Interpretable implicatures in the vietnamese prime minister nguyen tan dungs speech at the 62nd un general assembly session

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --- o0o --- TRẦN THANH TÚ INTERPRETABLE IMPLICATURES IN THE VIETNAMESE PRIME MINISTER NGUYỄN TẤN DŨNG

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- o0o -

TRẦN THANH TÚ

INTERPRETABLE IMPLICATURES IN THE VIETNAMESE PRIME MINISTER NGUYỄN TẤN DŨNG'S SPEECH AT THE

62ND UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION

(Những hàm ý có thể thuyết giải được trong bài phát biểu của Thủ tướng Việt Nam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng tại kỳ họp lần

thứ 62 của Đại hội đồng Liên hợp quốc)

M.A Minor Program Thesis

Field: English linguistics

Code: 60.22.15

Hanoi – 2010

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- o0o -

TRẦN THANH TÚ

INTERPRETABLE IMPLICATURES IN THE VIETNAMESE PRIME MINISTER NGUYỄN TẤN DŨNG'S SPEECH AT THE

62ND UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION

(Những hàm ý có thể thuyết giải được trong bài phát biểu của Thủ tướng Việt Nam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng tại kỳ họp lần

thứ 62 của Đại hội đồng Liên hợp quốc)

M.A Minor Program Thesis

Field: English linguistics

Code: 60.22.15

Supervisor: ASSOC PROF DR NGÔ ĐÌNH PHƯƠNG

Hanoi - 2010

APEC: Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations e.g : For example

i.e : That is to say ibid : Ibidem (in the same book or piece of writing as the one has

just been mentioned) MDGs: Millennium Development Goals PM: Prime Minister

UN : United Nations WTO: World Trade Organization +> : marks implicatures

>> : marks presuppositions

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract .iii

Abbreviations and symbols iv ii Table of contents v iii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study…… 1 2 3 Scope of the study… 2 2 4 Methods of the study…… 2

5 Analysis procedure 2 3 6 Design of the study…… 3 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

Chapter 1: Literature Review and Background information of the data 4

1.1 Literature Review 4

1.1.1 Theory of Discourse 4

1.1.1.1 Concept of Discourse 4

1.1.1.2 Discourse and Text 5

1.1.1.3 Discourse analysis and Text analysis 6

1.1.1.4 Spoken discourse versus Written discourse 6

1.1.1.5 Discourse context 7

1.1.2 Discursive strategies 8

1.1.2.1 Lexicalization 8

1.1.2.2 Repetition 8

1.1.2.2.1 Lexical repetition 8

1.1.2.2.2 Grammatical repetition 8

1.1.2.3 Pronoun choice 9

1.1.2.4 Modality 9

1.1.5 Presupposition 11

1.1.5.1 Definition 11

1.1.5.2 Types of presuppositions 12

1.1.6 Implicatures 13

1.1.6.1 Conversational implicatures 14

1.1.6.2 Conventional implicatures 15

1.2 Background information of the data 16

Chapter 2: Interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng's Speech at the 62 nd UN General Assembly Session 18

2.1 The establishment of the rapport to the audience 18

2.2 The world problems' statement and the appeal to the UN and countries for taking more actions to promote the sustainable development 20

2.3 The construction of a positive image of Việt Nam 24

2.3.1 The presentation of Việt Nam's achievements for over past 30 years as a member of the United Nations 25

2.3.2 The desire to make further contribution to the international community 28

2.4 Revealed-implicature-type discussion 32

PART C: CONCLUSION 37

1 Conclusions 37

2 Limitation of the study 38

3 Suggestions for further study 38

REFERENCES

APPENDIX

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Many people, including many linguists, assume that the primary purpose of language is

to communicate information Language, in fact, serves a great many functions Linguists, over

a good many years, have attempted to understand how language works in a fully integrated way as simultaneously a mental, social, cultural, institutional and political phenomenon Language has been seen now as not only a practice but also reflection of reality People also have witnessed a rise in the awareness of language and its power, especially how it helps people gain power over the others through ideology, which is underlying assumptions in the language

