kí như một loại hình diễn ngôn tóm tắt tiếng anh bản chuẩn

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INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
1.1. Nonfiction (Ky) is an important genre of literature. However, it is
very difficult to identify its features because of its diversity and complexity.
Nonfiction writings were generated in the very early stage with a wide range of
works. All works which do not belong to narrative, lyric, political commentary
and dramas are classified as non-fiction. There are various types of nonfiction
and it is difficult to find their common characteristics. These types include notes,
reportage, life stories, narrative chronicles. In its long history of development,
the appearance of nonfiction kept changing. This made the later nonfiction
works such as notes, reportage much different from inscription, chronicle
(nonfiction types in the Middle Ages) which were generated at the early
development stage of this genre. As a result of all those above reasons,
identifying the features of this genre becomes a challenge for researchers.
1.2. According to Vietnamese theory of nonfiction, the record of truth
was often considered as the most importance feature. This theory also defined
the truth in the opposite relationship with fiction. This led to various debates on
nonfiction in literature history. The debate on Vu Trong Phung’s reportages in
1936-1939 and another one on features of nonfiction in 1960 can be taken as
examples. This interpretation of nonfication could not resolve thoroughly some
problems encountered in practice. For that reason, another approach to this
literature genre is significantly necessary.
1.3. In the beginning of twentieth century, there was an important
movement in theoretical mindset of social sciences and humanities; which was
called language turn. Based on the a profound awareness of the role, function,
and nature of languages, thinkers such as M.Bakhtin, Foucault, R.Barthes,
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J.Derrida re-defined many key problems including reality, subject, truth,
nature From this foundation, a new model of literature and cultural research
gradually replaced the old one based on reflecting theory. Since then, literature

and cultural phenomena have not been identified by referring it to true reality,
but located it in the network of surrounding, previous and following discourses.
Furthermore, literature is no longer researched as a closed language text and
scholars always try to find formation structure of text which is deeply under
cultural layers. In this research model, the concept of discourse plays such a key
role that it is very difficult to grasp theories of the twentieth century’s literature
and culture without understanding the inner meaning of discourse. This theory
provided the author with a new approach to nonfiction, helped resolve
outstanding problems in practice and brought a new view into this familiar
literary genre.
1.4. Approaching the theory and historical types of nonfiction in terms
of discourse theory, the thesis addressed conflicts between the traditional
theorical research and the practice of nonfiction. Besides, it also pointed out the
typical features, classification system and development rule of nonfiction in
history. This new theorical model brought a new look and helped re-define
nonfiction phenomena and certainly potential for researches.
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW
This part presented various concepts of nonfiction in literary
researches in Vietnam, China and Russia. Due to limited time and data resource,
the central attention is paid to the analysis on changes in concepts of nonfiction
in Vietnam. Based on the collected data, the author pointed out gaps and
outstanding problems in the traditional theory. A new approach into nonfiction
in terms of discourse perspective was also proposed.
1. Nonfiction in traditional theory in Vietnam
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- In the Middle Ages, concepts of nonfiction could be founded in the
beginning and ending section of book such as Lam Son thuc luc, Trung Hung
thuc luc by Ho Sy Duong or cultural researches such as Lich trieu hien chuong
loai chi by Phan Huy Chu. A typical concept reflected in those books is that:
nonfiction is a record of the real events. This concept later became the

foundation for the theory of nonfiction.
- According to concepts defined in art discussions and literary
criticism in the early 20
th
century, such genres as truyen ki, reportage, ki su,
travel writing were considered as the recording of real and updated events.
Besides, realistic description was seen as the rule for recording real events in
nonfiction works.
- From 1945 to 1986 in Vietnam, nonfiction was paid the central
attention. In 1960s, there was a debate on nonfiction on Arts journal. Nonfiction
was also the theme of many critics, literary researchers and theorist. The
theoretical system of nonfiction was built based on Vietnamese nonfiction
practice, mainly in period from 1945 to 1986, and the theoretical system of
nonfiction in Soviet Union. Based on this foundation, Vietnamese researchers
often defined the typical feature of nonfiction as recording real events. This
above system had significant influence on the composition, criticism and
reaseaches of nonfiction at that time. The nonfiction work on revolutionary war
and the construction of socialism by Ha Minh Duc can be taken as the typical
example of this theory.
- Since 1986, researches on nonfiction have been applying this theory.
The research scope has been widened in the following directions: forming
theoretical system of nonfiction; researching historical types on nonfiction such
as medieval nonfiction, Vietnamese nonfiction from the early 20
th
century to
1945…; surveying the formation and development of nonfiction sub-genres in
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history; researching authors’ styles and values of nonfiction works. The
expansion showed the diversified and varying appeance of this literary genre.
2. Nonfition in some foreign data.

