A comparative study of lexical cohesion in english and vietnamese newspaper articles

Collocation is concerned with the tendency of linguistic items to co-occur inthe same lexical environment without depending on any semantic relations.Collocation may generate a cohesive

Vinh university Department of foreign languages

Supervisor: Tran Ba Tien, M.A.

Student: Tran Thi Thuy Quynh

Secondly, I have a deep thank to teachers in our Foreign Language Departmentfor their helpful suggestions and encouragement during the time my job has beenbeing carried out.

Thirdly, I am also grateful to librarians in the library of Vinh University wholended me materials to do this study

Finally, my profound thanks go to my loved family and my good friendswhose love, care and help have given me essential energy and determination If I hadnot had these helps, my work would not have been complete

Vinh, May, 2010 Tran Thi Thuy Quynh

Abbreviations

1.1.5 Cohesion 9

CHAPTER II LEXICAL COHESION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES2.1 General structure of English and Vietnamese Newspaper Articles 15

2.3 Lexical cohesion in selected English Newspaper Articles 16

3.2 Implications for teaching and learning lexical cohesion 43

31) puts it : “lexical cohesion is the single most important form of cohesion,accounting for something like forty percent of cohesion ties in text” For cohesivedevices, lexical cohesion is considered more common to contribute to textualcoherence.

Different languages have different usage of language, thus the way of usinglexical cohesion is surely different, English and Vietnamese are not except for Wewould like to provide readers with a specific comparison between the usage of lexicalcohesion of 2 languages: English and Vietnamese in order that readers can apply intheir teaching and learning English

1.2 Newspapers, in the civilized society, have become one of the most popularand powerful means of communication and nowadays play a displaceable part inman’s life They are not only where people get themselves expressed, knowledge-enriched, information-updated and entertained, but also one of places where alanguage can interestingly manifest its own existence with its certain feature Besides,

we can know many characteristics of English or Vietnamese language in newspaperarticles published in English or Vietnamese, possibly in any forms of writing there

We find lexical cohesion very interesting and appropriate also to apply related theoriesinto daily updated, newspaper article, the source of material that has never been usedfor any discussions involving lexical cohesion in discourse so far

For all reasons above, we have decided to choose “A comparative study oflexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese newspaper articles” to be the theme of thethesis

2 Aims and objectives of the Study

- The aim of the thesis are to study similarities and differences between theusage of Lexical Cohesion in English and in Vietnamese

To get this aim, these following objectives fulfill:

- To give some statistics and descriptions of Lexical Cohesion used in a specificform of writing in English and Vietnamese press: Newspaper article

- To compare the amount of lexical cohesive items in English newspaper articlesand Vietnamese ones

- To suggest some practical applications of Lexical Cohesion in teaching and inlearning English

3 Scope of the Study

Our research deals with types of Lexical cohesion in discourse provided byHalliday and Hasan (1976) including Repetition, Synonym, Subordinates and General

words Other type of cohesive device: grammatical cohesion is out of the scope of thisthesis.

The data analyzed in the thesis are newspaper article available in English andVietnamese newspaper, for English newspapers: CNN, Nytimes, Washingtonpost,USAtoday, Losangelestimes and for Vietnamese ones: Nhandan, Tuoitre, Dantri,Vietnamnet These are, in our opinion, the most well – known online newspapers.English newspapers have become international newspaper on which English is themajor language to be chosen for the information display Nhandan, Tuoitre, Dantri,Vietnamnet are popular newspapers of Vietnam from which we just take foreign news.Thus, Vietnamese people find it easy to know what are happening in the world,outside their country These are considered reliable sources Content of thesenewspaper articles is about every field of the life such as: science, disasters…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact So, it isnot surprising that online newspapers are where the hottest news has been mostfrequently and fastest updated to the public

4 Methods of the Study

To meet the aims and objectives of the study, quantitative and approach wasemployed Survey is the research tool The author investigates 10 English newspaperarticles and 10 Vietnamese newspapers ones which have the same content Then thewriter synthesizes the data and gives comparison of the amount of lexical cohesionused in English and in Vietnamese newspaper articles

Once collected, the data were collectively analyzed to address the researchquestion Tables were used for clearer presentation and comparison

5 Design of the Study

There are three main parts in this research paper:

Part A: Introduction

In this part, the rationale, aims and objectives, scope, methods and design ofthe thesis are introduced

Part B: Development This part consists of three chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

In this chapter, the author provides the literature review of the study, includingdefinition of key concepts, majorly concepts relating lexical cohesion and review ofrelated studies

Chapter 2: Lexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese newspaper articles

This chapter presents step by step lexical cohesion used in 10 selected Englishnewspaper articles and 10 selected Vietnamese ones Comparison of lexical cohesion

in English and Vietnamese newspaper articles was described in this chapter

Chapter 3: Discussion and implications

In this chapter, the author discuss what analyzed in chapter two and give someimplications for learning and teaching English as well as some suggested exercises

Part C: Conclusion In this part, principal findings are summarized and some

suggestions for further researches are provided

Part B: development Chapter 1: theoretical back ground

1.1 Theory of discourse

1.1.1 Concept of discourse

Linguistic descriptions are organized within a framework of categories

Halliday (1961: 247) suggests that there are 4 such fundamental categories: “unit,

structure, class, system.” These 4 categories are universal: they are necessary and

sufficient as a basic for the description of any language In terms of “unit” The units

of grammar which enter into the description of English and any “related” languageare: sentence – clause – phrase – word – morpheme Here they are arranged on ascale from the largest to smallest Therefore, traditional linguists until the first half ofthe 20th century, considered sentences are the largest complete units to be studied.That point of view was a mistake because many problems concerning with bothlinguistic theories and practices appeared, they are unthoroughly solved with thisviewpoint That is the reason why there is appearance of a new subject in 1960s andearly 1970s, studying languages through units above sentence level: Discourse

Analysis Discourse Analysis “is concerned with the study of the relationship between

language and the contexts in which it is used” as Michael McCarthy (1991: 3) puts it.

It includes linguistics, semiotics, psychology, anthropology and sociology DiscourseAnalysts study language in use: written texts of all kinds and spoken data fromconversation to highly institutional forms of talk

Since the time Discourse Analysis was a branch of linguistics, many authors

defined the term “Discourse” in different ways In Introducing Discourse Analysis (1995), David Nunan introduced the idea of Crystal (1992: 25) that “A discourse is a

continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language that maybe longer than one sentence.” Barbara Johnstone (2002: 2) claims that : “Discourse usually means actual instances of communication in the medium of language” According to Nunan (1993),

a discourse is “a stretch of language consisting of several sentences perceived as

being related in some ways, in terms of the ideas they share and in terms of the jobs they perform within discourse”.

In this thesis, the notion that seems to be the most acceptable is the one

purposed by Guy Cook (1995: 198) seeing discourse as “stretches of language

perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive.”