This is obviously the case of politics, where language is the tool of authority holders to gain and to realize power Besides, political speech is also the place where the political actor conveys his political ideologies Work on persuasive speeches in general, and political speeches in particular suggests that speakers adopt a range of rhetorical devices and strategies

to appeal to their hearers; there are interesting implicatures in their speeches, as well as political actions achieved by linguistic means

The data analyzed in this study is the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s speech delivered at the 62nd United Nations General Assembly Session on September 27, 2007 This 1,700–word speech was retrieved from the Việt Nam Government‟s website at:

This speech became tremendously important as it appeared two days before the election for non–permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council, in which Việt Nam is one of the candidates If elected, the role of Việt Nam in the international stage will be advanced Because of this significance, the speech turned out to be a good opportunity for Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng to highlight the positive image of his country

2 Aims of the study

The aims of this study are:

- To uncover the implicatures conveyed in the speech under study

- To study the discursive strategies employed by the speaker to build the implicatures

- To study types of the revealed implicatures

3 Scope of the study

The interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session will be the focus of this study, including the establishment of the rapport to the audience; the world problems' presentation, the appeal to the UN and nations for actions; and the construction of a positive image of Việt Nam

This study is purely conducted in terms of linguistic research with a hope for better understanding of how linguistic means are employed to achieve certain communicative purposes No attempts of taking an insight into or judgments on the political science are made

Besides, the data is the English translated version of the Prime Minister‟s speech And the study will entirely focus on dealing with the English version, ignoring any linguistic features related to the Vietnamese one and proposing no comparisons between the two versions

The text is broken up into sentences and numbered in order to be easily followed

4 Methods of the study

- The study is done basing on Discourse analysis approach

- Quantitative method is used for a sufficient theoretical background, in combination with qualitative method to study the data for uncovering the implicatures

5 Analysis procedure

The study is carried out relying on the following procedure:

- The data speech–Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s Speech at the 62nd

UN General Assembly Session, many other newspaper articles and news analysis are collected

- Collecting materials for literature review and describing theoretical background (to the problem under investigation)

- General textual analysis and description of the speech are made, in terms of discourse properties and pragmatics towards the finding of interpretable implicatures in the speech

Intonation, posture, and all non-verbal aspects are excluded from the analysis procedure though the author is fully aware that they do have some role in the success of the speech-maker

6 Design of the study

Except for declaration, acknowledgements, table of contents, references and appendix, this paper consists of three main parts:

Part A: Introduction states the rationale of the study, its aims, its scope, methods, analysis

procedure and design

Part B: Development consists of two chapters:

Chapter 1: Literature review and Background information of the data

This chapter aims at discussing the theoretical background, in which we will have a look at the theories related to the study, including the theory of discourse and text, discourse context, discursive strategies, inferencing, the cooperative principle, presupposition and

implicatures, and providing information of the data under study

Chapter 2: Interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn

UN General Assembly Session

This is the main part of the study which includes the interpretable implicatures and the discussion of their types

Part C: Conclusion reviews major findings of the study, states limitation of the study and

gives suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF THE DATA 1.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1.1 Theory of Discourse

1.1.1.1 Concept of Discourse

Operating within the language theories of the Bloomfielddian and Chomskian schools, traditional linguists have concentrated on phonological, lexical,

syntactical features which are considered the basis of foreign language knowledge Today‟s

view, however, is concerned with understanding the stretches of language which can only be

obtained if they are considered "in their full textual, social and psychological context" (Cook,

1989:1)

Context-free sentences do not help to achieve successful communication since the

language in use does not exist in isolation from its user and the context in which it is being

used

Therefore, it is of necessity that when communicating, we must go beyond the formal

structure of language as a free system of usage and use the language which is

context-sensitive This language, the knowledge of which, as Widdowson (1977) explains, can not be

automatically followed from the knowledge of sentence, is known as discourse

Though the concept of discourse is still discussed, discourse can be defined as a stretch

of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as being related in some way,

in terms of the ideas they share and in terms of the jobs they perform within discourse – that is,

their functions (Nunan 1993, cited in Discourse Analysis, Vinh University-Foreign Language

Department, 2006:3) Basically, it may be defined as “the language in use for communication”

