VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM HỒNG PHƯỢNG THE SYNTACTIC AND LEXICAL FEATURES OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPER HEADLINES: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS (Phân tích đối chiếu các đặc điểm cú pháp và từ vựng của các tiêu đề bài báo Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.15 Hanoi, 2011 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM HỒNG PHƯỢNG THE SYNTACTIC AND LEXICAL FEATURES OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPER HEADLINES: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS (Phân tích đối chiếu các đặc điểm cú pháp và từ vựng của các tiêu đề bài báo Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60. Nguyễn Huy Kỷ Hanoi, 2011 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS S = Subject V = Verb O = Object C = Complement A = Adverb Aug.
= August Eng = English Viet = Vietnamese Ex = Example EFL = English Foreign Language 5 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Frequency of structural headline types in the English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.2: Frequency of sentential headline types in the English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.3: Frequency of simple headline types in the English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.4: Frequency of compound headline types in the English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.5: Frequency of non-sentential headlines in the English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.6: The Frequency of non-finite clauses in the English sample headlines Table 3.7: Frequency of omission of subjects in English and Vietnamese non-finite clausal headlines Table 3.8: Frequency of non-sentential headline types in English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.9: Frequency of nominal headline types in the English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.10: Frequency of types of postmodifiers in Vietnamese nominal headlines.11: Frequency of functional headlines types in English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.12: Frequency of different parts of speech in English and Vietnamese headlines Table 3.13: Frequency of nouns in English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.14: Frequency of dynamic and static verbs in English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.15: Frequency of active and passive voice in English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.16: Frequency of verbs with different syllables in English and Vietnamese corpora Table 3.17: Frequency of the omission of verb 'be' in English corpus 6 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE‟S STATEMENT -------------------------------------------------------------------- i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- iii LIST OF TABLES ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- iv ABSTRACT-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- v PART A: INTRODUCTION --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 1. Rationale of the study ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 2. Objectives of the study ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 3. Scope of the study ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 5.
Methods of the study --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 6. Design of the study ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4 1. Language of headlines --------------------------------------------------------------- 4 1. Complexity in headlines ------------------------------------------------------------- 4 1.
Typical features of headlines ------------------------------------------------------- 4 1. Contrastive analyses on headlines -------------------------------------------------- 5 1. Studies on headlines in Vietnam ---------------------------------------------------- 6 1. Concepts of headlines ----------------------------------------------------- 7 1.
Functions of headlines ---------------------------------------------------- 7 1. Syntactic and lexical features ------------------------------------------------------- 8 1. Lexical features ------------------------------------------------------------ 14 CHAPTER 2: ANALYSIS ON COLLECTED NEWSPAPER HEADLINES --------- 18 2. Materials ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 8 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
First level of analysis ---------------------------------------------------------------- 19 2. Structural headline types ------------------------------------------------ 19 2. Functional headline types ----------------------------------------------- 26 2. Second level of analysis ------------------------------------------------------------- 27 2.
Parts of speech in sample headlines ------------------------------------- 27 2. Omissions in headlines --------------------------------------------------- 30 2. Summary------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS ---------------------------------------- 32 3. Similar features of English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines-------------------- 32 - 32 3.
Different features of English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines ----------------- 30 3. Implications for teaching journalistic English ----------------------------------- 37 3. Implications for teaching translation ----------------------------------------------- 37 3. Summary --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38 PART C: CONCLUSION ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38 1.
Limitations of the study ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 39 3. Suggestions for further studies --------------------------------------------------------------- 40 REFERENCES --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I APPENDIX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study It is undeniable that our country has been moving towards globalization and trade liberalization. To be successful, we have opened to welcome foreign investment for many years and now we still need to continuously understand the political and economic situations of other countries.
In such a situation, information has played a vital role up to now. Newspapers are one of the most popular means of transmitting information which has attracted a great number of readers. Conventionally, it is believed that newspapers have more readers than any other kind of written text. According to Van Dijk (1986:156), "for most citizens, news is perhaps the type of written discourse with which they are confronted most frequently".
Reading newspapers in English, in fact, has always been an interest of English learners. Newspapers are everywhere but how to read in an easy way to understand is still a problem. Moreover, as teachers of English, how to teach students to translate, to write and to understand English press in an effective way is really a big question. In a newspaper, it is the headline that has the highest readership.
It is always the first thing that everyone notices when picking up a newspaper. It serves as a guide for readers that helps decide whether to continue on reading the whole report or to skip onto another one. Each headline summarizes the content of a story, and entices an audience into reading the article. Newspaper headlines are particularly important for the way readers comprehend a news text, they are markers that monitor attention, perception and the reading process (Van Dijk, 1988).
