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A discourse analysis of english economics reports from VOA = phân tích diễn ngôn các bản báo cáo kinh tế từ VOAAcknowledgements
For the completion of the thesis, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contributions from many people. First, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to M.A. Nguyen Thi Van Lam, my supervisor for her excellent suggestions, valuable materials, and correction that Giúp me to fulfill this study.
I am grateful to my teachers in the Department of Foreign Languages for their helpful suggestions and encouragements that Giúp me overcome difficulties in the process of my study.
My warmest thanks to my loved family and my good friends who are willing to Giúp me and always by my side, encourage me to complete my work.
Vinh, summer, 2009
NguyÔn v¨n sü
Table of contents
Acknowledgement ……………………………………………………….i
Table of Contents ……………………………………………………….ii
Part A: Introduction ………………………………………….1
1. Rationale of the Study ………………………………………………...1
2. Aims and of Objects of the Study ……………………………………2
3. Scope of the study ……………………………………………………2
4. Research Methods ……………………………………………………2
5. Design of the Study …………………………………………………..3
Part B: Development……………………………………………4
chapter I: theoretical background……………………4
1.1. Discourse and Text ………………………………………………..4
1.2. Coherence and Cohesion …………………………………………5
1.3. Cohesive Devices ………………………………………………...6
1.3.1. Grammatical Cohesion …………………………………………...7
1.3.1.1. Reference …………………………………………………….7
1.3.1.2. Substitution …………………………………………………..9
1.3.1.3. Ellipsis ……………………………………………………….10
1.3.1.4. Conjunction ………………………………………………….11
1.3.2. Lexical Cohesion ……………………………………………12
1.3.2.1. Repetition ……………………………………………………13
1.3.2.2. Synonymy …………………………………………………...13
1.3.2.3. Antonymy……………………………………………………14
1.3.2.4. Hyponymy …………………………………………………..14
1.4. General Information about VOA Special English. ………………..14
1.5. The Concept of an Economic Report ……………………………...15
1.6. Some Major Characteristics of an Economics Report …………….15
1.6.1. Information on Finance Ministries ………………………………15
1.6.2. Union Budget ……………………………………………………16
1.6.3. Statistics and Data ……………………………………………….16
1.6.4. Specialized Economics Reports …………………………………16
chapterII: A Discourse analysis of English economics report from VOA ……………………………...17
2.1. General Information about Material Selected ……………………..17
2.2. Cohesive Devices ………………………………………………….17
2.3. Grammatical Cohesive Devices ……………………………………18
2.3.1. Reference ………………………………………………………...18
2.3.2. Substitution ………………………………………………………20
2.3.3. Ellipsis …………………………………………………………...21
2.3.4. Conjunction ……………………………………………………...22
2.4. Lexical Cohesive Devices …………………………………………24
2.4.1. Repetition ………………………………………………………...24
2.4.2. Synonymy ………………………………………………………..25
2.4.3. Antonymy ………………………………………………………..26
2.4.4. Hyponymy ……………………………………………………….26
2.5. The Frequency of Occurrences of Cohesive Devices in English Economics Reports from VOA …………………………………………27
Chapter III: findings and applications of the study ………………………………………………………………………… 29
3.1. Discussion …………………………………………………….... 29
3.2. Applications of the Study……………………………………….. 30
3.2.1. Application of Discourse Analysis to Teaching Grammar……... 31
3.2.2. Application of Discourse Analysis to Teaching Vocabulary…… 33
3.2.3. Application of Discourse Analysis to Teaching Text Interpretation ……………………………………………………………………37
Part C: conclusion……………………………………………..38
1. Recapitulation…………………………………………………….38
2. Suggestion for Further Study…………………………………….38
References
appendix
Part A: Introduction
1. Rationale of the study
Nowadays, English becomes the international language for most fields in our life, especially economy. The amount of material related to economy comes from so many companies all over the world, mainly English reports. Therefore, they will be necessary for all people, who want to open company or to do business. In fact, less information from our partners lead to the breakdown or failure after a short time we are doing our business.
In addition, during the time we carry out this research, we found that English Economics Reports are said to be a useful and typical demonstration of grammatical as well as lexical cohesion usage. Therefore, in the processes of producing and receiving in learning English, learners are usually guided to pay their attention on the logicality of the text. In other words, they should be taught how to recognize or create coherence of the text. Textual coherence can be obtained by various cohesive devices that consist of both grammatical cohesive devices and lexical ones. Each of them has its own role in creating complexity and unity the text. Grammatical cohesion usually involves closed systems, but lexical one involves a kind of choice that is open-ended. They are considered the most common and contribute most to textual coherence.
