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INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
1.1. Nonfiction (Ky) is an important genre of literature. However, it is
very difficult to identify its features because of its diversity and complexity.
Nonfiction writings were generated in the very early stage with a wide range of
works. All works which do not belong to narrative, lyric, political commentary
and dramas are classified as non-fiction. There are various types of nonfiction
and it is difficult to find their common characteristics. These types include notes,
reportage, life stories, narrative chronicles. In its long history of development,
the appearance of nonfiction kept changing. This made the later nonfiction
works such as notes, reportage much different from inscription, chronicle
(nonfiction types in the Middle Ages) which were generated at the early
development stage of this genre. As a result of all those above reasons,
identifying the features of this genre becomes a challenge for researchers.
1.2. According to Vietnamese theory of nonfiction, the record of truth
was often considered as the most importance feature. This theory also defined
the truth in the opposite relationship with fiction. This led to various debates on
nonfiction in literature history. The debate on Vu Trong Phung’s reportages in
1936-1939 and another one on features of nonfiction in 1960 can be taken as
examples. This interpretation of nonfication could not resolve thoroughly some
problems encountered in practice. For that reason, another approach to this
literature genre is significantly necessary.
1.3. In the beginning of twentieth century, there was an important
movement in theoretical mindset of social sciences and humanities; which was
called language turn. Based on the a profound awareness of the role, function,
and nature of languages, thinkers such as M.Bakhtin, Foucault, R.Barthes,
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J.Derrida re-defined many key problems including reality, subject, truth,
nature From this foundation, a new model of literature and cultural research
gradually replaced the old one based on reflecting theory. Since then, literature

foundation for the theory of nonfiction.
- According to concepts defined in art discussions and literary
criticism in the early 20
th
century, such genres as truyen ki, reportage, ki su,
travel writing were considered as the recording of real and updated events.
Besides, realistic description was seen as the rule for recording real events in
nonfiction works.
- From 1945 to 1986 in Vietnam, nonfiction was paid the central
attention. In 1960s, there was a debate on nonfiction on Arts journal. Nonfiction
was also the theme of many critics, literary researchers and theorist. The
theoretical system of nonfiction was built based on Vietnamese nonfiction
practice, mainly in period from 1945 to 1986, and the theoretical system of
nonfiction in Soviet Union. Based on this foundation, Vietnamese researchers
often defined the typical feature of nonfiction as recording real events. This
above system had significant influence on the composition, criticism and
reaseaches of nonfiction at that time. The nonfiction work on revolutionary war
and the construction of socialism by Ha Minh Duc can be taken as the typical
example of this theory.
- Since 1986, researches on nonfiction have been applying this theory.
The research scope has been widened in the following directions: forming
theoretical system of nonfiction; researching historical types on nonfiction such
as medieval nonfiction, Vietnamese nonfiction from the early 20
th
century to
1945…; surveying the formation and development of nonfiction sub-genres in
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history; researching authors’ styles and values of nonfiction works. The
expansion showed the diversified and varying appeance of this literary genre.
2. Nonfition in some foreign data.

unresolved issues: In medieval-time nonfiction, the reality described was full of
miraculous and fabulous details, in 1930-1945 reportage, there were only the
harsh reality of social evils, in 1945-1976 nonfiction, it was the mere existence
of pleasant reality, etc.
3.3. Referring to the approach to characteristics of nonfiction, almost
researchers follow function, history or modality approach; none of them
consider nonfiction a discourse.
Therefore, the authors choose to regard to the characteristics of nonfiction
as a discourse so that those above problems can be solved theoretically and
practically.
4. Discourse and a new mode of formulating the theory of nonfiction
The concept of Discourse was defined long time ago yet before the 20
th
century, it was only used in linguistics, as rhetoric. Since the 20
th
century, during
the language turn, the concept of discourse has implied new connotations which
were associated with a new approach of literature and culture study, becoming a
key term in social sciences and humanity.
It can be said that those new connotations deeply rooted from work by the
three greatest thinkers in the 20
th
century namely F.de Saussure, M.Bakhtin and
M.Foucault. This issue has been addressed in detail in the research entitled “The
three approaches of the concept discourse”. Among the main points are as
follow.
First, according to structural linguists, discourse is the structure of
language/parole, which is the rule of organizing words in a certain order.
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Second, according to M.Bakhtin, discourse is ideology-verbal.

