the other modals in editorials

In conclusion, the above researches provided fundamental information for the researcher before and during conducting the study reported in this thesis In this thesis, the researcher shed light on the English lexical categories of modality in commendation editorials in spite of its less popularity The findings could be useful with some pedagogical applications to master English skills for learners of English

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter was written with the purposes of clarifying the types of the research, the data analysis instruments and the data analysis procedure

3.1 Types of Research

In this part, the researcher specified the types of the research

First of all, based on the theory that was used, this research belonged to semantics In the research, the researcher analyzed the written texts to find out the lexical means of modality employed in the commendation editorials and then compared the similarities and differences in using modality to show the attitudes and opinions of two newspapers

Secondly, regarding the purpose of research, this thesis was included in the descriptive research It was because in this thesis, the researcher described the data based on the theory to find out the result of the research

3.2 Data Sources

The USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by Gannett Company in 1982 It is delivered in all 50 states, the District of Colombia, Guam, Puerto Rico, Canada and the United Kingdom and the paper is free online There are various parts in this paper and it is known for synthesizing news downs to easy – to – read and comprehend stories The number of the

culture and sport articles are large enough for the writer to find the data

The Vietnam news is a daily English-language newspaper, published in Hanoi by the Vietnam News Agency, the news service of the government of Vietnam The

newspaper was first published in 1991 It is published seven days a week and is the main English newspaper in Vietnam The paper is a member of the Asia News Network An Internet edition exists with simplified typography Similarly

to the USA today, all the articles in culture and sport areas provide the readers with various points of view on the daily outstanding people and events in the country and around the world

The two newspapers are among the top broadsheets in terms of readership as stated by the official websites of the papers The data were taken from the news which were published from 2012 to 2015 From the range of time, there were a large number of editorials However, as mentioned before, finding editorials of commendation took time because this type of editorials is not as popular as others Moreover, the researcher also seeked the big culture and sport events which are often be held every two or four years

3.3 Data Analysis Instruments

According to Lincoln and Guba (1985, p.224-228), the research method was a way to plan for carrying out research activities to achieve goals by answering the

research questions To find the result of the analysis, the reseacher used

qualitative and quantitative perspective Quantitative method was applied in reporting the result of data analysis into statistic form Qualitative method was used for displaying and interpreting data analysis into narrative text The researcher used mainly qualitative method because this research focused on meaning and understanding of the texts produced by the reporters The main strength of the qualitative approach to cultural assessment was the ability to probe for underlying values, beliefs, and assumptions To gain a full appreciation

of an organization, it was necessary to understand what is driving their behavior (Yauch and Steudel, 2003, p.472) The other reason of using this method in the analysis process of this thesis was because the researcher did the exploring, describing, explaining and comparing the data Qualitative methods that allowed researchers to explore the views of homogeneous as well as diverse groups of people help unpack these differing perspectives (Dudwick, Kuehnast, Jones and

Woolcock, 2006, p.3)

3.4 Data Analysis Procedure

It is possibly said that the process of collecting and analyzing data is an extremely important step of research method In this step, all the information is gathered and measured on targeted variables in an established system, which then enables the researcher to answer relevant questions and evaluate outcomes There were numerous steps to collect and analyze data that the researcher used:

1 Identifying and classifying the lexical categories of modality in each editorial of 2 newspapers

2 Comparing the number of those categories in editorials of 2 newspapers

3 Explaining the use of those lexical modal categories in two newspapers with examples taken from the data

In the research „Linguistic manifestation of modality in Newspaper editorial‟ published by Alireza (2011), the author used a purposeful sampling for

collecting data with 20 editorials from each newspaper for all topics which

belong to editorials of criticism Furthermore, in the paper entitled “an expansion resources analysis of English and Vietnamese political editorials in the light of appraisal theory” (2014), Hien at al selected 20 articles from each

newspaper for all kinds of editorials with the same topic about North Korea to put in comparison These were basic information that was useful and fundamental for the researcher in choosing the samples

