Interpretable implicatures in the vietnamese prime minister nguyen tan dungs speech at the 62nd un general assembly session

i
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
------------- o0o -------------

TRẦN THANH TÚ

INTERPRETABLE IMPLICATURES IN THE VIETNAMESE
PRIME MINISTER NGUYỄN TẤN DŨNG'S SPEECH AT THE
62ND UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION

(Những hàm ý có thể thuyết giải được trong bài phát biểu
của Thủ tướng Việt Nam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng tại kỳ họp lần
thứ 62 của Đại hội đồng Liên hợp quốc)
M.A. Minor Program Thesis

Field: English linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Hanoi – 2010


ii
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
------------- o0o -------------

TRẦN THANH TÚ

INTERPRETABLE IMPLICATURES IN THE VIETNAMESE

PRIME MINISTER NGUYỄN TẤN DŨNG'S SPEECH AT THE
62ND UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION

(Những hàm ý có thể thuyết giải được trong bài phát biểu
của Thủ tướng Việt Nam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng tại kỳ họp lần
thứ 62 của Đại hội đồng Liên hợp quốc)
M.A. Minor Program Thesis

Field: English linguistics
Code: 60.22.15

Supervisor: ASSOC. PROF. DR. NGÔ ĐÌNH PHƯƠNG
Hanoi - 2010


vi
ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

APEC:

Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation

ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations
e.g.

:

For example

i.e

:

That is to say

ibid. :

Ibidem (in the same book or piece of writing as the one has
just been mentioned)

MDGs:

Millennium Development Goals

PM:

Prime Minister

UN

:

WTO:

United Nations
World Trade Organization

+>

: marks implicatures

>>

:

marks presuppositions


vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration .................................................................................................................................... i
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... ii
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................iii
Abbreviations and symbols ......................................................................................................... iv
Table of contents .......................................................................................................................... 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. Analysis procedure ................................................................................................................... 2
6. Design of the study…… ........................................................................................................... 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ...................................................................................................... 4

Chapter 1: Literature Review and Background information of the data ............................ 4
1.1. Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 4
1.1.1. Theory of Discourse ........................................................................................................... 4
1.1.1.1. Concept of Discourse ....................................................................................................... 4
1.1.1.2. Discourse and Text .......................................................................................................... 5

1.1.1.3. Discourse analysis and Text analysis ............................................................................... 6
1.1.1.4. Spoken discourse versus Written discourse ...................................................................... 6
1.1.1.5. Discourse context............................................................................................................. 7
1.1.2. Discursive strategies ........................................................................................................... 8
1.1.2.1. Lexicalization .................................................................................................................. 8
1.1.2.2. Repetition ........................................................................................................................ 8
1.1.2.2.1. Lexical repetition ......................................................................................................... 8
1.1.2.2.2. Grammatical repetition ................................................................................................. 8
1.1.2.3. Pronoun choice ............................................................................................................... 9
1.1.2.4. Modality .......................................................................................................................... 9


viii
1.1.3. Inferencing ......................................................................................................................... 9
1.1.4. The Co-operative Principle ............................................................................................... 10
1.1.5. Presupposition .................................................................................................................. 11
1.1.5.1. Definition ...................................................................................................................... 11
1.1.5.2. Types of presuppositions................................................................................................ 12
1.1.6. Implicatures ...................................................................................................................... 13
1.1.6.1. Conversational implicatures ........................................................................................... 14
1.1.6.2. Conventional implicatures.............................................................................................. 15
1.2. Background information of the data .................................................................................. 16

Chapter 2: Interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister
Nguyễn Tấn Dũng's Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session ......................... 18
2.1. The establishment of the rapport to the audience .................................................................. 18
2.2. The world problems' statement and the appeal to the UN and countries for taking
more actions to promote the sustainable development .................................................................. 20
2.3. The construction of a positive image of Việt Nam................................................................ 24
2.3.1. The presentation of Việt Nam's achievements for over past 30 years as a

member of the United Nations .................................................................................................... 25
2.3.2. The desire to make further contribution to the international community ............................ 28
2.4. Revealed-implicature-type discussion..... ............................................................................. 32