1.1.2 Text and Discourse

Two terms “Text” and “Discourse” seem to be difficult to distinguish, evensometimes they are considered synonyms To some linguists, the two can be

interchangeably used, as Nunan (1995: 1) indicates “a text or a discourse is a stretch

of language that may be longer than a sentence” Or according to Crystal (1992: 72)

“A text may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue It may be

anything from a single proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to all day discussion in a committee.”

However, other authors have a clear distinction between them Widdowson isprobably one of the first who makes a very explicit distinction According to

Widdowson (1984): “text typically has cohesion whereas discourse has coherence.”

Some linguists are also similar to Widdowson’s viewpoint that is: “Discourse is

language in action (or interaction) while a text is the written record of that interaction.” As Brown and Yule (1983: 6) indicates “text as a technical term to refer

to the verbal record of a communicative act” and Crystal (1992: 25) defines

“discourse as a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a

sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative” and text as “a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written or signed discourse identified for purpose of analysis It is often a language unit with a definable function, such as a conversation, poster”.

This thesis supports the distinction indicated by Salkie (1993): “The term text“ ”

is best used to refer to any written record of a communicative event whereas the term discourse refers to interpretation of the communicative event in context

Spoken and written discourses simply mean speech and writing It has beenwidely agreed by linguists that there are common features as well as different onesbetween these two forms of language.

According to Halliday (1985), writing emerged in society as a result of culturalchanges which created new communicative needs that could not be readily met by thespoken language

Approvingly, Raphael Salkie (1993) contributes that the contexts for using

written language are very different from those in which spoken language used For example, in the case of information, written language is used to communicate with others who are removed in time and space, or for those occasions of which a permanent or semi-permanent required.

One, accordingly, can not deny that spoken discourse is often considered to beless planned and orderly, more open to intervention by the receivers while writtendiscourse is much better structured and the possibilities for subordinate participants

limited Brown and Yule (1983) claim that “spoken and written discourse serve

various functions, the former is used for establishment and maintenance of human relationships (interactional use) and the later for working out of transference of information (transactional use)” (cited in To Viet Thu 2001 – MA thesis).

On the other hand, some linguists see common points between these two forms

of language David Nunan (1995) believes that they both perform an equivalent range

of broad functions, i.e They both are employed to get things the done, to provideinformation and to entertain

Michael McCarthy (1991: 150) additionally proposes, “both spoken and

written discourses are dependent on their immediate contexts to a greater or lesser degree”, and “implicitness and explicitness (of the language being used) will depend

on what is being communicated to whom, rather than merely on whether the discourse is spoken or written.”

In short, despite the fact that written and spoken discourses are two differentforms of language, they both carry out many functions of communication and thedifferences are not absolute, and the characteristics that we tend to associate withwritten language can sometimes occur in spoken language and vice versa This meansthat some spoken texts will be more like written texts than others and vice versa

1.1.4 Discourse context

1.1.4.1 Context of situation

David Nunan (1995:7) suggests a concept and a classification of context of

situation (or context in short) as follows:

Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse, and within which thediscourse is embedded There are two different types of context The first of these isthe linguistic context – the language that surrounds or accompanies the piece ofdiscourse under analysis The second is non-linguistic or experiential context withinwhich the discourse takes place Non-linguistic contexts include: the type ofcommunicative event (for example, joke, story, lecture, greeting, conversation); thetopic; the purpose of the event, the setting including location, time of day, season ofyear and physical aspects of the situation (for example, size of room, arrangement offurniture); the participants and the relationships between them; and the backgroundknowledge and assumptions underlying the communicative event

This viewpoint of Nunan is much similar to that of Halliday and Hasan (1976)who claim that when responding to a spoken or a written passage (discourse or text),the receiver employs not only linguistic clues, but also situation ones Linguistically,

he responds to specific features which bind the passage together, the pattern ofconnection, independence of 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 of language is playing, and who are involved

And the importance of context toward 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 ”

For all the fact above, both linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts are taken intoaccount in this study It is because lexical cohesion concerned with linguistic factorsbut how that use is carried out also greatly depends on non-linguistic features ofdiscourse

1.1.4.2 Context versus Co-text

It is necessary to tell these two terms from one another David Nunan (1995)

holds that co-text is considered the linguistic element and context the non-linguistic

one More specifically, Brown and Yule (1983) claim that “any sentence other than

the first in a fragment of discourse will have the whole of its interpretation forcibly constrained by the proceeding text” and “the words occurring in discourse are constrained by their co-text” (quoted in Dang Huu Phuoc 2006 – graduation Thesis)

In his Pragmatic (1996), Yule gives another concept that considers co-text as

linguistic material, accompanying the referring expression The role of co-text is

illustrated with the example as follows:

France wins World Cup.

The referring expression “France” occurring initially in the utterance mayevoke a range of references (as the nation, the government, the army, the people…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ofFrance) Part of the co-text (‘wins world Cup’, here) clearly limits the range of

possible interpretations one might have for a word like “France” and, in this case, hemight as well have quite little difficulty in perceiving it as French national footballteam

In short, both context and co-text are important in discourse interpretation butthey clearly differ from one another Context is concerned with non-linguistic(external) elements whereas co-text with linguistic (internal) ones

1.1.5 Cohesion

1.1.5.1 The concept of cohesion

Cohesion is easy to recognize but the way of seeing it is not absolutely similaramong researchers Cohesion is very necessary in teaching and learning language

The concept of cohesion is tightly related to discourse Halliday and Hasan

(1976: 4) in their long study of cohesion in English define cohesion as “a semantic

one: it refers to the relation of meaning that exist within the text and that differs it from what is not a text”

A text is often constituted by a group of sentences but it is not the case that anyset of sentences can compose a text To be a text, such a set must consist of relatedelements In other words, according to Halliday and Hasan, the primary determinant

of whether a set of sentences do or do not constitute a text depends on cohesiverelationship between the sentences which create texture The texture is provided by

cohesive relationships Halliday and Hasan (1976: 4) also suggest: “cohesion occurs

where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another The one presupposes the other, in the sense that it can not be effectively decoded except by recourse to it” Cohesion thereby can be called formal links

between elements (within or beyond sentence – boundaries) that make a textcohesive It seems that Halliday and Hasan’s idea has similarity with Diep Quang

Ban’s Ban in Ng÷ Ph¸p TiÕng ViÖt (2005) states that cohesion is in the links between

two semantic elements which lies in two sentences or in two clauses of sentence.Therefore, they explain to each other In other words, cohesion is the semantic relation

in which to understand the specific meaning of this element, we must base on themeaning of the other

Halliday and Hasan (1976) make a detailed classification of the cohesivedevices in English These authors as well as Ban (2005) distinguish betweengrammatical and lexical cohesion According to them, grammatical cohesion is

divided into 4 different devices: Reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction andlexical cohesion consists of repetition, synonym, superordinate, hyponymy, metonymyand antonym…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact

This explanation can be best accounted for by the following example:

Lan is the best student in my class She won the first prize in the competition.