Many students of English find that newspaper headlines are especially difficult to understand. Obviously, it is not just a matter of vocabulary; even the style of writing is different from any other text they have met in their studies. The language of headlines is special and has its own characteristics on the lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical levels for its brevity, attractiveness, and clarity (Danuta R. These language features pose a great challenge to foreign learners of English when they begin to read English newspapers.
The key to ease the difficulty of this special genre lies on the comparison between foreign and native languages (Connor, 1996). Thereby, this study is conducted to investigate the similar and different features in the newspaper headlines of English and 10 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vietnamese languages. From the findings, I hope partly to guide Vietnamese learners and teachers of English towards the effective way of mastering English. Objectives of the study In the light of Contrastive Analysis, this study attempts to contrast English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines, which concentrates on the following objectives: Studying the syntactic and lexical features of English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines; Contrastively comparing the newspaper headlines of the two languages syntactically and lexically to find the similarities and mainly differences between them; Drawing out the practical applications in English language teaching and translation.
Research questions In order to achieve the objectives, during the process of carrying the research, the following research questions are raised for exploration: 1. What are the syntactic and lexical features of English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines? 2. What are the similarities and differences in the syntactic and lexical features of English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines? 3. What pedagogical implications does the study have for Vietnamese teachers of English? 4.
Scope of the study Due to the limit in time and within the framework of an M. thesis, it is impossible for a study to deal with all the features of language theory and practice in depth. This study, therefore, only focuses on some syntactic and lexical features found in the newspapers headlines of English and Vietnamese to see how they are different. Methods of the study In the thesis, the main methods used are description and contrastive comparison of the two languages in newspaper headlines including: Describing the syntactic and lexical features in the English and Vietnamese headlines collected from The New York Times and Hà Nội Mới newspapers.
Contrastively comparing those features in English and Vietnamese newspaper headlines with concrete contrasting techniques, namely, analysis and statistics. 11 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Design of the study This thesis consists of three parts: Part A is the introduction which shows the reasons why the topic is chosen, what the study aims at as well as the scope of the study and some outlook on methodology. Part B consists of 3 chapters.
Chapter 1 discusses the review of related literature and theoretical background of every matter mentioned in the title of the study. Chapter 2 and 3 are the analysis of the headlines selected, the major findings and discussions with some implications for learning and teaching English. Part C is the conclusion which presents the recapitulation of the study, the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further researches. 12 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND In this Chapter, review of related literature and theoretical background including the syntactic and lexical features of English and Vietnamese headlines will be provided.
Literature review Headlines are obviously one of the striking features of modern newspapers. Therefore it is not surprising that they have been studied quite extensively not only by journalists but also by linguists. Some of the few existing linguistic studies of headlines will be reviewed below. Language of headlines Straumann's (1935) study of English headlines is pioneer work.
His approach is to treat the language of headlines as an autonomous language. He classifies headlines in terms of neutrals, nominals, verbals and particles. The first section of his classification contains words in their common forms. In the following sections he arranges them in “s” forms, and in three variables, semivariables and invariables.
Classification is further arranged in “d” forms, “ing” forms, “ly”, “er” and “(e)st” forms. Complexity in headlines The complexity of headlines is investigated by Brisau (1969). He measures complexity in terms of clauses, which are thus singled out from other units as a gauge of complexity. In 3,000 headlines, Brisau (1969) finds 264 examples of headlines containing two or more clauses, which is less than 10% of the total number.
Brisau (1969) concludes that more complex structures than two very simple clauses linked together rarely occur in headlines. He mentions, however, that the linguistic makeup of the headline could vary widely from one newspaper to another. Typical features of headlines Mardh (1980) offers an exhaustive study of the characteristic features of the headlines of a range of English newspapers. She identifies the following linguistic features as typical of headlines in English newspapers: the omission of articles; the omission of verbs and of auxiliaries (the verb "to be" for example); nominalizations; the frequent use of complex noun phrases in subject position (in theme position); adverbial headlines, with the omission of both verb and subject; the use of short words ("bid" instead of "attempt"); the 13 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com widespread use of puns, word play and alliteration; the importance of word order, with the most important items placed first, even, in some cases, a verb; and independent "wh" constructions not linked to a main clause, for example: Why the French don't give a damn.
Van Dijk (1988) analyzes a five-decker from the New York Times. He sees the journalistic process as beginning with a headline and working through lead to body copy. He analyzes over 400 headlines in the Dutch press reporting the 1985 Tamil panic, an occasion of racial tensions between the Dutch and immigrant groups. He finds that the authorities dominate first position in the headline, with active verbs.
When the disadvantaged Tamils are mentioned first, the verb tends to be passive.