A Comparative Study of Discourse Structures and Linguistic Features between Information Communication Technology news in English and Vietnamese

ment 2.5 Some major linguistic features 2.5.1 Clause complex As dicussed in the previous chapter, clause is the highest-ranking unit in the grammar. It is the point of origin of the systems of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD and THEME, realized by three simultaneous structural layers (transitivity structure, modal structure and thematic structure). In the unmarked case, it realizes a figure (experiential), move (interpersonal) and message (textual); and it is realized by a tone group. And that a sentence can be interpreted as a clause complex: a head clause together with other clauses that modify it. A combination of clauses related paratactically or hypotactically but not through embedding; the mode of combination is the mode of organization of the logical subtype of the ideational metafunction. Halliday (1994: 218) proposes the concept of modification that needs to be enriched by allowing for systemic alternatives along two separate dimensions: (i) the type of interdependency, or taxis (ii) the logico-semantic relation. These types will be discussed in details in the following sections. 2.5.1.1 Type of interdependency The relation of modifying, whereby one element modifies another, is not the relationship that may obtain between the members of a complex. This type of interdependency includes two subtypes: hypotaxis and parataxis. Hypotaxis: Logical interdependency between clauses where the interdependents are of unequal status. Thus one of the clauses can be seen as a Head being modified by the other(s). If two clauses are related hypotactically, the primary one is dominant (α), and the secondary one dependent (β). Roughly comparable to subordination in traditional grammar. The traditional term subordination does usually not differentiate hypotaxis. ||| Fear of flying is quite rational | because human beings cannot fly. ||| α β ||| Because human beings cannot fly, | fear of flying is quite rational. ||| β α Parataxis: Logical interdependency between clauses where the interdependents are of equal status. Roughly comparable to coordination in traditional grammar. If two clauses are related paratactically, the primary one is initiating (1), and the secondary one continuing (2). ||| I switched on my TV set || and there was a programme about whales. ||| 1                                         2 ||| Let’s face it, || the human body is like a condominium apartment. ||| 1                      2 2.5.1.2 The logico-semantic relations There is a wide range of different logico-semantic relations: any of which may hold between a primary and a secondary member of a clause nexus. The logico-semantic relations are grouped into expansion and projection. Expansion: the secondary clause expands the primary clause in some ways as elaborating, extending or enhancing. E.g.: Elaborating (i.e.): restating in other words, specifying in detail, commenting, exemplifying: 1. Kings, emperors and pharaohs had storytellers; || that was their entertainment. (1^2) 2. They decided to cancel the show, | which upset everybody. (α^β) Extending (and, or): adding some new element, giving an exception to it, offering an alternative, an addition (positive, negative, adversative), a variation (replacive, subtractive). 3. Maybe the comets killed the dinosaurs, || maybe they tripped and fell. (1^2) 4. It’s my book || but you can read it. (1^2) 5. If they are here, | then surely I have the right to be here. (β^α) 6. We used to go away at the weekend, | taking all our gear with us. (α^β) Enhancing (so, yet, then): qualifying the primary clause with some circumstantial feature of time, place, cause or condition and mostly adverbial clauses. 7. Arger was never able to produce it, || so I cut him off my payroll. (1^2) 8. We'll work for about an hour on Saturday, || then we'll work Monday and Tuesday of next week, || then taper off. (1^2^3) 9. I left my wife | because I realized that I had made an awful mistake. (α^β) 10. Though my car is quite old, | it is still in running order. (β^α) Projection: the secondary clause is projected through the primary clause via a verb of saying (a locution) or thinking (an idea). Projected clauses represent propositions/ proposals with a different source. 1. Verbal process: direct speech: a. She said || "I just work here". (1^2) 2. Verbal process: indirect speech: a. She said | that she worked there. (α^β) 3. Mental process (cognition): direct/indirect: a. Men think: || "Obviously I can be talked into anything." (1^2) b. Men think | that they can obviously be talked into anything. (α^β) 4. Mental process (perception) a. They have heard | that he is a good lecturer. (α^β) b. Adam saw | that she had stopped again. (α^β) 2.5.2 Lexical Density Lexical density levels distinguish writing from speech, with the latter being characterized by lower levels. Halliday (1985) analyses the functions of written English, and showed that it is not simply “spoken language written down”. 