We see that “she” in the second sentence refers back to “Lan” in the firstsentence If readers only look at the second sentence, they can not understand theauthor wants to refer to whom but owning to the first sentence, the readers can knowshe to be “Lan” This anaphoric function of “she” gives cohesion to the two sentenceswhich constitutes a text

Cohesion is much involved but not coincided with another notion known ascoherence

1.1.5.2 Cohesion and Coherence

It is necessary to firstly confirm that cohesion is of great significance tocoherence but not coherence itself Nunan (1993: 116) clearly indicates the difference

between cohesion and coherence: “Coherence is the extent to which discourse is

perceived to hang together rather than a set of unrelated sentences or utterances and cohesion is formal links showing the relationships among clauses and among sentences in discourse” Or “Cohesion is a guide to coherence and coherence is something created by the reader in the act of reading the text Coherence is the feeling that a text hangs together, that it makes sense and is not just a jumble of sentences” (quoted in Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong, 2007: 21)

Hoey points out the differences between cohesion and coherence as follows:

“cohesion is the objective capable in principle automatic recognition, while

coherence is subjective and judgments concerning it may vary from reader to reader”.

(quoted in Baker, 1992: 218)

Coherence, obviously is concerned with the feeling that the text hangs together

or the type of rhetorical relationship that underlines text Coherence is somethinginvisible and attributed to the creation of the readers’ mind, very often with theassistance of cohesion whereas cohesion occurs visibly in discourse but only serves assignals, guides or clues to coherence Coherence often depends on the common sharedbackground knowledge, implication or inference

Cohesion is seen as one of the ways of creating coherence but it is a mistake toidentify it with coherence and to assume that there is one – to – one correspondencebetween them Coherence sometimes can be realized without any recourse tocohesion

Let us have a look at the following examples:

(1) She passed the exam That is surprising.

(2) A: Pat likes spicy food very much.

B: He is from Thailand.

(3) A: Would you like to go to the zoo tomorrow, Minh?

B: I must come to visit my grandparents.

In the first example, we see that the text has coherence because there iscohesive device between the first sentence and the second sentence: “She passed theexam = That”, “That” plays anaphoric function of “she passed the exam” But in thesecond sentence, despite of existence of anaphoric function (“He” refers to “Pat”) as acohesive device, one could hardly say that the two clauses are coherent if he does notknow the stereotype ethnic association between being Thailand and loving spicy food.Conversely, without having a formal link, the conversation in the third example canstill be perceived to hang and make sense together in reader’s or hearer’s mind withthe assistance of his schemata (back ground knowledge) that mind will not go to thezoo tomorrow because she must come to visit her grandparents

We can summarize the distinction between cohesion and coherence through thefollowing table:

- Is in the text

- Grammatical or lexical relationship

- Clues, signal or guide to coherence

- Is in the readers’ or listeners’ mind

- The feeling that the text makes sense

- The reader has to create coherence

In short, cohesion and coherence are two major issues in theories of DiscourseAnalysis Cohesion, manifested by cohesive devices, plays a greatly important part increating coherence but does not guarantee coherence, which is best seen as the feelingthat the discourse hang together and that it makes sense

1.1.5.3 Types of cohesive devices

In this thesis, we adopt the division of cohesive devices by Halliday and Hasan(1976) which can be illustrated by the graph as follows:

Reference Substitution Grammatical cohesion Ellipsis

Conjunction

Lexical cohesion

Repetition Synonyms or

SuperordinatesGeneral words

1.1.6 Lexical cohesion

1.1.6.1 Concept of lexical cohesion

Linguists have introduced similar definitions of lexical cohesion For instance,Halliday and Hasan (1976: 318) hold that lexical cohesion is established through thestructure of the lexis or vocabulary Raphael Salkie (1993: 28) similarly states:

“lexical cohesion occurs when two words in a text are semantically related in some

way – in other words, they are related in terms of their meaning”

Hence, lexical cohesion can most generally be seen as the textual cohesionexisting between linguistic elements in discourse thanks to the exploitation ofsemantic relations of lexis

1.1.6.2 Types of lexical cohesion

As seen from the graph in 1.1.5.3, lexical cohesion holds two main types:collocation and reiteration

1.1.6.2.1 Collocation

Collocation pertains to lexical items that are likely to be found together withinthe same text Collocation occurs when a pair of words is not necessarily dependentupon the same semantic relationship but rather they tend to occur within the samelexical environment (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 286)

Collocation is concerned with the tendency of linguistic items to co-occur inthe same lexical environment without depending on any semantic relations.Collocation may generate a cohesive force by pairs of words like: laugh…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact joke,

garden…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact dig, ill…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact doctor, try…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact succeed, bee…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact honey, door…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact window, boat…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact row,sunshine…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact cloud…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact or by long cohesive chains like: hair…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact comb…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact curl…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact wave,poetry…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact literature…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact reader…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact writer…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact style, sky sunshine…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact cloud…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rain waving

in and out of successive sentences The closer lexical items are to each other betweensentences, the stronger the cohesive effect

1.1.6.2.2 Reiteration

Reiteration, contrary to collocation, is characterized by condition that theremust be some explicit semantic relation between cohesive linguistic items Halliday

and Hasan (1976: 319) introduce a definition of reiteration which states: “Reiteration

is the repetition of a lexical item, or the occurrence of a synonym of some kind, in the context of reference; that is, where the two occurrences have the same reference”.

Later on, McCarthy (1991: 65) likewise hold that “Reiteration means either restating

an item in a later part of the discourse by direct repetition or else reasserting its meaning by exploiting lexical relations”.

In brief, reiteration is a type of formal cohesive device in which the two

cohesive items refer to the same entity or event, and is considered a major

characteristic that makes discourse coherent

So far, linguists have widely adopted the classification of reiteration byHalliday and Hasan (1976) according to which reiteration embraces four main types:Repetition, Synonyms/ Near synonyms, superordinates, and General words

Repetition is a type of reiteration in which the writer repeats exactly a lexicalitem previously appearing in the text

Synonymy including synonyms and near-synonyms is the cohesive device inwhich two or more words have the same meaning

Superordinates and general words means, of any pair of lexical terms belonging

to these types of reiteration, the meaning of one (superordinate/general word) isincluded in that of the other (Hyponym)

They illustrated these four types with the examples below:

a The boy is going to fall if he does not take care.

b The lad is going to fall if he does not take care.

c The child is going to fall if he does not take care.

d The idiot is going to fall if he does not take care.

In (a), boy‘ ’ is directly restated in the second sentence and this is called

repetition, the reiteration in (b) takes the form of a synonym lad‘ ’, of a superordinate

child

‘ ’ in (c) and in (d) of a general word idiot‘ ’

McCarthy (1991: 66) uses slightly different terms for the third and forth types.

