Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS ho xuan huong high school in vĩnh tường, vĩnh phúc m a thesis linguistics

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHÙNG THỊ THU

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
USED IN POLITICAL ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPER
HEADLINES ON THE MAJOR EVENTS IN THE IRAQ WAR
NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH HÀM NGÔN HỘI THOẠI ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG
TRONG CÁC TIÊU ĐỀ CHÍNH TRỊ VỀ NHỮNG SỤ KIỆN QUAN TRỌNG
TRONG CHIẾN TRANH IRAQ CỦA BÁO CHÍ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English linguistics
Code: 60.22.15

Hanoi, 2013

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHÙNG THỊ THU

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
USED IN POLITICAL ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPER

HEADLINES ON THE MAJOR EVENTS IN THE IRAQ WAR
NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH HÀM NGÔN HỘI THOẠI ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG
TRONG CÁC TIÊU ĐỀ CHÍNH TRỊ VỀ NHỮNG SỤ KIỆN QUAN TRỌNG
TRONG CHIẾN TRANH IRAQ CỦA BÁO CHÍ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Professor Nguyễn Hòa

Hanoi, 2013

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


DECLARATION
I certify that this minor thesis entitled “A comparative study on Conversational
Implicatures used in Political English and Vietnamese Newspaper Headlines on
the major events in the Iraq War” submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts is the result of my work, except
otherwise acknowledged and that this minor thesis and any part of the same has not
been submitted for a higher degree to any other university or institution.

Hanoi, March 2013
Signature

Phung Thi Thu

i

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Over the past two years I have received support and encouragement from many
individuals to accomplish this research. Therefore, I hereby would like to express
my profound gratitude to all of them.
Above all, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor,
Professor Nguyen Hoa for all his invaluable inspiration, assistance, guidance and
encouragement as I was working on my study.
Besides, I am grateful to all lecturers and staff of Faculty of Postgraduate Studies,
University of Languages and International Studies for their valuable lessons and
precious help. Thanks to them, I could get the essential materials for my paper.
Finally, my sincere thanks go to my parents and my friends who always stand by
me and support me when I was doing the research. Without their encouragement, I
would not have been able to complete this thesis.

ii

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


ABSTRACT
The headlines of the newspapers play a crucial role in helping the readers save
energy and time to get information for the reason in that the headlines have the
capacity of encapsulating the story in a minimum number of words and, in a
particular edition, giving the readers an overall picture of the current news. To
implement their functions, the headlines are inquired to exploit the linguistic
resources which conversational implicature is considered in as an effective tool. The

present study was conducted to compare the use of conversational implicature of the
English and Vietnamese newspapers on the coverage of the major events of Iraq
War and the linguistic competence which the readers need to have to understand
implicature. The objects of the research are 30 headlines, 15 Quân Đội Nhân Dân
and 15 New York Times headlines in the different periods from March 20th to April
10th 2003, December 1st to 31st 2006 and August 1st to 31st 2010. The analysis
includes examining the means to generate implicature which consist of lexical and
syntactic features and communicative competence. Based on the findings, it is
concluded that both English and Vietnamese newspapers show their creativity in
using the lexical and syntactic features to generate conversational implicature.
However, the Maxim of Quantity and Manner are flouted in the Vietnamese
newspaper headlines whereas the Maxim of Quantity, Manner and Relation are
flouted in English ones.

iii

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviation

Meaning

NYT

New York Times

QDND

Quan Doi Nhan Dan newspaper

iv

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


TABLES OF CONTENT
DECLARATION…………………………………………………………………………...i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………...........................ii
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………..…………....iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...............................................................................................iv
TABLES OF CONTENT…………………………………………………………………...v
PART A. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………...1
1. Rationale of the study ………………………………………………………………........1
2. Aims of the study…………………………………………………………………….......1
3. Scope of the study………………………………………………………………………..2
4. Methods of the study……………………………………………………………………..2
5. Design of the study…………………………………………………………………........3
PART B. DEVELOPMENT……………………...………………………………….........4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………………...4
1.1. Theories on conversational implicature …………………………………………….....4
1.1.1. Co-operation and implicature ……………………………………………………..4
1.1.2. Conversational implicature…………………………………………………………5
1.1.3. Types of conversational implicature……………………………………………….6
1.1.3.1. Generalized conversational implicature …………………………………..6
1.1.3.2. Particularized conversational implicature …………………………………7
1.1.4. Properties of conversational implicature…………………………………………...8
1.2. Communicative competence …………………………………………………………10
1.2.1. Background Knowledge………………………………………………………….10