The study of discourse is often referred to as Discourse analysis And as McCarthy

(1993:10) states, Discourse analysis is fundamentally concerned with the relationship between

language and the contexts in which it is used, that is, it involves the study of language in use

As far as the scope of discourse is concerned, discourse refers not only to spoken interactions, interviews, but also to written and printed works such as newspapers, articles, letters, stories, recipes, instructions, notices, comics, billboards, etc (see McCarthy 1993)

1.1.1.2 Discourse and Text

So far, the term “discourse” and “text” have been used as though they are synonyms and there have been many ways of viewing the terms discourse and text

Crystal (1992:72) distinguishes that “text” should be reserved only for writing and

“discourse” for speech Discourse is “a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as sermon, argument, joke or narrative” (ibid.), while “text” is “a piece natural occurring spoken, written, or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis It is often a language unit with a definable communicative function, such as a conversation, a poster” (ibid.)

Cook (1989:158) considers “text” as „a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context”, whereas “discourse” is “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive”

Halliday and Hasan (1976:1), however, use these two notions interchangeably They use “text” to actually refer to “discourse” for they say that “a text is unit of language in use” and “it may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue”

Brown & Yule (1983:6) point out that texts are the representations of discourse and the verbal record of a communicative act: “we shall use text as a technical term, to refer to the verbal record of a communicative act”

In short, we can understand “text” as the term used to refer to any written record of a communicative event, while the term “discourse” refers to the interpretation of the communicative event in context

Although discourse and text are different, they are related to each other The difference and interrelationship between discourse and text is best captured by Widdowson‟s claim:

“Discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction Its situational outcome is a change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed, intentions made clear, its linguistic product is Text” (Widdowson, 1984:100)

1.1.1.3 Discourse analysis and Text analysis

Basing on the concept of text and discourse as mentioned earlier, Text analysis and Discourse analysis can be interpreted as follow:

Text analysis is the study of how a text exemplifies the operation of the language code beyond the border of sentence

Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of relationship between language and the context in which it is used, that is, it involves the study of language in use It also examines how stretches of language, considered in their full textual, social, and psychological contexts, become meaningful and unified for their users Moreover, it is a study of how and for what purposes language is used in a certain context of situation, and the linguistic means to carry out these purposes

1.1.1.4 Spoken discourse versus Written discourse

Spoken discourse and written discourse can be understood as speech and writing In general, they share much in common, that is, both spoken and written discourses perform a similar range of broad functions They are used to get things done, to provide information and

to entertain

In spite of such similarities, they are distinguished from each other in some characteristics Firstly, in terms of context, written language is used for communication among people who are removed in time and space or for occasions requiring a permanent or semi-permanent record Meanwhile, most people in different cities and countries can communicate directly by means of speech They are also different in the way discourse is produced While speaking, the speaker has to control what he says so that it fits his intentions, and prepare for what to say next Every word uttered will be heard by the interlocutor, so the speaker might be under pressure However, there are some advantages for the speaker, i.e., he can observe the listener‟s reactions and can immediately modify what he is saying to make it clearer and more acceptable to the listener The speaker may use facial expressions, postures, or gestures to increase the effect of what he speaks On the contrary, the writer has the advantage of taking more time in choosing lexis and organizing ideas He can rearrange what has been written and make changes if he wants There is no fear of interruption by the interlocutor But because of

this, the writer has to imagine the reader‟s reactions [Besides, the linguists propose a distinction of written and spoken discourse in terms of their form However, it is not our intention to discuss this here.]

According to Brown & Yule (1983), the major differences between speech and writing derive from the fact that one is essentially transitory and the other is designed to be permanent These differences, anyway, are not absolute and the characteristics that we tend to associate with written language can sometimes occur in spoken language and vice versa This means that some spoken texts will be more like written texts than others, while some written texts will be more like spoken texts than others

The data under study is a speech that is carefully prepared by the speaker Hence, it can

be said that this data has characteristics of both spoken discourse and written discourse

1.1.1.5 Discourse context

David Nunan (1995:7) suggests a concept and a classification of context as follows: Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse, and within which the discourse is embedded There are two different types of context

The first of these is the linguistic context – the language that surrounds or accompanies the piece of discourse under analysis

