Phân tích diễn ngôn đa phương thức về sự bất bình đẳng giới

1. 1
ABSTRACT
This study is an attempt to explore the representations of gender
inequality in Vietnamese culture displayed in TV advertisements, particularly
through the category of food and drink products. The data of the study includes
one hundred TV commercials broadcasted in the national channels from 2016
to 2020. The research approach is based on multi modal discourse analysis
which employs the framework of Fairclough’s (2001), and Kress and van
Leeuwen (2006).
The result of this study reveals the clear difference between men and
women’s portrayals in the media. Women are visually presented with the
dominance in household tasks while male characters are displayed in more
important social roles. These gender stereotypes express the discrimination
toward women and perpetuate gender inequality. It is argued that Vietnamese
culture mirrors the existing ideologies on gender in TV advertisements and the
gender equality is still controversial issue in Vietnam’s society.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION.........................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................1
PART A......................................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................4
1. Rationale of the study.......................................................................................4
2. Objectives of the study.....................................................................................6
3. Research questions ...........................................................................................6
4. Research methods and scope of the study........................................................6
5. Structure of the study .......................................................................................7
PART B ......................................................................................................................9
DEVELOPMENT .....................................................................................................9
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND....................................................................................................9
1.1. Literature review ...........................................................................................9
1.2. Contextual background of the study............................................................10
1.3. Gender Inequality........................................................................................12
1.4. Review of theoretical background...............................................................13
1.4.1. Critical discourse analysis as a theoretical approach............................14
1.4.2. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model framework...............................16
1.4.3. Multimodal critical discourse analysis..................................................18
1.4.4. Kress and van Leeuwen’s grammar of visual design framework.........19

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CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY......................................................................25
2.1. Research setting...........................................................................................25
2.2. Research questions ......................................................................................25
2.3. Research approach.......................................................................................26
2.4. Data collecting procedure............................................................................26
2.4.1. Collecting and logging data ..................................................................26
2.4.2. Viewing data .........................................................................................27
2.5. Data analysis method...................................................................................27
2.6. Summary of the chapter ..............................................................................29
CHAPTER 3. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION....Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1. Findings and discussion of research question 1 .........Error! Bookmark not
defined.
3.1.1. Gender representations in family roles .Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1.2. Gender representations in occupational roles ..... Error! Bookmark not
defined.
3.2. Findings and discussion of research question 2 .........Error! Bookmark not
defined.
3.3. Findings and discussion of research question 3 .........Error! Bookmark not
defined.
PART C........................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
CONCLUSION............................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
1. Recapitulation.................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
2. Limitations of the study and suggestions .......Error! Bookmark not defined.
REFERENCE ..........................................................................................................30
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................ I

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PART A
INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
The development of human society is the long history of eliminating
injustices, including gender discrimination. According to the United Nation,
gender equality is not only a fundamental human right but also a necessary
foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.
In Vietnam, with the great efforts and commitment of Vietnamese
Government, the disparity between men and women has reduced significantly
over the last few decades. These include the approval of the Law on Gender
Equality in November 2006, the ratification of the National Strategy for the
Advancement of Women by 2010, and the new National Strategy for Gender
Equality for the period of 2011-2020. Now, Vietnamese women receive better
medical care, education as well as good opportunities in politics and economy.
However, this achievement has not met the expectations. The report of Global
Gender Gap Report 2020 has shown that Vietnam’s gender equality ranking in
2019 has dropped ten places, from No. 77 to No. 87, compared to 2018 (World
Economic Forum, 2020). This reality has presented a slow process or even a
regression in implementing gender equality in Vietnam and it is noticeable that
media plays an important role in advocating for gender equality. Media
involves transmitting the messages and educating as well as enhancing the

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belief of people. Among various kinds of media, Television is the most
powerful tool of communication. People watch TV for updating news, for
entertaining as well as learning. And people believe that TV provides them
faithful and unbiased information. However, that is not always the case.
Therefore, it is significant to analyze the information broadcast through critical
discourse analysis.
In this study, the author focuses on the advertisements on TV to examine
the images of women and men in the current society with the reflection of the
existing traditional conceptions. It can be seen that advertisements on TV
surround people’s lives every day. Chang and Thorson (2004) found that
advertising on Television and the web could attract higher attention, high trust
in the perceived message, and customers will have more positive thoughts than
the effect of repetition in the use of the single medium. Thereby, advertisements
on TV consciously and unconsciously shape our beliefs, values, attitudes, and
behaviors. By analyzing the representation of gender in TV advertisements, this
study is an attempt to bring the understanding of social interactions, ideology
on gender differences, and gender discrimination.
The thesis selects the food and beverage advertisements on TV. These
are the essential products in daily life, therefore, the relationship between
women and men in family and society is expressed in detail visually and
verbally. These non-linguistic and linguistic elements are analyzed based on
the multimodal critical discourse analysis method – a new extension of critical
discourse analysis (CDA). It is seen as “one of the most influential and visible
branches of discourse analysis” (Blommaert & Bulcaen, 2000). While the
traditional CDA has been focusing on verbal mode, the new extension has
moved forwards broader multimodal conceptions by incorporating visual

