MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY TRẦN THỊ THÚY HOA AN ATTITUDINAL STUDY OF EXPRESSIVES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TRAVEL BLOGS Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201 Supervisor: VÕ DUY ĐỨC, PhD. e BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN TRẦN THỊ THÚY HOA NGHIÊN CỨU THÁI ĐỘ THÔNG QUA HÀNH VI BIỂU CẢM TRONG CÁC BLOGS DU LỊCH TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT Chuyên ngành : Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số : 8220201 Người hướng dẫn: TS. VÕ DUY ĐỨC e i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the substance of this thesis has not already been submitted for any degree and is not currently being submitted for any other degree or award. I also declare that any help received to successfully complete this thesis, and all sources employed, have been acknowledged in this thesis.
Binh Dinh, 2020 Tran Thi Thuy Hoa e ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many individuals both academically and personally have been considered as important parts of my journey. Without their support, the accomplishment of my study would have never been perfect. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my respectable supervisor, Dr. Vo Duy Duc for his considerable encouragement, timely enlightenment through valuable comments on every piece of my work.
Thanks to his great experience on Appraisal Theory, I have been expertly guided throughout the thesis. And without his support, my study could not been perfectly completed. I genuinely appreciate and learn a great deal from his intellectuality, dedication and professionalism. Additionally, I would like to thank all the lecturers of my master‟s course in Quy Nhon university, who helped me to upgrade my knowledge and my skills of Linguistics during my course.
They all definitely play a vital role in enriching my high interest in linguistic research to further explore other aspects of both the English and Vietnamese languages. I am also indebted to the authors and experts whose works have been cited in the Literature Review part of my study. Besides, my special thanks are extended to my colleagues, in Scots English Quy Nhon, who always stand by me, motivate and support me to participate in this course and fully concentrate on completing the course and my thesis. Last but not least, I need to thank my family, my husband who has absolutely been my sources of motivation to confidently overcome all the challenges and obstacles during the time of my study.
e iii ABSTRACT The thesis is a comparative study of the Attitudinal resources, employed in expressives in English and Vietnamese Travel Blogs by well- known Bloggers. The Attitudinal resources in 106 expressives of ETB and 113 expressives of VTB were analyzed by taking the Theory of Appraisal as the theoretical framework to identify some prevalence concerning typology, polarity and strategy. The study found that Attitudinal resources utilization in ETB and VTB shad many resemblances. The results showed that Affect was the most frequently used, and Judgment ranked at the lowest point in ETB and VTB.
Furthermore, as regards polarity, positive resources were employed more commonly than negative one with the purposes of providing compliments and showing bloggers‟ excitement and amazement when they experienced a new place or a new culture. The use of negative resources aims at warning the viewers about certain unexpected situations and helping them to summarize useful tips for their upcoming journeys. The study also discovered that Explicit resources were more popular than Implicit ones. The study hopefully contributes to the enhancement of not only speaking skills but also assessment skills of learners of English and Vietnamese, especially the language for tourism purposes.
e iv ABBREVIATIONS AT Appraisal Theory Secu Security ETB English Travel Blog Sati Satisfaction VTB Vietnamese Travel Blog Au Authorial Apo Apologizing Non-Au Non-Authorial Tha Thanking Posi Positive Cong Congratulating Nega Negative Com Complimenting Ins Inscribed Cond Condoling Invo Invoked Dep Deploring Nom Nomarlity Lam Lamenting Cap Capacity Wel Welcoming Ten Tenacity For Forgiving Ver Veracity Boa Boasting Pro Propriety Lik Liking React Reaction Incl Inclination Compo Composition Happ Happiness Valua Valuation e v TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. v LIST OF TABLES. vii LIST OF FIGURES.2 Aim and objectives .4 Scope of the study .5 Significance of the study .6 Structure of the thesis .1 An Overview of Appraisal theory .2 Expressive speech acts .5 Reliability and validity in the research.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Attitudinal resources in ETB.1 Affect resources in ETB .2 Judgment resources in ETB .3 Appreciation resources in ETB .2 Attitudinal resources in VTB .1 Affect resources in VTB .2 Judgment resources in VTB .3 Appreciation resources in VTB.3 Similarities and differences of Attitudinal resources between ETB and VTB .1 Affect resources in ETB and VTB .2 Judgment resources in ETB and VTB .3 Appreciation resources in ETB and VTB. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS .3 Limitations of the study .4 Suggestions for further research. 68 APPENDIX e vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2. 1 Grammatical realizations of Affect.
2 The system of Affect. 3 The system of Judgment. 4 The system of Appreciation. 1 Types of expressives in the study.
1 Four sub-types of Affect resources in ETB. 2 Inscribed and Invoked Affect in ETB. 3 Sub-types of Judgment resources in ETB. 4 Explicit and Implicit Judgment resources in ETB.
5 Sub-types of Appreciation in ETB. 6 Explicit and Implicit Appreciation resources in ETB. 7 Four sub-types of Affect resources in VTB. 8 Inscribed and Invoked Affect resources in VTB.
9 Sub-types of Judgment resources in VTB. 10 Explicit and Implicit Judgment resources in VTB. 11 Sub-types of Appreciation resources in VTB. 12 Explicit and Implicit Appreciation resources in VTB.
13 Sub-systems of Attitude in ETB versus VTB. 14 Affect resources in ETB and VTB. 15 Appreciation resources in ETB and VTB. 62 e viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.