In China
In Chinese literature, there is also a literary genre which records real
events and is called nonfiction. However, the names of this genre, its content
and classification is not very clear and not similar to Vietnamese nonfiction
theory.
In Soviet Union
Most treatises and literary dictionaries in Soviet Union described
nonfiction as the record of real events. Some theoretical works including
Elements of literary theory by Timofeep, Introduction of researching literature
by Gulaiep emphasized that the description of real events and typification were
the most important characteristic of this genre. Those concepts strongly
impacted Vietnamese nonfiction theory.
All of the above collected concepts showed that in most literatures in
the world exist a genre which focused on recording real events and real people.
It belongs to the contact zone between literature and non-literature. Nonfiction
had some common characteristics of structure and form. However, the name and
content of nonfiction was different among different countries and different
historical stages of the same literature. For that reason, it is difficult to apply a
unique theoretical model for the research on nonfiction in Vietnam. The
implicating and diversifying practice of Vietnamese nonfiction also requires a
theory deriving from this practice.
3. Problem statements
Related research on nonfiction in Vietnam and other countries has
revealed some gaps in the theory of nonfiction in Vietnam
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3.1. As an attempt to figure out the characteristics of nonfiction,
researchers agree that reality is the nuclear element of the genre; however, the
concept of reality as well as the relationship between reality and fiction has
remained a controversial issue.
3.2. In reference to the reality of nonfiction writing, there appear various

unresolved issues: In medieval-time nonfiction, the reality described was full of
miraculous and fabulous details, in 1930-1945 reportage, there were only the
harsh reality of social evils, in 1945-1976 nonfiction, it was the mere existence
of pleasant reality, etc.
3.3. Referring to the approach to characteristics of nonfiction, almost
researchers follow function, history or modality approach; none of them
consider nonfiction a discourse.
Therefore, the authors choose to regard to the characteristics of nonfiction
as a discourse so that those above problems can be solved theoretically and
practically.
4. Discourse and a new mode of formulating the theory of nonfiction
The concept of Discourse was defined long time ago yet before the 20
th
century, it was only used in linguistics, as rhetoric. Since the 20
th
century, during
the language turn, the concept of discourse has implied new connotations which
were associated with a new approach of literature and culture study, becoming a
key term in social sciences and humanity.
It can be said that those new connotations deeply rooted from work by the
three greatest thinkers in the 20
th
century namely F.de Saussure, M.Bakhtin and
M.Foucault. This issue has been addressed in detail in the research entitled “The
three approaches of the concept discourse”. Among the main points are as
follow.
First, according to structural linguists, discourse is the structure of
language/parole, which is the rule of organizing words in a certain order.
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Second, according to M.Bakhtin, discourse is ideology-verbal.

