TTLA: Means of expressing moral and ethical attitudes in English and Vietnamese business correspondence

ABSTRACT OF THE DOCTORAL THESIS

Author's name:Nguyen Thi Thanh

Thesis title:Means of expressing moral and ethical attitudes in English and Vietnamese business correspondence.

Dissertation field: Linguistics

Specialization: Comparative Linguistics Code: 62.22.02.41

Postgraduate training unit: University of Social Sciences and Humanities - Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

1. Purpose and scope of the thesis

Objective: To identify the similarities and differences in the means of expressing moral and ethical sentiments used in English and Vietnamese commercial correspondence across three dimensions: syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic.

Subject: The research subject of this thesis is the lexical and grammatical means used to express semantic modality in English and Vietnamese business correspondence.

2. Research methods used

This thesis employs two main research methods: discourse analysis and comparative analysis.

3. Main results and conclusions

3.1. Main results

From a structural perspective, modal verbs are the most important means of expressing semantic modality in English business correspondence, while speech acts are the most important means of expressing semantic modality in Vietnamese business correspondence. Furthermore, the means of expression in English business correspondence can be used in combination to emphasize modality. Conversely, Vietnamese means of expression cannot be combined. When wanting to emphasize modal value, writers use modal expressions in combination with emphatic adverbs. This is a fundamental difference between the inflectional language of English and the isolating language of Vietnamese.

- From a semantic perspective, the means are divided into three levels: high, medium, and low, according to Halliday's (1994) classification model. Basically, there is semantic equivalence between English and Vietnamese means within the same level. However, there are differences in nuance and usage between the means. In addition, we also found similarities in meaning but different groups of means, or the same meaning and group of means but different levels of modality.

From a pragmatic perspective, speech acts of request, suggestion, permission, commitment, promise, and permission are used in both English and Vietnamese business correspondence. However, there are fundamental differences in the way these speech acts are expressed. The speech acts of "request" and "suggestion" are mainly expressed indirectly in English business correspondence but quite directly in Vietnamese business correspondence. Furthermore, in English business correspondence, speech acts are primarily expressed through third-person phrasing. Conversely, speech acts in Vietnamese business correspondence are expressed through first-person and second-person phrasing. This shows the tendency of English speakers to focus on the propositional content and the tendency of Vietnamese speakers to focus on the interlocutor. Similarly, when considering the relationship between means of expressing moral attitudes and politeness strategies, we find that the British tend to use negative politeness strategies while the Vietnamese tend to use positive politeness strategies. This reflects the individualistic nature of British culture and the collectivist nature of Vietnamese culture.

3.2. Conclusion

Theoretically, the thesis synthesizes and analyzes the arguments on moral modality from researchers both domestically and internationally, and from there draws a general, scientifically sound conclusion about moral modality. Practically, the research results of the thesis show the reality of using the means of expressing moral modality – “obligatory” and “permissible” – in English and Vietnamese commercial correspondence. At the same time, finding the similarities and differences between these means will help to conduct teaching, learning, and translation in the field of commercial correspondence more effectively.

SUMMARY OF DOCTORAL THESIS

The author's name: Nguyen Thi Thanh

Thesis title:Means of expressing deontic modality in English and Vietnamese Commercial Correspondence

Major:Linguistics

Scientific branch of the thesis: Contrastive Linguistics Code: 62.22.02.41

The name of postgraduate training institution:University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi National University

1. Objectives and subjects

Thesis purpose: To find out similarities and differences of the means of expressing deontic modality in English and Vietnamese Commercial Correspondences in 3 aspects: syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

Subjects: The subjects of this study are the means of expressing deontic modality in English and Vietnamese Commercial Correspondences.

2. Research methods

Research methods applied in this thesis are: semantic and pragmatic analysis, contrastive analysis.

3. Major results and conclusions

3.1. The major result

In syntax, modal verbs arethe most important means expresses deontic modalityin English commercial correspondences. In contrast, action verbs are the most important means expressing deontic modality in Vietnamese commercial correspondences.The English deontic modality expressing means can be combined to emphasize the modality values. In contrast, in Vietnamese commercial correspondences, people do not combine the expressing means. To emphasize the modality values, they use the combination of deontic modality means with the emphasizing words. These denote the difference of inflection language as English and isolation language as Vietnamese.

- In semantics, the English and Vietnamese means express deontic modalitycan be divided into three modality levels as high, medium and low as stated by Halliday (1994). There are similarities in meanings of the same level means. However, they are differences in modality values ​​and usages. Moreover, the similar meaning means can be put into different expressing groups or the similar meaning and group means are put into diffrent modality levels.

- In pragmatics, the request, command, allowance, commitment and promise are used in both English and Vietnamese commercial correspondences. They differ in the expressions as the request and command are expressed indirectly in English and directly in Vietnamese. Moreover, third pronounce is commonly used in English whereas the first and second pronounce is more popular used in Vietnamese. This denotes the fact that English highlights the content values ​​while Vietnamese strenthens the recipient awareness. For the polite strategies, the negative strategies are more common in English and the positive are more popular in Vietnamese. These denote the personal value of English and community value of Vietnamese.

3.2. Conclusions

In theory, this assignment summarizes and analysed different theories relating to the deontic modality of the foreign and Vietnamese scholars. It also provides the scientific conclusion about deontic modality. In practice, the study provides information in the use of the “obligatory” and “permissive” deontic expressions in both English and Vietnamese commercial correspondences. Moreover, by finding the similarities and differences in the usage of these means, this assignment can be valuable to teachers, learners and translators in their works.