1

1. INTRODUCTION To the present tendency of social development, mass media play an important part in the life. Mass media are tools for the transfer of information, concepts, and ideas to both general and specific audiences, the mass media such as television, newspapers, radio, internet, books, etc.. Thereby books, historically, had been in use for centuries. Books may also refer to a literature work, or a main division of such a work. In library and information science, a book is called a monograph, to distinguish it from serial periodicals such as magazines, journals or newspapers. The book is produced with the intellectual investments in a long time and considered spiritual child of writer. To write or publish a book is possible to last a lot of years, even the writers whole life, so the published book is the concise knowledges and experiences that the writer recommends to. On coming to book, readers will be able to shorten the selfexperiential process in the real life and get how to live rather than they have to experience by themselves. In other words, reading book also makes the readers interested, even addicted, they feel like they are living in the plot which the writer built, even they cannot put the book down until the last page. The vehement attraction of book excites the writers to continue writing; inspire the film directors to adapt into the films such as Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell was adapted into film in 1939; The Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer have been adapted consecutively from 2008 to 2010. With the above conveniences, book seems to become an essential necessity in the daily life; book is popularized everywhere and diversified the genre for ages. However, there is a problem that approaching the qualitative and best-selling

Bn xem c gii hn - h

books is not easy for readers in the dozens of books, so to help readers to have a best choice is what reviewing book is really required. 1.1. Statement of the problem

In the countries with highly educational development, the interest in studying book review is attached special importance; it even becomes a main subject in university curriculum in the United States, Australia, and Canada. In Vietnam, this subject area is still strange and there has not been study and materials about it yet. In the recent years, the need of importing books as well as introducing foreign books to Vietnam, in one word, has been increasing much; there are most kinds of books in a bookstore, a library, or on the internet. People feel highly enthusiastic in reading books, even the books in their native languages. In other words, a lot of good books in Vietnamese need introducing to the foreign countries. Because of such the large number of books and peoples enthusiasm, I recognize that book reviews are indispensable to help the readers to approach the content, slot, argument and merit of books. Book review is not just a summary or introduction to a book, but also requires the reviewers opinion and justification about the writers viewpoint. To carry out well a book review, the reviewer must be highly qualified in writing skill in order to describe and develop a review best as well as know how to lead it up to the readers most attractively and convincingly.

Bn xem c gii hn - h

Besides, I also recognize linguistically that the book reviews use a large number of syntactic features, lexical features cohesive devices that refer to the terms of discourse analysis. For this reason, I choose to do research on the topic A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF BOOK REVIEWS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE. This thesis is carried out with the hope that the research result will provide certain linguistically useful practical knowledge for teachers and learners of English, especially students majoring in writing as well as those who are keen on the field. 1.2. Aims and objectives

1.2.1. Aims: This study is expected to provide the Vietnamese learners of English with a description of discourse features of book reviews in English and Vietnamese. 1.2.2. Objectives:
-

To find out the discourse features (layout, lexical andsyntactic features, and cohesive devices) of book reviews in English and Vietnamese.

To find out and explain the similarities & differences between the two groups. To suggest some implications for teachers and learners of English, especially students in charge of writing. Research questions

1.3.

The study tries to answer the following questions:

Bn xem c gii hn - h

What are the typical discourse characteristics of book reviews in English and Vietnamese in terms of their layout, lexical features, syntactic structures and cohesive devices?

What are similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese book reviews in terms of layout, lexical feature, syntactic structures and cohesive devices?