discourses, archive and inner exclusion of discourse while the outer structures
comprise of comments, rites and authors.
On the basis of acquiring and inheriting these experiences, we carried out
identifying the definition of discourse as a tool for a new researching system of
Ki. Discourse is understood as institution making up the text under the effect of
cultural codes. Basing on this definition, we have identified 2 core of discourse
structure consisting of genre code and ideological code.
CHAPTER 2: GENERIC CODE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF
NONFICTION
2.1. An overview of code, generic code and generic code of nonfiction
- Code: the principle of identifying the relationship between information
and signal, in communication, code is the element establishing the relationship
between the sender and the receiver, the message and its meaning. Code is a
language as there are units and the rules to organize those units into a system
which helps to transfer information.
- Generic code: the principle of establishing the relationship between the
information and the genre, which works as an intermediary between the writer
and readers.
- As a discourse, nonfiction is influenced by two codes: nonliterary code
and literary code
2.2. Nonliterary code (discourse of reality) as the atomic structure of
nonfiction
2.2.1. First person story-teller as a witness
There always exits a story-teller calling himself or herself “I”, who
witnesses and makes comments on the world described in nonfiction. He or she
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is always specified with such information as the author’s biography. In order to
enhance the witnessed story-teller’s truthfulness, the author typically creates
communicative situations in which the story-teller directly meets and talks to
characters.

2.3.1. The image of people and the picture of world
- Though characters and events in nonfiction are not clearly shown, they
are faithfully reflected through a wide range of outside details and descriptions
of portrait, action, scenery and such. Those descriptions make out “the
redundancy” of nonfiction in comparison with the genre frame of chronicles,
record stories and research, which results in artistic value and attractiveness of
nonfiction as well.
- Nonfiction work is full of symbolic and metaphoric images. These
images lead to the depth and polysemy of work.
2.3.2. The story frame
- Events in nonfiction are always organized into a narrative document
with an opening and an ending. The modes of opening and ending are typically
conformed to some certain rules and motifs: travel writings are opened with the
narrator “I”’s departure, reportages are ended at the end of the investigation,
memoirs about monarchs and famous mandarins in medieval time are opened
with the motif of miraculous breeding and such.
- Despite distant relation, events in nonfiction are usually organized into a
story, which reveals a certain meaning. Reportages in the period of 1930-1945 is
typically with events organized into stories about the universal fact in which all
the things and characters are described as on the journey to the darkness, the
death and corruption. Meanwhile, reportages in the period of 1945-1975 is
typically with events organized into stories of the beginning in which all the
things and characters are on the journey of reformation and revival.
- Typically, events that appear to be unconnected in tan van, tuy but are
put underneath a story frame with the narrator “I”’s viewpoint. The appearance
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of the narrator makes the work more flexible but with a cohesive meaning.
Eventually, objective report figures organized according to a certain rule can
still narrate a story which conveys some meanings. Besides, narrative rhythm
can be fast or slow, stressed or unstressed, contributing to the reflection of

sorts as well as factual discourses.
2.4.2. Interaction between factual code and artistic code in practically
nonfiction writings.
Observing practically nonfiction composition in Vietnam, it is realized
that in developmental process of nonfiction, factual code regularly takes
dominant position in initial period while artistic code overwhelms in flourishing
periods of the literature. Kinds of nonfiction which tend to use factual code often
boom in relatively democratic and opening cultural environment. On the other
hand, artistic code becomes leading language in nonfiction compositions in non-
democratic cultural environment. Furthermore, genre codes of nonfiction are
under influence of popular verbal types in a culture (The medieval nonfiction is
affected by historical discourse, conversely, modern one is impacted by
scientific and press discourse).
CHAPTER 3: IDEOLOGICAL CODE AND MOVEMENT AND
DEVELOPMENT OF NONFICTION
3.1. Definition of ideology and ideological code
- Ideology is a system of a group of people’s viewpoints, attitudes and
beliefs. It tends to suppress and is objectified by a picture of the world and an
expressing pattern of subject.
- Ideological code, which is a regulation of establishing the relationship
between one group of subject and real life, belongs to cultural structure of a
period and a community.
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3.2. Ideological code and characteristics of nonfiction
3.2.1. The self of witness as scocial person with a general value
The self of witness in nonfiction not only expresses in a private capacity
but also represents a group of people, a community, an age and a culture. There
is a recognized scocial person in different each stage or each culture. The voice
of subject of factual discourse in nonfiction will become worthless without
following these scocial person. (Only historians in medieval age and journalists,