PART C: CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 37
1. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 37
2. Limitation of the study ........................................................................................................... 38
3. Suggestions for further study .................................................................................................. 38
REFERENCES
APPENDIX


1

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Many people, including many linguists, assume that the primary purpose of language is
to communicate information. Language, in fact, serves a great many functions. Linguists, over
a good many years, have attempted to understand how language works in a fully integrated
way as simultaneously a mental, social, cultural, institutional and political phenomenon.
Language has been seen now as not only a practice but also reflection of reality. People also
have witnessed a rise in the awareness of language and its power, especially how it helps
people gain power over the others through ideology, which is underlying assumptions in the
language.
This is obviously the case of politics, where language is the tool of authority holders to
gain and to realize power. Besides, political speech is also the place where the political actor
conveys his political ideologies. Work on persuasive speeches in general, and political
speeches in particular suggests that speakers adopt a range of rhetorical devices and strategies
to appeal to their hearers; there are interesting implicatures in their speeches, as well as
political actions achieved by linguistic means.

The data analyzed in this study is the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s
speech delivered at the 62nd United Nations General Assembly Session on September 27, 2007.
This 1,700–word speech was retrieved from the Việt Nam Government‟s website at:
.
This speech became tremendously important as it appeared two days before the
election for non–permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council, in which Việt Nam is
one of the candidates. If elected, the role of Việt Nam in the international stage will be
advanced. Because of this significance, the speech turned out to be a good opportunity for
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng to highlight the positive image of his country.
2. Aims of the study
The aims of this study are:
-

To uncover the implicatures conveyed in the speech under study.

-

To study the discursive strategies employed by the speaker to build the implicatures.


2

-

To study types of the revealed implicatures.

3. Scope of the study
The interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s
Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session will be the focus of this study, including the
establishment of the rapport to the audience; the world problems' presentation, the appeal to

the UN and nations for actions; and the construction of a positive image of Việt Nam.
This study is purely conducted in terms of linguistic research with a hope for better
understanding of how linguistic means are employed to achieve certain communicative
purposes. No attempts of taking an insight into or judgments on the political science are made.
Besides, the data is the English translated version of the Prime Minister‟s speech. And
the study will entirely focus on dealing with the English version, ignoring any linguistic
features related to the Vietnamese one and proposing no comparisons between the two
versions.
The text is broken up into sentences and numbered in order to be easily followed.
4. Methods of the study
- The study is done basing on Discourse analysis approach.
- Quantitative method is used for a sufficient theoretical background, in combination with
qualitative method to study the data for uncovering the implicatures.
5. Analysis procedure
The study is carried out relying on the following procedure:
-

The data speech–Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s Speech at the 62nd

UN General Assembly Session, many other newspaper articles and news analysis are collected.
-

Collecting materials for literature review and describing theoretical background (to the

problem under investigation).
-

General textual analysis and description of the speech are made, in terms of discourse

properties and pragmatics towards the finding of interpretable implicatures in the speech.

Intonation, posture, and all non-verbal aspects are excluded from the analysis
procedure though the author is fully aware that they do have some role in the success of the
speech-maker.


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6. Design of the study
Except for declaration, acknowledgements, table of contents, references and appendix,
this paper consists of three main parts:
Part A: Introduction states the rationale of the study, its aims, its scope, methods, analysis
procedure and design.
Part B: Development consists of two chapters:
Chapter 1: Literature review and Background information of the data.
This chapter aims at discussing the theoretical background, in which we will have a
look at the theories related to the study, including the theory of discourse and text, discourse
context, discursive strategies, inferencing, the cooperative principle, presupposition and
implicatures, and providing information of the data under study.
Chapter 2: Interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn
Dũng's Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session.
This is the main part of the study which includes the interpretable implicatures and the
discussion of their types.
Part C: Conclusion reviews major findings of the study, states limitation of the study and
gives suggestions for further study.


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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF THE DATA
1.1. LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1.1. Theory of Discourse
1.1.1.1. Concept of Discourse
Operating

within

the

language

theories

of

the

Bloomfielddian

and

Chomskian schools, traditional linguists have concentrated on phonological, lexical,
syntactical features which are considered the basis of foreign language knowledge. Today‟s
view, however, is concerned with understanding the stretches of language which can only be
obtained if they are considered "in their full textual, social and psychological context" (Cook,
1989:1).
Context-free sentences do not help to achieve successful communication since the
language in use does not exist in isolation from its user and the context in which it is being
used.

