VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ TUYẾT
AN ANALYIS OF LEXICAL COHESION OF ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWS DISCOURSE

Phân tích các phương tiện liên kết từ vựng trong diễn ngôn
tin kinh tế Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt
M.A. MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60.22.15

HA NOI - 2010
CHAPTER II: A COMPARISON OF LEXICAL COHESION IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWS DISCOURSE 17
II.1. Frequency of occurrence of two major types of lexical cohesion 17
II.2. Reiteration 18
II.2.1. Repetition 19
II.2.2. Synonym 25
II.2.3. Antonym 28
II.2.4. Superordinate/ Meronymy 31
II.2.4.1. Superordinate 31
II.2.4.2. Meronymy 33
II.3. Collocation 34
PART C: CONCLUSIONS 40
I. Conclusions 40
II. Limitations of the study 40
III. Implications for teachers and EFL learners 40
III.1. Implications for teaching and learning ESP 40
III.2. Implications for teaching and learning translation 41
IV. Recommendations for further studies 42
REFERENCES 43
APPENDICES


………

36

PART I: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale of the study
Nowadays, the need of international communication has been increasing rapidly and
English is regarded as a predominant means of international communication, particularly
in transferring written information. Most of magazines, newspapers, internet sites, etc. of
both English speaking countries and non-English speaking countries are published,
exchanged in English. Vietnam is not an exception.
Lexical competence is indispensable part of communicative competence because it

II. Scope of the study
Within the framework of a minor M.A thesis, the present study will not take up all
items involved in cohesion. The writer will focus only on lexical cohesion of English and
Vietnamese Economic News discourse taken from some mainstream newspapers. The
comparison between lexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese economic news discourse
will reveal the similarities and differences between these two languages. It is hoped that
this study will help the teachers and students to gain an insight into the use of lexical
cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news.
III. Aims of the study
The inter-related aims of this thesis are:
(i) to make comparative analysis of lexical cohesion between English and
Vietnamese economic news discourse to help readers surmount difficulties
in using and understanding the lexical cohesive devices.
(ii) to figure out how these cohesive devices are used in English and
Vietnamese economic news discourse.
(iii) to give a systematic and comprehensive description of lexical cohesion
features in English and Vietnamese.
(iv) to help the teachers and students to gain an insight into the use of lexical
cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news.
IV. Research questions
In order to analyse lexical cohesion of English and Vietnamese in economic news the
thesis raises a question “What are the similarities and differences between the use of
lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news discourse?”
This research question will be clarified by three other sub-questions as follows:
(i) How is lexical cohesion via lexical devices realized in English and Vietnamese
economic news discourses?
(ii) What are the most frequently used lexical cohesive devices in English and
Vietnamese economic news discourses?
(iii)What are the overall features of English and Vietnamese economic news discourse
in terms of lexical cohesion?

discourse analysis, coherence and cohesion, register and discourse
genre.
CHAPTER II: A COMPARISON OF LEXICAL COHESION IN ENGLISH
AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWS DISCOURSE
This chapter not only investigates lexical items but also presents the
description and exemplification of lexical cohesion in English and
Vietnamese economic news to find out the similarities and
differences between these two languages. Main features of lexical
cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news are
also indicated in this chapter.
PART III: CONCLUSIONS
This final part gives the overall answers for the research questions
of the study, implications for teaching and learning, and some
suggestions for further studies.


sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, pragmatics, conversation analysis, and
variation analysis (Schiffrin, 1994). Although each approach emphasizes different aspects
of language use, they all view language as social interaction.
A significant contribution to the evolution of discourse analysis has been made by
British and American scholars. British discourse analysis has been mainly influenced by
M.A.K. Halliday's functional approach to language. Halliday's framework emphasized the
social function of language and the thematic and informational structure of speech and
writing. De Beaugrande (1980), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Van Dijk (1972) as well as
Prague School of linguists have made a