Third, according to M.Foucault, in the broad meaning, discourse is
considered general statements under impact of a force but in narrow meaning, it
is a group of specific statements which conventionally exist in the same context,
have same origin and are reunited under the pressure of an institution. Besides,
discourse is used for describing a practice which draws up a great deal of
statements and affects their functions along with rules and structures which
make specific discourses and texts.
To sum up, three above approaches to the discourse have provided three
different definitions of discourse including discourse as a structure of language
and verbalization, discourse as ideology- verbalization, and discourse as tool for
making up knowledge and implementing power. It is the most important
meaning supplementing to the traditional definition of discourse, at the same
time, is the most popular meaning used in researching literature and culture.
Through summarizing the main approaches to discourse, it is clear that although
the approaches to definition are different, there are also following general
points:
First, discourse is a system of signs which is difficult for explaining unless we
understand their code. Otherwise, every scholar have different viewpoint of
discourse code. Structuralists assume that language code is deeply hidden in the
structure of discourse. According to M.Bakhtin, analysis of verbalization and
ideology is a method to approach to a discourse. Researcher Foucault believes
that the final target of discourse analysis is pointing out the institution of power
hidden in language.
Second, scholars reckon that discourse has a structure. In accordance with
structuralists under influence of F.Saussure, discourse has a similar structure
with grammatical structure of sentence so it can be analyzed following tense,
mode, mood and voice. Basing on M.Foucalt’s viewpoint, there are outer and
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inner structures which impacts the establishment, operation and distribution of
discourses. The inner structures include episteme, statement, discourse or

discourses, archive and inner exclusion of discourse while the outer structures
comprise of comments, rites and authors.
On the basis of acquiring and inheriting these experiences, we carried out
identifying the definition of discourse as a tool for a new researching system of
Ki. Discourse is understood as institution making up the text under the effect of
cultural codes. Basing on this definition, we have identified 2 core of discourse
structure consisting of genre code and ideological code.
CHAPTER 2: GENERIC CODE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF
NONFICTION
2.1. An overview of code, generic code and generic code of nonfiction
- Code: the principle of identifying the relationship between information
and signal, in communication, code is the element establishing the relationship
between the sender and the receiver, the message and its meaning. Code is a
language as there are units and the rules to organize those units into a system
which helps to transfer information.
- Generic code: the principle of establishing the relationship between the
information and the genre, which works as an intermediary between the writer
and readers.
- As a discourse, nonfiction is influenced by two codes: nonliterary code
and literary code
2.2. Nonliterary code (discourse of reality) as the atomic structure of
nonfiction
2.2.1. First person story-teller as a witness
There always exits a story-teller calling himself or herself “I”, who
witnesses and makes comments on the world described in nonfiction. He or she
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is always specified with such information as the author’s biography. In order to
enhance the witnessed story-teller’s truthfulness, the author typically creates
communicative situations in which the story-teller directly meets and talks to
characters.

2.2.2. Unique specific characters, events, space and time
In nonfiction, there always exit unique specific characters, events, space
and time, which create a glossary of reality reflected in nonfiction writings and
clearly distinguish it from other literary genres. This glossary of reality helps to
enhance the persuasiveness of nonfiction work in term of truthfulness of those
events described.
2.2.3. Logical structure of reality
Typically, the glossary of reality is organized according to linear order,
causal logic or the logic of narrator “I”’s subjective world. As nonfiction
writings in medieval time is influenced by historical discourses, it is generally
organized into chronicles, record stories or research. Reportages in the period of
1930-1945 are usually organized according to the structure of investigative or
research ones. This structure remarks the objective logic of life reality, which
can be regarded as the grammar of reality.
2.2.4. Modes of reflecting reality
With the aim of shortening the distance between narration and reality,
filming, photo taking, sound recording and montage of other documentation
types are usually utilized.
2.3. Literary code and characteristics of nonfiction
Primarily, nonfiction is a functional genre which aims at reporting
information and events. However, in the development process, this function
become more and more secondary; since the 18
th
century, many pieces of Ky has
become literary work such as Notes taken on rainy days (Vũ trung tùy bút -
Phạm Đình Hổ), Capital travel reports (Thượng Kinh kí sự - Lê Hữu Trác).
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This process leads to the existence of the second generic code in the atomic
structure of nonfiction - literary code, which can be recognized by those
elements:

2.3.1. The image of people and the picture of world
- Though characters and events in nonfiction are not clearly shown, they
are faithfully reflected through a wide range of outside details and descriptions
of portrait, action, scenery and such. Those descriptions make out “the
redundancy” of nonfiction in comparison with the genre frame of chronicles,
record stories and research, which results in artistic value and attractiveness of
nonfiction as well.
- Nonfiction work is full of symbolic and metaphoric images. These
images lead to the depth and polysemy of work.
2.3.2. The story frame
- Events in nonfiction are always organized into a narrative document
with an opening and an ending. The modes of opening and ending are typically
conformed to some certain rules and motifs: travel writings are opened with the
narrator “I”’s departure, reportages are ended at the end of the investigation,
memoirs about monarchs and famous mandarins in medieval time are opened
with the motif of miraculous breeding and such.
- Despite distant relation, events in nonfiction are usually organized into a
story, which reveals a certain meaning. Reportages in the period of 1930-1945 is
typically with events organized into stories about the universal fact in which all
the things and characters are described as on the journey to the darkness, the
death and corruption. Meanwhile, reportages in the period of 1945-1975 is
typically with events organized into stories of the beginning in which all the
things and characters are on the journey of reformation and revival.
- Typically, events that appear to be unconnected in tan van, tuy but are
put underneath a story frame with the narrator “I”’s viewpoint. The appearance
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of the narrator makes the work more flexible but with a cohesive meaning.
Eventually, objective report figures organized according to a certain rule can
still narrate a story which conveys some meanings. Besides, narrative rhythm
can be fast or slow, stressed or unstressed, contributing to the reflection of

meaning.
Therefore, the process of organizing the glossary of reality into a story is
also the process of adding a new meaning to the work, beyond the denotation.
The discourse of reality is just the material to convey a certain artistic meaning.
This structure mode results in interesting, meaningful and philosophical pieces
of work.
2.3.3. Stylization
- Different from neutral and objective style of such genres as history,
journal and research, the style of nonfiction is the artistic style with uniqueness,
emotion and the appearance of various modes of meaning transference such as
metaphor, simile, repetition, hyperbole, litotes and irony.
2.4. The interaction between codes
2.4.1. The institution and mutuality between nonliterary and literary codes
In nonfiction work, nonliterary and literary codes interact and have
mutual impacts on each other. In the structure of nonfiction, there exist literary
code but it is influenced by nonliterary code, thus all the literary elements are
put in a certain frame. The impact of nonliterary code on literary code can
hardly lead Ky writings to the state of being disintegrated and unstructured as
other literary genres.
As a result of the tie between factual code and artistic code, it is difficult
for nonfiction compositions to achieving disintegrating and non- structural status
like other types of artistic literature. By contrast, artistic code makes factual
code more flexible and attractive. While factual language, which helps
nonfiction direct intervene in social life together with pioneer in literature in
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special and cultural life in general; artistic language helps nonfiction become an
equivocal, indirect and implicate verbal form. Therefore, artistic language could
be able to thread its way through the limitations of censorship. The
interminglement, institution and mutual support between two these codes builds
a powerful verbal strategy for nonfiction in comparison with other literature

sorts as well as factual discourses.
2.4.2. Interaction between factual code and artistic code in practically
nonfiction writings.
Observing practically nonfiction composition in Vietnam, it is realized
that in developmental process of nonfiction, factual code regularly takes
dominant position in initial period while artistic code overwhelms in flourishing
periods of the literature. Kinds of nonfiction which tend to use factual code often
boom in relatively democratic and opening cultural environment. On the other
hand, artistic code becomes leading language in nonfiction compositions in non-
democratic cultural environment. Furthermore, genre codes of nonfiction are
under influence of popular verbal types in a culture (The medieval nonfiction is
affected by historical discourse, conversely, modern one is impacted by
scientific and press discourse).
CHAPTER 3: IDEOLOGICAL CODE AND MOVEMENT AND
DEVELOPMENT OF NONFICTION
3.1. Definition of ideology and ideological code
- Ideology is a system of a group of people’s viewpoints, attitudes and
beliefs. It tends to suppress and is objectified by a picture of the world and an
expressing pattern of subject.
- Ideological code, which is a regulation of establishing the relationship
between one group of subject and real life, belongs to cultural structure of a
period and a community.
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3.2. Ideological code and characteristics of nonfiction
3.2.1. The self of witness as scocial person with a general value
The self of witness in nonfiction not only expresses in a private capacity
but also represents a group of people, a community, an age and a culture. There
is a recognized scocial person in different each stage or each culture. The voice
of subject of factual discourse in nonfiction will become worthless without
following these scocial person. (Only historians in medieval age and journalists,