He calls them immediate superordinate and general super-ordinate which are kinds of super-ordinate simply

sub-In summary, this chapter has dealt with the theory related to lexical cohesionmainly proposed by Halliday and Hasan In brief, lexical cohesion includes two maintypes: collocation and reiteration, of which reiteration has four sub-types: repetition,synonyms/ near-synonyms, super-ordinates and general words All of them will bediscussed in the progress of the study

Chapter II: lexical cohesion in English and

Vietnamese newspaper articles2.1 General structure of news in English and Vietnamese newspaper

We read newspaper articles to get information about what is happening in ourcommunity and in the rest of the world A newspaper article is arranged in 3 main

parts: title or headline, the introduction or the lead and the body The title or the

headline mentions main content of an article, the title should be as catchy as possible

because the readers will read this first then decide if he or she will continue reading

the rest of the article The introduction or the lead in which the general information is

given, the introduction tells readers what the article is going to be about (the topic),

what the article is going to say (the content) The body (the most important part) of a

newspaper article where full details and quotes from the people involved are added, isthe heart of the article where you provide pertinent information and details, or paint aword picture This is where the answers to the five WH questions (What, Where,When, Who, Why) will be written It is where criteria of accuracy, brevity and clarityshould be most rigorously applied Let us have a look at a specific newspaper article as anillustration:

The CV-22, which conducts long-range infiltration and resupply operations for the U.S military, went down seven miles west of the city of Qalat, the capital of Zabul province.

Zabiullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban in the region, said Taliban fighters shot down the aircraft Another spokesman, Qari Yoseph, also claimed responsibility and said that 30 Americans had been killed.

CNN, April 9,2010)

2.2 A brief introduction to data under analysis

All the newspaper articles to be analyzed and synthesized in this thesis aretaken from the online English and Vietnamese newspapers The former ones are:CNN, Washingtonpost, Nytimes, Losangelestimes, USAtoday; the later ones are:Nhandan, Tuoitre, Vietnamnet, Dantri

A newspaper article is a complete topic It mentions a specific content so itinvolves in information relating to topic of the newspaper article Some generalstatistics of the selected materials are given in the table below:

Averagenumber ofparagraphsper piece

Total

Averagenumber ofsentencesper piece

Table 1 – General statistics of materials selected

2.3 Lexical cohesion in English newspaper article

2.3.1 Collocation

It can be seen that collocation is phenomenon commonly used in newspaperarticles Every paragraph contains this phenomenon The information of newspaperarticles is about every fields in life, especially disaster in the world, so collocational

pairs or chains are about these following lexical relations: damage, number of people

affected, money, time For example, these are collocational pairs or chains in each

paragraph found in piece 1, 2 and 8:

Piece 1:

- U.S aircraft…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact crashed…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact killing…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact U.S service members…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact civilian employee

- Cause…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact crash…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact known

- Service member …) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact injured…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact crash

- Cv-22…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact U.S military…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact went down

- Fighters shot down…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact aircraft

- 30 American…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact killed

Piece 2:

- China lowed flag…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact pulled…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact entertainment…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact people…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact killed…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact earth quake

- Residents…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact observed

- President…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact tribute…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact victim

- Death toll…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact risen…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact quake

- People…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact missing…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact injure

- Disaster…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact pray…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact difficulties

- U.S…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact lowered…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact flag…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ceremony

- Embassy…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact held…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact charity…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact collect…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact items

- Thousands who…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact injured…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact earth quake…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact tens of thousands…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact homeless

- Government…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact dollars…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact quake

- Expert…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact visit…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact affected…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact effort

- Report…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact killed…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact wounded…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact quake

- Quake…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact region…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rescuer…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact working…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact find…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact survivors…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rubble.

- Population million

- People…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact group

- Evaluation…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact meters…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact sea level

- GDP…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact billion

- Earth quake…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact home…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact flee

- Earth quake-devastated zone…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact inspect damage

- Suffering…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact pain

- Member…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact lost…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact grieve

- Surveyed…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rubble…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact resident

- Allegation…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact government…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact denies…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact help…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rescuer…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact sickness

- Slight hope…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact give up…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact unite…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact do…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rescue work

Piece 8:

- President…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact killed…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact plane…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact traveling…) and very little to lexical ones despite the factwife…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact crashed

- People…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact board…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact killed

- Plane…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact airport…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact hit…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact runway

- Fire…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact extinguished…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact damage…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact anybody…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact survived

- Airplane…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact charred…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact strewn

- Crash…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact happened

- Tupolev – 154…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact carrying…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact landing…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact heavy fog

- Chairman…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact expresses…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact condolences…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact crash

- Condolence…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact people…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact families…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact killed…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact tragic…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact accident

Although the meaning relation between words in these above chains is not easy

to classify, we still find a very marked cohesive effect resulting from the occurrence of lexical items that are in some way associated with each other Thecohesive effect depends not so much on any systematic relationship as on theirtendency to share the same lexical environment, to occur in collocation with others

co-For example, we have the lexical environment of number of people affected for the chain “Thousands who … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless injured … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless earth quake … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless tens of thousands … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless homeless” In

piece 2 Number of people affected in this chain is: thousand and tens of thousand.

The most important purpose of news is to shortly inform the daily facts, not toexpress reports’ opinions or comments Therefore, the supreme requirement of thiskind of article is exactness and truthfulness It may explain why exact reiteration(repetition), especially of nouns, is overwhelmingly preferred The nouns repeated are

usually concerned with 6 WH and H questions of the event For example:

(1) ISAF: 4 killed in U.S aircraft crash in Afghanistan

(CNN) A U.S aircraft crashed in southern Afghanistan, killing three U.S service

members and one civilian employee, a statement from NATO-led forces said Friday

The cause of the crash of the Air Force CV-22 Osprey was not known, said theInternational Security Assistance Force statement Several other service memberswere injured in the crash late Thursday night

The CV-22, which conducts long-range infiltration and resupply operations for theU.S military, went down seven miles west of the city of Qalat, the capital of Zabulprovince

Zabiullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban in the region, said Taliban fighters shotdown the aircraft Another spokesman, Qari Yoseph, also claimed responsibility andsaid that 30 Americans had been killed

(CNN, April 9, 2010 Updated 1322 GMT)

In this newspaper article, most occurrences of repetition (underlined) are made

to refer to people (spokesman, service members), location (Afghanistan, US), things

(aircraft, crash).

It is also can be seen from the example, the proportion of noun-repetitionfalling into the topic statement is relatively great (16/19) This fact results from thechief intended purpose of the lead, to restate in more details the main idea introduced

in the headline

In this text, there are also repetitions of verbs but not many: 2 occurrences for

killed This means that the verbs usually express an important part (what happened) of

the event and to replace them is not so necessary as to exactly repeat them in order to

make strong links among paragraphs However, if the verbs need to be reused manytimes, reporters may choose other words than repetition only We will get more detailsand evidence for this phenomenon in other types of reiteration mentioned in later parts

of the study

Among content words, adjectives and adverbs, particularly the later, arerepeated in a very limited rate Almost all of adjectives and adverbs in newspaperarticles have neutral nuances of meaning and they are used to modify factualinformation rather than to express reports’ attitude and opinions

Some of the adjectives repeated are original but most of the adjectives repeated

as parts of noun phrases such as: US military, secret mission, Chinese soldiers,

Chinese government, American flag, Afghan president, U.s national anthem, etc.