2.5.2.1 Lexical density levels distinguish writing from speech In English, the term ‘word’ as Victoria et al. (2000: 25) define is “the meaningful unit that can be combined to form phrase or sentence. When a speaker hears a word in his language, he has an immediate association with a particular meaning”. We consider the words in the following English sentences: The friends promised to inquire carefully about a schoolmaster for fair Bianca. The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster trains running in the most adverse weather conditions. As the above definition about word, there are thirteen (13) words in the sentence (1) and there are 21 words in the sentence (3). The term ‘word’ in Vietnamese is sometimes different from English. According to Nguyen Thien Giap (1985: 72), ‘word’ in Vietnamese is “a smallest concrete meaningful unit that is used to make speech. It has a form of a syllable, a single written letter”. Do Huu Chau (1986:139), also defines word in Vietnamese is “one or some fix syllables, non-inflected, fix meaningful, in a fix word combination that follow some fix grammar characteristics and is the largest in Vietnamese and the smallest to form sentences”. From these two definitions, we consider following examples from Do Thi Kim Lien (1999:18, 20) in Vietnamese: Bình minh/ như/ lạ/ như/ quen. Những/ thắng lợi ấy/ là/ hết sức/ quan trọng In the sentence (3), ‘Bình minh’ is a word that includes two syllables. Therefore, there are 5 words in the total of the sentences. In the sentence (4), there are 5 words in the total of the sentence. Now we turn to lexical density in English and Vietnamese. Written English tends to be lexically dense; that is, it has a high ratio of content to function words and a small number of clauses. Content words include nouns, regular /main verbs, and most adjectives and adverbs (Eggins, 1994: 60-61). Grammatical/ Function words have little lexical meaning, but they express grammatical relations with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker. They are often short words include pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, and auxiliary verbs. Typically, lexical density is regarded as a measure that distinguishes spoken and written texts. In spoken texts, lexical density is said to be lower (Eggins, 1994: 61). Let us consider the ratio of the content words in the following sentences (The lexical words are in bold type): 5. Magnetic materials are materials that are attracted to magnets. (5/9) 6. My mother used to tell me about the singer in her town. (4/12) 7. Chúng tôi/ muốn/ góp/ một phần/ nhỏ bé/ trong/ công cuộc/ quảng bá/ hình ảnh/ Việt Nam/ tới/ bạn bè/ thế giới. (10/13) 8. Dịp này,/ FPT Telecom/ Hà Nội/ và/ các/ chi nhánh/ tại/ TP.HCM,/ Đồng Nai/, Bình Dương/ có tổ chức/ các/ chương trình/ khuyến mãi/ hấp dẫn. (10/15) From the above examples, we can see that the sentence (5) has higher lexical density (5/9) than the sentence (6) with (4/12), therefore the sentence information in the sentence (5) is more than that of the second one and more meanings have been packed into the sentence (5). In the sentence (7) and (8), the ratio of content words to the total of the sentence are 10/13 and 10/15, respectively. 2.5.2.2 The formula of lexical density In contrasting written and spoken versions of the same text, Eggins (1994: 61-98) found that on average the spoken text was 33% lexical, while the written version was 42% lexical. Written texts try to pack more meanings into each clause. The lexical density of a text can be calculated and the formula is presented as follows: Lexical density = L/T x 100% T = total number of the words of a text L = lexical / content words of a text For example, a text has 51075 words and 44518 content words (T = 51075; L = 44518) Lexical density = 44518/51075 x 100% = 87.16%. From the result, we know that the lexical density in this text is very high and it is much higher than the average percentage of a written text (42%). In this case, the passage becomes difficulty to read. 2.5.2.3 Lexical density in ICT discourse In information communication technology news discourse, the lexical density may go much higher and the language appears complicated because it involves a large number of inter-relating technical terms and each of which has been defined and ‘contains’ information. The reader is expected to already understand and the language of information communication technology has developed to enable engineers and technicians to communicate effectively. Halliday and Martin (1993) suggest seven headings that could be used for illustrating and discussing the difficulties that are characteristic of scientific English: 1. Interlocking definitions; 2. Technical taxonomies; 3. Special expressions; 4. Lexical density; 5. Syntactic ambiguity; 6. Grammatical metaphor; and 7. Semantic discontinuity. Lexical density is one of the seven headings that could be used for illustrating and discussing the difficulties that are characteristic of scientific English. Let us have a look at the three clauses adopted from Halliday and Martin (1993) with a lexical density from Scientific American (December 1987): 1. Griffith’s energy balance approach to strength and fracture also suggested the importance of surface chemistry in the mechanical behaviour of brittle materials. (13/22) 2. The conical space rendering of cosmic strings’ gravitational properties applies only to straight strings. (10/14) 3. The model rests on the localized gravitational attraction exerted by rapidly oscillating and extremely massive closed loops of cosmic string. (13/20) The calculation of the lexical density of the above three sentences are 60% (1), 71.4% (2) and 65% (3). According to the results above, the three sentences are all high in lexical dense and the lexical density of these three sentences are higher than the average percentage of a written text (42%). 