Finally, English economics reports contain a lot of cohesive devices that make us difficult to understand, so it is necessary to study how English economics reports are built and how meaning of the author as well as cohesive devices are used in them. Economic report has become one of the most popular and powerful means of communication and plays a displaceable part in man’s life. It not only provides information but also from VOA, it is a place for us to learn and to enrich our knowledge. We hope that the choice of the study would Giúp businessmen and all people who are interested in doing business get more knowledge and understand more about the importance of English Economics Reports in general and especially from VOA. For all reasons above, the author decides to choose to study on “A Discourse Analysis of English Economics Reports from VOA”
2. Aims of the study
Originating from all reasons above, the aims of the study are:
- To emphasize the importance in English reports to business.
- To clarify some special features of language used in them.
- To give some statistics and descriptions of Cohesive Devices used in English Economics Reports from VOA.
- To suggest some implications for English Economics Report writers in creating an effective English Economics Report and students in learning cohesive devices.
3. Scope of the study
Due to the time and resource limitation, this study only focuses on the analysis of ten English Economics Reports from VOA. The grammatical and lexical cohesion provided by Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) description are used as the framework for data analysis. The data in this thesis come from VOA Special English Economics Reports, written by Mario Ritter in order to show the state of economy in many countries over the world for the large number of readers, mainly businessmen.
4. Methods of the study
To achieve the mentioned aims, the following methods are used:
- The descriptive method: to describe and investigate data through the study.
- The analytical method: to analyze English Economics Reports.
5. Design of the study
This study consists of three parts:
Part A is the introduction. In this part the rationale of the study, aims of the study, scope of the study, methods and design of the study are presented.
Part B is the development. This part is divided into three chapters:
+ Chapter I Theoretical background.
+ Chapter II A discourse analysis of English Economics Reports from VOA.
+ Chapter III Discussion and Implication
Part C is the conclusion. In this part, it summarizes what is discussed in chapter I, II, and III of the study. Some suggestions for further study are provided in this part.
This study ends up with References and Appendix.
Part B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter I: theoretical background
1.1. Discourse and text
Discourse and text are still difficult for students to solve because of some similarities. Sentences are linked in sequences, which may be called ‘discourses’. These units have a semantic representation, a “discourse representation structure”, in terms of Kamp and Reyle (1993: 59), which is incremental, according to Kamp (1995: 254): “in order to make sense of a discourse-internal sentence the interpreter must connect it with the interpretation he has assigned to the sentences preceding it”. In turn, discourses are organized into larger structures, up to texts. Texts are not defined in terms of coherence or relevance, but by the connection existing between their component discourses. Similarly, a discourse is not defined in terms of contextual information, but it is the result of connecting its component sentences. In order for this connection to take place, additional information must be included. This happens whenever a unit is connected to others. Connection is the general process that accounts for syntactic structure itself. In every complex unit, there is information that is not represented by the component units, but rather added to them so that the result is the complex unit itself. Frequently this additional information is added as default, but it may also originate in preceding units. Thus, words are linked to each other into phrases, phrases into clauses, clauses into sentences, sentences into discourses, and discourses into texts. Text types, or genres, account for the way discourses are connected; styles, or discourse types, organize in general ways the connection between sentences within discourses.
Also basing on a number of differences between them that some linguists have ever defined. Crystal (1992), for example, consider that discourse is “ a continuous stretch of spoken language especially larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative”; meanwhile, text is “a piece of natural occurring spoken, written, or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis. It is often a language unit with a definable communicative function, such as a conversation, a poster”. According to Cook (1989): discourse is “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive”. Text is “a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context”.
In a short word, the term text is used to refer to any written record of a communicative event. The event itself may involve oral language or written language. The term discourse refers to the interpretation of the communicative event in context.
1.2. Coherence and cohesion
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 clause and sentences in discourse”
Cohesion can be thought as all the grammatical and lexical links that tie one part of a text to another. This includes use of synonyms, lexical sets, pronouns, verb tenses, time references, grammatical reference, etc. For example, 'it', 'neither' and 'this' all refer to an idea previously mentioned. 'First of all', 'then' and 'after that' Giúp to sequence a text. 'However', 'in addition' and 'for instance' link ideas and arguments in a text.
Coherence can be thought as how meanings and sequences of ideas relate to each other.
Coherence helps the text make sense as a whole at an idea level, and cohesion as rather more mechanical links at a language level. You can imagine that it is possible for a piece of writing to contain plenty of cohesion yet little coherence.
Cohesion is the glue that holds a piece of writing together. In other words, if a paper is cohesive, it sticks together from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph. Cohesive devices certainly include transitional words and phrases, such as therefore, furthermore, or for instance, that clarify for readers the relationships among ideas in a piece of writing. However, transitions are not enough to make writing cohesive. Repetition of key words and use of reference words are also needed for cohesion.
Coherence is that when sentences, ideas, and details fit together clearly, readers can follow along easily, and the writing is coherent. The ideas tie together smoothly and clearly.
Now, we consider the example below:
Mark is very conservative. He comes from America.
These above sentences are cohesive because of existing anaphoric reference (Mark, he), but are only coherent if one already knows the culture back ground of America or westerners we will be easy to understand the relation between conservative and America, or is prepared to assume a cause-effect relationship between the two sentences.
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