Therefore, it is of necessity that when communicating, we must go beyond the formal
structure of language as a context-free system of usage and use the language which is contextsensitive. This language, the knowledge of which, as Widdowson (1977) explains, can not be
automatically followed from the knowledge of sentence, is known as discourse.
Though the concept of discourse is still discussed, discourse can be defined as a stretch
of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as being related in some way,
in terms of the ideas they share and in terms of the jobs they perform within discourse – that is,
their functions (Nunan 1993, cited in Discourse Analysis, Vinh University-Foreign Language
Department, 2006:3). Basically, it may be defined as “the language in use for communication”.
The study of discourse is often referred to as Discourse analysis. And as McCarthy
(1993:10) states, Discourse analysis is fundamentally concerned with the relationship between
language and the contexts in which it is used, that is, it involves the study of language in use.


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As far as the scope of discourse is concerned, discourse refers not only to spoken
interactions, interviews, but also to written and printed works such as newspapers, articles,
letters, stories, recipes, instructions, notices, comics, billboards, etc. (see McCarthy 1993).
1.1.1.2. Discourse and Text
So far, the term “discourse” and “text” have been used as though they are synonyms
and there have been many ways of viewing the terms discourse and text.
Crystal (1992:72) distinguishes that “text” should be reserved only for writing and
“discourse” for speech. Discourse is “a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language
larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as sermon, argument, joke or
narrative” (ibid.), while “text” is “a piece natural occurring spoken, written, or signed
discourse identified for purposes of analysis. It is often a language unit with a definable
communicative function, such as a conversation, a poster” (ibid.)
Cook (1989:158) considers “text” as „a stretch of language interpreted formally,
without context”, whereas “discourse” is “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful,
unified and purposive”.

Halliday and Hasan (1976:1), however, use these two notions interchangeably. They
use “text” to actually refer to “discourse” for they say that “a text is unit of language in use”
and “it may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue”.
Brown & Yule (1983:6) point out that texts are the representations of discourse and the
verbal record of a communicative act: “we shall use text as a technical term, to refer to the
verbal record of a communicative act”.
In short, we can understand “text” as the term used to refer to any written record of a
communicative event, while the term “discourse” refers to the interpretation of the
communicative event in context.
Although discourse and text are different, they are related to each other. The difference
and interrelationship between discourse and text is best captured by Widdowson‟s claim:
“Discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction. Its situational outcome is a
change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed, intentions made clear, its linguistic
product is Text” (Widdowson, 1984:100).


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1.1.1.3. Discourse analysis and Text analysis
Basing on the concept of text and discourse as mentioned earlier, Text analysis and
Discourse analysis can be interpreted as follow:
Text analysis is the study of how a text exemplifies the operation of the language code
beyond the border of sentence.
Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of relationship between language and
the context in which it is used, that is, it involves the study of language in use. It also examines
how stretches of language, considered in their full textual, social, and psychological contexts,
become meaningful and unified for their users. Moreover, it is a study of how and for what
purposes language is used in a certain context of situation, and the linguistic means to carry
out these purposes.
1.1.1.4.. Spoken discourse versus Written discourse

Spoken discourse and written discourse can be understood as speech and writing. In
general, they share much in common, that is, both spoken and written discourses perform a
similar range of broad functions. They are used to get things done, to provide information and
to entertain.
In spite of such similarities, they are distinguished from each other in some
characteristics. Firstly, in terms of context, written language is used for communication among
people who are removed in time and space or for occasions requiring a permanent or semipermanent record. Meanwhile, most people in different cities and countries can communicate
directly by means of speech. They are also different in the way discourse is produced. While
speaking, the speaker has to control what he says so that it fits his intentions, and prepare for
what to say next. Every word uttered will be heard by the interlocutor, so the speaker might be
under pressure. However, there are some advantages for the speaker, i.e., he can observe the
listener‟s reactions and can immediately modify what he is saying to make it clearer and more
acceptable to the listener. The speaker may use facial expressions, postures, or gestures to
increase the effect of what he speaks. On the contrary, the writer has the advantage of taking
more time in choosing lexis and organizing ideas. He can rearrange what has been written and
make changes if he wants. There is no fear of interruption by the interlocutor. But because of