2.6 Summary News discourse theories have been discussed and news analytic frameworks have been setup through famous scholars. Based on the analytic framework of Teun A van Dijk (1985 and 1988), Allan Bell (1991), M.A.K. Halliday (1985,1993, 1994) and Suzanne Eggins (1994), an analysis of the discourse structures as well as some major linguistic features of ICT news in English and Vietnamese will be carried out in the next chapter: Data analysis and discussion. CHAPTER 3 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 A study of discourse structures of ICT news in English and Vietnamese In this chapter, we will analyze and discuss about the thematic and schematic structures of ICT news discourses in English and Vietnamese. The purpose of the analysis is to formulate a typical frame of structure of ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese as well as to have a deeper understanding in the way of ICT news discourse is produced. 3.1.1 Thematic structure The news thematic structure represents a collection of paragraphs, each one with a thematic unity, presented in an order of relevance and thematic importance (van Dijk, 1998). The order of relevance “indicates to the reader the information that is more important or prominent inside the text” (van Dijk, 1988:123). By the thematic structure of a discourse, we understand the overall organization of global topics a news item is about. Van Dijk (1988:135) defines a news text as “a higher or more important topic which is presented in the headline”. Thematic structure presents important details according to time, place, participants, causes/reasons or consequences of the main events. Among the specific traits of the thematic organization of the news discourse, we pointed out the headline and the lead, because “headlines and leads are read and interpreted in the first place by the readers and its formal or semantic information fires up a complex comprehension process...” (van Dijk, 1988), and in a general way, they help to formulate the hypothetical macrostructure of a news item. In Table 1, there are two samples of analysis of thematic structure of ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese (the researcher analyzed the twenty ICT news discourses that are represented in Appendix 2): Table 1: The two samples of analysis of thematic structure of ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese Sample 1: News 1: Linksys Offers Mac Setup App for Routers News categories Par Details Headline Linksys Offers Mac Setup App for Routers. Lead 1 Linksys on Thursday released a new Mac application to assist users in setting up the company's routers. Sample 2: News 19: Đồng hành bình chọn Vịnh Hạ Long News categories Par Details Headline Đồng hành bình chọn vịnh Hạ Long Lead 1 Một chương trình vận động có quy mô lớn nhất từ trước đến nay để bình chọn vịnh Hạ Long là kỳ quan thiên nhiên thế giới đã chính thức được triển khai. The results of the thematic structure of twenty ICT news discourses in English and Vietnamese are presented in Table 2: Table 2: Thematic structure of ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese ICT news discourse in Headline Lead English 10/10 10/10 Vietnamese 10/10 10/10 Table 2 shows us the highest or most important topics that are expressed in the headline and the top of the complete structure of the texts are formulated in the lead (10/10). The organization of ICT news discourse is a ‘top-to-bottom’ mapping of the underlying semantic macrostructure, that is, the highest and the most important information levels of the thematic structure are formulated first in the headline, the lead covers the overall meaning of the whole ICT news discourse and the lower information levels follow. From the data analysis, the headline and the lead of the ICT news discourse in both English and Vietnamese are the same. The headline and the lead are all used to express the theme or the topic. Now we turn to the lengths of headline and lead in ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese by looking at the statistic result in Table 3: Table 3: Number of words represented in headline and lead of ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese News number ICT news discourse in English News number ICT news discourse in Vietnamese Number of words in Headline Number of words in Lead Number of words in Headline Number of words in Lead News 1 7 17 News 11 3 32 News 2 6 35 News 12 12 29 News 3 8 26 News 13 6 31 News 4 8 23 News 14 8 22 News 5 6 34 News 15 10 28 News 6 5 30 News 16 9 30 News 7 5 29 News 17 12 28 News 8 6 26 News 18 9 28 News 9 7 25 News 19 7 33 News 10 4 28 News 20 12 33 On Average 6 27 On Average 9 29 As can be seen in Table 3, in English, the average number of words per headline is 6 and 27 words per lead. The least number of words in headline in English is 4 and the highest number of words in headline is 8: 1. ‘Wi-Fi Phones Gain Popularity’. (4 words) (Source: News 10) 2. ‘Via Plans Dual-core Nano Processor, Shift to 45nm’. (8 words) (Source: News 3) 3. ‘Microsoft Switches Plan, Offers Vista SP1 Public Beta’. (8 words) (Source: News 4) To the ICT news discourse in Vietnamese, the news that has the least number of words in headline is 3 words only: 4. ‘HP LaserJet P1006’. (Source: News 11) And there are three news discourses that have 12 words in their headline: 5. ‘Eurocom mong muốn hợp tác khai thác vệ tinh với Việt nam’. (Source: News 12) 6. ‘Gần 8.000 kỹ sư được cấp chứng chỉ theo chuẩn Nhật bản’. (Source: News 17) 7. ’Fpt telecom triển khai mới 3 gói dịch vụ Internet cáp quang’. (Source: News 20) A quick look across twenty headline collected in this study reveals that these headlines are straightforward, direct within the average numbers of 6 or 9 words in length. The matter here is that these headlines are somehow difficult for popular readers to understand if they know very little about