scientists in modern age have right to tell the truth). The social person will
regulate perceptiveness of the world and viewpoint of the narrative subject in
nonfiction, express the voice of a group of people in the society.
3.2.2. Picture of real life as a general model of the world.
Nonfiction writings appearing in the same phase and cultural space have a
common model of the world. The medieval nonfiction regularly describes a lofty
and ritual world. Reportages from 1930 to 1945 frequently illustrate a picture of
the waning world. Otherwise, nonfiction between the period of 1945 and 1975
often depicts the world as a paradise of energy. This model of the world states
general observing prism for the whole community. When composing, the
authors do not describe the life from their own viewpoints, but in reality, they
are affected by this community prism. In the contrast pictures of world in the
same period, we can become conscious of debate among ideologies and
confrontation of hidden under- power in the society.
3.2.3. Expanding meaning (connotation) in nonfiction
When considering nonfiction in cultural context, in addition to literal
meaning, there are always denotation and artistic meaning. This meaning only
can be found basing on cultural code of a period. We call this figurative,
widening meaning or connotation. Besides the content of factual events, the
medieval nonfiction also praises devotion, ethics and desires to eliminate
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existing social order, especially reportages written from 1930 to 1945. However,
this issue is too large to completely solve in only this thesis.
3.3. The impact of ideological code on practically nonfiction composition.
3.3.1. Ideological code and the change of factual discourse in nonfiction
through periods
In the developmental history of nonfiction, in each period, under the
effect of different ideological codes, we can be aware of the emergence of a
narrative subject’s different model of the truth and viewpoint or a different
connotation. In medieval age, the factual- legendary model is a dominant factual

model. It is religious ideology that rules over the creation of the truth in
nonfiction. In modern age, there is the appearance of factual model of life and
people affairs (in reality reports) as well as of personal life and inmost feelings
in tản văn, tùy bút, tạp bút. Humanistic ideology which recognizes the world by
regarding human as center is the basis of factual discourse in nonfiction.
3.3.2. Ideological code and the difference of factual discourse in nonfiction
through cultural spaces.
Although nonfiction writings are made up in the same period and culture,
models of the world and the awareness of subject in different cultural spaces
under the effect of different ideological code become different and represent the
various voices of power. Nonfiction writings in centre and orthodox places are
often affected by national, religious and ethnic ideology; therefore, the picture of
the world here is sacred and the described truth contains legend factors. In this
kind of nonfiction, the powerful voice resounds on the purpose of keeping order
upwards. On the contrary, nonfiction writings written in peripheral and marginal
space are habitually affected by indivisualism ideology. As a result, the picture
of the world seems to chaos, disorders, deteriorates and the legendary factor is
removed. It expresses the resistant voice downward with the aim of changing
the social order. Cultural space and ideology is both coexist and mutual conflict.
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The coexistence and mutual conflict among different ideological codes is
existing mode of all cultures and literatures. It is interminglement and debate
among them that makes up the variety of factual discourses.
CHAPTER 4: VIETNAMESE NONFICTION IN THE PERIOD OF 1945 -
1975 AS A HISTORICAL CASE
4.1. Generic code in nonfiction in the period of 1945 – 1975
4.1.1. The absence of reportage and the flourish of ki su, tuy but, truyen ki.
Reportage used to be a dominant genre in Vietnamese literature in the
period of 1930 – 1945 yet during the new era, the number of reportages was
quite tiny, they were by some means chronicled and noted. In the Southern

