1. Full name of the doctoral candidate:Luong Thi Phuong
2. Gender:Female
3. Date of birth:26/01/1982
4. Place of birth:Ninh Binh Province
5. Decision to admit doctoral students:Decision No. 4416/2019/QD-XHNV dated November 26, 2019, of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi
6. Changes to the training process (if any):Are not
7. Thesis Title: War Sourceland Metaphors in English and Vietnamese
8. Major:Linguistics
9. Code:922 9020.01
10. Scientific supervisor:Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Hong Con
11. Summary of the new findings of the thesis:
Research objectives:
Further clarify the characteristics and role of cognitive metaphors with a source domain of war in general, and metaphors with a source domain of war in English and Vietnamese in particular;
Clarify the similarities and differences of war metaphors in English and Vietnamese, and explain these similarities and differences from a linguistic and cultural perspective.
Research subjects:
The subject of this thesis is the source domain metaphors of war (ADCT) in the discourse of English and Vietnamese online articles and news reports on the fields of politics, economics, health, sports, taken from official websites of the UK, US, Australia, Canada, and Vietnam.
Research methodology:
- The linguistic descriptive method is used to analyze and describe the types and characteristics of conceptual metaphors of war.
- The Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) method, introduced by Charteris-Black (2004), includes three main components: Metaphor identification, Metaphor interpretation, and Metaphor explanation.
- The comparative method is used to identify the similarities and differences of conceptual metaphors in news discourse of the two languages.
- Statistical and classification techniques are used to survey and statistically analyze corpus data, classify and systematize source domains and conceptual metaphors.
The main results of the thesis are:
- Regarding the characteristics and role of war metaphors:
With the total volume of research texts in both languages being nearly equivalent, the total number of occurrences of metaphorical linguistic expressions in English is 8328, while in Vietnamese it is 6974. Thus, metaphorical expressions are significantly more prevalent in English journalistic discourse than in Vietnamese. Among the four fields, sports news discourse has the highest percentage of metaphorical expressions in both English and Vietnamese. Meanwhile, the lowest percentage of metaphorical expressions is found in English medical journalism and Vietnamese economic journalism.
The study yielded a conceptual mapping system for the supernominal metaphor of war: Social life is war, and three subnominal mappings: Components in social life are war components, Activities in social life are military activities, and the results of activities in social life are the results of war. Simultaneously, based on this mapping system, the study constructed four mapping systems with eight detailed component mappings in the target domains of politics, economics, and sports, and nine component mappings in the target domain of healthcare. The research results of the thesis confirmed the systematic, hierarchical, and contextually dependent nature of the metaphors in both languages. Furthermore, statistical and analytical results in the target domains demonstrate that the source-domain metaphor of war has a very broad scope because it can be applied to many situations, states, and activities in various fields of social life.
- Regarding similarities and differences:
Overall, at the higher level, the conceptual mapping of ADCT between English and Vietnamese shows more similarities than differences, including similarities in the structure of the mapping system, mapping relationships, metaphorical types, and the prevalence of ADCT linguistic expressions in some mappings. In addition, the two languages share similarities in the interpretation of meaning of most metaphorical expressions. It can be concluded that ADCT is a type of conceptual metaphor with a fairly high degree of universality, sharing many commonalities and being accepted and used in many different cultures. We find that the similar or nearly similar embodied experiences in the source domain of war and the target domains such as politics, economics, health, and sports have led to certain similarities in ADCT in the two languages.
However, at the lower nominal levels, the mappings reveal significant differences between the two languages and between target domains, in terms of frequency of use, meaning of central expressions, and meaning of metaphors in the target domains. To explain these results, we analyzed several differences in the political institutions, history, economic characteristics, culture, and thinking of Western countries compared to Vietnam.
New contributions of the thesis:
- This dissertation is the first study in Vietnam to investigate the conceptual metaphor of war in news discourse across a relatively broad scope, encompassing four main areas: politics, economics, healthcare, and sports. It utilizes a substantial corpus from several English-speaking countries and compares it with Vietnamese corpus. Therefore, the dissertation's results offer a high degree of generalization regarding the prevalence and characteristics of war metaphors in the social life of both languages.
- The thesis has developed a detailed conceptual mapping system for war metaphors in each researched field, analyzed and described many aspects of war metaphors that had not been studied in depth before, and identified typical similarities and differences in the writing style, culture, and thinking of English and Vietnamese language users through the conceptualization of war in social life. From this, the thesis helps to expand and enrich the understanding of the objective world through war metaphors.