They are usually repeated in repeated noun phrases which mainly communicateimportant information Reiterating these adjectives in other kinds rather thanrepetition is not only a hard task to reporters but also a possible risk That is, readersmay be confused that a noun phrase refers not back to a previous occurrence in thetext but to a new item Therefore, the readers may have difficulty in realizing thecoherence of the text

Unlike adjectives, single – word adverbs can seldom be found in newspaperarticles The majority of adverbial elements in sentences are adverb phrases, eachcomposed by several single words Most of these adverbials involve actual facts of the

event being mentioned such as place (in Afghanistan, in China, in Chile, in the

quake, in the earthquake, from the rubble, outside the US, to Quinghai, of Chicago,

on the rig ), time (of last Wednesday, Saturday, a second, after the explosion … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless ) or

cause (during last week s earthquake ’s earthquake…) … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless Some descriptive adverbs like : difficultly, ) effectively, fast… injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homelessare seldom used in news because the purpose of news is not to

express personal comments of reports, only inform information or news Moreover,the news usually pay their attention to what happened and Who involved, rather thanwhere or When Therefore, adverbial elements are not very frequently repeated Thesemay explain the fact that in all the texts synthesized, only a few exact repetitionoccurrences of adverbial phrases are observed Here are some examples:

(2) "The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al Qaeda in Iraqsince the beginning of the insurgency," the commander of U.S Forces-Iraq, Gen.Raymond Odierno, said in a news release last week

In an interview with CNN, Odierno said it would be "very difficult" for the al Qaedanetwork to replace the two men.

Al-Masri, a native of Egypt, was military leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Al-Baghdadi was leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that includes

al Qaeda in Iraq.

(CNN, April 25, 2010 Updated 1023 GMT (1823 HKT))(3) The difference is just about one-millionth of a second

Richard Gross, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,and colleagues calculated that Saturday's quake shortened the day by 1.26

microseconds A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

(Washingtonpost, March 3, 2010)

The density of repetition occurrences also depends on another factor: length ofthe text Let us get back to the example (1) in prior section The news is rather brief incomparison with an average one (126 words and 353.4 words) This may encouragereporter not to fear of excessive repetition because not much additional information isprovided and mainly the reiterated items are key ones in the headline

2.3.2.2 Synonyms and Near – synonyms:

Synonymy is the cohesive device in which two or more words have the samemeaning In the aspect of frequency, synonymy ranks second after repetition with104/783 in whole, accounting for 13.28%

This thesis follows Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) classification of reiterationwhich includes Synonyms and Near – Synonyms A pairs of synonyms differ fromthat of near – synonyms in terms of lexis category Of such a pair, if the reiterated

and reiterating are of the same (such as: “plane – aircraft – shuttle” (noun) and

“mystery – secret” (adjective) in the example below, they are called synonyms.

(4) U.S military launches mystery space plane on secret mission

(CNN) Mystery surrounds the U.S military's Orbital Test Vehicle, the X-37B OTV,

which launched into space Thursday night from the Cape Canaveral Air Station inFlorida

Is it an aircraft? Is it the next generation space shuttle? How much does it cost? Andwhy is it such a secret?

(CNN, April 23, 2010 Updated 1456 GMT (2256 HKT))

On the other hand, if they are of different categories, they are called near

synonyms like “rotate – verb and spins - noun ” in the instance below:

(5) "An earthquake can make Earth rotate faster by nudging some of its mass closer to theplanet's axis, just as ice skaters can speed up their spins by pulling in their arms.”

2.3.2.3 Superordinates and General Words

The complete terms of Super-ordinate and General words should be

“Superordinates and Hyponyms ” and “General Words and Hyponyms” That means,

of any pair of lexical terms belonging to these types of reiteration, the meaning of one(superordinate/general word) is included in that of the other (Hyponym) For example,

one cannot say “an animal is a cat ” By contrast, it is accurate to say that “a cat is an animal ” That is, the meaning of animal “animal” ” is included in the meaning of “cat , ” as in dog, lion, monkey

“animal” and elephant ” Slightly different, the meaning of “Event” included

in the meaning of accident, attack, mission, work, dedication “animal” … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless”, which are not of

the same sort The sense relation between “Event” and “ accident, attack , “animal” “animal” ” mission , work , dedication

“animal” ” “animal” ” “animal” ” is general superordinate (general word) – hyponym These relation are like below:

Animal

Superordinate- hyponym

Event

Accident attack dedication mission work

General words - hyponym

Another noticeable point of these two types of reiteration is that the relativepositions between the superordinates/general words and hyponyms may be altered: thehyponym may occur either before or after the Superordinate/General word Forexample:

(6) Jaroslaw Kaczynski is not married His closest family are his mother, Jadwiga, 83, and

niece Marta, 30, the daughter of the late president

(Nytimes, April 26, 2010)

(Hyponym occurs after super-ordinate)

In this example, “family” is superordinate, “mother, niece and daughter” are hyponyms Hyponyms: “mother, niece and daughter” occur after superordinate –

“family”.

(7) The incumbent had been expected to seek a second five-year term

The brothers were in the past both members of anti-communist opposition and served

as advisers to the Solidarity freedom movement in the 1980s

Jaroslaw Kaczynski is not married His closest family are his mother, Jadwiga, 83,and niece Marta, 30, the daughter of the late president

Another candidate, Parliamentary Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski, is now acting

president after automatically taking over the duties following the incumbent's death

He is with the governing Civic Platform party and is currently the front-runner in thepolls

(Nytimes, April 26, 2010)

(Hyponym occurs before super-ordinate)

In this example, “polls” is superordinate, it occurs after these hyponyms:

“candidate, term”.

In this study, the survey of these 2 relations based on types goes under theconventions that:

1 Occurrences of “Superordinates and Hyponyms" and “General words and

Hyponyms” are called under short word- Super-ordinates and General words.

2 The relative positions of hyponyms towards the superordinates and general

words are out of concern.

2.3.2.3.1 Superordinates

Unlike repetition and synonym, superordinates are not often used in selectedEnglish newspaper articles Of whole 783 occurrences of reiteration, only 39 ofsuperordinates are found, representing 4.98%

Using the superordinates helps the writer provide more information andsimultaneously create cohesive force within the paragraph Turning back the previousexample:

(8) Jaroslaw Kaczynski is not married His closest family are his mother, Jadwiga, 83, and niece Marta, 30, the daughter of the late president

(Nytimes, April 26, 2010)

“Family” refers to a group of people being blood-relations, staying at a house,

specifically, in the text, members have being blood-relations with Jaroslaw Kaczynski

Those members are: mother, niece, daughter The superordinate sense relation, in this

case, does make 2 items cohesively used It is the fact that, the most occurrence of

superordinate in English newspaper articles analyzed is noun, for example: “term –

vote candidate election , industry agriculture hydropower oil and nature– – ” “ – – –

gas ”… injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless A noun can include in several nouns with smaller meanings It makes the

variety of English noun

Moreover, in English newspaper articles analyzed, there is not any occurrence

of superordinate of verbs This explains for the fact that in English, a verb with generalmeaning seldom consists of verbs with the smaller meaning Though, there are some

superordinates of verb in English such as: shadow and escort … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless Superordinnate of

verbs also contribute to giving the readers the feeling that the two sentences hang

together but unfortunately, no superordinate of verbs in English newspaper articleanalyzed.