the specific topics that relate to information communication technology field. For example, if readers know nothing about printer series with trademark ‘HP’, they will not understand the content when they read the headline in news 11: ‘HP LaserJet P1006’. Alternatively, in news 1: ’Linksys Offers Mac Setup App for Routers’, readers may not know anything about Linksys, Mac, App and Routers. Given space is limited and lexical words are used more than functional (grammatical) words in ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese. These facts also can occasionally lead to popular readers’ difficulty in understanding the content of the news. Headline and lead are very important. In terms of structural appearance, they are the first texts at the beginning of the news discourse with large, bold-printed that a newsreader sees when looking at a newspaper. In terms of content, headline and lead employ a range of creative language devices to produce short, attention-getting, highly memorable texts and have the capacity to include an entire story in a few words. Headline and lead can decide the success of a news discourse because what the news writers really expect from the readers is their reading of the whole news texts. 3.1.2 The schematic structure of ICT news discourse We assume that news items also have a conventional form, a schema that organizes the overall content. The following are the findings on the schematic structure of ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese: 3.1.2.1 News categories As mentioned in the previous chapter, news schemata or news categories, due to their conventional nature, are at least implicitly known by their users in a given culture that is by journalists and readers. Obvious categories for such a news schema are for instance headline and lead (initial capitals are used to signal the use of structure categories). As the first part of this chapter, the role of the headline and lead are very important. It is an independent but integrated part of a news item, so it is certainly connected to the content and the topic of the whole piece of the news. Since in our culture practically all news discourses are headed by a headline, we may take headline and lead as the first, opening category of the schema. In Table 3, we have tried to represent these and the other categories to be discussed on the framework suggested by Teun A. van Dijk (1988): Table 4: News categories represented in ICT news discourses in English and Vietnamese News categories Number of news discourses / 10 news in English Number of news discourses/ 10 news in Vietnamese Abstract (Summary): Headline and lead 10/10 10/10 Main Events: Previous Events Context 10/10 9/10 Backgrounds: History 10/10 9/10 Consequences 10/10 10/10 Verbal Reactions 9/10 8/10) Comment 8/10 8/10 All news category 8/10 8/10 Words per news discourse on average 293 words/ 1 news 216 words/ 1 news Table 4 provides an overview of the news categories included in 10 ICT news discourses in English and 10 ICT news discourses in Vietnamese from two magazines: ‘The PC World’ and ‘Thế Giới vi tính’ that researcher retrieved at two websites: and The ICT news discourses in English have content length of 293 words per news on average; of which the length of the shortest content news is 135 words and the longest one is 410 words. There are 216 words per ICT news discourse in Vietnamese; of which the longest discourse is 312 words and the shortest one is 149 words. These figures show the relative difference in length between ICT news discourses in English and Vietnamese. There are 8 in 10 news categories appear in all 10 news discourses in English and these are the same in Vietnamese. Besides headline, lead and consequence, the second most popular categories are main events and background. There are 2 in 10 news discourses did not provide any information about comment in English and these are the same to verbal reactions and comment in Vietnamese. There are also the same in the time lines of publishing news, that is, the time lines are between headline and lead. The name of journalist is between headline and time line in English but it is at the end of the news discourses in Vietnamese. Four categories: Headline and Lead, Main Events, Backgrounds and Consequences are compulsory to ICT news discourses in English and Vietnamese. Headline is printed ‘on-top’, in large, bold type and lead is always the first opening paragraph of every news discourse. The headline and lead are usually the toughest part of news text and both directly express the highest level of overall meaning of the news discourse. Together, they function as a summary for the news discourses. The main events, which are brought about immediately through the lead, dominates the description of these news events to remind readers of what happened before and hence to activate their relevant situation model and to relate the events in consequence, we may call them as previous events. The headline, lead and main events are crucial in news schemata of ICT news discourses. Whatever their length, these factors grasp the reader’s interest immediately and make the reader read more. They also provoke deep and serious thought in the reader. The headline and lead has many variations to answer the five Ws and H questions. The lead contains the news peg and is the most important part of the news text. This form of structure is sometimes called the "inverted pyramid," to refer to decreased importance of information as it progresses, that is, the most important information comes first and the less information comes after. The backgrounds