7

this, the writer has to imagine the reader‟s reactions. [Besides, the linguists propose a
distinction of written and spoken discourse in terms of their form. However, it is not our
intention to discuss this here.]
According to Brown & Yule (1983), the major differences between speech and writing
derive from the fact that one is essentially transitory and the other is designed to be permanent.
These differences, anyway, are not absolute and the characteristics that we tend to associate
with written language can sometimes occur in spoken language and vice versa. This means
that some spoken texts will be more like written texts than others, while some written texts
will be more like spoken texts than others.
The data under study is a speech that is carefully prepared by the speaker. Hence, it can

be said that this data has characteristics of both spoken discourse and written discourse.
1.1.1.5. Discourse context
David Nunan (1995:7) suggests a concept and a classification of context as follows:
Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse, and within which the
discourse is embedded. There are two different types of context.
The first of these is the linguistic context – the language that surrounds or accompanies
the piece of discourse under analysis.
The second is non-linguistic or experiential context within which the discourse takes
place. Non-linguistic contexts include: the type of communicative event, the topic, the purpose
of the event, the setting including location, time of day, season of year and physical aspects of
the situation, the participants and the relationships between them, and the background
knowledge and assumptions underlying the communicative event.
Halliday and Hasan (1976) share much in similar to the view held by Nunan when
proposing that when responding to a passage or piece of writing, the receiver uses not only
linguistic clues, but also situational ones. Linguistically, he responds to specific features which
bind the passage together, the pattern of connection, independent structure that we are
referring to as cohesion. Situationally, he takes into account all he knows of the environment:
what is going on, what part the language is playing, and who are involved.


8

The importance of context towards discourse interpretation is apparently undeniable,
as Cook (1989:10) asserts:
“There are good arguments for limiting the field of study to make it manageable, but it
is also true to say that the answer to the question of what gives discourse its unity may be
impossible to give without considering the world at large: the context.”
As political speech is obviously an actual use of language but the interpretation of that
use needs non-linguistic features of the discourse. In this study, both linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts are taken into account.
1.1.2. Discursive strategies

Among various discursive strategies used in communication, the following ones
receive the author‟s attention when dealing with the data under study.
1.1.2.1. Lexicalization
Lexicalization can be simply interpreted as a process of making a word to express a
concept. In this study, lexicalization is used as the choices of lexis. It mentions the merits that
utilized vocabulary carries. Fairclough (2001) poses that selection of vocabulary is of great
importance. As it is a two-way phenomenon: the choice of word depends on the social
relationship between participants in the discourse; vice versa, once created it helps produce
and moderate the interaction of those participants. Hence, an investigation into the
employment of vocabulary can help to reveal the attitude and implicatures of the participants,
particularly the speaker.
1.1.2.2. Repetition
1.1.2.2.1. Lexical repetition
In this thesis, in studying the lexical repetition, lexical items used three or more times
will be taken into account. Those items considered for lexical repetition fall within the lexical
category, that is, nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. Auxiliary verbs will not be candidates
for this research.
1.1.2.2.2. Grammatical repetition
Similarly, those structures that are repeated three or more times will be considered as
potential candidates for this analysis. In this case, phrases and clauses are taken into account.


9

1.1.2.3. Pronoun choice
Linguistically, in political speech, the utilization of pronoun is a prominent mean to
achieve the goal of the actor. An investigation into pronoun choices will help to reveal the
attitude and underlying implicatures of the speaker. This study will focus on how Vietnamese
PM deals with the use of personal pronouns “I” and “we” for the first person and pronoun
“you” for second person.