Considering the limitations of the study carefully, this thesis also employed a purposeful sampling because of the following reasons First of all, the present study only focused on the editorials of commendation Moreover, the topics of editorials were narrowed into two fields, culture and sports The purposeful sampling method was used to select editorials likely to be able to provide relevant information Those editorials had to belong to culture and sport editorials of commendation and they were published from 2012 to 2015 To make sure that all editorials in Vietnam news were written by Vietnamese, it was necessary to identify the author of each news In the thesis, there were 10 culture and sport editorials of commendation culled from the electronic version of the

American English daily newspaper, usatoday.com and 10 culture and sport

editorials of commendation retrieved from the electronic version of the

Vietnamese English newspaper, vietnamnews.vn published daily over a specific

span of time (from 2012 to 2015) The number of editorials (20) could be considered large enough to enable the researcher to determine with a certain degree of reliability

The researcher read carefully each culture and sport article of two newspapers to determine whether it included the content of commendation by identifying the positive evaluative acts contained in the corpus It meant that the researcher identifies the evaluative language used for expressing a positive opinion on what that athlete or celebrity had achieved or made, their professional skills, personal characters, potential future results or even their efforts to overcome difficulties

After investigating two newspapers carefully, the researcher realized that it was nearly impossible to find out the common athletes and celebrities because the Vietnam news was mostly interested in homeland people and organizations If there were some articles about foreigners or international events, they were often extracted from various sources, especially from a foreign newspaper The researcher decided to choose native people for each newspaper to see how they compliment their countrymen

In the research, the researcher took out both the writer‘s compliments and all the commendation quotations and reported speech because of the following reason Quotations and reported speech are common parts integrated in the news articles They made a news article more vivid, lively and authentic The writer includes his assessments into the news with the use of quotations and reported speech This not only helps his news be still objectivity but also he can claim that he just reports what other people said without committing to the truth of the proposition

in any way Discussing this issue, Tuchman (1972, p.668) stated that with the help of quotations the reporter could remove his own opinion from the article by using other people‘s ideas to represent what he himself thought Jukanen (1995, p.44) had the same opinion when he argued that ―Presenting opinions in the form

of quotations from important people is more effective and seemingly objective than presenting the writer‘s own opinions‖ Generally, the use of quotation and reported speech represented the reporter‘s opinions This only served the reporter‘s ideological aims (van Dijk 1988a, p.56 & Caldas-Coulthard 1994, p.298-303) Caldas-Coulthard said ―No speech representation is objective or simply neutral… Saying are transformed through the perspective of a teller, who

is an agent in a discursive practice‖ (p.137) From the above points of views, the

researcher could claim that taking out the quotations and reported speech to put

in consideration are reasonable and reliable

After collecting the articles, the researcher read them carefully again to highlight the contents of praise Then, the linguistic categories of modality in these parts of the articles were found and marked In this stage of the thesis, the qualitative method was applied first to seek the suitable contents and quantitative method was used then to count the number of each modality categories in the newspapers

From the data, the reseacher clarified kinds of linguistic carriers of modality employed in cultural and sport editorials of commendation in the two newspapers Then, the researcher analyzed how similar and different in tendencies of using modality as well as the functions of modality employed in commendation editorials in the two newspapers

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter discussed the data analysis and findings from 20 selected culture and sport editorials of commendation from two newspapers, the usatoday.com (UT) and the vietnamnews.vn (VN) From the analysis, modality was apparently manifested through using various textual strategies such as modal verbs including auxiliaries, lexical verbs and reporting verbs, modal adjectives and adverbs, and some modal nouns

4.1 Modal verbs

The finding showed that a number of modal verbs in UT are greater than those in

VN The modals of prediction and possibility were outstanding features in these editorials The finding presented the same opinion with the studies which had been done before, indicating that the other modals couldn‘t be used as frequently

as the predictive and possible modals

Table 1 Modality through modal auxiliaries in UT & VN

Prediction will, would, tobe going to 21 39.62 10 37.04 Possibility can, could, may, might 25 47.17 12 44.44 Necessity/obligation

have to, ought to, should 7 13.21 5 18.52

As Table 1 suggested, 39.62 % and 47.17% of the modals were used to express the prediction and possibility, respectively, of the events by editorial writers in