The second is non-linguistic or experiential context within which the discourse takes place Non-linguistic contexts include: the type of communicative event, the topic, the purpose

of the event, the setting including location, time of day, season of year and physical aspects of the situation, the participants and the relationships between them, and the background knowledge and assumptions underlying the communicative event

Halliday and Hasan (1976) share much in similar to the view held by Nunan when proposing that when responding to a passage or piece of writing, the receiver uses not only linguistic clues, but also situational ones Linguistically, he responds to specific features which bind the passage together, the pattern of connection, independent structure that we are referring to as cohesion Situationally, he takes into account all he knows of the environment: what is going on, what part the language is playing, and who are involved

The importance of context towards discourse interpretation is apparently undeniable,

as Cook (1989:10) asserts:

“There are good arguments for limiting the field of study to make it manageable, but it

is also true to say that the answer to the question of what gives discourse its unity may be impossible to give without considering the world at large: the context.”

As political speech is obviously an actual use of language but the interpretation of that use needs non-linguistic features of the discourse In this study, both linguistic and non-linguistic contexts are taken into account

1.1.2.2 Repetition

1.1.2.2.1 Lexical repetition

In this thesis, in studying the lexical repetition, lexical items used three or more times will be taken into account Those items considered for lexical repetition fall within the lexical category, that is, nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs Auxiliary verbs will not be candidates for this research

1.1.2.2.2 Grammatical repetition

Similarly, those structures that are repeated three or more times will be considered as potential candidates for this analysis In this case, phrases and clauses are taken into account

1.1.2.3 Pronoun choice

Linguistically, in political speech, the utilization of pronoun is a prominent mean to achieve the goal of the actor An investigation into pronoun choices will help to reveal the attitude and underlying implicatures of the speaker This study will focus on how Vietnamese

PM deals with the use of personal pronouns “I” and “we” for the first person and pronoun

“you” for second person

1.1.2.4 Modality

Modality is often thought of as the province of grammar of English However, a large number of lexical words, such as: nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs carry the similar meaning to the modal verbs Modal meanings include degree of certainty and possibility; volition; permission and obligation The modality also carries important information about the stance and attitude of the sender to the message

In this study, the modal verbs “will” and “should” are concentrated in order to reveal the intention of the speaker

- The assumption that the speaker is observing the cooperative principle, and assuming the hearer to assume that too

- Relevant background knowledge: This is readily evident Background knowledge or experience is necessary for understanding language

- Informal reasoning: This is very straightforward We are required to reason in an informal way to get most of conversational implicatures

Inference is divided into three categories (Cummings, 2005) known as deductive, elaborative, and conversational inferences Each type of inferences will fall into the scope of a particular area of research, that is, deductive inferences in logic and semantics, elaborative inferences in psychology and artificial intelligence, and conversational inferences in pragmatics What we are concerned with in this paper will be the third type of inferences namely conversational inferences This type of inference can be seen as the process by means

of which an addressee in conversation is able to derive implicatures from a speaker‟s utterance

in combination with features of context

1.1.4 The Co-operative Principle

Speakers and listeners involved in conversations are generally cooperating with each other As we consider the statement “A hamburger is a hamburger” (Yule, 1996:35) answered

by one woman when she is asked by another how she likes the hamburger she is eating in the middle of their lunch hour, from a purely logical perspective, the reply seems to have no communicative value since it expresses something completely obvious Still, the listener has to assume that the speaker is being cooperative and intends to communicate something That something must be more than just what the words mean It is an additional conveyed meaning, called an implicature In order for implicatures to be interpreted, there must be cooperation

The assumption of cooperation is so strong that it can be stated as a cooperative principle of conversation

The Cooperative Principle: Make your conversational contribution such as is required,

at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (Grice 1975, quoted in Yule 1996:37)

This general principle is expected to be followed by all speakers Furthermore, the standards for conducting cooperative communication were claimed by Grice to be of several different types Grice called these standards maxims and grouped them under categories:

Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true

1 Do not say what you believe to be false

2 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

1.1.5 Presupposition

1.1.5.1 Definition

Preposition is the technical term used to refer to parts of information which, according

to the speaker, the listeners have already known Hence, it can be communicated without being said

George Yule (1996:25) defines “a presupposition is something the speaker assumes to

be the case prior to making an utterance Speakers, not sentences, have presuppositions.”

