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

DOCTORAL THESIS SUMMARY

Author name:Nguyen Thi Thanh

Thesis title:Means of expressing moral sentiment in English and Vietnamese business correspondence

Dissertation field: Linguistics

Major: Comparative Linguistics Code: 62.22.02.41

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

1. Purpose and research objects of the thesis

Purpose: To find out the similarities and differences of the means of expressing moral modality used in English and Vietnamese business correspondence texts on three levels: semantics, semantics and pragmatics.

Object: The object of research of the thesis is the vocabulary and grammar means used to express moral sentiments in English and Vietnamese business correspondence.

2. Research methods used

The thesis applies two main research methods: discourse analysis and comparison.

3. Main results and conclusions

3.1. Main results

- From a syntactic point of view, modal verbs are the most important means of expressing moral modality in English business letters and performative verbs are the most important means of expressing moral modality in Vietnamese business letters. Moreover, the means of expression in English business letters can be used in combination to emphasize the modal character. On the contrary, the means of expression in Vietnamese cannot be combined with each other. When wanting to emphasize the modal value, the writer uses the means of expression in combination with emphatic adverbs. This is the fundamental difference between the inflectional language of English and the isolating language of Vietnamese.

- In terms of semantics, the means are divided into three levels: high, medium, low according to Halliday's (1994) division model. Basically, there is equivalence in meaning between English and Vietnamese means at the same level. However, there are differences in nuances and usage between the means. Besides, we also found similarities in meaning but different groups of means, or the same meaning, same group of means but different levels of modality.

- From a pragmatic perspective, the speech acts of request, offer, allow, commit, promise and be allowed are speech acts used in both English and Vietnamese business letters. However, there are fundamental differences in the way the speech acts are expressed. The speech acts of “request” and “offer” are mainly expressed indirectly in English business letters but quite directly in Vietnamese business letters. Moreover, in English business letters, speech acts are mainly expressed through expressions in the third person. On the contrary, speech acts in Vietnamese business letters are expressed through the first person and second person. This shows the tendency of the English to pay attention to the content of the proposition and the tendency of the Vietnamese to pay attention to the object of communication. Similarly, when examining the relationship between means of expressing moral mood 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 culture of the British and the collectivistic culture of the Vietnamese.

3.2. Conclusion

In terms of theory, the thesis has synthesized and analyzed the arguments on moral modality of domestic and foreign researchers and from there, drawn a general scientific conclusion on moral modality. In terms of practice, the research results of the thesis show the reality of using the means of expressing moral modality "mandatory" and "permitted" in English and Vietnamese commercial correspondence. At the same time, finding the similarities and differences between these means will help teaching, learning and translating in the field of commercial correspondence to be carried out 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.