1.2.2. Informal Reasoning……………………………………………………………….11
1.2.3. Observance of Cooperative principles……………………………………………12
1.3. Newspaper headlines …………………………………………………………………14
1.4. The conversational implicature in the newspaper headlines …………………………14
1.5. Discourse of the Iraq War ……………………………………………………………15

v

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


CHAPTER 2: METHODS AND PROCEDURE……………………………………….17
2.1. Data collection method .................................................................................................17
2.2. Data analysis procedure ................................................................................................17
2.3. The analysis ..................................................................................................................18
CHAPTER 3: PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS………...20
3.1. Lexical devices………………………………………………………………………..20
3.1.1. Naming referents.....................................................................................................20
3.1.2. Lexicalization .........................................................................................................21
3.2. Syntactic features .........................................................................................................23
3.3. Communicative competence ........................................................................................26
3.3.1. Background knowledge …………………………………………………………..26
3.3.2. Informal reasoning ..................................................................................................29
3.3.3. Observance of cooperative principles .....................................................................30
PART C. CONCLUSION..................................................................................................33
1. Recapitulation ..................................................................................................................33
2. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................35
3. Limitations and suggestions for further study ................................................................36
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................37
APPENDICES.. .....................................................................................................................I

Appendix 1: New York Times headlines ……………………………………………...........I
Appendix 2: Quan Doi Nhan Dan headlines……………………………………………….II

vi

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1.

Rationale of the study

These days, online newspapers have undeniably become one of the most useful
sources of information. Online newspapers are increasingly popular due to the
availability and convenience they provide. With the internet, readers have a choice
to read a great deal of diverse online newspapers. Consequently, the readers are
likely to be flooded with such an amount of new information for which they have
neither time nor energy to process. In this case, the headlines help them get the
maximum out of this informational flood for the minimal cognitive investment.
The headlines provide the readers with an optimally relevant presentation of their
stories. A good headline is one which helps the reader deduce the maximal amount
of contextual effects for the minimal amount of processing effort. However, to
write a good headline, the writers have to exploit a diversity of linguistic resources
in which implicature is considered to be very helpful. Realizing the significance of
implicature in news headlines, this study is carried out to investigate the use of
implicature in transferring the information to the readers in the language of English
and Vietnamese newspaper headlines. Moreover, this study also investigates the
communicative competences which are necessary for readers to understand the
implicature.

2.

Aims of the study

The study deals with the exploitation of conversational implicature in the
Vietnamese and American political headlines. Therefore, the study is aimed
specifically:
- To investigate how conversational implicature is created in political English
and Vietnamese Newspaper Headlines on the major events of the Iraq war.

1

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


- To find out the communicative competences the readers need to
comprehend conversational implicature.
3.

Scope of the study

The study focuses on analyzing the political headlines in the press, not on television
or radio. The Iraq war lasted from 2003 to 2011 but due to the limit of time, this
research is only concerned with the main events of Iraq war, particularly the
development of the War in March 2003, December 2006 and August 2010. The
newspapers are selected to be studied are Quan Doi Nhan Dan (QDND) - the
Vietnamese daily newspaper and one popular American- New York Times (NYT).
4.

