TTLA: Editorial discourse analysis (on Nhan Dan newspaper corpus from 1964-1975)

DOCTORAL THESIS SUMMARY

Author name:Nguyen Thi Hong Nga

Thesis title:Editorial discourse analysis (on Nhan Dan newspaper corpus from 1964-1975)

Dissertation field: Linguistics

Major: Linguistics Code: 62.22.02.40

1. Purpose and research objects of the thesis

The purpose of the thesis is to analyze the strategy of organizing discourse under the influence of ideology, experience, interpersonal function in the direction of incorporating cultural and social aspects into the process of discourse construction and explaining that process by linguistic analysis according to MAK Halliday's theory of systemic function while clarifying the relationship between text and social practice conveyed by discourse experience, thanks to which people use language to organize and decode texts.

The research object of the thesis is the editorial discourse of Nhan Dan newspaper in the period 1964-1975.

2. Research methods used

- Discourse analysis method: The thesis analyzes editorial discourse in the process of performing the function with linguistic characteristics from the structural, semantic organization, and discourse structure aspects in interaction with context, communication channel, communication purpose, and discourse sender/receiver.

- Logical and semantic analysis methods; descriptive methods in linguistics with distribution techniques, direct component analysis, contextual analysis, etc.

3. Main results and conclusions

3.1. Main results

- The thesis has surveyed, classified and described the formal structure of editorial discourse, the way of organizing the message of the discourse as a communication strategy, with typical characteristics from formal structure to semantic organization structure.

- The thesis also analyzes the context of use and explains the function as an important pragmatic motivation to perform the interpersonal, ideological, and textual functions of editorial discourse.

- The thesis points out the types of relationships and networks of argumentative relationships in editorial discourse through typical linguistic methods of genre to reflect, convey and influence the recipient to achieve the highest communication efficiency.

3.2. Main conclusions

- From the results of the survey of editorial discourse according to Halliday's three meta-functions, the thesis has pointed out the ways of media communication that demonstrate the impact and power of journalistic discourse to control and orient society. In the ideology and social context in which language is functioning, it points out the relationship between ideology and language and the ability to manipulate, the impact function, and interpersonal of the genre of political discourse.

- By accurately determining the relationship of the communicative roles, the speaker has chosen personal words to reveal the interpersonal relationship, thereby using politeness strategies to widen/narrow the distance between the parties. In the process of organizing the discourse, the interpersonal methods are used by the speaker simultaneously, interwoven, and smoothly with each other: personal words, modal combinations, speech acts, formal structures, etc.

- From the perspective of macrostructure, the way of organizing the message of the discourse provides a systematic and comprehensive view when organizing and processing texts at all levels and all types of texts; based on the marking of topics/themes in the text, the text processor can organize and adjust the text to become systematic and coherent.

Through the analysis of editorial discourse of Nhan Dan newspaper in the period 1964-1975, n

SUMMARY OF DOCTORAL THESIS

The author's name: Nguyen Thi Hong Nga

Thesis title: Analysis of editorial discourse (in Nhan Dan newspapers on the period 1964-1975)

Major: Linguistics

Sub-major: Linguistics Code: 62.22.02.40

The name of postgraduate institution: University of Social Sciences and Humanities – VNU-Hanoi.

1. Thesis purpose and object:

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and to analyze the discourse organization strategy under the impact of ideology, experience and interpersonal function toward a combination of socio-cultural aspects into the discourse formation process and to explain that process by the language analysis based on MAK Halliday's Systematic Functional Linguistic Theory. It also looks into the relationship between documents and social reality conveyed by discourse experiences, through which human use languages ​​to organize and interprete documents.

The object of the study is the discourse of Nhan Dan newspapers' editorials on the period 1964-1975.

2. Research methods

- Discourse analysis method: The dissertation analyzes the editorial discourse in its functioning with its typical linguistic characteristics from the aspects of semantic organization and structure, discourse structure in the connection with context, communication channels, communication purposes and discourse producer/recipient.

- Logical and semantic analysis method; descriptive method in linguistics with some analysis procedures, such as: distribution analysis, immediate constitute analysis (IC-analysis), contextual analysis, etc.

3. Major results and conclusions

3.1. Major results

- The dissertation investigates, classifies and describes the formative structure of editorial discourses and message organization methods of the discourses as a communication strategy, with its typical characteristics from formative structures to semantical structures.

- The thesis also analyzes context and explains function as an important factor to perform the interpersonal, ideological and textual functions of editorial discourses.

- The thesis points out the types of relations and argumentative relationship networks in editorial disscourses through typical categorizing linguistic methods to reflect, convey and influence recipes for maximum communicative effiency.

3.2. Major conclusions

- Based on the analysis of the editorial discourses as per Halliday's three superfunctions, the thesis points out the communicative methods that reflect the impacts and the power of editorial discourses to control and guide the society. In the ideology and social context that the language is functioning, the power of the language, the ability of change, the impacting function, and the interpersonal function of the editorial discourses are highlighted.

- By clearly identifying the relationships of the communicative roles, the producer chooses the appropriate pronouns to reflect the interpersonal relationships, and uses politeness strategy to expand/shorten the gap among the participants. In discourse organizations, the interpersonal methods such as pronouns, modal combinations, action words, model structure, etc. are used consecutively, flexibly and intertwiningly by the producer.

- From the macro structure point of view, the discourse's message organization method brings about a systematic and comprehensive perspective when organizing and dealing with documents at all levels and all types of documents; basing on the highlight of the topics/systems topic within the document, the document can be reorganized and adjusted for better structure and more systemized.

The study of Nhan Dan newspapers' editorial discourses on the period 1964-1975 confirms that to analyze the functions of a discourse, an analysis of the characteristics of the context in which the discourse functions are prerequisite.