also take a high portion in both ICT news texts in English and Vietnamese. Background is very important for the popular readers to understand content of ICT news discourse. The popular readers may do not understand the ICT news if they are not provided with further or detail information about the subjects mentioned in the news. Background must dominate those portions of the text in which information is given which is not as such part of the actual news events, but provides general, historical, social context or conditions of these events. These will explain the reason why background is one of compulsory news categories that the writer may take consideration when writing an ICT news discourse. In the verbal reactions, the writer uses many experts’ quotations to make the ICT news discourses more credible and reliable to the readers. Moreover, journalists want the news to be objective judged by quoting the other saying. This also makes the news discourse more newsworthy. Consequence is the focus of the news discourses and the concern of the readers; this explains the reason why consequence popularly appears in all ICT news discourses collected (10/10). We can see details the two samples about the analysis of ICT news discourse categories in English and Vietnamese: Table 5: The two samples of analysis of ICT news discourse categories in English and Vietnamese Sample 3: News 1: Linksys Offers Mac Setup App for Routers News categories Par Details Headline Linksys Offers Mac Setup App for Routers. Lead 1 Linksys on Thursday released a new Mac application to assist users in setting up the company's routers. Main Events: Context 1 Linksys on Thursday released a new Mac application to assist users in setting up the company's routers. Backgrounds: 3 Information about router Consequences 2 How LELA used 3 Kind of LELA 4,5 Where to get LELA, product Verbal Reactions 3 Giving out information about router Comment 2 Comment about the use of LELA Sample 4: News 15: Bộ xử lý Firestream mới nhất đạt ngưỡng 1 Teraflop News categories Par Details Headline Bộ xử lý FireStream mới nhất đạt ngưỡng 1 teraflop Lead 1 Hôm 16/6/2008 Advanced Micro Devices cho biết, phiên bản mới nhất của gói chip hiệu năng cao - FireStream 9250 – sẽ “trình làng” vào cuối năm 2008 Main Events: Context 1 New version of high performance chip processor packets - FireStream 9250 – to present at the end of the year 2008 Backgrounds: 2, 4,6 Information about chip AMD FireStream 9250 Consequences 3 5 Capacity of the chip stream FireStream processor. Capacity of data processing by the chip Verbal Reactions No Comment 6 Comment on the chip FireStream 9250 There is often a comment at the end of each ICT news discourse; it might be comments on the new products and their beneficial potential, etc. Sometimes in comment, the journalist may quote the other opinion about the subjects that he or she attempts to present through news discourses. 3.1.2.2 The order of news categories Form what we have informally introduced the tentative categories of ICT news schema; we should of course also know how they are ordered. After all, the ordering of the categories must also determine the ordering of information in the text, such as the sequential realization of topics as we discussed it in the previous section. Some of the ordering principles are straightforward and have been discussed above. Thus, Summary (Headline and lead) always come first, and comments mostly last. Then, it may be assumed that most news texts start with main event after the summary. Analysis of empirical data form in the ICT news discourses from the two magazines shows that this is indeed the case. There are somehow cross-orders among the news categories, that is, there are usually more than one of news categories in one paragraph, such as Background, Consequence, Verbal Reactions and Comment. The rules are much less strict, and orders, thus, are optional in this case. Verbal reactions are usually ordered toward the end of the news discourse, before comments. This means that categories that usually come toward the end of a news item, such as verbal reactions, comments or consequences, may be placed in an earlier position if the information in such categories is sufficiently relevant. From these few indications of ICT news discourses about ordering rules, we may conclude that some rules are fairly strict and general, whereas others have a much more optional nature, being no more than preferences, which may differ from culture to culture, newspaper to newspaper, journalist to journalist. Rules has a cognitive nature, and language users may use both fixed rules as they are shared in a community, more variable rules, and context bound, goal-directed strategies in the production and understanding of ICT news discourse. The next section will deal with some main linguistic features of ICT news discourse. 3.2 Some major linguistic features of ICT news discourse In this part, we will analyze and discuss some major linguistic features, namely, clause complex and lexical density of ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese. The purpose of the analysis is to define what the ICT news discourse is about through their clauses and words as well as to understand clearly about the ICT news discourse content. 