Methods of the study

The study is an attempt to carry out an analysis of English and Vietnamese
newspaper headlines on some of the most important events of Iraq war in terms of
implicature. Specifically, it focuses on how implicature is used to convey the
information about this war. The study combines both qualitative and quantitative
methods.
Firstly, a theoretical framework for the research is set up involving the theories and
studies on implicature and communicative competence. The former section consists
of conversational implicature, some properties and features of conversational
implicature. The latter includes relevant background knowledge, informal reasoning
and observance of Grice‟s principles.
Secondly, I conduct the analysis and synthesis of the data in both English and
Vietnamese newspapers and compare the way the implicature is used and
interpreted. The analysis is based on Grice‟s conversational implicature theory.
For a further description of the methods of the study, see chapter 3.

2

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


5.

Design of the study

This study consists of three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion
PART A: Introduction – presents the rationale, scope, aims, and methodology of
the study
PART B: Development. In this part, three chapters are presented.
Chapter 1: Literature review deals with the theoretical framework relevant to the

topic.
Chapter 2: Methods and procedure gives detailed description of data collection
method and analysis procedure.
Chapter 3: Presentation and discussion of the results constitutes the main part of
the study. This part presents the results from the analysis on the utilization of
conversational implicature in the headlines in English and Vietnamese newspapers
and communicative competences and discusses the findings.
PART C: Conclusion summarizes the findings in comparison between English and
Vietnamese articles with regard to the results of conversational implicature
investigated, some limitations and suggestions for further research.

3

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Theories on conversational implicature
1.1.1. Implicature and Co-operation
Up to now, there are some definitions of implicature proposed by scholars and
linguists. Amongst them was Grice, who may be said to introduce the term for the
first time in his William James lectures in 1967. He defined implicature as “a notion
which is not explicitly stated but inferable from the conventional meaning of some
linguistic unit in an utterance and taken to be communicated.” According Thomas
(1995), Grice‟s theory is “an attempt at explaining how a hearer gets from what is
said to what is meant, from the level of what you expressed meaning to the level of
implied meaning.” To help the readers understand implicature more, he gave three
examples of implicature.
Example 2 stated:

„We must remember your telephone bill‟, she said, hinting that Louis had talked
long enough. „Good bye‟, said Louis ringing off. It takes the rich to remind one of
the bills, she thought.
In the above example, we can see that when the speaker utters the words „We must
remember your telephone bill‟, she is implying that she wants to close the
conversation. It is necessary to distinguish between implying and inferencing, or
implicature and inference. Implicature is generated intentionally by the speaker and
may be understood by the hearer whereas inference is produced by the hearer
deducing something from evidence.

4

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


Levinson (1983: 97) mentions that the projection of the concept of implicature in
recent work in pragmatics is due to a number of sources. First, implicature stands as
a paradigmatic example of the nature and power of pragmatic explanations of
linguistic phenomena. Second, implicature provides some explicit account of how it
is possible to mean more than what is actually said, i.e. more than what is literally
expressed by the conventional sense of the linguistic expressions uttered.
Therefore, in the conversation, the speaker and hearer co-operate with each other, or
in other words, they follow the cooperative principles that Grice has described in
term of four categories of special cases, which he called “Maxims”. These maxims
can briefly be characterized in modified form below:
1) Maxim of Quantity: Be brief. Make your contribution as informative as
is required and no more.
2) Maxim of Quality: Be true. Do not say what you believe to be false and
do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
3) Maxim of Relation: Be relevant.

4) Maxim of Manner: Be clear. Avoid obscurity and ambiguity.
It is suggested that the inferences arise based on the observation of four mentioned
conversational maxims. With the implicatures in which speakers deliberately
choose to flout one of the maxims, we call them flouting implicatures.
1.1.2. Conversational Implicature
Thomas (1995) indicates that Grice distinguished two different sorts of implicature:
Conventional implicature and Conversational implicature. They have in common
the characteristic that they both convey an additional level of meaning, beyond the
semantic meaning of the words uttered. Thomas (Ibid) states that the difference