1 Overview of Appraisal. 2 Sub-systems of Attitude. 3 Judgment and Appreciation as Institutionalized Affect. 1 Authorial and Non-authorial Affect in ETB.
2 Positive and Negative Affect in ETB. 3 Positive and Negative Judgment in ETB. 4 Positive and Negative Appreciation resources in ETB. 5 Authorial and Non-authorial Affect in VTB.
6 Positive and Negative Affect resources in VTB. 7 Positive and Negative Judgment resources in VTB. 8 Positive and Negative Appreciation resources in VTB .1 Rationale In the age of modern information technologies, the demands for recreational activities are significantly variegated. In general, an increasing number of people have chosen travelling to lift up their state of mind, and travel blogs have been considered as one kind of entertainment that catches their obviously high interest.
Indeed, many travel channels have been broadcast on social networking and become more and more popular among the famous programs of entertainment that are often subscribed and followed by a great number of audiences. The comments given by Bloggers play a pivotal part in the success of travellers‟ journeys as they not only help to get specific information of the tourism spots, but also create an opportunity for viewers to experience the real feelings and attitudes as what are shown by the bloggers. Particularly, it engages people in decision-making of the destination they would like to go to for their upcoming excursions. The language employed in tourism discourse can also be regarded as a popular focus for language learners and researchers.
Researches relating to language for tourism have been carried out, typically those by Nguyen Tiet Hanh (2015) on Attitudinal values in English and Vietnamese travel advertisements, Nguyen Thi Lien (2017) on Attitudinal resources in English and Vietnamese travellers' holiday reviews. Additionally, there have been several studies using the Appraisal theory for text analysis, such as those carried out by Nguyen Thi Thu Hien et al (2014) on expansion resources of English and Vietnamese political editorials, Phan Thi Thanh Hoa. (2017) on Attitudinal meaning analysis of film reviews written in English and in Vietnamese, Nguyen Thi Thu Hien (2016) on social attitude in news reports e 2 towards president Obama‟s visit to Vietnam, Vo Thi Kim Thao (2017) on Attitudinal study of readers' opinions in English and Vietnamese newspapers, Le Huu Loc (2019) on Attitudinal analysis of Expressives by the Judges in The Voice UK versus The Voice Vietnam and so on. It can be obviously seen that there has not been any contrastive Appraisal study on Travel Blogs conveyed by their utilization of evaluative language resources via their expressive speech acts.
Besides, there is a relationship between expressives and Appraisal as Searl and Vanderveken (1985) point out that expressive speech act verbs “usually express good or bad evaluation” (as cited in Ronan, 2015, p. This reason creates a big motivation for me to carry out a study with the framework of Appraisal theory on the Attitudinal aspects of the expressives given by Bloggers in the travel discourse with the topic: “An Attitudinal Study of expressives in English and Vietnamese Travel Blogs.2 Aim and objectives 1.1 Aim of the study The study aims to investigate Attitudinal resources in expressives employed in English and Vietnamese Travel Blogs.2 Objectives To achieve the aim of the study, the research focused on the following goals. First of all, the Attitudinal resources in the expressives by travel Bloggers in English Travel Blogs and Vietnamese Travel Blogs were identified. Then, the study found out the linguistic features of the Attitudinal resources in the expressives by Bloggers in English Travel Blogs and Vietnamese Travel Blogs in terms of Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation and identify which of them are mostly employed and finally highlighted the e 3 similarities and differences in terms of the Attitudinal values in the expressives employed in English Travel Blogs and Vietnamese Travel Blogs.3 Research questions To successfully achieve the aims and objectives mentioned above, the thesis addresses itself to answering the following questions: 1.
Which Attitudinal resources are used and how frequently are they used in the expressives in English and Vietnamese famous Blogs? 2. What are the similarities and differences in the expressives given in Travel Blogs by the English bloggers and Vietnamese bloggers regarding Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation? 1.4 Scope of the study According to Appraisal theory, there are three parts including Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation. This study only focuses on the Attitudinal aspects which contains Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation. Additionally, the data is collected from the expressives in the comments and reviews given by well-known English and Vietnamese Travel bloggers in their series blogs “Travelling to Bali”.5 Significance of the study This study was carried out with the expectation to contribute both theoretical and practical values regarding Attitudinal perspectives.
Theoretically, many researchers have analyzed attitudinal meanings of the texts in verbal and non-verbal languages by conveying the Appraisal theoretical framework. Notwithstanding, there have not been many Appraisal studies focusing on the speech acts in Travel Blogs. Therefore, this study hopefully offers a new approach to discovering the attitudinal values of the expressives in English and Vietnamese. In addition, it provides a list of valuable references for the readers who find their high interest in the issues of e 4 the attitudinal aspect.
In terms of practical values, it also brings certain implications for Vietnamese teachers and learners of English, especially English for tourism.6 Structure of the thesis This thesis includes five main parts, as following: This introductory Chapter 1 introduces the rationale, aims and objectives, scope, research questions, the significance of the study, and the structure of the thesis. Chapter 2 is a summary of the Appraisal theory, including a brief description of its sub-systems: Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation, but mainly focusing on the attitudinal aspects. An overview of expressive speech act theory follows this. Then, a concise review of the previous studies related to the issues under investigation is also indicated.