3.2.1 Clause complex Both discourse analysts and ordinary language users are primarily interested in meaning: what does this text talk about, what does it mean, and what implications does it have for language users? Part of the answer to such questions is given in text semantics, which formulates interpretation rules for words, sentences, paragraphs, or whole discourses. One important semantic notion used to describe meaning is that of proposition, which may be roughly defined as the conceptual meaning structure of a clause (van Dijk, 1977). A combination of clauses related paratactically or hypotactically but not through embedding; the mode of combination is the mode of organization of the logical subtype of the ideational metafunction. These types will be discussed in details in the following sections base on what Halliday (1994: 218) proposes the concept of modification that needs to be enriched by allowing for systemic alternatives along two separate dimensions: (i) the type of interdependency, or taxis (ii) the logico-semantic relation. (Detail analysis of clause complex is presented in Appendix 3). 3.2.1.1 Type of interdependency The relation of modifying, whereby one element modifies another, is not the relationship that may obtain between the members of a complex. This type of interdependency includes two subtypes: hypotaxis and parataxis. Table 6: Type of interdependency represented of ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese Type of interdependency ICT news discourses in English (%) ICT news discourses in Vietnamese (%) Hypotaxis 49 40 Parataxis 51 60 Table 6 shows us high percentages of parataxis (51%) are used in ICT news discourses in English that is 60% in Vietnamese. Obviously, the purposes of using high parataxis in ICT news discourse are to create simplicity, preciseness, ease and convenience for readership. These may help readers find it easy to access ICT news content without difficulty. However, we cannot deny the contribution that using hypotaxis have made to a various use and a flexible change with special purpose to gain special effects of drawing the reader’s attention and interest. The following examples are some hypotaxis clauses: 1) The setup wizard is available For download from the company's Web site. Hypotaxis Α Β (Source: News 1: Linksys Offers Mac Setup App for Routers) 2) Phó chủ tịch điều hành Eurocom, ông Shorer thăm Việt Nam trong 2 ngày 10 và 11/3/2008, làm việc với một số đối tác như VTI, VDC và FPT. Hypotaxis Α Β (Source: News 12: Eurocom mong muốn hợp tác khai thác vệ tinh với Việt Nam) 3.2.1.2 The logico-semantic relations There is a wide range of different logico-semantic relations any of which may hold between a primary and a secondary member of a clause nexus. The logico-semantic relations are grouped into expansion and projection. Table 7: The logico-semantic relations represent in ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese The logico-semantic relations ICT news discourse in English (%) ICT news discourse in Vietnamese (%) Expansion Elaborating (i.e.) 12.02 49.21 Extending (and, or) 62.96 22.23 Enhancing (so, yet, then) 5.55 14.28 Projection Verbal process: direct speech 10.18 7.93 Verbal process: indirect speech 9.28 6.34 It is noticeable from Table 7 that, in terms of expansion, extending is most preferable in ICT news discourses in English with the frequency of using that is 62.96%. Elaborating ranks the second at 12.02%, and the last, 5.55%, is enhancing. These show that the journalists of ICT news discourses in English tend to add or to alter the clauses to make the content of the news discourse easier for readers. In contrast, elaborating is most preferable use in ICT news discourses in Vietnamese with the highest frequency (49.21%). Extending is the second rank at 22.23%, and the last, 6.34%, is projecting, namely, verbal process with direct speech. Vietnamese journalists tend to explain and describe the subjects or matters they are mentioning. We can see these from two examples below: Table 8: The two samples of clause complex in ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese Sample 5: News 2: Yahoo, Time Warner in AOL Talks Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service Thursday, April 10, 2008 6:10 AM PDT (3) A Yahoo-AOL deal would involve Time Warner folding AOL into Yahoo and making a cash investment in return for about 20 percent of the combined company, the Wall Street Journal said. Parataxis 1 2 Expansion Extending 1^2 Projection Indirect verbal process Sample 6: News 14: Lộ trình mới về chính phủ điện tử Ngày đăng: 6/ 3/2008 14h30 (1) Ngày 5/3/2008, bộ TTTT công bố dự thảo chương trình ứng dụng CNTT 2008-2010 và mời nhiều chuyên gia CNTT góp ý. Parataxis 1 2 Expansion Extending (1^2) Besides, in terms of projection, we can see there are verbal processes in both ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese. That is 10.18% in English and that is 7.93% in Vietnamese, the news writers use direct speech in their writing by quoting engineers’ or experts’ opinion about the subject or matter mentioned in the news. We can see some examples below: 1) "Towards the end of next year, you'll see dual-core and you'll also see 45 nanometers towards the end of next year. That is in the roadmap," said Richard Brown, vice president of marketing at Via Technologies. (Source: News 3: Via Plans Dual-core Nano Processor, Shift to 45nm) 2) Phát biểu tại buổi thăm CTLC Đông Anh, ông Michael Michalak, đại sứ Hoa Kỳ tại Việt Nam nói: “Một trong những mục tiêu chính yếu của tôi khi làm đại sứ Hoa Kỳ tại Việt Nam là tích cực theo đuổi các sáng kiến để nâng cao các cơ hội giáo dục cho công dân Việt Nam. TOPIC64 là một ví dụ xuất sắc về sức mạnh của các quan hệ đối tác công - tư để tạo điều kiện dễ dàng cho giáo dục Việt Nam, bằng cách đưa các dịch vụ thoại và dữ liệu di động rẻ tiền đến các vùng nông thôn và tạo ra những cơ hội học tập cho các cộng đồng Việt Nam”. (Source: News 16: Công nghệ 