- What are some suggestions for teaching and learning English as well as writing book reviews? 1.4. Definitions of terms

1.4.1. Book review According to the website lavc.edu, a book review is a description, critical analysis, and an evaluation on the quality, meaning, and significance of a book, not a retelling. It should focus on the book's purpose, content, and authority. A critical book review is not a book report or a summary. It is a reaction paper in which strengths and weaknesses of the material are analyzed. It should include a statement of what the author has tried to do, evaluates how well (in the opinion of the reviewer) the author has succeeded, and presents evidence to support this evaluation. According to wikipedia.org, a book review (or book report) is a form of literary criticism in which a book is analyzed based on content, style, and merit. It is often carried out in periodicals, as school work, or on the internet. Reviews are also often published in magazines and newspapers. Its length may vary from a single paragraph to a substantial essay. Such a review often contains

Bn xem c gii hn - h

evaluations of the book on the basis of personal taste. Reviewers, in literary periodicals, often use the occasion of a book review for a display of learning or to promulgate their own ideas on the topic of a fiction or non-fiction work. At the other end of the spectrum, some book reviews resemble simple plot summaries. 1.4.2. Discourse Analysis Discourse is one of those elastic terms which one sometimes encounters in linguistics. It is used in somewhat different ways by different scholars. Discourse is used beyond the boundary of isolated sentences. It means that any sequence of language in written or spoken form is concerned with the use of language in stretches larger than a sentence. According to Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (1995) discourse is defined as a general term for examples of language use. It refers to larger units such as paragraphs, conversations and interviews which are produced as a result of an act of communication. David Nunan made some extracts from a number of different sources about discourse in Introducing Discourse Analysis (1993). Consider the following statements which he quoted: Discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative (Crystal 1992:25) Discourse is stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive (Cook 1989:156)

Bn xem c gii hn - h

David Nunan himself reserved the term discourse to refer to the interpretation of the communicative event in context. Briefly, all concepts of discourse stress the communicative dynamics for language. Therefore, there is a strong tendency for discourse analysts to rely more heavily on observation of language use during interactions in natural sequences of sentences. In this paper, I take the view of Brown and Yule [1] to recommend that we should adopt a compromise position which suggests that discourse analysis, on the one hand, includes the study of linguistic forms and the regularizes of their contribution and on the other hand, involves a consideration of the general principles of interpretation by which people normally make sense of what they hear and read. 1.4.3. Cohesion According to the Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics (Richards, Platt J. and Platt H. [16]), cohesion is the grammatical and/or lexical relationships between the different elements of a text. Also, Halliday and Hassan [11] state that cohesion is how words and expressions are connected using cohesive devices which can be categorized into five groups: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion. In Vietnamese, Trn Ngc Thm [30] categorizes cohesion into two facets: content cohesion and form cohesion. Content cohesion is expressed through a system of form cohesion devices and form cohesion is embodied in content

Bn xem c gii hn - h

cohesion. Thus, a coherent discourse should include these two facets which help to distinguish a discourse from disconnected jumbles. 1.4.4. Coherence Coherence is still an elusive concept. Coherence has been seen as one of the prime conditions or characteristics of a text: Without coherence, a text is not properly a text said Hatch [4]. Coherence can be generally viewed in two aspects: text-based and reader-based coherence (John, [15]). The former refers to the features associated with internal structure of the text itself. The latter, meanwhile, is associated with the meaningful aspect of writer-reader/speakerhearer interaction. So, coherence is the implicit link in the text, it exists in how people interpret text rather than in the texts themselves (Yule, [16]). 2. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY It is not excessive to say that books play an indispensible role in transferring information, experiences, knowledge to readers and learners, and with a rapid increase of a large number of books in the present globalization trend, reviewing them is really essential. Moreover, to approach the books fastest and most effectively is to ask for book reviews. Thus, to write a book review requires the reviewers to master not only the plot, content, merit of the book but also the reading and writing skill, which helps to make a strong impact on readers, as well as learners, at the first sight. A large number of book reviews, written in English and Vietnamese correlating with the books available, urge me to investigate the study at discourse level.