For Stalnaker (1978, quoted in Brown & Yule, 1983:29), presupposition is the common ground of the participants in the conversation

According to Givon (1979, ibid.), “presupposition is the assumption the speaker makes about what the hearer is likely to accept without challenge”

Symbolizing a proposition with p, another with q, presupposition is considered by the relationship between those two propositions, in which p presupposes q (p >> q)

Presupposition has one property, that is, even though the statement is negated, presupposition of that statement will be unchanged That is called constancy under negation

1 Mary‟s car is beautiful (= p)

2 Mary has a car (= q)

3 p >> q

a Mary‟s car is not beautiful (= NOT p)

b Mary has a car (= q)

(1) Gerunds and temporal clauses

She turned off the lights before going out

She turned off the lights before she went out

>> she went out

(2) Factives

He regretted calling her

>> He called her

(3) Definite descriptions

I don‟t like that watch

>> There exists a watch

(4) Change-of-state verbs

She stopped watching TV

>> She has watched TV

Another classification of presupposition in which there are six types of presupposition is proposed by George Yule (1996:30)

(1) Existential: the X (>> X exists)

(2) Factive: I regret leaving (>> I left)

(3) Non-factive: He pretended to be happy (>> He wasn't happy)

(4) Lexical: He managed to escape (>> He tried to escape)

(5) Structural: When did he die? (>> He died)

(6) Counterfactual: If I weren't ill, (>> I am ill)

The other linguist who has summed up quite sufficiently the cases where presuppositions may appear is Levinson (1983) However, he did not call this a classification but rather presupposition triggers

(1) Definite descriptions: We met the girl next door (>> there exists the girl)

(2) Factive verbs: We regret telling him (>> we told him)

(3) Implicative verbs: He managed to escape (>> he tried to escape)

(4) Change-of-state verbs: We stopped working for them (>> we had been working for them)

(5) Iteratives: You're late again (>> you were late before)

(6) Verbs of judging: My mother criticized me for coming home late (>> I came home late)

(7) Temporal clauses: He called me before leaving (>> he left)

(8) Cleft sentences: It was Tom who used my car (>> someone used my car)

(9) Implicit clefts with stressed constituents: This novel was written by SHAKESPEARE (>> someone wrote this novel)

(10) Comparisons and contrasts: Heineken is a better beer than Carlsberg (>> Carlsberg is a kind of beer)

(11) Non-restrictive relative clauses: John, who is standing next to the door, is my cousin (>> John is standing next to the door)

(12) Counterfactual conditionals: If I had got up early this morning, I wouldn't have been late for class (>> I didn't get up early)

(13) Questions: When did you buy this motorbike? (>> You bought the motorbike)

1.1.6 Implicatures

The term implicature was first introduced by Grice in 1967 Implicature is the meaning that is communicated by the speaker without being explicitly stated And it is inferred by the listener from the conventional meaning of some linguistic units in an utterance

Taken as an example, we can consider the following exclamation said by a girl to her boyfriend: "That dress is so beautiful!" Obviously, it is not difficult for the boyfriend to recognize that she is not simply complimenting the dress but rather making the implicature that she likes it and wants him to buy it for her

Grice also gives rise to the terms conversational implicatures and conventional implicatures There are some distinctions between these terms

1.1.6.1 Conversational implicatures

In conversations, the basic assumption is that the participants are co-operating with each other and following the Co-operative principle as well as the maxims Therefore, once the speaker seems to violate the maxims, the listener should interpret this as he is still co-operating in the conversation and he is trying to convey something more than what he is saying Something more being communicated than said in conversations by the speaker's

violation of the maxims is what can be called conversational implicatures

They are partially derived from the conventional meaning of the utterance, produced in

a specific context and depend on the recognition by the speaker and the listener of the operative principle and its maxims

Co-Let study the following exchange between a girl and a boy:

The boy: Would you like to go out with me tonight?