5

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


between them is in the case of conventional implicature; the same implicature is
always conveyed, regardless of context, and there are comparatively few examples
of conventional implicature.
A good definition of conversational implicature is provided by Yule (1996): “An
additional unstated meaning that has to be assumed in order to maintain the
cooperative principle... [so that] the hearer must assume the speaker means to
convey more than is being said” (p. 128). Take the following example:
A. Con muốn bố mua quần bò và áo thun.
B. Bố đã mua cái quần bò này.
In the answer, the speaker B did not mention “áo thun” in his utterance. If he did
buy the shirt, he will mention it. Thus, B wants A to infer that the thing he did not
tell about is the one he had not bought yet. Consequently, B communicates more
than what he said thanks to conversational implicature.
1.1.3. Types of conversational implicature
1.1.3.1. Generalized conversational implicature

When no special knowledge is required in the context to calculate the additional
conveyed meaning, it is called generalized conversational implicature. These are
implicatures that in normal circumstances are regularly associated with a linguistic
expression. It means that the listener does not need to have any special background
knowledge of the context of utterance to understand what the speaker implies, as in
the following example:
Doobie: Did you invite Bella and Cathy?
Mary : I invited Bella.

6

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


In this conversation, no background knowledge is required to know just Bella is
invited while Cathy is not mentioned, that is, Mary did not invite Cathy.

Scalar conversational implicature
This is another kind of generalized conversational implicature which are commonly
communicated on the basis of a scale of values like: all, most, many, some, few,
always, often, sometimes. When producing an utterance, a speaker selects the words
from the scale, which is the most informative and truthful in the circumstances.
I'm studying linguistics and I've completed some of the required courses.
In this above example, „some‟ is used to create an implicature. It means not all the
courses have been completed.
1.1.3.2. Particularized conversational implicatures:
In contrast with the generalized conversational implicature, particularized
conversational implicature requires such specific context (context-bound). Besides,
all implicatures that arise from the maxim of relevance are particularized for
utterances, and are relevant only with respect to the particular topic or issue at hand.

In addition, the exploitation or flouting maxims can be categorized as particularized
implicature (Levinson, 1992:126)
Ann: Where are you going with the dog?
Sam: To the V-E-T.

The conversation takes place in a very specific context in which locally recognized
inference is assumed. Such inference is required to work out the conveyed
meanings,

which

result

from

particularized

conversational

implicatures.

Specifically, in the local context of these speakers, the dog is known to recognize
7

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


the word "vet", and to hate being taken there, so Sam produces a more elaborate,
spelled out version of his message, implicating that he does not want the dog to
know the answer to the question just asked. (Ibid)

1.1.4. Properties of conversational implicature
According to P. Grice (1965), conversational implicature must possess certain
features: cancellability, non-detachability, calculability, non-conventionality, having
different implicature drawn.
Cancellability (defeasibility)
Unlike conventional implicature, it is possible to cancel conversational implicature.
A generalized conversational implicature can be canceled in a particular case. It
may be explicitly canceled, by the addition of the clause that states or implies that
the speaker has opted out, or it may be contextually canceled, if the form of
utterance that usually carries it is used in a context that makes it clear that the
speaker is opting out. Cancelling a generalized conversational implicature happens
in the following example:
A: What‟s happened to the shampoo?
B: I used most of it. Actually, I used all of it.
(Adapted from Peccei 1999)
In this case, it is natural and probable for speaker B to add some more information
into his or her utterance in order to cancel the implicatures associated with earlier
information.
Non-detachability
Grice P. claims that it will not be possible to find another way of saying the same
thing, which simply lacks the implicature in question. Speaking more clearly, “the

8

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


implicatures are attached to the semantic content of what is said, not to linguistic
form, and therefore implicatures cannot be detached from an utterance simply by
changing the words of the utterance for synonyms”[Levinson, p. 116]. Let us look at

the following example:
John‟s a mental prodigy.
John‟s an enormous intellectual.
John‟s an exceptional clever human being.
John‟s a big brain.
+> John‟s genius.
Non-conventionality
To speak approximately, since the calculation of the presence of a conversational
implicature presupposes initial knowledge of the conventional force of the
expression the utterance of which carries the implicature, a conversational
implicature will be a condition that is not included in the original specification of
the expression‟s conventional force.
Having different implicatures drawn
Since the truth of a conversational implicature is not required by the truth of what is
said (what is said may be true but what is implicated may be false), the implicature
is not carried by what is said, but only by the saying of what is said or by “putting it
that way”.
Calculability
Although conversational implications can be intuitively grasped, they must be able
to be worked out. For instance, the implicature is calculated from the article “a” in
the following utterance: Tom met a woman on the road.
+> Neither was the woman Tom‟s wife nor the listener‟s wife.
9

