MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY BÙI THỊ TÙNG THI AN ATTITUDINAL STUDY ON THE AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENTS’ RESPONSE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN NEWS REPORTS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Võ Duy Đức, Ph. BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN BÙI THỊ TÙNG THI PHÂN TÍCH NGUỒN NGỮ LIỆU THÁI ĐỘ TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO THỂ HIỆN PHẢN ỨNG CỦA HAI CHÍNH PHỦ MỸ VÀ VIỆT NAM ĐỐI VỚI ĐẠI DỊCH COVID-19 Chuyên ngành : Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số : 8220201 Người hướng dẫn: TS. VÕ DUY ĐỨC i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the thesis An Attitudinal study on the American and Vietnamese governments' response to the COVID-19 pandemic in news reports is my work. No other person's work has been used without acknowledgement in the paper.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any university. Binh Dinh, 2021 Bùi Thị Tùng Thi ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Mr Vo Duy Duc, PhD. for his experienced guidance and valuable comments on my work. I am also indebted to him for his helpful and timely response to my questions.
I would also like to express my thank to the lecturers who have given me exciting knowledge and a great source of inspiration. I am also grateful to Quy Nhon University, Post-graduate Department, and Foreign Languages Department for the administrative assistance. Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my family and colleagues for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout the course and the study of this thesis. iii ABSTRACT The study applied Appraisal Theory developed by Martin and White (2005) as a framework for the investigation into the American and Vietnamese governments' response to the COVID-19 pandemic in news reports.
The data comprises 40 news reports (20 in each language) downloaded from the New York Times and the Tuoi Tre. The study sought to investigate the similarities and differences between the two languages regarding Attitudinal resources, namely Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation. The findings showed that the deployment of the Attitudinal resources in the English and Vietnamese data shared certain similarities, such as the occurrence of all types of Attitudinal values and the more common use of Non-authorial and Explicit resources than Authorial and Implicit ones. However, despite the similarities between the two languages, a number of subtle differences were also observed.
With regard to the differences in Positive and Negative Appreciation and In/Security Affect in the two languages, the writers indicated a radically dissimilar attitude to the pandemic of the American and Vietnamese governments. Hopefully, the study offers language learners and teachers useful knowledge of Appraisal and the features of the evaluative language employed in English and Vietnamese news reports. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF FIGURES.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES .4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY .5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY .6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY ……………………………………. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES .5 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 GENERAL FEATURES OF ATTITUDE IN THE NEWS REPORTS 26 4.5 Authorial and Non-authorial Affect .1 Subtypes of Judgement .2 Explicit and Implicit Judgement .3 Positive and Negative Judgement .1 Subtypes of Appreciation .2 Positive and Negative Appreciation.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH. 66 APPENDIX vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Grammatical realizations of Affect .2 Subtypes of Affect. The system of Judgment .4 Categories of Appreciation .5 Subtypes of Appreciation .6 Monogloss and Heterogloss .1 Frequency of Attitude resources in ENRs and VNRs .2 Distribution of Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs .3 Authorial and Non-authorial Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs .4 Positive and Negative Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs .5 Distribution of Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs .6 Explicit and Implicit Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs .7 Positive and Negative Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs.8 Attribution of Appreciation resources in ENRs and VNRs .9 Positive and Negative Appreciation resources in ENRs and VNRs .56 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.
The language stratification and meta-functions .3 Sub-systems of Attitude .1 Sub-types of Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs .2 Authorial and Non-authorial Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs .3 Positive and Negative Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs .4 Social Esteem and Social Sanction resources in ENRs and VNRs .5 Explicit and Implicit Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs .6 Positive and Negative Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs .7 Attribution of Appreciation resources in ENRs and VNRs .8 Positive and Negative Appreciation resources in ENRs and VNRs.57 viii CONVENTIONS Italics are used for quotes, technical terms, emphasis, and examples Bold is deployed to mark the first use of technical terms In the numbered examples: Bold marks the use of what is being demonstrated ENR (1-20): English data numbered from 1 to 20 VNR (1-20): Vietnamese data numbered from 1 to 20. INTRODUCTION This chapter starts with the rationale, followed by the aim and objectives of the study, research questions, the significance of the study, and the scope of the study. The organization of the study is presented as the last section of the research.1 RATIONALE It is undeniable that the media in general and news reports in specific not only contributes to enriching human being's scientific general knowledge but also helps people to keep pace with temporary social issues. According to White (1998: 266), “News journalism ranges across the greatest diversity of discourses, including not only those of politics, the law, and the emergency services, but those of economics, bureaucracy, medicine, religion, the social and physical sciences, the humanities, and education”.