urban literature, reportages of war did develop but they were forgotten,
criticized or disapproved. On the other hand, ki su, tuy but, truyen ki made up a
large portion of nonfiction work, specifically more than 90%. The absence of
reportage was due to its inappropriateness to the generic code and the orthodox
ideology of that time.
4.1.2. The regression of nonliterary code and the enhancement of literary
code in nonfiction
In the early years of the resistance war against the French colonialists, ki
su remarkably developed. During 1960s, great achievements were made in but
ki, tuy but. The period of 1965 – 1970 saw the blossom era of truyen ki. Due to
that fact, the development rule of generic code can be figured out as follow: the
later in the development process of nonfiction, the more dominant literary code
was, thus it can be said that nonfiction was the preparation for the appearance of
short story and novel.
4.2. Nationalism ideology and the system of themes
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- In the light of examining the role of nonfiction in Vietnamese literature
in the period of 1945-1975, it can be said that in this period, nonfiction became
the main character of literature and cultural life.
- The transference of nonfiction from the outside into the inside culture,
firstly, leaded to the change of ideological code in the discourse of nonfiction.
Before 1945, nonfiction reflected the speech of outsiders who tended to struggle
against and overthrow the old world order whereas from 1945-1975, it
represented the public speech of communities and nation, the speech of the
winner. The change in ideology had an impact on awareness of the subject of
discourse, the way of describing the world, which resulted in a system of
common themes and restricted areas in nonfiction, in other words, a new mode
of reality in comparison with the former period.
Nationalism ideology took control of all discourses, which created
common themes in all the discourses of politics, history and literature at that

time, and specified restricted areas with concealed truths as well. Three key
themes including New man, New era and The victory of rights repeatedly
covered a vast majority of nonfiction work for specific and literature in general.
These common themes resulted in a system of updated symbols, metaphoric
structures to describe the world as well as the emotional depiction of the
narrator.
4.3. Mythologizing the nonfiction’s text
4.3.1. Formalizing characters into architypes
In spite of the diversity, the world of characters in nonfiction in the period
of 1945-1975 was united. When describing specific people of the time,
nonfiction tended to turn them into architypes by referencing them with the
primary images in human thoughts. Explicit details of the character became a
system of symbols which was covered by the second system of symbols called
legendary architype.
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The New man – The Hero
- At the center of nonfiction in this period was the New man, i.e. the
soldier in the struggle against colonialist enemies and the laborer in the
establishment of socialism. As far as we concern, this motif of characters was
actually the regeneration of the legend of heroes who had extraordinary power in
nature conquests and struggle against cruelty, aiming at creating a new world as
well as protecting human life on the Earth.
Thank on reflecting and persuading ability of legends, an image reflected
in discourses of politics called New man’s mission and position were made
possible in nonfiction. In the mode of reporting real event and real people,
nonfiction made the image of New man – an abstract concept in political
discourses become lively, specific, updated and fairly emotional. Nevertheless,
this detailed specific mode could drive the image of New man into being
accidental or individual whereas political discourses ambitiously aimed at
turning what accidental and individual into general images which had great

influences. Thus, mythologizing was nonfiction authors’ inevitable choices that
guaranteed the topicality and persuasiveness of the image and made it
permanent.
The Enemy – The Devil
While all the soldiers in nonfiction of the period 1945-1975 were the
regeneration of legendary heroes, the enemies were that of legendary devils. All
the characters were fully formulated and symbolized. All the details described
aimed at clearly illustrating the function of this character motif as the hindrance
and the destroyer of life. These formula and symbolization were also very
popular in Vietnamese, Chinese and Russian literatures.
On the other hand, the way of discribing enemy in historical discourses in
this time set the foot on the recovering and circulation of the legend of devils in
literary work in general and nonfiction work for specific. In political discourses,
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enemies were also normally brutalized, exaggerated and highly formulated; they
had no chance to speak out. By mythologizing the opposition group into devil
and beast force who was permanently people’s enemy, nonfiction work raised
up the terror and hated which had been unconsciously existing in human beings
for thousands of years, thus had a great impact on the public.
The Leader – God
It can be said that among the characters in nonfiction in the period of
1945-1975, the leader image was the to-the-highest-level formulated and
symbolized one. Nonfiction’s authors chose to exploit a wide range of meaning
transferences as well as the same expression modes and glossary to describe the
leader. These formulas tended to make Ho Chi Minh, a real leader in history
become the ancestor, the superior, the pioneer, in other words, a metahistorical
God.
Formulization of character into architypes expresses a characterized rule
of building character of a myth text. In fact, the world of characters which seems
highly diverse in nonfiction compositions is only simple, coherent and cosmic.