3G đến với giáo dục vùng xa) There are also 9.28% in English and 6.34% in Vietnamese, the writers use indirect speech to provide more information about the subject or matter mentioned in the news. We can see some examples below: 3) The company, which has slated Vista SP1 for final delivery this quarter, said as recently as Thursday that the update remains on track. (Source: News 4: Microsoft Switches Plan, Offers Vista SP1 Public Beta) 4) Ông Lê Nguyễn Hồng Phương – giám đốc BIT cho biết, đây là năm thứ 2, BIT phối hợp cùng ban quản lý Chùa Bà Bình Dương để thực hiện trực tuyến lễ hội Chùa Bà trên mạng Internet. (Source: News 13: Lễ hội Chùa Bà trực tuyến…) In short, the last target of using projection clauses, namely verbal processes in direct and indirect speech, is to make the ICT news discourse to be more informative, objective, concise, dynamic, expert and reliable to special and popular readers. 3.2.2 Lexical density of ICT news discourse In computational linguistics, lexical density constitutes the estimated measure of content per functional (grammatical) and lexical units (lexemes) in total. Specifically, this is a coefficient of the word type to token ratio of a text. The main application of the lexical density coefficient is to be found in corpus linguistics. Eggins (1994: 61) found that the lexical density of spoken text on average was 33%, while the written version was 42%. Written texts try to pack more meanings into each clause. Eggins (1994) proposes that the lexical density of a text can be calculated and the formula is as follows: Lexical density = L/T x 100% Where: T = total number of the words of a text L = lexical / content words of a text For example, a text has 51075 words and 44518 content words (T = 51075; L = 44518) Lexical density = 44518/51075 x 100% = 87.16% 3.2.2.1 Lexical density of ICT news discourse in English From the above formula and after processing the data (refer to Appendix 3), we have general results about the lexical density represented in ICT news discourse in English as in Table 9: Table 9: The lexical density represented in ICT news discourse in English News number ICT news discourse in English Lexical / content words of a text Total number of the words of a text Lexical density (%) News 1 89 135 65.92 News 2 168 286 58.74 News 3 214 346 61.84 News 4 179 292 61.30 News 5 142 223 63.67 News 6 254 410 61.95 News 7 200 272 73.52 News 8 209 352 59.37 News 9 241 353 68.27 News 10 159 257 61.86 Lexical Density on Average 63.64% The results of the above tables show that the average lexical density of ICT news discourse in English is 63.64 %, this figure is higher than the average percentage of a written text. In this case, the ICT news discourse is a little bit difficult for the popular readers to understand the content of the news. Examples of lexical density in ICT news discourse in English are given below (the words are in bold and italic are lexical words): (1) Kaspersky Lab has published advice on recovering files encrypted by the frightening Gpcode.ak virus, but there is a big catch – users must not have turned off their PC first. ( 16/29 words) (Source: News 6: Recovering from the Encryption Virus) (2) The Tegra line comprises three chips including the 800MHz Tegra 650 and 700MHz Tegra 600. The lineup will also include the APX 2500 an Nvidia processor designed for cell phones and smartphones that was announced earlier this year. (26/38 words) (Source: News 9: Nvidia Goes After Intel With Tegra Processors) In the first example (1), there are 29 words in total, of which there are 16 lexical or content words. By the formula mentioned (lexical density = L/T x 100%), we have (T = 29; L = 16) lexical density = 16/29 x 100% = 55.17%. This explains that the example (1) is a bit difficult for the popular readers to understand. Similarly, in the example (2), we have lexical density is 68.42%. This figure means that it is more difficult for the readers to take in the content of the text as well as in comparison with the first example (1). We now look at lexical density of ICT news discourse in Vietnamese 3.2.2.2 Lexical density of ICT news discourse in Vietnamese We also have general results about the lexical density represented in ICT news discourse in Vietnamese as in Table 10: Table 10: The lexical density represented in ICT news discourse in Vietnamese News number ICT news discourse in Vietnamese Lexical / content words of a text Total number of the words of a text Lexical density (%) News 11 185 217 85.25 News 12 141 175 80.57 News 13 124 149 83.22 News 14 186 204 91.17 News 15 168 184 91.30 News 16 261 312 83.65 News 17 147 182 80.76 News 18 197 225 87.55 News 19 242 286 84.61 News 20 184 227 81.05 Lexical Density on Average 84.91% The average lexical density of ICT news discourse in Vietnamese is 84.91%. This figure is much higher than the average percentage of a written text. Although the news Vietnamese writers try to explain and describe the subjects or matters (as analysis in 3.2.1.2: The logico-semantic relations), the popular readers still could not take in the content of the news text because of quite high lexical density. If the readers know very little about information communication technology field, they will be stuck on understanding the message of the ICT news discourse. Examples of lexical density in ICT news discourse in Vietnamese are given below (the words are in bold and italic are lexical words): (3) Cho đến nay/, VITEC/ đã/ xây dựng được/ 4/ chuẩn/ kỹ năng/ bao gồm:/ cơ bản/ (FE)/, phần mềm/ (SW/), cơ sở/ dữ liệu/ (DB)/ và/ hệ thống/ mạng/ (NW)/. Trong/ các kỹ năng này/, chuẩn/ kỹ sư/ về/ FE/ và/ SW/ được công nhận/ tương đương/ với/ Nhật Bản/. ( 23/31words) (Source: News 17: Gần 8.000 kỹ sư được cấp chứng chỉ theo chuẩn Nhật Bản) (4) AMD/ FireStream/ 9250/ thuộc/ thế hệ/ GPGPU /thứ hai/ (thế hệ/ đầu tiên/ là/ FireStream/ 9170/) và/ tính toán/ dấu chấm động/ có độ /chính xác đơn/ (single/-precision/) là/ hơn/ 1/ teraflop/ (gấp đôi/ FireStream /9170)/. FireStream/ 9250/ sẽ được/ bán ra/ vào /cuối tháng/ 9/2008 /với giá/ 1.999USD.