1.1.2.4. Modality
Modality is often thought of as the province of grammar of English. However, a large
number of lexical words, such as: nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs carry the similar
meaning to the modal verbs. Modal meanings include degree of certainty and possibility;
volition; permission and obligation. The modality also carries important information about the
stance and attitude of the sender to the message.
In this study, the modal verbs “will” and “should” are concentrated in order to reveal
the intention of the speaker.
1.1.3. Inferencing
Inferencing will refer to the process by which the hearer/reader arrives at the intended
meaning of the speaker/writer. Inferences will be the meanings arrived at by the hearer/reader.
According to Leech (1984), quoted in Nguyễn Hòa (2000:60), inferencing implicatures
can be made on the basis of:
-

The conventional conceptual meaning of the utterance: This will have to do with the
conventional meanings of the words, without which there is no possibility of
understanding even the direct or non-implicated meaning. Obviously, implicatures are
built upon and dependent on the direct meaning of the utterance.

-

The assumption that the speaker is observing the cooperative principle, and assuming
the hearer to assume that too.

-

Relevant background knowledge: This is readily evident. Background knowledge or
experience is necessary for understanding language.

-

Informal reasoning: This is very straightforward. We are required to reason in an
informal way to get most of conversational implicatures.


10

Inference is divided into three categories (Cummings, 2005) known as deductive,
elaborative, and conversational inferences. Each type of inferences will fall into the scope of a
particular area of research, that is, deductive inferences in logic and semantics, elaborative
inferences in psychology and artificial intelligence, and conversational inferences in
pragmatics. What we are concerned with in this paper will be the third type of inferences
namely conversational inferences. This type of inference can be seen as the process by means
of which an addressee in conversation is able to derive implicatures from a speaker‟s utterance
in combination with features of context.
1.1.4. The Co-operative Principle
Speakers and listeners involved in conversations are generally cooperating with each
other. As we consider the statement “A hamburger is a hamburger” (Yule, 1996:35) answered
by one woman when she is asked by another how she likes the hamburger she is eating in the
middle of their lunch hour, from a purely logical perspective, the reply seems to have no
communicative value since it expresses something completely obvious. Still, the listener has to
assume that the speaker is being cooperative and intends to communicate something. That
something must be more than just what the words mean. It is an additional conveyed meaning,
called an implicature. In order for implicatures to be interpreted, there must be cooperation.
The assumption of cooperation is so strong that it can be stated as a cooperative
principle of conversation.
The Cooperative Principle: Make your conversational contribution such as is required,
at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged (Grice 1975, quoted in Yule 1996:37).

This general principle is expected to be followed by all speakers. Furthermore, the
standards for conducting cooperative communication were claimed by Grice to be of several
different types. Grice called these standards maxims and grouped them under categories:
Quantity:
1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the
exchange).
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.


11

Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true.
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Relation: Be relevant.
Manner: Be perspicuous.
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
4. Be orderly.
(ibid.)
We assume that people are giving an adequate amount of information, that they are
telling the truth, be relevant, and trying to be as clear as they can. Speakers rarely mention
these maxims, but sometimes they may wish to indicate that they are not fully adhering to
these principles. In this case, they use certain kinds of expressions (cautious notes) called
hedges. [It is far from our discussion.]
1.1.5. Presupposition
1.1.5.1. Definition
Preposition is the technical term used to refer to parts of information which, according
to the speaker, the listeners have already known. Hence, it can be communicated without

being said.
George Yule (1996:25) defines “a presupposition is something the speaker assumes to
be the case prior to making an utterance. Speakers, not sentences, have presuppositions.”
For Stalnaker (1978, quoted in Brown & Yule, 1983:29), presupposition is the
common ground of the participants in the conversation.
According to Givon (1979, ibid.), “presupposition is the assumption the speaker makes
about what the hearer is likely to accept without challenge”.
Symbolizing a proposition with p, another with q, presupposition is considered by the
relationship between those two propositions, in which p presupposes q (p >> q).


12

Presupposition has one property, that is, even though the statement is negated,
presupposition of that statement will be unchanged. That is called constancy under negation.
1. Mary‟s car is beautiful (= p)
2. Mary has a car (= q)
3. p >> q
a. Mary‟s car is not beautiful (= NOT p)
b. Mary has a car (= q)
c. NOT p >> q
1.1.5.2. Types of presupposition
Types of presupposition have been studied by linguists. And they have got their own
classification.
According to Grundy (2000:132), presupposition can be classified into following
categories. Examples are given for the purpose of illustrating each type.
(1) Gerunds and temporal clauses
She turned off the lights before going out.
She turned off the lights before she went out.
>> she went out.