- The research findings of this thesis will contribute to strengthening cognitive linguistic theory, systematizing the fundamental issues of conceptual metaphors of war based on the analysis of English and Vietnamese news discourse corpuses. The research results will have practical applications in teaching and research on conceptual metaphors, intercultural communication, analysis of journalistic discourse texts, as well as translation and writing in journalism.
Scientific significance:
- The research findings of this thesis will contribute to clarifying the modes of thinking and cognitive models of humans regarding the categories of war, politics, economics, health, and sports as reflected in the process of perceiving the objective world.
- The research in this thesis also contributes to clarifying the concept, expressive characteristics, semantics, pragmatics, and mapping mechanisms of conceptual war metaphors in English and Vietnamese news discourse.
- Studying war metaphors from a cognitive linguistic perspective, with a comparative English-Vietnamese analysis, is of great significance in understanding and exploring the characteristics and nature of the thinking and culture of English and Vietnamese speakers.
Practical significance:
This study will contribute to providing language researchers with additional information, theories, and a deeper understanding of conceptual metaphors of war in the discourse of political, economic, medical, and sports journalism in both English and Vietnamese. Furthermore, the analyses, descriptions, and explanations in this thesis can help language teachers and learners, and those involved in intercultural communication, to better understand the role and characteristics of conceptual metaphors of war in communication. This will encourage the flexible and effective application of these metaphors in teaching, learning, and communication in both English and Vietnamese.
- At the same time, the results of this thesis will be useful for the translation and interpretation of documents on politics, economics, health, and sports, as well as for the compilation and design of specialized English teaching materials in these four fields. Through this, we hope to contribute to improving the quality of materials and the effectiveness of teaching subjects such as English, translation, linguistics, and intercultural studies.
- The research findings of this project will also partially support and enrich the vocabulary and understanding of writing style and culture for journalism students and those working in journalism.
12. Directions for further research:
The study examines the metaphor of war in various contexts, such as print media, literary works, and spoken language.
A detailed study of the effects of war metaphors on language recipients.
Research on interlingual ADCT translation.
13. Publications related to the dissertation:
1. Luong Thi Phuong (2019), “Investigating The Effects of Task Repetition on Fluency and Accuracy in English Oral Performance of Low-Level Adult Students: A Case Study at Vietnam Air Defence and Air Force Academy”, Journal of Military Foreign Language Science, No. 19, ISSN 2525-2232, pp. 26-37.
2. Luong Thi Phuong (2022), “War metaphors in Vietnamese online sports news: A cognitive study on conceptual mappings”, Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference: The First International Conference on the Issues of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, ISBN: 978-604-9990-98-4, pp. 1021-1041.
3. Luong Thi Phuong (2023), “War metaphors in online business news: a cognitive study of English and Vietnamese discourse”, Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference: The Second International Conference on the Issues of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, ISBN: 978-604-43-1656-7, pp. 761-782.
4. Luong Thi Phuong (2023), “Mapping Layers of Conceptual Metaphors of War Source Domains in English-language Political News”, Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol. 9 (2b), ISSN 2354-1172, pp. 183-195. Available at: http://journal.ussh.vnu.edu.vn/index.php/vjossh/article/view/8321
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1172/vjossh.v9i2b.8321
5. Luong Thi Phuong (2024), A cognitive study of war metaphor in English online medical news, Proceedings of the International Graduate Research Symposium 2024 (IGRS 2024), University of Foreign Languages, VNU Hanoi, (Approved for publication, awaiting publication).
INFORMATION ON DOCTORAL THESIS
1. Full name:Luong Thi Phuong
2. Sex:Female
3. Date of birth: 26/01/1982
4. Place of birth:Ninh Binh
5. Admission decision number:4416/2019/QD-XHNV, dated November 26, 2019 by VNU Hanoi, University of Social Sciences and Humanities.
6. Changes in academic process:None
7. Official thesis title: War metaphor in English and Vietnamese
8. Major:Linguistics
9. Code:922 9020.01
10. Supervisor:Associate Professor-Doctor Nguyen Hong Con
11. Summary of the new findings of the thesis:
Thesis objectives:
- Further shed light on the characteristics and roles of war metaphors in general and war metaphors in English and Vietnamese news discourse in particular;
- Specify the similarities and differences of war metaphors in English and Vietnamese and explain those similarities and differences from a linguistic and cultural perspective.