For the fact that very few descriptive adjectives and adverbs are used innewspaper articles, it comes as no surprise that no occurrence of adjective and adverbsuperordinate is found Only some occurrences of adverbial elements are seen, all ofwhich are of adverb phrases that refer to time or place involving the event beingmentioned For example:

(9) The crash happened around 10:50 a.m (2:50 a.m ET) on the outskirts of the town of

Pechorsk in the Smolensk region, the Investigation Committee of the Russian

prosecutor's office said in a written statement on its Web site

(CNN, April 10, 2010 Updated 0910 GMT (1710 HKT))

In this example, the underlined items play function of adverbial elements Theshort superordinates “Smolensk region” used in this case not only help avoid repetitionbut also save a helpful space for the text

In summary, superordinates are not really often employed in news discourses.Usually the lexical items taking part in this type of reiteration convey neutralmeanings (without personal feelings) Among content words concerned, nouns andnoun phrases takes the largest proportion, then come in turn adverbial phrases, andfinally, adjectives and verbs

Nouns and Noun

Totaloccurrences

Table 3 Superordinates in terms of content words in selected English newspaper–

articles

2.3.2.3.2 General words

Even more general than superordinates, general words (or general

superordinnates as some linguists call) are also used as an effective cohesive device.

In this thesis, however, general word is concerned with only general noun for the

reality that not all general words are used cohesively; in fact, only the nouns are

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 274) This is evidenced by the findings of the survey thatall general words in newspaper articles are nouns involving the main information ofthe newspaper article They can be relatively grouped in the following table:

Reference Examples found in selected data

Event The crash, the attack, the mission, the explosion, the insurgency,

the election…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact

People Men, the authorities, the officers, the workers, the victims,

civilians, the military…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact

Place The location, the area, the region, the site, the pot

(10) China pays tribute to quake victims

CNN China lowered flags to half staff and pulled all entertainment

programming from the airwaves Wednesday to mourn more than 2,000 people killed

during last week's earthquake in the country's northwest, Chinese media reported

(CNN, April 21, 2010 Updated 0611 GMT (1411 HKT))

The fact that the body is the position for most cohesive general words to occur

is rather than understandable when in the lead, the majority of reiterations of keywords in the headline is carried out via repetitions (as studied in the prior sections).Further more, while the lead has only little contents words in the headline to hold

reiterations, the body can reiterate much more referents both in the lead and theheadline.

Most common are the general words used to refer back to the entire event that

is the central content of the text They do not refer to any separated lexical item but tothe contents of previous parts of the text mentioning the event, usually the headlinesand the leads For examples:

(11) Days a bit shorter since Chile quake

A powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Chile early Saturday, Feb 27, andtriggered a tsunami that threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean

NEW YORK Earth's days may have gotten a little bit shorter since the massiveearthquake in Chile, but don't feel bad if you haven't noticed

The difference is just about one-millionth of a second

Richard Gross, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.,and colleagues calculated that Saturday's quake shortened the day by 1.26

microseconds A microsecond is one-millionth of a second

The length of a day is the time it takes for the planet to complete one rotation

86,400 seconds or 24 hours

(Washingtonpost, Wednesday, March 3, 2010 )

Contrary to the claim by some linguists that general words are cohesive onlywhen they have the same referent as that of the items previously occurring, thesurveys find occasions in which general superordinates are cohesively used even whenthere is no identical reference Take this example:

(12) A U.S soldier was killed during the assault when a U.S helicopter crashed, themilitary said in the news release

An Iraqi intelligence cell pursuing high-level leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq gatheredinformation for the operation, said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki

The two men were hiding in a hole within a house, where their bodies were eventuallyfound by security forces, he said

((CNN, April 25, 2010 Updated 1023 GMT (1823 HKT))

All the content of the 2 first paragraphs is obviously information of some kind.The item “information” underlined in the last paragraph, therefore, can be interpreted

as a general superordinate of whatever information appearing before it That is to say

it is used cohesively One can say that the item “information” refers to the content ofprevious paragraph, i.e there is any identical reference

However, it should be agreed that such cases are not very common in formaldiscourse, actually, the example above is the unique one among 50 occurrences ofcohesive general words observed in selected newspaper articles

2.4 Lexical cohesion in selected Vietnamese newspaper articles

- Máy bay…) and very little to lexical ones despite the factkhông quân…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact binh sĩ…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rơi…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact nhân viên…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact chết…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ngời…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ơng th

- Quân…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact Afghanistan

- Quân…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact Washington…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact bạo lực

Piece 2:

- Ngời…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact chết…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ngời…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ơng th

- Quốc tang…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ởng nhớ nạn nhân động đất ng t …) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact …) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact …) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ời…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact chết…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact mất tích

- Ngời chết…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact 2046 …) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact 193 mất tích…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact 12135…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ngời bị thơng…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact hàng chục nghìn ng

-ời…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact mất nhà

- Cứu hộ…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact khó khăn…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact khắc nghiệt

- Động đất…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact a đá cứu trợ thảm họa m …) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact …) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact

- Ma…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact sấm chớp…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact động đất

Piece 8:

- Tổng thống…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact vợ…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact tử nạn…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact máy bay…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rơi

- Tai nạn thảm khốc

- Máy bay…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rơi…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact, đại biểu…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact quân đội…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ngoại giao…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact thống đốc

- 132 ngời…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact máy bay…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact thiệt mạng

- Máy bay…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact hạ cánh

- Máy bay…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact đâm…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rơi

- Ai…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact sống sót…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact thảm họa

- Nguyên nhân công bố…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact nguồn tin

- Máy bay…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact cháy…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact rơi

- Cứu hộ…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact hành khách…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact máy bay

- Thông tin…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact nhận dạng…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact nạn nhân

- Cuộc họp…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact nội các

- Tổng thống…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact bầu cử…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact lãnh đạo.