(2) Factives
He regretted calling her.
>> He called her.
(3) Definite descriptions
I don‟t like that watch.
>> There exists a watch.
(4) Change-of-state verbs
She stopped watching TV.
>> She has watched TV.
Another classification of presupposition in which there are six types of presupposition is
proposed by George Yule (1996:30)
(1) Existential: the X (>> X exists)


13

(2) Factive: I regret leaving (>> I left)
(3) Non-factive: He pretended to be happy (>> He wasn't happy)
(4) Lexical: He managed to escape (>> He tried to escape)
(5) Structural: When did he die? (>> He died)
(6) Counterfactual: If I weren't ill, ... (>> I am ill)
The other linguist who has summed up quite sufficiently the cases where presuppositions
may appear is Levinson (1983). However, he did not call this a classification but rather
presupposition triggers.
(1) Definite descriptions: We met the girl next door (>> there exists the girl)
(2) Factive verbs: We regret telling him (>> we told him)
(3) Implicative verbs: He managed to escape (>> he tried to escape)
(4) Change-of-state verbs: We stopped working for them (>> we had been working for
them)
(5) Iteratives: You're late again (>> you were late before)

(6) Verbs of judging: My mother criticized me for coming home late (>> I came home
late)
(7) Temporal clauses: He called me before leaving (>> he left)
(8) Cleft sentences: It was Tom who used my car (>> someone used my car)
(9) Implicit clefts with stressed constituents: This novel was written by SHAKESPEARE
(>> someone wrote this novel)
(10) Comparisons and contrasts: Heineken is a better beer than Carlsberg (>> Carlsberg is a
kind of beer)
(11) Non-restrictive relative clauses: John, who is standing next to the door, is my cousin
(>> John is standing next to the door)
(12) Counterfactual conditionals: If I had got up early this morning, I wouldn't have been
late for class (>> I didn't get up early)
(13) Questions: When did you buy this motorbike? (>> You bought the motorbike)

1.1.6. Implicatures


14

The term implicature was first introduced by Grice in 1967. Implicature is the meaning
that is communicated by the speaker without being explicitly stated. And it is inferred by the
listener from the conventional meaning of some linguistic units in an utterance.
Taken as an example, we can consider the following exclamation said by a girl to her
boyfriend: "That dress is so beautiful!" Obviously, it is not difficult for the boyfriend to
recognize that she is not simply complimenting the dress but rather making the implicature
that she likes it and wants him to buy it for her.
Grice also gives rise to the terms conversational implicatures and conventional
implicatures. There are some distinctions between these terms.
1.1.6.1. Conversational implicatures
In conversations, the basic assumption is that the participants are co-operating with

each other and following the Co-operative principle as well as the maxims. Therefore, once
the speaker seems to violate the maxims, the listener should interpret this as he is still cooperating in the conversation and he is trying to convey something more than what he is
saying. Something more being communicated than said in conversations by the speaker's
violation of the maxims is what can be called conversational implicatures.
They are partially derived from the conventional meaning of the utterance, produced in
a specific context and depend on the recognition by the speaker and the listener of the Cooperative principle and its maxims.
Let study the following exchange between a girl and a boy:
The boy: Would you like to go out with me tonight?
The girl: I have an examination tomorrow.
In this exchange, the girl is violating the maxim of "Be relevant". However, the boy should
have the assumption that the girl is still co-operating and adhering to the Co-operative
principle. Then, a conversational implicature can be made. That is the girl wants to spend the
night to prepare for the examination. In other words, it should be interpreted as her refusal to
the invitation.
When the additional conveyed meaning is figured out without special knowledge of the
context, we have a generalized conversational implicature. Examples for this can be seen in


