UBND THÀNH PHỐ HẢI PHÒNG TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÒNG BÁO CÁO ĐỀ TÀI NGHIÊN CỨU KHOA HỌC CẤP TRƯỜNG So sánh đối chiếu diễn ngôn giữa "movie trailers" của phim Mỹ và phim Việt” Mã số: ĐT.02 Chủ nhiệm : Phạm Thị Mến Đơn vị : Khoa Ngoại Ngữ Hải Phòng, tháng 2 năm 2020 UBND THÀNH PHỐ HẢI PHÒNG TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÒNG BÁO CÁO ĐỀ TÀI NGHIÊN CỨU KHOA HỌC CẤP TRƯỜNG So sánh đối chiếu diễn ngôn giữa "movie trailers" của phim Mỹ và phim Việt” Mã số: ĐT.02 Chủ nhiệm : Phạm Thị Mến Đơn vị : Khoa Ngoại Ngữ Hải Phòng, tháng 2 năm 2020 1 ABSTRACT Movie trailers have bombard a variety of media channels. Of some 10 billion videos watched online annually, film trailers rank third, after news and user-created video. It can be said that movie trailer with creative ideas, vivid shots, selected language is now considered as an effective tool to persuade audience to spend money on the whole movie. The ultimate aims of the study are to identifying and comparing the similarities and differences in terms of discourse structures and linguistic features between American and Vietnamese movie trailers.
The subjects of the study are 30 movie trailers including 15 American and 15 Vietnamese ones. Two main methods: descriptive and comparative are applied to investigate the discourse structure and linguistic features of 30 movie trailers. Findings of the study are of importance. It can be concluded that the discourse structure of American and Vietnamese movie trailers are quite different; however, they are relatively similar in linguistic features.
Based on those findings, the study suggests some pedagogical implications for the teaching and learning of English as well as suggestions for the translators and interpreters for movie trailers. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS .8 Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .2 Types of discourse .4 Aspects of discourse analysis .1 Genre’s definition and classification .2 Narrative structure in discourse analysis. The language of advertising. Advertisements’ definition and functions.2 A model of advertising process .3 General features of advertising language.
What is a movie trailer?.2 Media used to advertise movie trailers.19 CHAPTER II: FEATURES OF AMERICAN MOVIE TRAILERS. Structure of American movie trailers.1 Structure of American movie trailers. Linguistic features of American movie trailers .35 CHAPTER III: FEATURES OF VIETNAMESE MOVIE TRAILERS AND A COMPARISON BETWEEN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIE TRAILERS. Structure of Vietnamese movie trailers and a comparison between American and Vietnamese movie trailers’ structure.
Linguistic features of Vietnamese movie trailers and a comparison between American and Vietnamese movie trailers’ linguistic features. Summary of the study. Implications for English language teaching and learning. Limitations and suggestions for further study.
Rationale Since the breakthrough of the first cinematographic motion pictures, the film production companies and studios were established all over the world. They dominated the box office, reached record revenues, and launched a major streaming service to compete directly with other recreation forms over the future of entertainment. Film producers spare no efforts to persuade the audience to spend money on their special products to get their target sales. It is true that the movie itself is insufficient in this billion-dollar industry, therefore, film producers, and marketers made great effort to find ways introducing films to a larger numbers of audience.
One of significantly paramount tools have been utilized to persuade audiences to “buy” the experience of a show is movie-trailers. In movie trailers, language is used as an effective means of conveying advertising messages. It is obvious that language used in movie trailers is different from that used in other fields such as tourism, technology or law; it has its own characteristics and serves its own functions; and the task of linguists and interested people is to discover and understand these characteristics and functions for broadening human knowledge and exploiting them to the full in human life. There are several studies on languages of technological or commercial advertisements; however, studies of languages used in movie trailers still remain a gap.
Therefore, I realize that filling this gap of knowledge is absolutely a necessity. In this study, the author just focuses on the comparison of discourse structure and linguistic features of American and Vietnamese movie trailers. Hopefully, this study could be helpful for those who are working in the film industry as marketers, interpreters, translators. In addition, this research could be a reliable source for the teaching and studying of English language.
All the aforementioned reasons could lead to my determination to carry out the study “A comparative analysis on the discourse of American and Vietnamese movie trailers. The aims and scope of the study 2. The aims of the study and research questions The study carried out with an aim to investigate the most prominent discourse structure used in American and Vietnamese movie trailers. In addition, 5 it analyzes the most effective linguistic features conveyed in the language used in those two types of movie trailers.
Based on this foundation, the study compares similarities and differences between American and Vietnamese movie trailers in terms of discourse structure and linguistic features which could contribute to enhancing better understanding and interpretation of movie trailers of teachers, learners, advertisers and translators. In order to achieve those principle purposes, the study try to answer 3 research questions: 1. What structure characterizes American and Vietnamese movie trailers? 2. What are the most effective linguistic features characterizing American and Vietnamese movie trailers? 3.