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images into concepts of discourse (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006). This combination
is a useful tool to investigate the use of power and ideology in media discourse.
2. Objectives of the study
The study aims at analyzing the discourse features of food and beverage
advertisements on television in the perspective of multiple modes of
communication including both linguistic and non-linguistic symbol resources
to achieve the best effects. To go further, the thesis attempts to investigate the
gender inequality underlying television advertisements in Vietnam and how
ideologies are mediated through both visual and linguistic means. The final
goal of the research is to raise people’s awareness of the hidden perpetuation
of gender identity assumptions and normalization, which eventually
disadvantages women and reinforces gender inequality.
3. Research questions
The study aims to answer the following research questions:
3.1. Are the portrayals of men and women equally manifested in TV
commercials?
3.2. Do the socio-cultural norms and ideologies influence gender gap in
society?
3.3. To what extent do these gender representations sustain or challenge
gender equality in society?
4. Research methods and scope of the study
The methodological approach is built entirely on the foundation of
discourse analysis. The study applies simultaneously the three-dimension
model given by Fairclough (2001) with the grammar of visual images by Kress

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and van Leeuwen (2006). The research focuses on both the visual images and
the linguistic elements in the voiceover of the commercials. The data of the
study includes one hundred TV advertisements broadcast from 2016 to 2020
and they are related to food and drink products. The study proposes the
integrated framework with three levels as follows:
- Discourse descriptions: the first layer draws on how the discourse is designed
and depicted visually and verbally. Regarding verbal elements (if any),
Vietnamese message/text and its translation into English are analyzed with
Transitivity, Mood, and Theme. For the Inter-mode relations, both visual and
verbal elements are simultaneously evaluated.
- Discourse interpretation: the second layer explores how the production and
consumption of this discourse influence viewers.
- Social explanation: the third layer explicates the hidden ideology that
influences the production and consumption of this discourse.
5. Structure of the study
The thesis is structured in three main parts as follows:
Part A: Introduction. This part introduces the statement of the problem, the
aims, the methods, the scope as well as the design of the study.
Part B: Development, consists of three chapters.
Chapter 1: Literature review (This chapter sets out the contextual background
of the study and makes clear the concept of gender equality as used in this
study).

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Chapter 2: Methodology (This part explains the theories that the study bases
itself on and the framework which is used in the study. It also explains in details
how the framework was applied to the data to tease out the findings).
Chapter 3: Findings and discussion (This sector gives the findings and
discussion of the research).
Part C: Conclusion which summarizes the research, acknowledges limitations,
and suggests ideas for further research.

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PART B
DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND
1.1. Literature review
The topic of gender and gender discrimination has been of great interest
to researchers in the world for many years.
In the field of feminist linguistics, since the 1990s, many types of
research have focused on the discursive construction of gender, focusing on
both how language is used by male and female, and how language is used to
say things about men and women (Litosseliti, 2006). Recently, many studies
have researched the construction of (new) femininity and masculinity such as
Kosetzi and Polyzou (2009) on the construal of masculinities in a Greek men’s
lifestyle magazine, and Johnson and Young (2002) on gender identities
constructed through the voice over of an advertising program. Other studies
focused on gender stereotypes such as Milestone and Meyer (2012)
investigating the representation of women as sex objects in men’s magazines,
Al-Mahadin (2003) on gender stereotypes in cartoons, and Shifman and Lemish
(2011) on gender differences in humor.
In the domain of media studies, gender representation has gained
attention since the 1950s (Gauntlett, 2008). However, not until the “second
wave” of feminism in the 1960s that systematic research into media images of
women flourished (Carter & Steiner, 2004). Some researches were carried out,