UT and the rest expressed necessity and obligation The modal verbs of

prediction, will and would, occupied with the high percentage aiming at guessing

the future results of the athletes and celebrities.The data signified the idea that possibility of the discussed issues could be regarded as an important feature of this genre in UT which was textually realized through modal auxiliaries namely

can, could, may, and might

The following excerpts included modality expressed through modal verbs of prediction:

1 ― She is chasing records and no doubt will break many records

before she's finished," WTA Chairman Stacey Allaster said (UT1)

2 With seven world titles already and several chances to pick up more

this week, she will likely leave The SSE Hydro with more gold medals

than any other female gymnast (UT10)

3 there‘s no reason to think Phelps‘ comeback will be anything but

success (UT4)

4 Now everyone will be watching to see what he’ll do next (UT7)

5 Phelps is bold and daring, as evidenced by his successful quest to win

eight gold medals in a single Olympics, something many thought

would never be done (UT4)

With the use of this kind of modal auxiliaries, the writers predicted the future achievements of the characters mentioned in the articles In (1) and (2), the

writers used the modal will combining with the adverb of evidentiality no doubt and of possibility likely to make a strong belief that what the athlete could do in

the future was definite and the better results from other athletes were not possible In (3) and (4) the authors would like to claim that Phelps‘success would happen if he came back to Olympic 2016, and the interesting things that the

singer Ocean could do in the future was likely to happen The excerpt (5) refered

to the past event and the modal would showed the prediction for that event

Besides using the above modals to express the future prediction, the writers also

used might and may to show possibility They wished to display that all the

professional characters which the athletes had possibly made them huge names

as in (6) and (7)

6 Wambach‘s physical abilities and skill might have made her the

Americans‘ focal point (UT8)

7 Put those together, and you have what just may be the perfect

gymnast (UT10)

In (8), the modal have to was used to indicate the obligation of the situation The

writer refered to the fact that from what we had eyewitnessed, it was forced to

give those comments on her steel will Ought to was used in (9) as the writer‘s

insistence and it was necessary to say that the all the gymnastics championships

should be renamed „The Simone Show‟ because of her incredible achievements

8 ―I have to say she has nerves of steel You can do all the preparation

and strong training and skill position, all of that Finally it comes down

to the mental strength, and she definitely has a combination of the physical and mental.‖ (UT2)

9 The world gymnastics championships ought to be renamed The

Simone Show after the way the 18-year-old hijacked it Again (UT2)

The table also denoted that the UT and VN editorials were not comparable in the term of modal auxiliaries, they both used this category to express modality but the number of modal auxiliaries in UT is greater than that of VN, 53 in comparison with 27

As Table 1 indicated, 37.04 % of the modal auxiliaries were used to imply prediction of the future news events and 44.44 % were used for possibility Only 18.52% had been used as indication of necessity and obligation

10 ― If she has the chance to compete in big competitions such as the

Olympics, I am sure she would pocket gold medals in the coming SEA

Games [in Myanmar],‖ (VN1)

11 ― There was no doubt that she was going to be a huge name‖ (VN6)

12 ―Thanh surprised me with his performance today He was really

confident and excellent I believe he will be much better in the future,‖

said Sang (VN4)

It was shown from the above examples that the use of prediction modals in VN was also the same The writers employed these modal auxiliaries to predict the results which the mentioned athletes could get in the future

Similarly, might was also used as an alike strategy to express the probability as

in (13) and (14) It was seen that in (14), the VN writer also used the adverb of

evidentality indeed to make a clear sense of what actually changes from Anh Vien‘s victory The modal could in (15) was used for the context involve future

meaning and the writer wanted to show certainty about the guessed result

13 ―Vien might not have competed against world-level swimmers in the

American tournament, but she definitely is a star in Southeast Asia,‖ (VN5)

14 ―For years only male swimmers achieved high results at the SEA

Games Things might indeed be about to change however,‖ (VN1)