The reason for it is that this world is identified into several limited architypes.
The characters at present are integrated into images in the past so when writing
about topical events, nonfiction has tendency to come back to origin, turn the
present into eternal past. By the way of restoring architypes, legends and folks in
cultural tradition, nonfiction at that time could strengthen the persuasiveness of
verbalization, leading discourses of new human, new period to become powerful
judgment of truth.
4.3.2. Normalizing the historical events into rituals
When researching nonfiction compositions in the period from 1945 to
1975, it is realized that in spite of narrating about different historical events, the
structure of compositions is relatively identical. Besides, they also follow a
slightly consistent and predicted sequence which we call rituals. The
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compositions of this stage containing the characteristics of a myth text or
legendary text is the result of normalizing the historical events into rituals. If we
ignore outer signals including updated events and people, we can be aware of
unchanged models of plot that are basic propos of the majority of nonfiction
works at that time. There are two architype about revival and triumph which
change historical events into invariable rituals.
Ritual of revival
Most of the events in nonfiction are structured following the plot of
revival. In this model, the events take place in a changing process from death to
life, from shadow to light, from slavery to freedom and from chaos to order. The
past regularly sticks to death, shadow, slavery and chaos; by contrast, the
present often go abreast with the rise of a full vitality. Moreover, the future is
imagined as a complete growth of nature and human. Thus, random factors in
historical process in nonfiction are entirely removed, leading to an indispensable
process. Whole historical process is identified with revolutionary process, with
the forecasted opening and ending. Historical events are considered as normal
and uncontroversial factors with invariable nature.

As a result of restoring rituals of revival and architype about death and
life in folk culture, nonfiction could be able to turn historical time into period of
ritual past as well as origins. Basing on hidden under- power in ancient rituals,
nonfiction prove that it is impossible to reverse the changing process from death
to life and from then on, the magic of revolutionary is recognized. Legendary
factors (lớp huyền thoại) hiding in structure of nonfiction compositions show its
ability of expression and strong persuasiveness.
Ritual of triumph
Difference from plot of revival where the legendary plot is developed
with the core of changing process from death to life, from shadow to light, from
to slavery to freedom and from chaos to order, plot of triumph is inspirited from
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the folk plot with the basis of opposition between good and evil. The structural
heart of this plot is challenges, overcome the challenges and win a victory. The
chain of events directing to the triumph is clearly expressed in the structure of
Ky compositions. They frequently begin with a challenging situation when the
enemy always in overpowering position; conversely, our side have to face a
number of difficulties. The way of opening sets up a dramatic circumstance and
remarks a cozy under high pressure. The whole plot is our journey of triumph
over challenges. The plot always has a happy ending when the main character
overcomes challenges, tastes the victory and is honored by community. There
are lots of classic nonfiction compositions of this period using this type of plot.
As a matter of fact, plot of triumph ritual is deploying one of popular
topics of literature at that time that the topic of victorious revolution is derived
from political discourses. To regularize a political concept, nonfiction uses
legendary expression. The structure creates another story deeply under the story
about new human and new work, topical events such as legends about hero in
battle or legends about war. By means of integrating two stories into each other,
Ky revive primeval cổ mẫu, powerful legendary images, for this reason, it has an
incomparable conviction and attraction to millions of contemporary readers.

Description and structure of event following available rituals causes
random factors in life to be completely removed from plot. Therefore, history is
regarded as a dispensable process directing to life, light and victory. This
structure is basically mode of mythologizing the common topics in political,
historical and literature discourses. Basing on the power of legend, nonfiction
strongly attracts readers and becomes an efficient weapon supporting the
revolution. Thus, it is the voice of keeping order upward in a centre, orthodox
cultural space of this stage.
4.2.3. Organizing language following hymn
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While nonfiction from 1930 to 1945 is written following satirical, ironic
method, nonfiction from 1945 to 1975 is made up following hymn. Instead of
the rhetoric such as imitation, irony, criticize, other rhetoric such as hyperbole,
reiteration become popular. This way of organizing creates a ritual and lofty
reality together with the respectful attitude of subject of discourse in nonfiction.
Through hymn mode, the factual world in nonfiction becomes an eternal and
extremely legendary past.
Reiteration is used widely in nonfiction compositions in this period,
especially in poetic essays, tùy bút. Reiteration could multiplies feelings by
many times so it is used as a sharp weapon to express feelings, even in narrative
and descriptive paragraph, this kind of rhetoric is also commonly used. This
blanks images and things out as well as remarks expressive aspects of the
paragraph.
Hyperbole is also a popular rhetoric in nonfiction, even in theory
declaration; it is popular that nonfiction reflects the truth in an objective and
honest way.
Different forms of exclamations (ôi chao, ôi, chao ôi, hoan hô, xiết bao,
biết mấy…) repeatedly used to express admiration and praise contributed to the
enthusiastic and complete harmony, which made ki su, tuy but, truyen ki and
become more of a eulogy. All of those factors contributed to the appearance of