Bn xem c gii hn - h

As can be seen the discourse characteristics in the book reviews and the significance to study them in English and Vietnamese. For this reason, the thesis is conducted with the hope that A Discourse Analysis of Book Reviews in English and Vietnamese will be helpful for teachers and learners of English and especially students in charge of writing; as well as writing book reviews in English to introduce to foreigners. 3. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE The term Discourse Analysis first entered general use in a series of newspaper articles by Zellig Harris in early 1952. Although he had not worked out a comprehensive model in this field, he paved the way for linguists to analyze language above the sentence level - Discourse. Crystal (1992:25) defines discourse as a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit. According to Brown and Yule (1983), discourse is characterized as a process not a product; the regularities which the discourse analysts describe will be normally expressed in dynamic, not static terms; and the data investigated are the result of original language behavior. Contrary to most of traditional linguists, discourse analysts not only study language use beyond the sentence boundary, but also to analyze naturally occurring language use, not invented example. Discourse Analysis does not provide a tangible answer to problems based on scientific research, but to enable us to understand the conditions behind a specific problem and make us realize the essence of that problem and its resolution lies in its assumptions. In other words, Discourse Analysis enables to reveal the hidden motivations behind the text, behind the choice of particular method of research to interpret that text. In this sense, language should be considered in the light of other sciences such as sociology, logic and psychology. A study into such field, thus, promises a

Bn xem c gii hn - h

challenging but interesting work. Actually, many scholars such as Halliday and Hassan (1976) with Cohesion in English, Brown and Yule (1983) with Discourse Analysis, Widdowson (1994) with Linguistics, Cook (1989) with Discourse, etc. have devoted a lot of intellect and energy to this complex domain. However, most of their works are confined to providing a systemic theory concerning Discourse Analysis. Winifred Crombie (1985) in Process & Relation in Discourse and Language learning indicates some semantic relations in discourse. According to him, we communicate to one another through language not by means of individual words, clauses or sentences, but by means of coherent stretches of interrelated clauses and sentences in relation to the linguistic and situational context. Cohesion, Coherence, Theme - Rheme structure, Information Structure, Frame, Schemata, Role of Context, Genre, Register, etc. are the main domains in their theory. Even though there has not been a consensus on the conceptions relating to these, to some extent, such works equips us with a quite relatively satisfactory theoretical base to investigate language in use. In Vietnam, Discourse Analysis seems to be brought in much later. Nevertheless, a variety of linguists have made every effort to embark on pursuing and applying this new approach into Vietnamese. Trn Ngc Thm (1999) with H thng lin kt vn bn Ting Vit is worth mentioning as the pioneer who works on this field. Subsequently, Dip Quang Ban (2003) with Giao tip -Vn bn Mch lc - Lin kt an vn has given us a more overall view of text and utterance especially above the sentence level. More recently, Nguyn Ha with Phn tch din ngon ph bnh (2006) or Nghin cu din ngn v chnh tr - x hi (1999) and many other relevant articles has made a great contribution to our linguistic branch and create a great impetus to this field. The fact that more master theses and doctoral dissertations relating to Discourse Analysis such as Phng tin lin kt pht ngn i

Bn xem c gii hn - h

10

chiu ng liu Anh Vit by Phan Vn Ha (1998), Reason - result link words in English and Vietnamese Discourse by Bi Th Ngc Anh (2001) or Some discourse features of political speeches in English and Vietnamese by Ng Th Thanh Mai (2007), etc. have been carried out proves that this approach draws much attention from many researchers. With respect to book reviews, to the best of my present knowledge, there is no evidence that any research on investigating the discourse features of book reviews in English and Vietnamese has been done. Thus A Discourse Analysis of Book Reviews in English and Vietnamese would be conducted with the aim of contributing a minor part to fulfill the overall picture of this field. 4. METHODS AND PROCEDURES Research methods Descriptive method Contrastive method 4.1. Procedure

- Examine 100 English and 100 Vietnamese book reviews in popular enews and websites - Investigate these book reviews in terms of their layout, lexical features and syntactic structures, cohesion and coherence. - Discuss the result of analysis above, compare the similarities and differences between the two languages then give explanation to these. - Suggest the examples for introducing the book review to the Vietnamese

Bn xem c gii hn - h

11

books. - Suggest some implications for teaching and learning English as well as for writing book reviews. 4.2. Sampling

- 100 English and 100 Vietnamese book reviews collected from different and popular newspapers and reliable sources on the Internet. - The length of these is from 500 to approximately 1000 words
4.3.