Research subjects:
War–related metaphorical expressions in the discourse of English and Vietnamese online articles and newsletters in the fields of politics, economics, healthcare and sports taken from official websites of the UK, the US, Australia, Canada and Vietnam.
Research methodology:
- The method of linguistic description was used to analyze and describe the types and characteristics of conceptual metaphor of war.
- The Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) method, introduced by Charteris-Black (2004), includes three main stages: Metaphor identification, Metaphor interpretation and Metaphor explanation.
- The comparison and contrast method was used to specify the similar and different characteristics of war metaphors intraculturally and cross-culturally.
- Statistical and classification techniques were used to survey, compile data, classify and systematize source domains and types of war metaphors.
Major findings:
- In terms of the characteristics and roles of war metaphor:
With total text capacity in the two languages being nearly equivalent, the total number of war-related metaphorical tokens in English is 8328 and in Vietnamese is 6974. Thus, the war metaphor has a much higher repetition in English news discourse than in Vietnamese. Of the four fields, sports discourse has the most occurrences of war metaphors in both English and Vietnamese. Meanwhile, the smallest number of repetitions was found in the discourse of English medical news and Vietnamese economic news.
The research results in a conceptual mapping system of war metaphor, with the umbrella mapping being Social life as war, and 3 derivative mappings: Elements in social life as war elements, Activities in social life as military activities, Results of activities in social life as results of war. Based on this mapping scheme, four mapping systems with 8 constituent mappings in the target domains of politics, economics and sport, as well as 9 constituent mappings in healthcare. The study findings demonstrate the systematic, hierarchical and context-dependent nature of war metaphors in both English and Vietnamese news. Furthermore, the statistical and analytical findings in the target domains attest to the fact that war metaphor is large in scope as can express various situations, states, and activities in different fields of social life.
- In terms of the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese war metaphors:
Basically, the generic conceptual mappings of English and Vietnamese war metaphors demonstrate more similarities than differences, including similarities in mapping system structure, mapping relations, metaphor types and the prevalence of metaphorical linguistic expressions in some mappings. In addition, the two languages share interpretation of the meaning of most metaphorical expressions. It can be concluded that war metaphor is fairly universal, sharing a number of common characteristics, being accepted and used in different cultures. Generally, it is the similar or nearly similar experiences in the source domain of war and the target domains of politics, economics, healthcare and sport that make war metaphor in the two languages have certain correlations.
However, at specific levels, the mappings show considerable differences between the two languages and among target domains, regarding frequency of use, meaning of central expressions, and meaning of metaphor in the target domains. The reasons for such discrepancies may lie in the differences in political institutions, national history, economic characteristics, culture and thinking of some Western countries compared to Vietnam.
12. Further research directions:
- Research on war metaphors in other contexts such as printed newspapers, literary books, and daily conversational languages.
- Research on the effects of war metaphors on language receivers.
- Research on cross-linguistic translation of war metaphor.
13. Thesis-related publications:
Luong Thi Phuong (2019), “Investigating The Effects of Task Repetition on Fluency and Accuracy in English Oral Performance of Low Level Adult Students: A Case Study at Vietnam Air Defense and Air Force Academy”, Journal of Military Foreign Language Studies Vol. 19, ISSN 2525-2232, pp. 26-37.
Luong Thi Phuong (2022), “War metaphors in Vietnamese online sports news: A cognitive study on conceptual mappings”, Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Issues of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU Hanoi, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Code: ISBN: 978-604-9990-98-4, pp. 1021-1041.
Luong Thi Phuong (2023), “War metaphors in online business news: a cognitive study of English and Vietnamese discourse”, Proceedings of The Second International Conference on the Issues of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU Hanoi, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, ISBN: 978-604-43-1656-7, pp. 761-782.
Luong Thi Phuong (2023), “Mapping levels of the war metaphor in English political news”, Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Volume 9 (2b), pp. 183-194. ISSN 2354-1172. Available at: http://journal.ussh.vnu.edu.vn/index.php/vjossh/article/view/8321
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1172/vjossh.v9i2b.8321
Luong Thi Phuong (2024), “A cognitive study of war metaphor in English online medical news”, Proceedings of the International Graduate Research Symposium 2024 (IGRS 2024), VNU Hanoi, University of Languages & International Studies, (Reviewed and accepted, Pending publication).
