A teacher, a scientist, and a woman of Trang An.

Even while I was still a university student, I heard students and young lecturers from the Faculty of Linguistics (University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi) speak of her with affection and respect. Then, as if by fate, after graduation, I was hired to work alongside her, and she directly guided and mentored me...

In the minds of many colleagues, Associate Professor, Doctor, and Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh is a strict, decisive, and meticulous educational administrator, to the point of being demanding. Besides her passion for science, she is also one of the few women to receive the associate professorship in Linguistics, a field known for being "difficult" and dry. I belong to a younger generation, and I admire and respect her like a small stream flowing beside a large river. I cherish the brief moments I spent exchanging ideas and receiving her guidance. It's not because of her social standing or position, but because I sense in her a genuine, straightforward, and approachable personality, not merely a matter of polite social etiquette...

Associate Professor, Doctor, Distinguished Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh

Associate Professor, Doctor, Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh was born in 1958 into a bourgeois intellectual family from Hanoi. From a young age, she had certain advantages in her studies. Then, during the brutal years of the American imperialist war of destruction, she and her family and friends moved many times between evacuation locations in the provinces of Ha Tay and Ha Bac. Those were unforgettable years, giving her and her peers experiences of war, life, and people in the Northern countryside. When the bombing in the North temporarily ceased, she returned to Hanoi, continued her studies, and completed her secondary education at Quang Trung School, then her high school education at Viet Duc School. In 1975, dreaming of becoming a lawyer, she applied to Hanoi University. However, due to objective circumstances, the first Law course at the university was disbanded after only three weeks, and the entire class was divided among the History, Literature, and Philosophy departments. As if by fate, she decided to choose the Linguistics major in the Faculty of Literature after some "persuasion" from her senior classmates. During her years at university, she and her peers were fortunate enough to attend lectures by many famous professors in Linguistics such as Professor Nguyen Tai Can, Professor Nguyen Van Tu, Professor Nguyen Ham Duong, Professor Doan Thien Thuat, Professor Nona Stankevich... and many famous professors in Literature and Sino-Vietnamese Studies. The knowledge gained from diligent classroom learning and specialized internships in her local area nurtured in her a love for Linguistics, a field of study that demands precise logical thinking, often referred to as "the mathematics of the social sciences and humanities".

Associate Professor, Doctor, Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh when she was a student at Hanoi University.

Graduating with honors in Literature in 1980, she was retained by the university as a lecturer in the Linguistics Department, assigned to teach Text Grammar and Sociolinguistics, subjects that were still quite new in Vietnam at the time. She recounts that she can never forget her first, but completely unsuccessful, teaching session as a 23-year-old teacher to a part-time class of students in their 30s and 40s. Standing on the podium, facing nearly 50 pairs of squinting, smiling, and half-serious eyes of the "older students," all the words and study materials she had prepared for days vanished. Fortunately, the feeling of awkwardness gradually lessened with time and the accumulation of professional knowledge during her time working in the Faculty of Literature, under the strict but sincere guidance and support of her teachers and senior colleagues.

In 1989, while pursuing her postgraduate studies in Vietnam, she received a rare opportunity at the time: to participate in a training program organized by the Japan Foundation of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the task of acquiring and disseminating Japanese language and culture to Vietnam. After two years of intense study in Tokyo, she returned to Vietnam and was assigned the task of opening the first class specializing in Japanese Language and Culture at the Faculty of Literature. Although this major, along with Korean Language and Culture, was only offered at the Faculty of Literature for five years (from 1992 to 1997), many graduates from this major became key personnel in numerous universities, research institutes, and organizations directly involved in developing international relations with Japan and other countries in the region. For her, although the time she spent directly teaching Japanese was not long, her connection with Japanese as a subject of study has remained strong throughout her career to this day, through approximately 20 research papers in specialized journals and through her book.Japanese grammar, one of the handbooks used by students at many universities, and she is always invited as an expert by the Japanese Language chuyên môn Councils of the Ministry of Education and Training.

Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh's main specialization at the Department of Linguistics (since 1996, the Faculty of Linguistics) is Text Linguistics, later known as Discourse Analysis. This is a relatively new field in Vietnam compared to other traditional fields such as phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, syntax, etc. Working with and receiving direct scientific guidance from Professor Tran Ngoc Them (currently working at the Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City), and with the assistance of Professor Diep Quang Ban (Hanoi University of Education), she has directly taught this subject to undergraduate and graduate students for many years. Many undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral candidates have chosen graduation theses in this field and have been directly supervised by her. This book...Vietnamese speech linking systemPublished in 2000 along with the bookVietnamese text linking systemTran Ngoc Them's book (Education Publishing House) has been used by students for many years. In addition, as a staff member in the Comparative Linguistics department, knowledge of several Eastern languages ​​plays a significant role in her professional work, using them as languages ​​for comparison with Vietnamese to understand the similarities and differences between languages ​​that are very different in type.

Associate Professor, Doctor of Science, Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh previously held management positions: Deputy Head of the Faculty of Linguistics (2000-2003); Head of the Political and Student Affairs Department, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (2003-2010); Deputy Director of the Institute of Vietnamese Studies and Development Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (2002-2010).