Instrumentation : Mostly Google Search, Bing Search, PDF Search Engine

4.4.
-

Data Collection Data for the research are collected from popular e-news and websites of Vietnam, the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom from websites on the Internet such as :

http://www.vinabook.com http://www.tuoitre.vn http://www.evan.express.net http://www.sggp.org.vn http://www.ngoisao.net http://www.books.google.com http://www.amazone.com http://www.bookreview.com

Bn xem c gii hn - h

12

http://www.nytimes.com http://www.bbc.co.uk http://www.laist.com http://www.bookreport.com http://www.lovevampires.com http://www.unc.edu http://www.lavc.edu http://library.queensu.ca http://www.library.uwaterloo.ca 4.5. Data Analysis

Data collected will be mainly analyzed on the basis of the following points: - Lexical features: We examine semantic features and the choice of the vocabularies which frequently used in book reviews; compare them between English and Vietnamese. - Syntactic structures: We examine which sentence structures are frequently used in book reviews, compare them between English and Vietnamese. - Cohesion: We examine the frequency of the use of lexical and grammatical cohesion as cohesive devices, how many percents each group takes up; compare them between English and Vietnamese. - Coherence: We examine elements that make a unified text in general and

Bn xem c gii hn - h

13

in book reviews in particular such as the unity of ideas, organization of points, link and reference (cohesion), etc and then compare them between English and Vietnamese. 4.6. A proposed Outline

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the Problem 1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Research 1.3 Significance of the Study 1.4 Research Questions 1.5 Definition of Terms 1.6 Scope of the Study 1.7 Organization of the Research Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Literature Review 2.2 Theoretical background 2.2.1 Theory of Discourse 2.2.1.1 Discourse Analysis 2.2.1.2 The Notion of Discourse 2.2.1.3 Discourse & Text 2.2.1.4 Spoken & Written Discourse 2.2.2 Co-text & Context 2.2.2.1 Co-text

Bn xem c gii hn - h

14

2.2.2.2 Context 2.2.3 Coherence & Cohesion 2.2.3.1 Coherence 2.2.3.2 Cohesion 2.2.5 Book Reviews 2.2.4.1 Types of Reviews 2.2.4.2 Book Reviews 2.2.4.2.1 Definition of Book Reviews 2.2.4.2.2 General Characteristics of a Book Review

Chapter 3: METHODS AND PROCEDURE 3.1 Research Design 3.2 Samples 3.3 Instrumentation 3.4 Data Collection 3.5 Data Analysis Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Chapter 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATONS 5.1 Summary of the Development of the Study 5.2 Implications 5.3 Limitation and Suggestions for Further Research 5.4 Conclusion

Bn xem c gii hn - h

15

REFERENCES APPENDIXES 5. LIMITATIONS AND DELIMITATIONS In order to conduct the study in time, the focus has been restricted to the investigation of some discourse features such as lexical features, syntactic structures and cohesive devices of book reviews in electronic newspapers, websites. In fact, there are other discourse features of book reviews that are not fully mentioned here. Therefore, the findings of the study will not generalize over all book reviews in newspapers, websites as a whole. However, they can be expected to contribute useful knowledge to the reading and learning English as well as writing book reviews.

6. REFERENCES English
[1]

Angela Downing; Phillip Locke. (1995) a university course in English grammar, Phoenix ELT

[2]

Alexander, L.G. (1994), Longman Advanced Grammar, Nxb T.p Ho Chi Minh

[3] [4] [5]

Brown, G.; Yule, G. (1983), Discourse Analysis, Cambridge. Cook, G (1998) , Discourse , Oxford University Press Green, G. M. (1996), Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding, Lawrene Erlbaum Associates, Nnc.Publishers, New Jersey

Bn xem c gii hn - h

16

[6]