News reporting is considered a powerful method to disseminate information by which an informed public discourse may be established and maintained. Recently, when the COVID-19 pandemic has hit almost all countries and territories worldwide, causing great disruption for all aspects of life, journalists are working round the clock to provide readers with comprehensive, up-to-date reporting on the COVID-19 global pandemic. Their coverage primarily focused on ways that local authorities and people have responded to the pandemic, the impact of the virus on people's life, as well as the pandemic from the perspectives of specialists, researchers, and scientists. As the pandemic progressed in the U., Vietnam, and throughout the rest of the world, the two governments have implemented series of measures such as enforcing lockdowns and promoting social distancing norms aimed at 2 halting the spread of the virus since its initial outbreak.
Although sharing the same goal of bringing the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic under control to safeguard people‟s lives and health, the American and Vietnamese governments‟ work in response to the COVID-19 seems dissimilar. From the perspective of Appraisal Theory, many scholars (Martin, 2000; Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004; Martin and Rose, 2007) have paid much attention to evaluation. Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation form the Appraisal Framework in language. Appraisal Theory is developed in the framework of systemic functional linguistics with a view to describing and explaining how people evaluate others and things.
It has been widely applied to help the listeners and readers understand the speaker‟s or writer's position, outlook and attitude deeply. Attitude, along with Engagement and Graduation, forms the Appraisal Framework in language. It plays an integral role in the expression of interpersonal meanings of the language. Attitude consists of three sub-systems: Affect - expressions of feelings and emotions; Judgement - evaluations of human behaviours; and Appreciation - assessment of things and entities.
Appraisal Theory has been applied in a wide variety of studies with different genres, which proves its significance as a theoretical framework to help understand the evaluative language. However, there has not been any study of attitudinal resources in English and Vietnamese news reports towards the American and Vietnamese governments' response to the COVID – 19 due to its recent outbreak worldwide, which means there is a gap available for my thesis. For the sources of inspiration mentioned above, I have been inspired to choose the topic An Attitudinal study on the American and Vietnamese governments‟ response to the COVID-19 pandemic in news reports as my research paper.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 1.1 Aims This study was carried out to investigate the similarities and differences between the American and Vietnamese governments' response to the pandemic in terms of Attitude.2 Objectives The objectives of the study are: 1. To find out Attitudinal resources, namely Affect, Judgement and Appreciation employed in the news reports about American and Vietnamese governments' response to the COVID-19 pandemic; 2.
To examine the frequencies of occurrence of the Attitudinal resources employed in the news; 3. To investigate the similarities and differences between the American and Vietnamese governments' response to the pandemic in terms of Attitude.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS The study aims at investigating the following questions: 1. What types of attitudinal resources are used in English and Vietnamese news reports about the American and Vietnamese governments' response to the pandemic? 2. What are the frequencies of the occurrence of Attitudinal resources in the news? 3.
What are the similarities and differences between the American and Vietnamese governments' response to the pandemic in terms of Attitude? 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY Though the Appraisal Theory is composed of three domains, 4 precisely Attitude, Engagement and Graduation, this study focuses on the Attitudinal resources, namely Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation due to their considerable significance in revealing attitudes meeting the aim of the study. In this study, I would like to investigate the Attitudinal resources in forty news reports about the American and Vietnamese governments' response to the pandemic in the same period from February 2020 to September 2020 from reliable websites.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY The findings of the study are expected to offer both theoretical and practical contributions to the field of Attitudinal research. Theoretically, the findings of the study help fulfil some gaps of the research on Attitudinal resources from the perspective of evaluative language and provide the information for further research in this field to be done. Practically, the study is considered to help learners and teachers of English know how to use Attitudinal resources effectively in their teaching and learning, especially writing skills.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY The study is organized into five chapters as follows: Chapter 1, Introduction, presents the rationale, aims, and objectives, research questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the study, and the organization of the study.
Chapter 2, Literature Review, provides the theoretical background on which the study is based and briefly presents a review of previous studies related to this study. Chapter 3, Research Methods and Procedures, deals with the research methods, research procedures, data collection, data analysis. Chapter 4, Findings and Discussions, focuses on describing, 5 analyzing, comparing, and discussing attitude in news about American and Vietnamese government's response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Chapter 5, Conclusion, gives a summary of the results of the study.
It also offers limitations of the study and suggestions for further research. LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter is concerned with the theoretical background of the study as well as the literature review on the prior research related to the study.1 Appraisal Theory The Appraisal System was first developed by James Martin (1996, 2000) and Peter White (1997), and then further developed by Martin and White (2005) under the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Advocates of SFL assume that there are three metafunctions of language, namely ideational, interpersonal and textual. Appraisal belongs to the interpersonal metafunction, the function that indicates relationships among people, which is generalized in 2.
The language stratification and meta-functions (Martin & White, 2005) The theory considered to be a significant development within the paradigm of Systemic Functional Linguistics focuses on how writers and speakers express their feelings, how they amplify them, and how they may incorporate additional voices in their discourses (Martin & White, 2005).