significant contribution to this branch of linguistics
by indicating the connection of grammar and discourse. On the other hand, the American
discourse analysis has produced a large number of descriptions of discourse types along
with social limitations of politeness and thorough description of face-preserving acts in
speech.
I.1.2. Discourse and text
Different linguists have different ways to define discourse. Brown and Yule (1983:18)
pointed out that ―discourse is language material, either spoken or written, in actual uses by
speakers (and writers) of the language.‖ Cook (1989:156) considered discourse as
"stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive". Crystal (1992:
72) had a similar perspective of discourse when he defined discourse as "a continuous
stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent
unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative.‖
So far, many linguists share the same view that the term discourse and text can be
used interchangeably. Halliday & Hasan (1976:1) found no distinction between them when
they stated ―a text may be spoken or written, pose or verse, dialogue or monologue.‖ For
them, the term ―text‖ is referred to as a ―semantic unit‖ characterized by cohesion. They
stated: ―A text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in two regards: It is coherent
with respect to the context of situation, and therefore consistent in register; and it is
coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive‖ (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:23).

transactional. According to Crystal (1995:291) ―writing develops in space in that it needs a
means to carry the information. The writer is frequently able to consider the content of his
work for almost unlimited period of time which makes it more coherent, having complex
syntax.‖ and ―the reader might not instantly respond to the text, ask for clarification, hence
neat message organization, division to paragraphs, layouts are of vital importance to make
comprehension easier.‖ He also indicated another feature only writing discourse has- that
is the organization of tables, charts, or formulas.
David Nunan (1993:12) distinguished spoken and written discourse based on three
features: grammar, lexical density and situation. Although the two share the same
functions: the transactional function and the interactional function (Brown and Yule 1983:
13), the written language has certain features that are not actually shared with the spoken
language. In spoken language grammar is not as important as information, but in written
language, it is essential to maintain enough information, appropriate grammatical
structures as well as rational organization of sentences. The lexical density indicates the
information presented. Evidently, written language seems to have more information
packed into it. With written language, there is no common situation as there in face-to-face
interaction. The situation therefore has to be inferred from the text.
I.2. Discourse context
I.2.1. Context
Discourse analysis involves many aspects such as cohesion, coherence, adjacency
pair, turn-taking, text type, and so on so forth. Among them context plays a key role in the
analysis. According to David Nunan (1993:7), ―Context refers to the situation giving use
to the discourse and within which the discourse is embedded.‖ For him, context has
meanings at two levels, namely, the linguistic level and the non-linguistic level. At the
linguistic level, context is referred to as any linguistic item or content surrounding or
accompanying the piece of discourse under analysis. At the non-linguistic level, context
includes the type of communicative events, the topic, the purpose of the event, the setting,
the participants and the relationship between them and the background knowledge and
assumptions underlying the communicative event.
Obviously, context plays such an important role in understanding a discourse. It is

refers to possibilities to link something with what has been mentioned before. Since this
linking is achieved through relations in meaning, we can, therefore, interpret it as the set of
semantic recourses for linking sentences. Halliday & Hasan (1976:5) considered cohesion
as ‗part of the language system‖. Cohesion can be realized through grammar and
vocabulary; thus, it can be sub-divided into grammar and lexical cohesion. According to
them, ―grammar and lexical ties become cohesive only when they are interpreted through
their relation to some other elements in the text.‖(1976: 31-33)
Richard et. al (1992) seemed to have the same viewpoint with the two scholars when
defining cohesion as ―grammatical and/ or lexical relationships between different
elements of a text. This may be the relationship between different sentences or between
different parts of a sentence.‖
However, the definition provided by Halliday and Hasan is slightly unclear. They
stated that ―cohesion means the coherence of a text itself, while coherence is the coherence
of the text with its context of situation‖ (Halliday and Hasan 1976: 23).
Hasan (1984) defined coherence as a phenomenon which is capable of being measured
by the reader or the listener of a text. The perceived coherence depends upon the
interaction of cohesive devices, which Hasan called ―cohesive harmony‖, the denser the
cohesive harmony of a text is, the more coherent it will be judged.
On the contrary, Widdowson (1978) indicated that coherence can be created without
cohesion. Let‘s look at this example
A: That‘s the phone.
B: I‘m in the bath.
A: O.K
(Widdowson 1978:29)
Obviously, there is no cohesive links in this dialogue. However, we can still
understand it if these three utterances are taken together. Thus, in this example, A‘s
utterance about the telephone can be considered as a request and B‘s response as an excuse
for not being able to comply with A‘s request. A‘s second utterance is then understood as
an acceptance of B‘s excuse.
The example above points out that even when a text does not have surface textual