(30/35words) (Source: News 15: Bộ xử lý Firestream mới nhất đạt ngưỡng 1 Teraflop) In the example (3), there are total 31 words in the whole text, of which there are 23 lexical or content words of the text. We have lexical density is calculated as follow: lexical density = 23/31 x 100% = 74.19%. This explains why the example (3) is rather difficult for the popular readers to understand the content of the text. Similarly, in the example (4), we have lexical density is 85.71%. This figure means that it is higher difficult for the readers to take in the content of the whole text as well as in comparison with the example (3). 3.3 Summary By analyzing the data of ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese, it tends to confirm the theoretic setting of the framework of the news as proposed by Van Dijk and Bell. We can see some similarities between the process of production and the framework of ICT news discourse structures in relation to the other kinds of news as Figure 1: The only restriction is a high lexical density that makes the popular readers be stuck on understanding the content of ICT news discourse. It is useful if the writers know how to write the background relates to the matter that is mentioned in the ICT news discourse in both English and Vietnamese. These will help popular readers get in the ICT news discourse easier and more effective. It is necessary to recognize that this analysis show deficiencies and that, in order to get a meaningful panorama of the framework of the ICT news in both English and Vietnamese press, we need to set up a new case study with a bigger universe of samples that will help gather data in a more precise environment. CONCLUSION 1. The findings This part will review some of the marked similarities and differences between ICT news discourse in English and Vietnamese 1.1 The similarities In terms of discourse structures, both English and Vietnamese have the same crucial segments to produce ICT news discourse; they are Headlines, Lead making the thematic structure and beside headline and lead, they are main events, backgrounds, consequences, verbal reactions and comment at the end of news schemata. The ICT news writers use backgrounds to explain and add more information about the subject or a matter they mention in the news. The popular readers may understand the ICT news when they are provided with further or detailed information about the subjects mentioned in the news. Therefore, background is one of compulsory news categories that the writer may take consideration when writing an ICT news discourse. The news writers also use consequence to mention about the results of the events as well as to remind readers of what happened before and hence to activate their relevant situation model, this make the news to be closer to the readers. The ICT news discourse also follows the structure that is sometimes called the "inverted pyramid," where the most important information comes first and the less information comes after. In terms of linguistic features, although ICT news discourse give further information to readers, they could partly understand the content because of high lexical density in English and Vietnamese. The ICT news writers tend to use paratactic clauses in their news in English and Vietnamese. 1.2 The differences In terms of discourse structures, the ICT news discourse writers in English use on average words per headline are 6 and 27 words per lead. In that case, ICT news writers in Vietnamese use 9 and 29 words respectively. In terms of linguistic features, the journalists of ICT news discourse in English tend to add or to alter the clauses to make the content of the news discourse easier for readers. In contrast, Vietnamese journalists tend to explain and describe the subjects or matters they are mentioning. In terms of lexical density, ICT news discourse in Vietnamese contains higher lexical density than ICT news discourse in English, 84.91% and 63.64% respectively. The higher lexical density is, the more difficult the popular readers get. 2. Implications ICT news discourse is considered difficult for the popular readers to understand. As the teacher of English as a second language, the researcher desires to explore the ICT news discourse in order to unveil some obstacles of popular readers by investigating in news discourse structures to produce news and some linguistic features to understand the news content. In terms of discourse structures, both English and Vietnamese have the same crucial segments to produce ICT news discourse; they are headlines, lead making the thematic structure and beside headline and lead they are main events, backgrounds, consequences, verbal reactions and comment at the end of news schemata. These segments follow the general news schemata as proposed by Teun A van Dijk or Allan Bell. Through the data analysis, we can answer that the popular readers get difficulty in comprehending the ICT news discourse’s content in both English and Vietnamese because of high lexical density. The ICT word stocks is new and ever changes day by day, many words seem to be technical terms. 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