model. It is religious ideology that rules over the creation of the truth in
nonfiction. In modern age, there is the appearance of factual model of life and
people affairs (in reality reports) as well as of personal life and inmost feelings
in tản văn, tùy bút, tạp bút. Humanistic ideology which recognizes the world by
regarding human as center is the basis of factual discourse in nonfiction.
3.3.2. Ideological code and the difference of factual discourse in nonfiction
through cultural spaces.
Although nonfiction writings are made up in the same period and culture,
models of the world and the awareness of subject in different cultural spaces
under the effect of different ideological code become different and represent the
various voices of power. Nonfiction writings in centre and orthodox places are
often affected by national, religious and ethnic ideology; therefore, the picture of
the world here is sacred and the described truth contains legend factors. In this
kind of nonfiction, the powerful voice resounds on the purpose of keeping order
upwards. On the contrary, nonfiction writings written in peripheral and marginal
space are habitually affected by indivisualism ideology. As a result, the picture
of the world seems to chaos, disorders, deteriorates and the legendary factor is
removed. It expresses the resistant voice downward with the aim of changing
the social order. Cultural space and ideology is both coexist and mutual conflict.
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The coexistence and mutual conflict among different ideological codes is
existing mode of all cultures and literatures. It is interminglement and debate
among them that makes up the variety of factual discourses.
CHAPTER 4: VIETNAMESE NONFICTION IN THE PERIOD OF 1945 -
1975 AS A HISTORICAL CASE
4.1. Generic code in nonfiction in the period of 1945 – 1975
4.1.1. The absence of reportage and the flourish of ki su, tuy but, truyen ki.
Reportage used to be a dominant genre in Vietnamese literature in the
period of 1930 – 1945 yet during the new era, the number of reportages was
quite tiny, they were by some means chronicled and noted. In the Southern

time, and specified restricted areas with concealed truths as well. Three key
themes including New man, New era and The victory of rights repeatedly
covered a vast majority of nonfiction work for specific and literature in general.
These common themes resulted in a system of updated symbols, metaphoric
structures to describe the world as well as the emotional depiction of the
narrator.
4.3. Mythologizing the nonfiction’s text
4.3.1. Formalizing characters into architypes
In spite of the diversity, the world of characters in nonfiction in the period
of 1945-1975 was united. When describing specific people of the time,
nonfiction tended to turn them into architypes by referencing them with the
primary images in human thoughts. Explicit details of the character became a
system of symbols which was covered by the second system of symbols called
legendary architype.
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The New man – The Hero
- At the center of nonfiction in this period was the New man, i.e. the
soldier in the struggle against colonialist enemies and the laborer in the
establishment of socialism. As far as we concern, this motif of characters was
actually the regeneration of the legend of heroes who had extraordinary power in
nature conquests and struggle against cruelty, aiming at creating a new world as
well as protecting human life on the Earth.
Thank on reflecting and persuading ability of legends, an image reflected
in discourses of politics called New man’s mission and position were made
possible in nonfiction. In the mode of reporting real event and real people,
nonfiction made the image of New man – an abstract concept in political
discourses become lively, specific, updated and fairly emotional. Nevertheless,
this detailed specific mode could drive the image of New man into being
accidental or individual whereas political discourses ambitiously aimed at
turning what accidental and individual into general images which had great