15 ―We are on the right track and, believe me, Vien is a rare talent She

could be a world champion,‖ Tuan, who has put all his hopes on Vien,

said (VN6)

Moreover, the analysis revealed that seem, feel, think and believe namely

―knowledge verbs‖ (Fowler, 1986) were preferred by the VN writers while this kind of verbs appeared uncommonly in the writings of the UT authors The

researcher found only one proposition which contained the verb believe as in (16) However, this verb was used with the combination of modal auxiliary may

to show the possibility of the information

16 Hard as it may be to believe, these American have the potential to be

even better than Fierce Five They‘re bring so much bling home from worlds it‘ll be a wonder if the metal detectors don‘t start smoking (UT2)

17 They believe that the insanely talented athlete can also vie for gold in

200m butterfly as her result is close to the top three (VN5)

18 Many feel the target of 10 gold is believable as Viet Nam is home to

some best swimmers, including Olympian Nguyen Thi Anh Vien (VN5)

19 ―Many people think she is just a ‗hot girl‘ but she actually has talent‖

(VN8)

20 Binh's success also came at the right time to end the country's drought

of gold medals, which seemed to linger, as some favourtites events,

such as the women's 400m and the men's pole vault, failed to produce gold medals (VN2)

The use of such ‗knowledge‘ verbs was also important in editorials as they were often ―associated with some (often indirect) expression of how accountable a

writer is for knowledge content‖ (Malmström, 2007, p.36) With the use of the

verbs believe and feel, the writers wanted to stress their reliance on the better

results which the characters would get in the future

Both two newspapers included the cases of quotative reported evidentiality Linguistically, both editorials employed either quoted direct speech or reported

speech The default way of doing this was to use verbs of speaking such as say in

UT and say, note and add in VN It was seeming that the articles were really

objective because there were various points of view about the discussed issues However, from inside light, the writers‘ opinions and attitudes were clearly manifested The examples like the following abounded in both newspapers

21 ―Simone is a special talent‖ said U.S national team coordinator

Marths Karolyi, who coached both Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton (UT2)

22 ―She just continues to be an inspiration to American tennis,‖ said

Gordon Smith, the executive director of the U.S Tennis Association, which runs the U.S Open (UT1)

23 ―I can't even say Every day she can surprise me,‖ said Aimee

Boorman, Biles' longtime coach (UT6)

24 ―They are like tiny ones and nobody believes they are taekwondo athletes However, do not look down at them, they can make

everybody take their hats off,‖ said coach Le Minh Khuong (VN3)

25 ―Binh showed her brilliance today and exceeded expectations,‖ Duong

Duc Thuy, head of the National Sports Administration's Athletics

Department, said in discussing Binh's victory (VN2)

26 The male lead actor in the film, Nhan Phuc Vinh, said, ― At first I

thought working with a ‗hot girl‘ would be difficult But Chi Pu

cancelled this thought in my minds‖ (VN8)

The verbs in almost all of these examples were in the past tense, which was to be expected as news stories refered to past events The examples (21), (22) and (23)

in UT were the dominant mechanisms of expressing quotative evidentiality, with

the verbs say being the most frequent The situation was similar in VN, the neutral verbs of speaking as say, note and add are frequently delivered The

above excerpts (24), (26), (27) and the excerpts (36) and (42) would appear after

in the other discussions clarified that point The reason for this was that these verbs were heavily used in journalistic discourse While the writer used the other‘s words, he communicated with the addressers by expressing his own assessments about the value of the cited text Simultaneously, the writer also communicated with the readers, because he showed the readers that he conveyed their views of different ideas In these circumstances, the writers demonstrated that they had the similar viewpoints on the discussed issues The writer of each text interacted with his readers and also with other authors cited in his text He expressed his attitudes towards what was written in the text and what was presented to the readers This way, the writer created social relations and observed given norms (Hyland, 2004, p.13) According to Coulthard (1994, p.6) while citing other authors, the writer did not lose responsibility for what was cited In this case, his responsibility was shown as an evaluator of the cited text This proved that these verbs were not unintentionally but consciously employed

by a writer