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mostly focusing on how women were portrayed in a wide array of media forms
such as television, movies, women’s and men’s magazines, and advertisements.
Numerous reviews about gender representation in the media can be found in
Gauntlett (2008), Byerly and Ross (2006), Cortese (2004), Thornham (2007),
and Bentz and Mayes (1993).
Regarding the research which applied the perspectives of Critical
Discourse Analysis (CDA), a number of studies have examined printed
advertisements namely Vahid and Esmae’li (2012), Kaur et al. (2013). In terms
of analyzing the women’s portrayal on TV commercials, it marks the
presentation of Mohammadi (2011) from Iran and Hag (2011) from
Bangladesh. In Vietnam, only a few studies on gender equality have been
implemented in the Vietnamese context. Nguyen (2011) presented her study on
gender ideologies in print media and Ngo and Phan (2015) studied the sexist
language used in football commentaries. These two authors pointed out that
sexism and gender inequality exist in discourse in the context of Vietnam.
Extending these previous studies on gender discrimination, this study is
an attempt to explore the women’s representation in Vietnamese TV
advertisements based on adopting the perspective of Critical Discourse
Analysis. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) appear as a useful
approach, not only for analyzing texts and images adequately but also for
putting them in analyzable relations to socio-cultural processes and changes.
1.2. Contextual background of the study
Gender issues originate from the historical, political, and social context,
hence, from the fundamental tenets of CDA, it is essential to understand the
contextual background in doing the study. To better account for the gender

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issues in Vietnam, it is important to review the history of gendered ideology
and norms in the country, especially the influence of Confucianism in
Vietnamese society.
During the Chinese rule, Confucianism was introduced into Vietnam and
today it still keeps its development. Experiencing thousands of years,
Confucianism, the most influential religion throughout the long history of
Vietnamese culture, remains strong in Vietnam at the contemporary time with
influence on Vietnamese people’s beliefs and traditional values. Confucianism
caused vigorous impacts on Vietnamese culture in various aspects namely
politics, culture, religions, predominantly in society. Under the view of
Confucianism, the family is the core of society, however, Confucianism refused
to recognize the important role of women in the family although they did
everything and took care of the family. Women have always been subjected to
the Confucian rule of the following submissions: submission to the father
before their marriage, submission to the husband during their marriage, and
submission to the elder son when widowed. Women were always depending on
men. They were raised and educated that they had to obey and respect their
father to become a good daughter and good wife. They had no voice in family
things as well as no decision in solving family problems. Thus, women were
not allowed to study, their place is at home. When the Feudal period was
replaced by the French Colonial time, the situation of Vietnamese women was
slightly better. Meanwhile, in rural areas, they had to follow strict regulations.
Then, the August Revolution brought the change of Social and Cultural
norms. Women’s position moved to the next important step after the victory in
1945. Vietnam attempt to increase gender equality through legislation and
social programming. In the country’s constitution, women have been equal to

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men in all respects since 1946 while internationally it is well documented that
the Women’s Liberation Movement in Western countries started in the 1960s
and 1970s (Hannam, 2007: 7). Alongside Laws on gender equality, Laws on
prevention of domestic violence became effective in 2008, prescribing how to
educate people about, prevent people from and punish people for crimes that
had been protected by the patriarchal society for long. Nevertheless, it can be
found that women are expected to be “good at national tasks” and “good at
household tasks” from society. This was reflected in the Three Criteria Women
Campaign by the nation Women Union in the decade of 1900s, which stated
that women should “study actively, work creatively, raise children well and
build happy families”. Such demands placed tremendous pressure on women
(Schuler, Anh, Ha, Minh, Mai,& Thien, 2006).
In this context, the study aims to look at the gender ideologies underlying
TV advertisement discourse and to see if those ideologies challenge any
existing gender ideologies in society.
1.3. Gender Inequality
For the past decades, the topic of gender and gender inequality has been
of great interest to researchers in a wide range of fields such as psychology,
sociology, economy, especially in recent years, gender discrimination has
gained its attention of many linguists.
Discrimination occurs in various forms in everyday life. It is defined as
any distinction or preference made based on race, sex, religion, or national
extraction which has the effect of impairing equality of opportunity (UNESCO,
1960). Discrimination psychologically implies the unfair treatment toward one

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subject. It is generally understood as biased behavior that can directly
disadvantage one group.
According to The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination Against Women, 1979, “Discrimination against women shall
mean distinction, exclusion or restriction made based on sex which has the
purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by
women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and
women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic,
social, cultural, civil or any other field”.
Furthermore, The Law on Gender Equality issued in 2006 stated gender
discrimination is the act of restricting, excluding, not recognizing, or not
appreciating the role and the position of man and woman leading to inequality
between man and woman in all fields of social and family life.
Regarding this issue, Vu Hong Anh – the author of “Hiện trạng Bất bình
Đẳng Giới trong cộng đồng người dân tộc thiểu số” – The 2010 report on
sexism among ethnic minorities – stated her view on gender discrimination,
which is the inequality in comparing the role, the position and the voices
between men and women. It is the value attached to the roles of males and
females, which is socially recognized that decides how their voices will be
heard.
From the above definitions, it can be inferred that gender discrimination
is the negatively imposed viewing toward on gender group that possibly cause
the threat to gender equality.
1.4. Review of theoretical background