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


1.2. Communicative competence

The concept of „competence‟ was generally introduced in the book „Aspects of the

Theory of Syntax‟ by Noam Chomsky, who gave a classic distinction between
competence (the monolingual speaker-listener‟s knowledge of language) and
performance (the actual use of language in real situations). Then the term
„communicative competence‟ was defined by Hymes (1972) not only as an inherent
grammatical competence but also as the ability to use grammatical competence in a
variety of communicative situations, thus bringing the sociolinguistic perspective
into Chomsky‟s linguistic view of competence. According to Canale and Swain
(1980) and Canale (1983), communicative competence is understood as a synthesis
of an underlying system of knowledge and skill needed for communication.
In this study, the communicative competence is necessary for the readers to
understand the implicature of the headlines. From the point of view of C.K
Orencchioni, to comprehend the implicature, people need to have communicative
competences to explain the speech behavior, its explicit meaning or its implicature.
In the case of the news headlines, the readers have to use these competences in
different ways to understand what the writer wants to express via headlines. In this
part, the communicative competences are proposed as the followings:

1.2.1. Background knowledge
General background knowledge is the great amount of information outside the
speech act and is concerned with the context. Dochy and Alexander (1995) provide
a definition of background knowledge as the whole of a person‟s knowledge,
including explicit and tacit knowledge, meta-cognitive and conceptual knowledge.
In another definition given by Kujawa and Huske, 1995 in the Strategic Teaching

and Reading Project Guidebook, background or prior knowledge acts as a lens
10

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add

through which we view and absorb new information. It is a composite of who we
are, based on what we have learned from both our academic and everyday
experiences. On the other words, it consists of our belief, knowledge, a system of
images and the way of explaining and evaluating the surroundings. This knowledge
is used with the very high frequency in the daily life.

In conversations, according to Nguyen Thien Giap (2000), “background knowledge
is the knowledge and ability to sense the cultural phenomenon of both the speaker
and the listener and the basis to ensure successful verbal communication”. The
interlocutors must have background knowledge to understand each other.
E.g. - Anh C dạo này có khỏe khơng?
- Nó sắp đi Văn Điển rồi. (Giap, N. 2000, p.201)

In the above example, based on the background knowledge that Văn Điển is a
cemetery where the dead are buried, the hearer understand that “anh C” is now very
weak.
In the news headlines, background knowledge is a crucial element readers need in
order to understand what the writers imply. For instance, in the headline on April 1st
2003 „Bush renews vow to 'free' Iraqi people‟, if a reader did not have background
knowledge on Bush, his vow and Iraq, he could not obtain fully the information.

1.2.2. Informal Reasoning
Informal reasoning that addresses the probability of truth of premises and
conclusions is common, every-day reasoning. Đỗ Hữu Châu writes that reasoning is
based on logical operations that are unidentified with the logic. Means and Voss
(1996) provided an illustrative description in the following:

11

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add

„„Informal reasoning assumes importance when information is less
accessible, or when the problems are more open-ended, debatable,
complex, or ill-structured, and especially when the issue requires that the
individual build an argument to support a claim‟‟ (p. 140).

This linguistic competence is really vital in the daily life to get the speaker‟s
intention. Consider the hereafter example:
The young man: Em giận anh phải không?
The girl: Chỉ khi nào anh lỡ hẹn với em thôi.
The young man: Thế bây giờ em đang giận anh à?
The girl: Vâng.

Thanks to informal reasoning, the conclusion is implied that the young man missed
the appointment. This conclusion is an implicature.