- Tranh cử…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact nhiệm kì…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact tổng thống

- Đối thủ…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact ứng cử viên…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact đảng

We have the lexical environment of number of people affected for the chain

“Ngời chết … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless 2046 … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless 193 mất tích … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless 12135 … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless ng ời bị thơng … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless hàng chục nghìn ng

-ời … injured… earth quake… tens of thousands… homeless mất nhà ” in the piece 2 In this chain, “the number of people affected” are:

is the most natural and easiest way to reiterate a lexical item

The first purpose of newspaper article is to inform the daily facts, not to showthe author’s ideas So it is the reason why exact reiteration (repetition), especially of

nouns is preferred The nouns repeated involving in 6 WH and H questions For

example:

(13) Máy bay của Mỹ rơi ở Afghanistan làm ba binh sĩ chết

Theo Reuters, lực l ợng liên quân ở Afghanistan do NATO đứng đầu cho biết, ngày

9-4 chiếc máy bay CV-22 Osprey của lực l ợng không quân Mỹ chở binh sĩ nớc này đã

bị rơi ở phía nam tỉnh Da-bun ở Afghanistan làm ba binh sĩ Mỹ và một nhân viên dân

sự chết, một số ngời khác bị thơng

Nguyên nhân tai nạn này cha đợc xác định Hiện có khoảng 120.000 quân quân đội

n-ớc ngoài đóng ở Afghanistan Con số này sẽ lên gần 150.000 quân vào cuối năm naykhi Washington đa thêm quân đến nớc này nhằm ngăn chặn bạo lực gia tăng tại đây

(Updated 10: 49, Nhandan, 10-04-2010)

In this example, almost occurences of repetition (underlined) are made to refer

to people (quân, binh sĩ), item (máy bay, lực lợng), locations (Afghanistan, Mỹ), number (ba).

As it can be seen from the example, the proportion of noun – repetition fallinginto the topic statement is relatively great (15/23) This explains for the fact that thepurpose of the lead and the body is to restate in more details the main idea introduced

in the headline

In the text, there are also repetition of verbs but not many: one occurrence of

chết and one occurrence of rơi The reason why the repetition of verbs is so few has

been explained in the previous part However, if the verbs need to be reused manytimes, the writers will choose other choices than only repetition

Among the content words, adjectives is repeated in a very limited rate Theyare original ones, almost adjectives in newspaper article have neutral nuances ofmeaning and they are used to modified factual information rather than to express

reporters’ attitudes and opinions Only few are found in analyzed texts such as: ngắn

lại in this example:

(14) Động đất ở Chile khiến ngày trên trái đất ngắn lại

(Dân trí) - Theo các nhà khoa học, ngoài việc cớp đi sinh mạng của hơn 700 ngời vàlàm hơn 2 triệu ngời mất nhà cửa, trận động đất mạnh 8,8 độ richter gây sóng thần ởChile có thể đã khiến trục của Trái đất bị dịch chuyển, dẫn đến ngày của chúng ta

ngắn lại.

And

Lần gần đây nhất một ngày bị ngắn lại là sau trận động đất 9,1 richter, gây ra sóng

thần đợc đặt tên là “Boxing Day” Khi đó theo các nhà khoa học, sự dịch chuyển trong

các bình địa kiến tạo nằm bên dới bề mặt đại dơng đã khiến ngày bị ngắn lại 6,8 phần

triệu giây

(Dantri, Mar 3, 2010)

Unlike adjectives, single – word adverbs can seldom be found in Vietnamesenewspaper articles The majority of adverbial elements in sentences are adverbphrases, each composed of several single words Most of these adverbials involve

actual facts of the event being mentioned such as place (ở Afghanistan, ở Tỉnh Thanh

Hải, ở Chile, tại Iraq, ở phía Bắc Kabul…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact), time adverbs are seldom seen inVietnamese newspaper article That explains for the fact that readers usually pay

attention on what happened and who involved, rather than where and when In all the

texts synthesized, only a few exact repetition occurrences of adverbial phrases areobserved Here are examples:

(15) Máy bay của Mỹ rơi ở Afghanistan làm ba binh sỹ chết

Theo Reuters, lực lợng liên quân ở Afghanistan do NATO đứng đầu cho biết, ngày 9-4

chiếc máy bay CV-22 Osprey của lực lợng không quân Mỹ chở binh sĩ nớc này đã bị

rơi ở phía nam tỉnh Da-bun ở Afghanistan làm ba binh sĩ Mỹ và một nhân viên dân sự

chết, một số ngời khác bị thơng

(Updated 1:49) (Nhandan, Apr 10, 2010)

(16)Theo Tân Hoa xã, ngày 20-4, Quốc Vụ viện Trung Quốc ra thông cáo sẽ tổ chức quốc

tang vào ngày hôm nay (21-4) để tởng nhớ các nạn nhân của vụ động đất mạnh 7,1 độrích-te ở tỉnh Thanh Hải làm hơn 2.000 ngời chết và gần 200 ngời mất tích Nhà chứctrách Trung Quốc cho biết, số ngời chết trong vụ động đất xảy ra ngày 14-4 đã lên tới2.046 ngời, 193 ngời mất tích và 12.135 ngời bị thơng; hàng chục nghìn ngời mất nhà

ở Các công tác cứu hộ vẫn đang tiếp tục đợc triển khai, nhng gặp nhiều khó khăn do

điều kiện thời tiết khắc nghiệt tại khu vực bị nạn ở độ cao 4.000 m so với mặt nớcbiển

Trong khi đó, chiều 20-4, tại khu vực bị động đất tàn phá ở tỉnh Thanh Hải nói trên đã

xảy ra một cơn ma đá, gây cản trở công tác cứu trợ thảm họa

(Updated 3:35 am) (Nhandan, Apr 21, 2010)

Occurrence of repetition also depends on another factor: length of the text Let

we turn back the example above The news is rather brief in comparison with anaverage one (110 words vs 324.7 words) This may encourage reporters not to fear ofexcessive repetition because not much additional information is provided and mainlythe reiterated items are key ones in the headline

2.4.2.2 Synonyms and Near - synonyms

In the aspect of frequency, synonymy ranks second after repetition with 81/514occurrences (15.76%) This thesis adopts Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) classification

of reiteration which includes Synonyms and Near – Synonyms A pairs of synonyms

differ from that of near – synonyms in terms of lexis category (such as tai nạn - sự

cố thảm họa– , thiệt mạng tử nạn– ) in the example below, they are called synonyms:

(17) Tổng thống Ba lan tử nạn vì rơi máy bay

Tổng thống Ba Lan Lech Kaczynski và vợ đã tử nạn khi chiếc máy bay chở ông cùngmột đoàn đại biểu Ba Lan bị rơi ở miền tây nớc Nga hôm nay (10/4)

Vụ tai nạn thảm khốc xảy ra lúc khoảng 11 giờ địa phơng (14 giờ Việt Nam) ngày10/4 Máy bay bị rơi khi đang chở đoàn đại biểu cấp cao Ba Lan, bao gồm cả ng ời

đứng đầu quân đội, Thứ trởng Ngoại giao và Thống đốc Ngân hàng Trung ơng, đi dự

lễ tởng niệm Katyn

Phát biểu trên kênh truyền hình quốc gia Nga Rossiya-24 khoảng một giờ sau sự cố,

Thủ hiến Smolensk Sergei Anufriev khẳng định toàn bộ 132 ngời có mặt trên máy bay

đều thiệt mạng.