Since 2001, under the direction of Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Associate Professor Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh has been assigned the concurrent position of Deputy Director of the Center for Vietnamese Studies and Cultural Exchange, and later as Deputy Director of the Institute of Vietnamese Studies and Development Science. She shared that this was a very useful opportunity for her, someone who had been involved in single-discipline research methods for many years, to access, learn, and apply interdisciplinary research methods oriented towards regional studies in her work. While still pursuing linguistics as her subject, each linguistic phenomenon here is no longer considered independently, but in an organic relationship, closely interacting with other social factors such as history, culture, society, and even geography, contributing to the overall cultural space of Vietnam or of each region of the country. This interdisciplinary thinking approach is used throughout her lectures on language in relation to Vietnamese society, culture, and thought for Vietnamese and foreign students and researchers. In recent years, starting from a linguistic background, with the support of members from various disciplines in the research group, she has led and implemented numerous scientific research projects at various levels, the final scientific product being two books currently being prepared for publication.Dictionary of Traditional Culture of the Thai, Tay, and Nung Ethnic Groups(Vietnam National University, Hanoi Publishing House) andThe administrative place name Thang Long - Hanoi from the 19th century to the present day.(Hanoi Publishing House) along with dozens of articles published in scientific journals.

Not limiting herself to her specialized field, since 2011, Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh has opened a new direction for her scientific activities by proposing, and subsequently being assigned as the principal investigator for, a state-level scientific research project.Female intellectual human resources in the cause of industrialization, modernization, and international integration.under the State-level Key Science and Technology Program onScientific research on the development of culture, people, and human resources.She confided that this was a completely new field for her, but after working directly with experts from various fields such as sociology, psychology, and philosophy, interacting with dozens of outstanding female scientists in Vietnam, and reading thousands of questionnaires collected from different regions of the country, she felt fortunate to have the opportunity to share and better understand the thoughts and silent but effective contributions, the difficulties and sacrifices of a scientific workforce with many unique characteristics in the current Vietnamese context. For her, as a female scientist, these studies also helped her better understand those around her and herself.

Associate Professor, Doctor, Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh with her students

With her achievements in teaching and scientific research, in 2002, Dr. Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh was honored by the State with the title of Associate Professor; in 2010, she was awarded the title of Excellent Teacher by the President of Vietnam, and in 2012, she was appointed Senior Lecturer. “Like many other lecturers working in the field of education at the university level, the more proud I am of my profession, the more worried and concerned I become about my responsibility to meet the increasingly high demands of the country's education system. However, I still think I will never regret the path I have chosen. Every day, interacting with students and sharing knowledge with young people is the best way to maintain my youth,” she often shares with friends and colleagues about her thoughts and aspirations. It is through continuous self-improvement, research, and accumulation of experience, based on learning the knowledge and pedagogical methods of predecessors, colleagues, and feedback from students, that Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh has developed a unique, engaging, and captivating teaching style. Many students, even decades after graduation, still say: "I really admire Professor Viet Thanh, because in her, the personality of an educator, a scientist, a mother, and a friend are always intertwined."

Besides being an educator and a scientist, Associate Professor, Doctor, and Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh is also widely known as a reputable administrator at Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU). She was a member of the VNU Party Committee for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th terms; a Standing Committee member of the Party Committee for the 3rd and 4th terms; Head of the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee; former Deputy Head of the Training Department; and Head of the Political and Student Affairs Department of VNU. During her years as an administrator, with her knowledge and experience as a professional, she advised VNU leaders on formulating reasonable, timely, and effective policies. Throughout her career, Associate Professor, Doctor, and Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh has quietly dedicated herself to the cause of education, wholeheartedly contributing to generations of students and scientific activities. The Labor Medal, Third Class, and numerous Certificates of Merit from the Director of Vietnam National University, Hanoi, the Minister of Education and Training, the Prime Minister, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, and above all, the love and respect of family, colleagues, friends, and students, are evidence of her contributions as an educator and scientist of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, the Institute of Literature and Development Sciences, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

In a way, in the minds of our generation, Professor Viet Thanh is like a talented artisan skillfully navigating the boat laden with knowledge through the most turbulent and stormy "rivers of language." Many friends, colleagues, and even foreign scientists say that even after meeting Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh for the first time, they were left with a lasting positive impression of an exemplary, dedicated, and loving teacher; a rigorous and insightful scientist; and a gentle, graceful woman embodying the elegant beauty of Hanoi. Now retired from her administrative work, Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh has even more time to focus on teaching and scientific research. She said that in recent years, her research on Hanoi has brought her much joy as it has given her the opportunity to learn more about the land where she was born, and the research results, however small, are also her personal expression of gratitude to the land that has nurtured and been connected to her throughout her life.

Whenever we have the good fortune to converse with Associate Professor, Doctor, and Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh, we always feel the love she has for science. She can sit for hours, passionately telling us about her research projects and scientific endeavors, and she always guides us towards the reasons behind her choices—reasons that are both subtle, interesting, and deeply humane. The profound lesson that generations of students like us have learned from her is the importance of passion and dedication to the projects and dreams we cherish. However, for me personally, the deepest impression I have of Associate Professor, Doctor, and Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh is the harmonious blend of her personality as an educator and scientist, and the character of a woman from Thang An (Hanoi).