The reason for it is that this world is identified into several limited architypes.
The characters at present are integrated into images in the past so when writing
about topical events, nonfiction has tendency to come back to origin, turn the
present into eternal past. By the way of restoring architypes, legends and folks in
cultural tradition, nonfiction at that time could strengthen the persuasiveness of
verbalization, leading discourses of new human, new period to become powerful
judgment of truth.
4.3.2. Normalizing the historical events into rituals
When researching nonfiction compositions in the period from 1945 to
1975, it is realized that in spite of narrating about different historical events, the
structure of compositions is relatively identical. Besides, they also follow a
slightly consistent and predicted sequence which we call rituals. The
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compositions of this stage containing the characteristics of a myth text or
legendary text is the result of normalizing the historical events into rituals. If we
ignore outer signals including updated events and people, we can be aware of
unchanged models of plot that are basic propos of the majority of nonfiction
works at that time. There are two architype about revival and triumph which
change historical events into invariable rituals.
Ritual of revival
Most of the events in nonfiction are structured following the plot of
revival. In this model, the events take place in a changing process from death to
life, from shadow to light, from slavery to freedom and from chaos to order. The
past regularly sticks to death, shadow, slavery and chaos; by contrast, the
present often go abreast with the rise of a full vitality. Moreover, the future is
imagined as a complete growth of nature and human. Thus, random factors in
historical process in nonfiction are entirely removed, leading to an indispensable
process. Whole historical process is identified with revolutionary process, with
the forecasted opening and ending. Historical events are considered as normal
and uncontroversial factors with invariable nature.

Description and structure of event following available rituals causes
random factors in life to be completely removed from plot. Therefore, history is
regarded as a dispensable process directing to life, light and victory. This
structure is basically mode of mythologizing the common topics in political,
historical and literature discourses. Basing on the power of legend, nonfiction
strongly attracts readers and becomes an efficient weapon supporting the
revolution. Thus, it is the voice of keeping order upward in a centre, orthodox
cultural space of this stage.
4.2.3. Organizing language following hymn
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While nonfiction from 1930 to 1945 is written following satirical, ironic
method, nonfiction from 1945 to 1975 is made up following hymn. Instead of
the rhetoric such as imitation, irony, criticize, other rhetoric such as hyperbole,
reiteration become popular. This way of organizing creates a ritual and lofty
reality together with the respectful attitude of subject of discourse in nonfiction.
Through hymn mode, the factual world in nonfiction becomes an eternal and
extremely legendary past.
Reiteration is used widely in nonfiction compositions in this period,
especially in poetic essays, tùy bút. Reiteration could multiplies feelings by
many times so it is used as a sharp weapon to express feelings, even in narrative
and descriptive paragraph, this kind of rhetoric is also commonly used. This
blanks images and things out as well as remarks expressive aspects of the
paragraph.
Hyperbole is also a popular rhetoric in nonfiction, even in theory
declaration; it is popular that nonfiction reflects the truth in an objective and
honest way.
Different forms of exclamations (ôi chao, ôi, chao ôi, hoan hô, xiết bao,
biết mấy…) repeatedly used to express admiration and praise contributed to the
enthusiastic and complete harmony, which made ki su, tuy but, truyen ki and
become more of a eulogy. All of those factors contributed to the appearance of

power. Basing on these explainations of discourse, we come to a conclusion that
discourse is a mechanism which in the influences of cultural codes, especially
ideological code and generic code.
3. From this theory, we defined ky as a discourse of reality, which is
closely related to other discourses of reality and influenced by episteme of
cultures. Using ideological and generic codes, we investigated nonfiction’s
characteristics and analyzed the factors which change the performance of ki over
time.
Nonfiction is a literary genre which has two codes: literary code and
nonliterary code. Nonliterary code makes it closely related to other discourse of
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reality such as history, science… Literary code makes it became more attractive
and ambiguous. The close realationship between these two codes is the
characteristics of nonfiction.
On the other hand, the discourse of reality in ki always changes according
to ideological change. As a result, nonfiction which are written in different time
and different cultural spaces are not the same.
4. Basing on the theory which is defined in chapter 3, we discovered the
development rules of Vietnamese nonfiction between 1945-1975. Firstly, the
nonliterary code played very important part in nonfiction writing in the early
stages but later literary code took the lead. Reportage was not developed
because of its inappropriateness to the orthodox ideology of that time. Secondly,
nationalism ideology is the most important which controls most nonfiction
writing in that period. As a result, nonfiction became a way to mythologize the
reality: its characters were described as the archetypes, historical events were
arranged according to the ritual procedure and language were organized as a
hymns. Most of nonfiction writings in this period were the expansion of the
common subjects in the political discourse which are “new man”, “new era’ and
“the victory of rights”.
5. The discourse theory which is popular in Western social sciences and