What are the similarities and differences between American and Vietnamese movie trailers in terms of structure and linguistic features 2. The scope of the study Although, there are several factors involving movie trailers such as sound, music, costumes, ect, due to the limitation of time and knowledge, the author of the study just takes an emphasis on analyzing structural and linguistic features in movie trailers and comparing those characteristics of the two languages in American and Vietnamese movie trailers. Methods In order to collect the data and figures of the study, the descriptive method and comparative analysis have been applied. According to Seliger & Shohamy (1989:124), descriptive involves a collection of techniques which are utilized to specify, delineate or describe naturally occurring phenomena without experimental manipulation.
In other words, the data collection will be conducted via non-intrusive and non-manipulative processes. In this study, the descriptive method is applied for the investigation into the frequency of the occurrence of some linguistic features in American and Vietnamese movie trailers. The second approach of the study is the comparative analysis. In Carl’s view, (1980:18) it is considered as an interlinguistic, bidirectional phenomenon which are concerned with both the form and function of language.
It means that this 6 kind of analysis would investigate language in terms of both psycho- linguistically and socio-linguistically aspects. The comparative analysis is applied in the study because it is suitable for the comparison of two subjects: Vietnamese and American movie trailers. Furthermore, both the form of the language and its functions in real life are taken into account. The analysis of movie trailers should be investigated in relation with psychological and social background because the language used in movie trailers can not be interpreted and understood comprehensively if they are separated from these bases.
Data collection and processing In the first stage, the author randomly collected 20 movie trailers including 10 American and 10 Vietnamese trailers on the internet or television channels. When finishing the collection, descriptive method is applied to analyze each movie trailer in terms of discourse structure and linguistic features. Then American and Vietnamese movie trailers’ features are compared and contrasted in terms of discourse structure and linguistic features. The method of comparative analysis is exploited in this stage.
Significance of the study The main findings and implications of the study are of significance. First of all, it could contribute to the field of advertising language, and be useful for producers, marketers and translators who are working in one of the most creative industry, film production and film advertisements. Also, the study could become authentic and interesting source for both TESOL (teaching 5. Design of the study Within the required scope, the thesis is organized as follows: In the first part, INTRODUCTION introduces the rationale, aims, methods, scope, significance and design of the study.
In the second part, DEVELOPMENT is the focus of the study and consists of three chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical background, deals with the literature review relevant to the topic. Chapter 2: Features of American movie trailers. 7 Chapter 3: Features of Vietnamese movie trailers and a comparison between American and Vietnamese movie trailers. The last part, CONCLUSION, summarizes the contents of the study, especially its findings and put forward some implications for ESP teaching and learning at tertiary level.
8 DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1. Theories of discourse 1. The concepts of discourse There are several definitions of the term “discourse” form different linguistics. Crystal defined “discourse” as “a continuous stretch of (specially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative” (Crystal, 1992: quoted in David Nunan, 1993:5).
According to David Nunan’s , discourse is understood as “communicative event involving language in context” (1993:118). Similarly, Cook (1989:156) considered discourse as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, purposive”. Halliday (1985:290) stated that discourse could be seen as a “process” and text as a “product”. He states: “Cohesion is, of course, a process, because discourse it self is a process.
Text is something that happens, in the form of talking and writing, listening and reading. When we analyze it, we analyze the product of this process; and the term text is usually taken as referring to the product, especially the product in its written form, since this is most clearly perceptible as an object.” Although there are different views on discourse of different linguistics, this study based on the notion of David Nunan that reserves the term discourse to refer to the interpretation of the communicative event in context.2 Types of discourse According to David Nunan (1993), the first way the texts could be divided up is into dialogue and monologue. Another division could be considered is the classification of discourse in terms of those which are transactional in nature, and interpersonal. The former refers to the discourse occurs when the participants are concerned with the exchange of goods and services.
The latter, on the other hand, occurs when the speakers are less concerned with the exchange of goods and services, than with socializing. He also claimed that this distinction between language which is used to get goods and services, and language which is used to fulfill a social purpose is a common one in literature. However, the distinction between those two kinds of discourse in a given text sometimes is not absolute. Many interactions that are 9 essentially transactional in nature will also exhibit social functions, while essentially social interactions can contain transactional elements.
Discourse analysis According to Mc Cathy (1991:5) observes “discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used”. In other words, discourse analysis studies the way sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews. It can be concluded that discourse analysis concerns the description of language above the sentence and an interest in the contexts and cultural influences which affect language in use. Discourse analysis examines how stretches of language, considered in the full textual, social and psychological context, become meaningful and unified for their users.
The optimal purpose discourse analysis is to illustrate the relation between the linguistic elements and how they enable language users to communicate in context.4 Aspects of discourse analysis There are several aspects when analyzing a discourse, however in the small scale of this research, the study only focus on the principal elements in order to build up the literature framework for the study.