"Máy bay chở Tổng thống Ba Lan đã không đáp đợc xuống đờng băng khi sắp hạcánh Các điều tra ban đầu cho thấy, máy bay đã đâm vào các ngọn cây và bị rơi.

Không một ai sống sót qua thảm họa", ông Anufriev cho biết thêm.

(Updated 15:25) (Nhandan, Apr 10, 2010)

On the other hand, if they are of different categories, they are called near

synonyms like: “tiêu diệt cái chết– ” in the instance below:

(18) Iraq: Tiêu diệt hai thủ lĩnh cấp cao của mạng lới khủng bố al-Qaeda

NDĐT- Thủ tớng Iraq Nouri Maliki và các quan chức Mỹ hôm qua cho biết, hai thủlĩnh cấp cao của mạng lới khủng bố al-Qaeda ở Iraq đã bị tiêu diệt trong một chiếndịch phối hợp giữa lực lợng Mỹ và Iraq

Phát biểu trên đài truyền hình Iraq, ông Maliki nói rằng, hai thủ lĩnh của al-Qaeda ởIraq là Abu Ayyub al-Masri và Abu Omar al-Baghdadi đã bị tiêu diệt Truyền hìnhchiếu những hình ảnh về hai kẻ khủng bố trớc và sau khi chết

Ông Maliki nói rằng, lực lợng bộ binh đã thực hiện vụ tấn công và bao vây ngôi nhàtại Thar-Thar, tỉnh Salaheddin, phía tây thủ đô Baghdad Ngôi nhà đã bị phá hủy vàhai thi thể bên trong ngôi nhà đã đợc tìm thấy, dới một cái hố trong lòng đất nơichúng ẩn náu

Ông Maliki cho biết thêm, máy tính cùng với th điện tử và tin nhắn gửi hai trùmkhủng bố Osama bin Laden và cấp phó của hắn là Ayman al-Zawahiri đã bị thu giữtrong chiến dịch này

Phó Tổng thống Mỹ Joe Biden coi cái chết của hai thủ lĩnh khủng bố là “cú đòn giángmạnh” vào mạng lới al-Qaeda ở Iraq Ông Joe Biden nói rằng, chiến dịch "chứngminh an ninh đợc tăng cờng, sức mạnh và khả năng của các lực lợng an ninh Iraq.Cùng chung nhận xét, trong một tuyên bố, T lệnh lực lợng Mỹ tại Iraq, Tớng

Raymond Odierno, nói: “Cái chết của những kẻ khủng bố là cú đòn mạnh nhất giáng

vào mạng lới al-Qaeda tại Iraq kể từ khi bắt đầu xảy ra tình trạng nổi dậy”

(Updated 15:51) (Nhandan, Apr 20, 2010)

Statistic fingure of Synonyms and Near synonyms can be seen as the tablebelow:

2.4.2.3 Superordinate and General words

2.4.2.3.1 Superordinates

Unlike repetition and synonymy, superordinates are not often used in analyzedVietnamese newspaper articles Of whole 514 occurrences of reiteration, only 32 ofsuperordinates are seen, taking 6.22% We can understand clearly according to thefollowing instance:

(19) Ông Maliki cho biết thêm, máy tính cùng với th điện tử và tin nhắn gửi hai trùm khủng

bố Osama bin Laden và cấp phó của hắn là Ayman al-Zawahiri đã bị thu giữ trongchiến dịch này

(Updated 15:51), (Nhandan, Apr 20, 2010)

In this example, we can see that: máy tính is superordinates and th điện tử and

Trớc khi qua đời, ông Lech Kaczynski đã lên kế hoạch tranh cử vào tháng 10-2010,

dù có nhiều dự báo cho rằng ông sẽ thất bại BBC bình luận ông Jaroslaw Kaczynski

có thể nhận đợc sự thông cảm của nhiều cử tri Ba Lan trong "cuộc đấu" với quyền

tổng thống Bronislaw Komorowski vào tháng sáu này

Tuy nhiên, các chuyên gia nhận định nhiều khả năng ông Komorowski giành chiếnthắng “Đội ngũ của ông Jaroslaw Kaczynski sẽ tìm cách tận dụng sự cảm thông của

ngời dân, nhng rất khó để ông ấy nhận đợc hơn 20-25% phiếu bầu”, Reuters dẫn lời

chuyên gia Krzysztof Bobinsk thuộc tổ chức nghiên cứu chính trị Unia & Polska

“Ông Jaroslaw Kaczynski sẽ chỉ có thể giành thắng lợi nếu các ứng cử viên khác mắc những sai lầm nghiêm trọng trong quá trình tranh cử”, ông Bobinsk nhận định

(Updated 13:09) (Tuoitre, Apr 17, 2010)

In this text: cuộc tổng tuyển cử is a noun, it is superordinate but it hyponyms are both noun (and verbs like ứng cử viên, phiếu bầu, cử tri ) and verb (tranh cử).

In Vietnamese newspaper articles, there is no superordinate of verb, adjectiveand adverb All the superordinates analyzed in Vietnamese newspaper article arenoun, representing 6.22% of reiteration occurring in the text

2.4.2.3.2 General words

As analyzing in previous parts: General words are used as an effective cohesive

device In this thesis, however, general word is concerned with only general noun for the reality that not all general words are used cohesively; in fact, only nouns are

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 274) This is evidenced by the findings of the survey thatall general words in newspaper articles are nouns involving the main information ofthe newspaper article They can be relatively grouped in the following table:

Reference Examples found in selected data

People Binh sĩ, quân, quân đội, nạn nhân, nhà khoa học, quan chức Event Cuộc tấn công, sự mất tích, vụ nổ…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact

Time Ngày, giây, giờ…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact

Place Vùng, khu vực, địa điểm…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact

Others Thông tin, thí nghiệm…) and very little to lexical ones despite the fact

Table 6 References of general words observed in seletected Vietnamese newspaper–

articles

All of these general words occur in the bodies of the texts with the amount of

39 occurrences, holding 7.59% The reason why general words occur most in the body

is presented in the previous part

The general words are commonly used to refer back to the entire event that isthe central content of the text For example:

(21) Máy bay của Mỹ rơi ở Afghanistan làm ba binh sĩ chết

Theo Reuters, lực lợng liên quân ở Afghanistan do NATO đứng đầu cho biết, ngày

9-4 chiếc máy bay CV-22 Osprey của lực lợng không quân Mỹ chở binh sĩ nớc này đã bị rơi ở phía nam tỉnh Da-bun ở Afghanistan làm ba binh sĩ Mỹ và một nhân viên dân sự chết, một số ngời khác bị thơng.

Nguyên nhân tai nạn này cha đợc xác định Hiện có khoảng 120.000 quân quân đội

n-ớc ngoài đóng ở Afghanistan Con số này sẽ lên gần 150.000 quân vào cuối năm nay khi Washington đa thêm quân đến nớc này nhằm ngăn chặn bạo lực gia tăng tại đây.

(Updated 1: 49) (Nhandan, Apr 10, 2010)