Halliday, M.A.K (1989), An Introduction to Functional Grammar, Edward Arnold, London

[7]

Halliday, M.A.K, and Hassan, R(1976), Cohesion in English, London and New York, Longman

[8] [9]

Hatch, E. (1992), Discourse and Language Education, CUP Hatim, B.& Mason, I. (1990), Discourse and the Translator, Longman, London & NY

[10] Johns,

A.M. (1986), Coherence and Academic Writing: Some

Determinants and Suggestions for Teaching TESOL Quarterly, 20(2) pp. 247 265
[11] McCarthy, [12] Richards,

M. (1991), Discourse Analysis for Language Teacher, CUP

Platt J. and Platt H. (2003), Dictionary of Language Teaching &

Applied Linguistics, Pearson education limited

[13] Sally

Wehmeier, (2005), Oxford advanced learners dictionary 7th edition,

Oxford university express

[14] Salkie,

R. (1995), Text and Discourse Analysis, Routledge, London &

New York
[15] Stubbs,

M. (1983), Discourse Analysis The Socio- linguistic Analysis of

Natural Language, Basil Blackwell, Oxford

[16] Tran

Thi Thuy Huong. (2002), Substitution in Discourse, M.A. thesis,

Danang

Bn xem c gii hn - h

17

[17] Tran

Van Phuoc; Truong Bach Le. (2003) An introduction to Discourse

Analysis, Hue
[18] Yule,

G. (1996), Pragmatics, Oxford, OUP

Websites
[19] Book

reviews. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/review.html
[20] Book

Review Writing Tips.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/bookrev/read.htm
[21] How

to Write a Book Review. California Library.

http://www.lavc.edu/library/bookreview.htm
[22] How

to Write a Book Review. Stauffer Library.

http://library.queensu.ca/inforef/bookreview/wri.htm
[23] How

to Write a Book Review. Dalhousie University Libraries.

http://www.library.dal.ca/How/Guides/BookReview/
[24] Writing

Book Reviews. University of Waterloo Library.

http://library.uwaterloo.ca/libguides/1-12.html
[25] Writing

Book Reports & Book Reviews. Internet Public Library.

http://www.ipl.org/div/farq/bookreportFARQ.html
[26] Wikipedia.

http://wikipedia.org

Vietnamese

Bn xem c gii hn - h

18

[27] Dip

Quang Ban (2003), Giao tip -Vn bn Mch lc - Lin kt an

vn, Nxb Khoa hc x hi TP HCM

[28] Dip

Quang Ban (1999), Vn bn v lin kt trong ting Vit, Nxb GD,

HN.
[29] Nguyn

Ho (2003), Phn tch din ngn - Mt s vn l lun v

phng php, NXB HQG

[30] Nguyn [31] Nguyn

Ho, (

) Phn tch din ngn

Ho (2006), Phn tch din ngn ph bnh, NXB i hc quc

gia, HN
[32] Phan

Vn Ha, (2008) H thng t ni biu th quan h logic- ng ngha

trong ting Anh v ting Vit, NXB GD

[33] Trn

Ngc Thm (1985), H thng lin kt vn bn ting Vit, NXB Gio

dc, H Ni. Corpora

[34] Google

book reviews. http://books.google.com http://www.amazon.com

[35] Amazon. [36] Book [37] Book [38] Book

Review. http://www.bookreview.com Review. http://laist.com Review. http://bookreporter.com of Books. http://www.reviewsofbooks.com

[39] Review

Bn xem c gii hn - h

19

[40] Sunday

Book Review, New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com Stephenie Meyer.

[41] Twilight,

http://www.lovevampires.com/smtwilight.html
[42] Chng [43] im [44] im [45] im

Vng, Stephenie Meyer. bo SGGP http://www.sggp.org.vn

Sch, Nh Sch Online Vinabook. http://www.vinabook.com Sch, Bo Ngisao.net. http://ngoisao.net/News/Truyen-hay Sch, Evan Bo vnexpress.net http://evan.express.net

Bn xem c gii hn - h