15

cases of using indefinite articles. The utilization of indefinite articles can lead to an
implicature of "not speaker's". E.g: "I saw a nice car parking in front of my house"
A number of generalized conversational implicatures are commonly communicated on
the basis of a scale of values, i.e. by choosing a word which is the most informative and
truthful in the circumstance; or in other words, when a form in a scale is asserted, the negative
of all other forms higher on the scale is implicated. Those are scalar implicatures.
For example, by uttering the statement "When I was small, my grandfather took me to
some circus", the speaker creates scalar implicatures "not all" or "not most" via the use of
"some" in the scale of quantity.
On the contrary to generalized conversational implicatures, for the particularized

conversational implicatures to be worked out, it is necessary that there is a specific context.
Consider an exchange between two travelers in the railway station:
A: You're going to London?
B: Platform seven.
It is safe to infer that B's answer is not simple an announcement of the platform, rather it is an
answer of "Yes". To lead to this implicature, A obviously needs to have a certain context of
the platform information at that train station.
1.1.6.2. Conventional implicatures
Not necessary to occur in conversations or base on the co-operative principle and the
maxims, conventional implicatures are related to the use of some specific words. No special
contexts are needed for the interpretation of this kind of implicatures.
Let take some words like "but, and, even" for examples.
"But" makes an implicature of something is contrasted. E.g.: She loves him, but he doesn't
love her.
"And" implicates something in addition or plus (E.g.: She went shopping and bought some
books), or bears the implicature of sequence as "and then" (E.g.: He put on clothes and went
out).
While "even" creates an implicature of contrary to expectation. E.g.: Even she passed the
exam.


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1.2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF THE DATA
Being one of the main bodies of the United Nations, the Security Council has primary
responsibility, under the Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security. It is
so organized as to be able to function continuously, and a representative of each of its
members must be present at all times at the United Nations Headquarters. It has 15 members,
including 5 permanent and 10 non-permanent ones, elected by the General Assembly for twoyear terms and not eligible for immediate re-election.
Under the Charter, the functions and power of the Security Council are:

-

to maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles and
purposes of the United Nations;

-

to investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction;

-

to recommend methods of adjusting such disputes or the terms of settlement;

-

to formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments;

-

to determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and to
recommend what action should be taken;

-

to call on Members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the
use of force to prevent or stop aggression;

-

to take military action against an aggressor;

-

to recommend the admission of new Members;

-

to exercise the trusteeship functions of the United Nations in “strategic areas”;

-

to recommend to the General Assembly the appointment of the Secretary-General and,
together with the Assembly, to elect the Judges of the International Court of Justice.
(Retrieved from: )
Việt Nam has become an official member of the United Nations since September 20,

1977. Since then, this country has proactively contributed its voice in many issues relating to
peace, stability and cooperation both in regional and global scope.
Over the past 30 years, Việt Nam has achieved a great deal of success. In 1997, Việt
Nam decided to run for a non-permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council and 10


17

years later, at the 62nd Session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Việt Nam became a
candidate for the vote.
This speech was delivered by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng on
September 27, 2007, two days ahead of the election. The speech turned out to be a good
chance for Việt Nam to obtain more support from other members of the UN. In his speech,
Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng confirmed that Việt Nam will always be an active,

constructive, cooperative and responsible participant in international affairs.
To sum up, this chapter provides the review on linguistic theories that relate to the
study and gives basic information about the speech that is analyzed in this thesis.


18

CHAPTER 2: INTERPRETABLE IMPLICATURES IN THE VIETNAMESE
PRIME MINISTER NGUYỄN TẤN DŨNG'S SPEECH AT THE 62ND UN
GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION
In some recent decades, Việt Nam has achieved a great deal of success in many aspects
of economics, society and foreign affairs. The stable society and the rapid economic growth
lead to changes in the life quality of Vietnamese citizens. Significantly, in terms of foreign
affairs, Việt Nam has become members of many important organizations and fora. The year
1977 saw the enrollment of Việt Nam into the United Nations and 18 years later, in 1995, this
country became the seventh member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
In 2006, World Trade Organization (WTO) admitted Việt Nam as an official member.
Especially, in September 2007, Việt Nam as a candidate for the seat of non-permanent of the
UN Security Council was selected in the UN General Assembly Session with the most votes.
Those are remarkable achievements that work as an evidence of the rising role of Việt Nam in
the international stage. The speech by Mr. Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, Prime Minister of the Socialist
Republic of Việt Nam at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session, delivered two days before
the previously mentioned election, was one of the most important marks.
In the speech of Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, some interesting interpretable
implicatures can be uncovered. First, the addresser wishes to establish the rapport to the
audience. Second, he wants to appeal to the UN for taking more actions to promote the
sustainable development. Third, the Vietnamese Prime Minister implicates constructing a
positive image of Việt Nam.
2.1. The establishment of the rapport to the audience
The opening of any type of speech is important and is the result of much consideration.