nonfiction as the praise at squares and the incitement among crowds. Therefore,
nonfiction for specific and the literature of this time in general were typically
used as a powerful weapon in the battlefield of art.
CONCLUSIONS
1. The concept that nonfiction is a literary genre which functions to report
real events derived from Vietnamese medieval literature but until the period
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from 1945 to 1975, nonfiction officially became a genre with an system of its
subgenres and theory about it. The important factor of this theory is that
reporting real events and real people is nonfiction’s main characteristics.
However this theory of nonfiction seems to be unfit to its practice. There were a
lot of discussions about nonfiction’s content and forms, for example the
discussion about Vu Trong Phung’s novels and reportages between 1930-1945,
the discussion of nonfiction in the early 1960s. It’s necessary to have a new
theory to understand this genre. In this thesis, we suggest that researching
nonfiction under the light of discourse theory is one of approaches which are
prospective to resolve the problem.
2. The term discourse existed for a long time before it became a keyword
of most disciplines of social sciences and humanities at the language turn in the
middle of the 20
th
century. The theory of discourse covers many disciplines such
as history, politics, literature, cultural studies, etc. It’s foundation is the ideas of
Ferdinand de Saussure, Mikhain Bakhtin and Michael Foucault who are among
the greatest thinkers of the 20
th
century. Basing on these ideas, the theory of
discourse were divided into three different movements. The first considered
discourse as an invariant linguistic structure. The second took discourse as an
ideology-verbal and the third viewed discourse as a tool of knowledge and

power. Basing on these explainations of discourse, we come to a conclusion that
discourse is a mechanism which in the influences of cultural codes, especially
ideological code and generic code.
3. From this theory, we defined ky as a discourse of reality, which is
closely related to other discourses of reality and influenced by episteme of
cultures. Using ideological and generic codes, we investigated nonfiction’s
characteristics and analyzed the factors which change the performance of ki over
time.
Nonfiction is a literary genre which has two codes: literary code and
nonliterary code. Nonliterary code makes it closely related to other discourse of
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reality such as history, science… Literary code makes it became more attractive
and ambiguous. The close realationship between these two codes is the
characteristics of nonfiction.
On the other hand, the discourse of reality in ki always changes according
to ideological change. As a result, nonfiction which are written in different time
and different cultural spaces are not the same.
4. Basing on the theory which is defined in chapter 3, we discovered the
development rules of Vietnamese nonfiction between 1945-1975. Firstly, the
nonliterary code played very important part in nonfiction writing in the early
stages but later literary code took the lead. Reportage was not developed
because of its inappropriateness to the orthodox ideology of that time. Secondly,
nationalism ideology is the most important which controls most nonfiction
writing in that period. As a result, nonfiction became a way to mythologize the
reality: its characters were described as the archetypes, historical events were
arranged according to the ritual procedure and language were organized as a
hymns. Most of nonfiction writings in this period were the expansion of the
common subjects in the political discourse which are “new man”, “new era’ and
“the victory of rights”.
5. The discourse theory which is popular in Western social sciences and

humanities offers new prospects for Vietnamese researchers in many areas,
especially in theoretical research of nonfiction. Basing on this theory, it’s
possible to dig deep into further issues such as the battle of ideologies in
Vietnamese ki between 1930-1945 and between 1945-1975 or the ideology in
Vietnamese ki after 1986, etc.
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