The girl: I have an examination tomorrow

In this exchange, the girl is violating the maxim of "Be relevant" However, the boy should have the assumption that the girl is still co-operating and adhering to the Co-operative principle Then, a conversational implicature can be made That is the girl wants to spend the night to prepare for the examination In other words, it should be interpreted as her refusal to the invitation

When the additional conveyed meaning is figured out without special knowledge of the

context, we have a generalized conversational implicature Examples for this can be seen in

cases of using indefinite articles The utilization of indefinite articles can lead to an implicature of "not speaker's" E.g: "I saw a nice car parking in front of my house"

A number of generalized conversational implicatures are commonly communicated on the basis of a scale of values, i.e by choosing a word which is the most informative and truthful in the circumstance; or in other words, when a form in a scale is asserted, the negative

of all other forms higher on the scale is implicated Those are scalar implicatures

For example, by uttering the statement "When I was small, my grandfather took me to some circus", the speaker creates scalar implicatures "not all" or "not most" via the use of

"some" in the scale of quantity

On the contrary to generalized conversational implicatures, for the particularized

conversational implicatures to be worked out, it is necessary that there is a specific context

Consider an exchange between two travelers in the railway station:

A: You're going to London?

B: Platform seven

It is safe to infer that B's answer is not simple an announcement of the platform, rather it is an answer of "Yes" To lead to this implicature, A obviously needs to have a certain context of the platform information at that train station

1.1.6.2 Conventional implicatures

Not necessary to occur in conversations or base on the co-operative principle and the maxims, conventional implicatures are related to the use of some specific words No special contexts are needed for the interpretation of this kind of implicatures

Let take some words like "but, and, even" for examples

"But" makes an implicature of something is contrasted E.g.: She loves him, but he doesn't

1.2 BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF THE DATA

Being one of the main bodies of the United Nations, the Security Council has primary responsibility, under the Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security It is

so organized as to be able to function continuously, and a representative of each of its members must be present at all times at the United Nations Headquarters It has 15 members, including 5 permanent and 10 non-permanent ones, elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms and not eligible for immediate re-election

Under the Charter, the functions and power of the Security Council are:

- to maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations;

- to investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction;

- to recommend methods of adjusting such disputes or the terms of settlement;

- to formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments;

- to determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and to recommend what action should be taken;

- to call on Members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression;

- to take military action against an aggressor;

- to recommend the admission of new Members;

- to exercise the trusteeship functions of the United Nations in “strategic areas”;

- to recommend to the General Assembly the appointment of the Secretary-General and, together with the Assembly, to elect the Judges of the International Court of Justice

(Retrieved from: http://www.un.org) Việt Nam has become an official member of the United Nations since September 20,

1977 Since then, this country has proactively contributed its voice in many issues relating to peace, stability and cooperation both in regional and global scope

Over the past 30 years, Việt Nam has achieved a great deal of success In 1997, Việt Nam decided to run for a non-permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council and 10

years later, at the 62nd Session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Việt Nam became a candidate for the vote

This speech was delivered by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng on September 27, 2007, two days ahead of the election The speech turned out to be a good chance for Việt Nam to obtain more support from other members of the UN In his speech, Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng confirmed that Việt Nam will always be an active, constructive, cooperative and responsible participant in international affairs

To sum up, this chapter provides the review on linguistic theories that relate to the study and gives basic information about the speech that is analyzed in this thesis

CHAPTER 2: INTERPRETABLE IMPLICATURES IN THE VIETNAMESE

GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION

In some recent decades, Việt Nam has achieved a great deal of success in many aspects

of economics, society and foreign affairs The stable society and the rapid economic growth lead to changes in the life quality of Vietnamese citizens Significantly, in terms of foreign affairs, Việt Nam has become members of many important organizations and fora The year

1977 saw the enrollment of Việt Nam into the United Nations and 18 years later, in 1995, this country became the seventh member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

In 2006, World Trade Organization (WTO) admitted Việt Nam as an official member Especially, in September 2007, Việt Nam as a candidate for the seat of non-permanent of the

UN Security Council was selected in the UN General Assembly Session with the most votes Those are remarkable achievements that work as an evidence of the rising role of Việt Nam in the international stage The speech by Mr Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session, delivered two days before the previously mentioned election, was one of the most important marks