Situational reference, which is called exophora, refers to information outside the
context or conversation. It is independent of the context
Textual reference, which is considered as endophora, is subdivided into anaphoric
reference and cataphoric reference
Anaphoric reference is a process where a word or phrase refers back to another word
or phrase used earlier in a text or conversation.
Cataphoric reference is the use of a word or phrase to refer forward to another word or
phrase which will be used later in the text or conversation.
b. Substitution
Substitution is the replacement of a word or phrase by another one to avoid repetition.
In the following example one substitutes for gulf.
The Lion was about to reply when suddenly they came to another gulf across the road.
But this one was so broad and deep that the Lion knew at once he could not leap across it.
There are three types of substitutions: nominal, verbal, and clausal substitution
c. Ellipsis
Ellipsis is an omission of certain elements from a sentence or a clause and can only be
recovered by referring to an element in the proceeding text. The former is non-cohesive
and the latter is cohesive. In this example Dormouse is elided after two
There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and
the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and
the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its
head.
Ellipsis can be repetition and is also subdivided into three types: nominal ellipsis,
verbal ellipsis and clausal ellipsis
d. Conjunction
Halliday and Hasan (1976:76) considered conjunction as ―the semantic relation in its
cohesive function‖. Conjunction is a grammatical cohesion that links words, phrases,
clauses, sentences or even paragraphs to create logical semantic relationship between
them. Conjunction is classified into four sub-types as follows:
(i) additive (e.g. and, besides, furthermore, in addition, etc.)

within a sequence of sentences, and this process is signaled by a lexico-grammatical
system of language. Thus, cohesion is then concerned with the selection from options
available in the lexico-grammatical system of language. However, what factors determine
this selection?
The function of particular forms of language to create different types of texts is
determined by text type and register. In other words, genre/ register theory is closely
connected with the principle of choice. Thus, the notion of genre and register is one of the
most important factors in determining different language choices.
I.4.1. Register
Register is defined in different ways by different linguists.
Register, in Halliday‘s viewpoint, "is the set of meanings, the configuration of
semantic patterns that are typically drawn upon under the specific conditions, along with
the words and structures that are used in the realization of these meanings" (1985:23). It is
considered as one of the two defining concepts of text, as stated by Halliday (1985:23)
―The concept of cohesion can be supplemented by that of register since the two together
effectively define a text‖.
In Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, Richards et. al
(1992) defined register as ―a speech variety used by particular group of people, usually
sharing the same occupation (e.g. doctors, lawyers) or the same interests (e.g. stamp
collectors, baseball fans)‖. These scholars also argued that ―a particular register often
distinguishes itself from other registers by having a number of distinctive words, by using
words or phrases in a particular way (e.g. in tennis: deuce, love, tramlines) and sometimes
by special grammatical constructions (e.g. legal language)‖.
For the purpose of this research the term register is being employed because of its
underlying concepts, such as field, tenor, and mode
I.4.1.1. Field
Field, according to Halliday & Hasan (1976:22), refers to ―the total event, in which the
text is functioning, together with the purposive activity of speaker or writer‖. Halliday
(1978:62) claim that field is ―on-going activity and the particular purpose that the use of
language is serving within the context of that activity‖. In other words, utterances or words

According to Swales (1990) ―A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the
members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are
recognized by the expert members of parent discourse community, and thereby constitute
the rationale for genre.‖
Bhatia (1993), who is in the lines of Swales (1990), described genre as a
communicative event characterized by a defined structure and purposiveness:
it is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative
purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or
academic community in which it regularly occurs. Most often it is highly structured and
conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent,
positioning, form and functional value. These constraints, however, are often exploited by
the expert members of the discourse community to achieve private intentions within the
framework of socially recognized purpose(s). (Bhatia 1993: 13)
From all mentioned above it is obvious that genre is staged, goal-directed and
purposeful. Genre can be defined as a cultural specific text-type which results from using
language (spoken or written) to accomplish something.
I.5. Economic news discourse
Economic news is one type of press used in everyday newspapers, magazines to carry
out the informing function and the influencing function. According to Nguyễn Thị Vân
Đông (2001), the function of press is ―informing and provoking reader‘s curiosity and
satisfying their choice.‖
In this thesis, the mode of economic new is in the form of written language, thus it has
several features:
 it uses a number of noun phrases modified by various adjective phrases, sentences are
in the form of subject - predicate structure
 Information provided in this type of discourse must be exact, current
 The economic news consists of a number of paragraphs.
 The main idea of the economic text is expressed in the headline and in the topic
sentence
 The economic news is registered by mixture of language. Firstly, plain and neutral

VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWS DISCOURSE
In this chapter, the lexical cohesive ties employed in ten English economic news discourse
and ten Vietnamese ones will be identified and the number of them was calculated and the
percentage of each subtype will be discussed. Also, the description and exemplification of
lexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese economic news will be given. As mentioned
previously, the taxonomies provided by Halliday and Hasan (1976) will be adopted.
Specifically, Lexical cohesive ties are subdivided into two broad categories: reiteration and
collocation. The former is further classified into repetition, synonym, antonym, superordinate/
meronymy. The later is sub-classified into resultative collocation, modificational collocation,
and contextual collocation. The economic news was taken from some mainstream newspapers
in English such as Economics, Real Life Economics, The Times, Times online, The Sunday
Times,… and in Vietnamese such as Thời Báo Kinh Tế Việt Nam, Tiền Phong, Người Lao
Động, Thanh niên, Kinh tế Tài chính và Thị trường Chứng khoán, …
II.1. Frequency of occurrence of two major types of lexical cohesion
Table 1: Frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of two major types of
lexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese economic news
Lexical cohesive ties
In English economic news
In Vietnamese economic news
Reiteration
524 (88.5%)
519 (89.8%)
Collocation
68 (11.5%)
59 (10.2%)
Total
592 (100%)
578 (100%)
Table 1 presents the frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of two major
categories of lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news

in English economic news
in Vietnamese economic
news
Repetition
386 (73.7%)
417 (80.3%)
Synonym
74 (14.1%)
62 (11.9%)
Antonym
33 (6.3%)
19 (3.7%)
Superordinate/ Meronymy
31 (5.9%)
21 (4.1%)
Total
524 (100%)
519 (100%)
As can be inferred from the frequency of occurrence of each sub-type shown in the
table, repetition is the most frequent lexical reiteration tie in economic news discourse of
both languages with the percentage up to 73.7 in English and 80.3 in Vietnamese. The
proportion of this lexical tie is much higher than all the other lexical reiteration ties in both
languages. Synonym is ranked the second in economic news of both languages. However,
this type of reiteration occurs more frequently in English economic news: 14.1% in English
and 11.9% in Vietnamese.
Antonym is ranked the third with 6.3% in English economic news while in
Vietnamese ones antonym is ranked the last with the percentage of 3.7 %. In English
economic news, the last type in a list of the range of reiteration tie in descending order is
superordinate/ meronymy which accounts for only 5.9%.
As shown in table 2, the distribution of different categories of lexical reiteration tie is

342 (88.6%)
406 (97.3%)
Complex lexical repetition
44 (11.4%)
11 (2.7%)
Total
386 (100%)
417 (100%)
As presented in table 3, in both English and Vietnamese economic news the number of
simple lexical repetition is much higher than complex ones. However, simple lexical
repetition is used more in Vietnamese economic news with the total number of appearance
up to 406 (97.3%), whereas complex lexical repetition is employed more in English
economic news at 44 (11.4%).
The investigation result indicates that the most natural and common simple lexical
repetition in both English and Vietnamese economic news is repetition of nouns or noun
phrases.
Following are some examples:
Inflation
It‘s commonly observed that although money incomes keep going up over the years,
we never seem to become much better off. Prices are rising continuously. This condition is
called inflation. The money supply is being inflated so that each unit of it becomes less
valuable. In recent years we have gotten used to higher and higher rates of inflation. What
could be bought twenty years ago for $1 now costs well over $2. Present trends indicate
that this rate of inflation is tending to rise rather than to fall if in the real world our money
incomes go up at the same rate as prices, one might think that inflation does not matter.
But it does.
(Real Life Economics. February 25, 2009)
High earners hit as 50p tax rate goes ahead
… Introduced to stem the burgeoning public deficit, the higher rate of income tax
provoked an outcry among business groups.

‗kế hoạch‘ is repeated several times without the use of demonstrative; however, the reader
can still understand what it is intended basing on the context.
Among nouns and noun phrases, a large number of the repetition of proper nouns is
found in English economic news. For example,