1.2.3. Observance of Cooperative principles
This linguistic competence includes, inter alia, all the knowledge the speaker has
about the cooperative principles. People who join the conversation have to obey the
principles of cooperation which Grice called “cooperative principles”. However, as
a matter of fact, in the real communication, conversational maxims are not always
observed. Grice (1975) made a distinction between “quietly” violating a maxim and
“openly” flouting a maxim. Violations are quiet in the sense that it is not
deliberately lied, or supply insufficient information, or have been ambiguous,
irrelevant or hard to understand. If a speaker violates a maxim, s/he “will be liable
to mislead” (Grice 1975: 49).

12

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


Differently, it is seen as flouting a maxim when the speaker has deliberately and
quite openly failed to observe one or more maxims. It means that flouting occurs
when a speaker blatantly fails to observe a maxim at the level of what is said, with
the deliberate intention of generating an implicature.

In this study, the headlines of the newspapers under analysis as instances of flouting
the maxims are investigated. Our understanding is that a headline is a careful choice
of words and expressions for it play an important role in conveying the writer‟s
implication to the readers and attract their readers‟ attention. The words in the
headlines are carefully and deliberately considered and chosen by the author.

Flouting the maxims are subdivided into four sub-types namely flouting the
quantity maxim, flouting the quality maxim, flouting the relation maxim, or flouting
the manner maxim. The four examples below will illustrate these types:



Flouting the quantity maxim: War is war



Flouting the quality maxim: (Student) Tehran‟s in Turkey, isn‟t it, teacher?
(Teacher) And London‟s in America, I suppose.



Flouting the relation maxim: (A) Can you tell me the time?

(B) Well, the milkman has come. (Levinson 1983: 107)



Flouting the manner maxim: (A) Let‟s get the kids something.
(B) Okay, but I veto I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M-S.
(Levinson 1983: 104)

13

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


1.3. News headlines
Newspaper headlines mentioned in this study are the news headlines or the
headlines of the news. According to Reah (1998:13) the headline is a unique type of
a text. It has a range of functions which specifically dictate its shape, content and
structure. Besides, Teo (2000) states that one of the features of news reporting is to
use the headline to express the main content of the news event in the most concise
form possible to orient the readers to process the text in a determined direction.
Additionally, the headlines have some distinctive characteristics. On the one hand,
the headline should supply the reader with the main information contained in the
item; on the other hand, since the headline is also the opening and the most
important part of the item, it is supposed not only to inform the readers but also to
persuade them to read the whole news story (Nir, 1994). So news headlines
generally contain bold-faced expressions, polarization, exaggerations, etc., and
appear in bigger print and sometimes in color (Nir, 1994).
Despite the importance of the headlines, they should not to be too long and too
informative. The first reason is that the limited space of newspaper requires
headlines not to be too long. Secondly, when the headlines provide the readers

some important information, it is probable to reduce the readers‟ curiosity to read
the whole text. In this sense, “newspaper headlines have a special style; they are
characterized by density of information and syntactic characteristics of telegraphic
speech” (Kronrod & Engel, 2001, p. 686).
1.4. The conversational implicature in the news headlines
As mentioned in the previous part, a headline plays an extremely important role in
the news discourse. The writers not only give information of the event but also
want to convey his/her opinion to the readers. Thus through the newspapers, the

14

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


writers and readers seem to be able to interact each other like the speaker and the
hearer in the real conversation. Therefore, the “conversation” in the newspapers is
the interaction between writers and readers. The news headlines enable us to look
at the news discourse and have a comprehensive view of the events. For this
reason, each headline is an implicature which the author of the article would like to
transfer to the readers.
1.5. Discourse of the Iraq War
The Iraq War, also known as the Occupation of Iraq, and the Second Gulf War,
lasted nine years from 2003 to 2011. It was a conflict which was triggered by an
invasion of Iraq by the United States and the United Kingdom. Apparently, the
invasion was initiated over the threat of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
and Saddam‟s failure to cooperate with United Nation weapons inspectors, there are
however many who question both the truth of this justification and the legality of
the invasion as it occurred. Having found no meaningful evidence of WMDs, the
U.S.-led coalition conducted a military invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The
invasion led to an occupation and the eventual capture of President Hussein, who