In the speech of Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, some interesting interpretable implicatures can be uncovered First, the addresser wishes to establish the rapport to the audience Second, he wants to appeal to the UN for taking more actions to promote the sustainable development Third, the Vietnamese Prime Minister implicates constructing a positive image of Việt Nam

2.1 The establishment of the rapport to the audience

The opening of any type of speech is important and is the result of much consideration

It is popular for a speaker to start his speech by establishing the rapport to the audience The Vietnamese Prime Minister, on behalf of Vietnamese people, would like to send a positive signal to participants, international friends and people of all UN member countries At first,

Mr Dũng congratulates Mr President on his appointment to the most important post and wishes for a success in operating the Session

“At the outset, permit me to extend to you my warmest congratulations on your election as President of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (1) I believe that with your immense competence, you will lead this Session to a successful conclusion (2)”

Next, the Prime Minister expresses his respect and praises Mr Ban Kim Moon, the UN Secretary General for what he has done within his significant position

“I highly commend H.E Mr Ban Kim Moon for his important contributions in his capacity as the Secretary General of the United Nations (3)”

Then, to the representatives of all the UN members and their people, the Vietnamese leader pays the friendly compliments

“I respectfully convey to all distinguished delegates, and through you, to the people of all UN member countries the greetings of friendship from the Vietnamese people (4)”

The speaker establishes the rapport with the audience by speech acts of acknowledgement which express the feelings towards the hearers, or the case of formal utterances, the speaker‟s intention that his utterances satisfy certain social expectations regarding the expression of certain feelings, portraying the audience with high number of positive descriptions Setting up the rapport is the way to create the positive image of the speaker

In addition, the use of adverbs for emphasis “highly” and “respectfully” also has the purpose to underscore this image This kind of adverb functions to show the attitude of the speaker towards the hearer, in this case, a high esteem is held and expressed Besides, another discursive strategy exploited the use of pronoun “I” to refer to the speaker and “you” to refer

to the audience Only these two pronouns are employed in this part of the speech It is obvious that the first singular personal pronoun indicates the speaker However, it is safe to infer that the Vietnamese Prime Minister would like to use it to denote all the people in his country

Sentence (4) proves this intention: “I respectfully convey … the greetings of friendship from

the Vietnamese people” Also, the occurrence of the phrase “the Vietnamese people” asserts

the solidarity between the Vietnamese leader and his citizens The pronoun “you” is used repeatedly to address directly to the hearers presenting at the Session with an emphasis of highly positive image

It can be said that the first interpretable implicature the Prime Minister may wish to express in his speech is not too difficult to be recognized

2.2 The world problems' statement and the appeal to the UN and countries for taking more actions to promote the sustainable development

In the next part of his speech, Mr Dũng expresses the wish of humankind “for a more peaceful world, more friendly international relations and a better life” (5) Then, he states the

fact that “Nearly one decade has elapsed, but that wish has not come true as we are still living

in a world blessed with numerous opportunities and at the same time beset with adversities and challenges (6)"

However, it cannot be denied that the world has achieved advantages, such as

“humankind has not experienced any more world wars”, “human living conditions have been improved continuously” The reasons for these are “thanks to the miraculous scientific and technological achievements” and “the rapid proliferation of regional and global cooperation arrangements” Nevertheless, what is seen as to be the first reason, “It is a blessing that since the establishment of the United Nations” On the one hand, it is used as a time point since that there has been no more world wars happened On the other hand, this use gives the hearer the feeling that thanks to the UN, we are free from world wars In other words, the Vietnamese Prime Minister has implicitly acclaimed the important role of the United Nations

“It is a blessing that, since the establishment of the United Nations, humankind has not experienced any more world wars (7) However, local wars and conflicts, international terrorism and the continued arms race, including the nuclear arms race, remain daunting threats to our world today (8)

Thanks to the miraculous scientific and technological achievements, the human living conditions have been improved continuously (9) However, there remains a bitter reality that the gap in living standards between nations and population groups is increasingly widened (10) Nearly one billion people are still living in extreme poverty (11) At the same time, there have emerged many pressing global issues of which