It is popular for a speaker to start his speech by establishing the rapport to the audience. The
Vietnamese Prime Minister, on behalf of Vietnamese people, would like to send a positive
signal to participants, international friends and people of all UN member countries. At first,
Mr. Dũng congratulates Mr. President on his appointment to the most important post and
wishes for a success in operating the Session.


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“At the outset, permit me to extend to you my warmest congratulations on your
election as President of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly
(1). I believe that with your immense competence, you will lead this Session to a
successful conclusion. (2)”
Next, the Prime Minister expresses his respect and praises Mr. Ban Kim Moon, the UN
Secretary General for what he has done within his significant position.
“I highly commend H.E. Mr. Ban Kim Moon for his important contributions in his
capacity as the Secretary General of the United Nations. (3)”
Then, to the representatives of all the UN members and their people, the Vietnamese leader
pays the friendly compliments.
“I respectfully convey to all distinguished delegates, and through you, to the people of
all UN member countries the greetings of friendship from the Vietnamese people. (4)”
The speaker establishes the rapport with the audience by speech acts of acknowledgement
which express the feelings towards the hearers, or the case of formal utterances, the speaker‟s
intention that his utterances satisfy certain social expectations regarding the expression of
certain feelings, portraying the audience with high number of positive descriptions. Setting up
the rapport is the way to create the positive image of the speaker.
In addition, the use of adverbs for emphasis “highly” and “respectfully” also has the
purpose to underscore this image. This kind of adverb functions to show the attitude of the
speaker towards the hearer, in this case, a high esteem is held and expressed. Besides, another
discursive strategy exploited the use of pronoun “I” to refer to the speaker and “you” to refer

to the audience. Only these two pronouns are employed in this part of the speech. It is obvious
that the first singular personal pronoun indicates the speaker. However, it is safe to infer that
the Vietnamese Prime Minister would like to use it to denote all the people in his country.
Sentence (4) proves this intention: “I respectfully convey … the greetings of friendship from
the Vietnamese people”. Also, the occurrence of the phrase “the Vietnamese people” asserts
the solidarity between the Vietnamese leader and his citizens. The pronoun “you” is used
repeatedly to address directly to the hearers presenting at the Session with an emphasis of
highly positive image.


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It can be said that the first interpretable implicature the Prime Minister may wish to
express in his speech is not too difficult to be recognized.
2.2. The world problems' statement and the appeal to the UN and countries for taking
more actions to promote the sustainable development
In the next part of his speech, Mr. Dũng expresses the wish of humankind “for a more
peaceful world, more friendly international relations and a better life” (5). Then, he states the
fact that “Nearly one decade has elapsed, but that wish has not come true as we are still living
in a world blessed with numerous opportunities and at the same time beset with adversities
and challenges (6)".
However, it cannot be denied that the world has achieved advantages, such as
“humankind has not experienced any more world wars”, “human living conditions have been
improved continuously”. The reasons for these are “thanks to the miraculous scientific and
technological achievements” and “the rapid proliferation of regional and global cooperation
arrangements”. Nevertheless, what is seen as to be the first reason, “It is a blessing that since
the establishment of the United Nations”. On the one hand, it is used as a time point since that
there has been no more world wars happened. On the other hand, this use gives the hearer the
feeling that thanks to the UN, we are free from world wars. In other words, the Vietnamese
Prime Minister has implicitly acclaimed the important role of the United Nations.

“It is a blessing that, since the establishment of the United Nations, humankind has not
experienced any more world wars (7). However, local wars and conflicts, international
terrorism and the continued arms race, including the nuclear arms race, remain
daunting threats to our world today (8).
Thanks to the miraculous scientific and technological achievements, the human living
conditions have been improved continuously (9). However, there remains a bitter
reality that the gap in living standards between nations and population groups is
increasingly widened (10). Nearly one billion people are still living in extreme poverty
(11). At the same time, there have emerged many pressing global issues of which