A study of understatements and hyberboles in Vietnamese and English political speeches

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

THAN THI MINH HUNG

A STUDY OF UNDERSTATEMENTS AND

HYPERBOLES IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH

POLITICAL SPEECHES

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang Ngoan

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

THÂN THỊ MINH HƯNG

NGHIÊN CỨU NGÔN NGỮ NÓI GIẢM VÀ PHÓNG

ĐẠI TRONG CÁC BÀI PHÁT BIỂU CHÍNH TRỊ

Ở ANH VÀ VIỆT NAM

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn Ngữ Anh

Mã ngành: 8220201

Người hướng dẫn: PGS. TS. Nguyễn Quang Ngoạn

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains

no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by

which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma.

No other’s person work has been used without due acknowledgements in the

thesis.

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in

any other tertiary institution.

An Nhon, 2021

THÂN THI MINH HUNG

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my great appreciation to all who have encouraged and

helped me in this thesis.

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my Assoc. Prof. Dr.

Nguyen Quang Ngoan, my research supervisor, for his patient guidance,

enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques of this research work.

Secondly, I would like to offer my special thanks to all the lecturers in Quy

Nhon University for their lectures and devotion over the past two years that have

helped me a lot in completing this study.

Finally, I would also give my special thanks to all of my colleagues and

family for their continuous support and understanding when undertaking my

research.

iii

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted with the aim to examine the structural and

functional features of understatements and hyperboles in Vietnamese and English

political speeches in terms of the structural and functional features and the

similarities and differences in the structural and functional features of the

understatements and the hyperboles between the two sets of data. The data of the

research contains 40 speeches made by English politicians and 40 speeches made by

Vietnamese politicians from 2018 to 2021. In this study, both quantitative and

qualitative methods were adopted to analyze the data which gave a sufficient

analysis of the figures of speech based on relevant theories. The quantitative

techniques provided statistical information such as frequency of occurrence whereas

the qualitative approach was employed to analyse the functions and structures of

understatements and hyperboles as well as the similarities and differences between

them under the light of Harris (2017)’s theory in the approach adapted from

(Claridge, 2011, McCarthy & Carter, 2004, Cano Mora, 2006 and Du Thi Trang

Anh, 2010). The result of the study revealed that there are no big differences in the

structural features of hyperboles in both languages in which single word form is

used most frequently. Same in English, hyperboles are used more frequent than

understatements in Vietnamese political speeches. The most obvious finding to

emerge from this study related to structural features of understatements is that

understatements in phrasal form are used most frequently by both English and

Vietnamese politicians. Besides, the differences found in this study were the total

understatements used in English were more than in Vietnamese and English

politicians tended to use understatements to make problems less serious while

Vietnamese politicians tended to use understatements to emphasize the enormity of

a problem.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .............................................................................i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................................... ii

ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................. iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS...........................................................................................iv

ABBREVIATIONS....................................................................................................vi

LIST OF TABLES .....................................................................................................vi

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................1

1.1. Rationale ..........................................................................................................1

1.2. Aim and Objectives .........................................................................................2

1.2.1. Aim.........................................................................................................2

1.2.2. Objectives...............................................................................................2

1.3. Research Questions..........................................................................................2

1.4. Scope of the Study...........................................................................................3

1.5. Significance of the Study.................................................................................3

1.6. Definition of terminology................................................................................4

1.7. Intended structure of the thesis........................................................................4

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .....................................................................6

2.1. Literature review..............................................................................................6

2.2. Theoretical background .................................................................................11

2.2.1. Political speeches.................................................................................11

2.2.2. Rhetorical devices................................................................................12

2.3 Sumary............................................................................................................17

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .......................................................19

3.1. Research approach .........................................................................................19

3.2. Data Collection and Analysis ........................................................................20

3.3. Validity and reliability...................................................................................25

v

3.4 Summary.........................................................................................................25

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.......................................................26

4.1 Overview of Hyperboles and Understatements..............................................26

4.2 Hyperboles in English and Vietnamese political speeches ............................28

4.2.1 Forms of hyperboles..............................................................................28

4.2.2 Functions of hyperboles........................................................................36

4.3 Understatements in English and Vietnamese political speeches....................42

4.3.1 Forms of Understatements....................................................................42

4.3.2 Functions of Understatements...............................................................50

4.4. Discussion......................................................................................................55

4.5 Summary.........................................................................................................56

Chapter 5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ...............................................57

5.1 Review of main findings.................................................................................57

5.2 Implications ....................................................................................................58

5.3 Limitation .......................................................................................................59

5.4 Suggestions for further studies .......................................................................59

REFERENCES

APPENDIX