was later tried in an Iraqi court of law and executed by the new Iraqi government. In
2011, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, declared that the military
officially withdrew from Iraq and Iraq War ended.
Obviously, from the US‟s point of view, the purpose of this war was to help Iraq out
of Saddam Hussein‟s government and stabilize the country. But from the viewpoint
of the Iraqi people, the war is the US‟s invasion into their country. Many countries
in the world protested against the war except for US‟s allies. Therefore, there was a
clear ideological division of opinion on this matter, and there were issues that
demanded serious and informed debate. In this paper, the way in which this event
was depicted in the newspapers at the time and conversational implicature can help
to reinforce the ideological „message‟ of the text.

15

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


In this study, it is impossible to cover all the events of the Iraq War so the focus is
put on the major events. According to Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary
(2005), „major‟ means more important, bigger or more serious than others of the
same type. Thus the major events are the events which have greater impact on the
development of the war. In the period of over eight years, there were many major
events in the war; however, due to the limit, the most major events are selected
concluding United States‟ invasion in 2003, the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2006
and the withdrawal of United States military in 2010.
During three years of Iraq War, there were many events happening in the Iraq. 2006
is a year when the war happened fiercely with the casualties on both sides. The
beginning of 2006 was marked by government creation talks, growing sectarian
violence, and continuous anti-coalition attacks. Moreover, the U.S. military began
to approach factions of Sunni Muslims. The foundation of the Sunni Awakening

Councils funded by the U.S. military is considered a turning point in the war. One
of the most important events is the execution of Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid alTikriti, the fifth President of Iraq from July 1979 to April 2003 when he was
convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites on 5 November
2006. Thus the headlines of the Vietnamese and English articles are chosen from
December 1st to December 31st 2006.
Moving to the year 2010, there were some big attacks on Iraq's Central Bank and
the Bank of Trade building in June. At the same time with these attacks, the U.S.
forces have plans for a withdrawal of combat troops. In late August, the U.S.
combat brigades departed Iraq. Only an additional 50,000 personnel who remained
in Iraq to provide support for the Iraqi military are required to leave Iraq by 31
December 2011 under an agreement between the U.S. and Iraqi governments.
Undeniably, August 2010 is really a significant period of time in the timeline of the
war so it is chosen in the study.

16

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add


CHAPTER 2: METHODS AND PROCEDURE
2.1. Data collection method
In this study, news discourse is chosen specifically for analysis, thereby, television
news and radio news are neglected. The newspapers where the headlines are taken
are Quan Doi Nhan Dan online and the New York Times online for these
newspapers are of high quality and easily accessible to the readers all over the
world. Furthermore, Quan Doi Nhan Dan newspaper, one of the official daily
newspapers in Vietnam, is the voice of the Vietnamese armed forces whereas the
New York Times is an international U.S. newspaper with global edition published
in 180 countries.
On the coverage of the Iraq War, there are such a considerable number of headlines

in the QDND and NYT. However, with the aim of the study to investigate the
conversational implicature, the study examines 30 headlines which are believed to
contain implicature on three major events of Iraq War focusing on the certain points
of time. Three selected major events are US-led invasion into Iraq from March 20th
to April 10th 2003, the execution of Saddam Hussein from December 1st to 31st
2006, official end of combat from August 1st to 31st 2010. The frequencies of the
articles about the Iraq war in two newspapers at the points of time are different.
There are much more articles on the coverage of this event in NYT but to make the
pointing out the similarity and difference between two newspapers more exactly,
the number of the headlines of QDND and NYT are selected to be studied is equal.
2.2. Data analysis procedure
The headlines of the articles reporting the Iraq War will be analyzed with regard to
the linguistic means to generate conversational implicature and linguistic
competence. Firstly, the headlines are studied how the implicatures are expressed by
17

LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add