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1.4.1. Critical discourse analysis as a theoretical approach
Current research in the field of language and gender in general, and
feminist linguistics in particular, has been carried out using various approaches
and methods such as sociolinguistics and ethnography, corpus linguistics,
conversation analysis (CA), discursive psychology, CDA, and feminist post-
structuralist discourse analysis (Harrington et al, 2008). This study has chosen
CDA as its theoretical approach, for CDA starts with social issues and it “aims
to show non-obvious ways in which language is involved in social relations of
power and domination” (Fairclough, 2001: 229). CDA sees language as “a form
of social practices”, which is socially determined and determinative at the same
time (Fairclough, 2001: 22). According to Van Dijk (2001: 352), CDA is “a
type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power
abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text
and talk in the social and political context”. Hence, CDA is theoretically well
placed to identify gendered discourses. CDA is probably the most
comprehensive attempt to develop a theory of the inter-connectedness of
discourse, power, and ideology.
Many theorists in CDA present the general principles of CDA in their
terms (van Dijk, 1993; Wodak, 1996; Fairclough and Wodak, 1997).
Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 271-80) summarize the main tenets of CDA as
follows:
a. CDA addresses social problems
It is undeniable that language is a social phenomenon and is part of
society, not somehow external to it (Fairclough, 2001). CDA follows a critical
approach to social problems in its endeavors to make explicit power
relationships that are frequently hidden. It aims to derive results that are of

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practical relevance to the social, cultural, political, and even economic contexts
(Fairclough and Wodak, 1997).
b. Power relations are discursive
CDA explains how social relations of power are exercised and negotiated
in and through discourse (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997).
c. Discourse constitutes society and culture
This means that every instance of language use makes its contribution to
reproducing and transforming society and culture, including relations of power
(Fairclough and Wodak, 1997).
d. Discourse does ideological work
Ideologies are often produced through discourse. To understand how
ideologies are produced, it is not enough to analyze texts; the discursive
practice (how the texts are interpreted and received and what social effects they
have) must also be considered (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997).
e. Discourse is historical
Discourses can only be understood concerning their historical context.
In this perspective, CDA refers to extralinguistic factors such as culture,
society, and ideology in historical terms (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997; Wodak,
1996, 2001). Analyzing discourse means not just analyzing texts, nor analyzing
processes of production and interpretation, but analyzing the relationship
between texts, processes, and their social conditions. Social conditions include
both the immediate conditions of the situational context and the conditions of
institutional and social structures on a higher level (Fairclough, 2001).
f. The link between text and society is mediated
CDA is not a deterministic approach but invokes an idea of mediation
(Fairclough, 1993). Fairclough studies this mediated relationship between text
and society by looking at “orders of discourse” (Fairclough, 1989; 1993). Van

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Dijk (1997) introduces a “sociocognitive level” to his analysis, and Scollon
studies mediation by looking at “mediated action” and “mediational means”
(Scollon, 2001).
g. Discourse analysis is interpretative and explanatory
CDA goes beyond textual analysis. It is not only interpretative but also
explanatory in intent (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997; Wodak, 1996, 2001).
These interpretations and explanations are dynamic and open and may be
affected by new readings and new contextual information.
h. Discourse is a form of social action
From the point of view of CDA, discourse is a form of social action. The
principal aim of CDA is to uncover opaqueness and power relationships. CDA
is a socially committed scientific paradigm. It attempts to bring about change
in communicative and socio-political practices (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997).
In summary, CDA is a type of discourse analysis, which has been
developed in connection with transdisciplinary research on social change. It
contributes to social research a focus on how discourse figures concerning other
social elements in discourse as an element of social processes and social events,
and also an element of social practices. It encompasses other forms as well as
text, such as visual images and body language, and texts with different semiotic
forms (Fairclough, 2005).
1.4.2. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model framework
Among various methods of doing CDA, the study applies Fairclough’s
three-dimensional model as the analytical framework for this model
highlights the relation between discoursal and social processes with the
following illustration:

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Figure 1: Fairclough (2001)’s three-dimensional model
The first dimension represents “the object of analysis (including verbal,
visual or verbal and visual texts)” (Janks, 1997). All the semiotic indications
including images, signs, colors, sounds, etc. are also seen as text.
The second dimension can be described as “the process by which the
object is produced and received by human subjects” (Janks, 1997). At this
stage, a text is seen not only as a result of the process of production and also as
a resource in the ace of interpretation. The features of text and context serve as
cues for being interpreted based on a background of common-sense
assumption.
Finally, the third dimension can be illustrated as the “power behind
discourse” or as social practices, because it is containing “the socio-historical
conditions that govern the process of production and reception” (Jank, 1997).
According to Fairclough, each of these dimensions requires a different
kind of analysis:
SOCIAL PRACTICE (orders of discourse)
DISCURSIVE PRACTICE
(production, distribution, consumption)
TEXT

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 For the first dimension: text analysis (description). The descriptive
dimension presents text analysis. In this step, linguistic features and
other modalities are closely examined. In Fairclough’s framework, he
acknowledges the presence and the importance of visual images in
texts; however, he does not suggest any analytical moves for this
modality. In this thesis, both linguistic and visual images of the texts
are analyzed. However, due to the nature of TV advertisement
discourse which is in the form of video clips, the author focuses on
studying the visual elements rather than linguistic elements.
Therefore, the model “Grammar of visual design” by Kress and van
Leeuwen is incorporated in this stage for study.
 For the second dimension: processing analysis (interpretation). This
dimension is the processes by which the object is produced and
received by human subject (Janks, 1997). At this stage, a text is seen
not only as a result of the process of production and also as a resource
in the ace of interpretation. The features of text and context serve as
cues for being interpreted based on a background of common-sense
assumption.
 For the third dimension: social analysis (explanation). In this stage,
discourse is seen as part of social process, as social practice, showing
how it is determined by social structures, sustaining them or changing
them (Fairclough, 2001: 135)
1.4.3. Multimodal critical discourse analysis
There has been a new extension of critical discourse analysis–
multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), recently. It is seen as “one of
the most influential and visible branches of discourse analysis” (Blommaert &

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Bulcaen, 2000) whose typical representatives are Gunther Kress and Theo van
Leeuwen. While the traditional CDA has been focusing on verbal mode, the
new extension has moved towards broader multimodal conceptions by
incorporating visual images into concepts of discourse (Kress & Leeuwen,
2006).
After the new trend of critical discourse analysis – MCDA was
introduced by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), more and more researches have
examined non-linguistic semiotic elements consisting of photographs and other
graphic elements so far (e/g. Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Jewitt, 2009). The
importance of considering the visual components such as facial expression and
gesture in the analysis of conversations is highly recognized by Fairclough
(1989). Furthermore, van Leeuwen highlighted the value of investigating visual
elements of images, for instance, color, frame, and composition, showing that
those non-linguistic elements convey meaning and it is worth examining them.
Considering as one branch of critical discourse analysis, multimodal critical
discourse analysis also aims at investigating how the visual components are
used to construct and express social power plus ideologies. Ideological views
of one text can be expressed in the choice of different vocabularies as well as
different grammatical structures; visual structures in the form of images do
convey ideological meanings too.
1.4.4. Kress and van Leeuwen’s grammar of visual design framework
As indicated in the title, the research is conducted from a multimodal
perspective, therefore, to analyze the images in the data source, Kress and van
Leeuwen’s framework is applied.

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Theo van Leeuwen and Gunther Kress are pioneers in the analysis of the
visual. The importance of visual images is also stated briefly in the saying “the
image is no longer an illustration: the image carries the meaning, the words
come second” (Kress & Leeuween, 2006: 26). Therefore, they want to treat
forms of communication employing images as seriously as linguistic forms
have been. They propose that analyzing visual communication is, or should be,
an important part of the “critical” discipline.
In their framework, Kress and van Leeuwen adopted Halliday's
theoretical viewpoint in seeing that the visual, like all semiotic modes, fulfills
the three meta-functions namely ideational, interpersonal and compositional (or
textual) as following:
 The ideational metafunction: It is the function of using language
to describe the speaker’s experience of the world including
describing events, states, and the entities involved. In other words,
it has to be able to express how people see the world and what they
consciously know.
 The interpersonal metafunction: The function that language serves
as a medium between people. Individuals utilize language to
interact, establish and maintain relations with one and another.
 The textual metafunction: The function that explores how
language is employed to relate speech acts. When language is in
use, playing the above two functions, it naturally forms a text
(Kress & Leeuwen, 2006).
These metafunctions defined above can apply to not only written text but
also images because of semiotic change and there is an emergence of a new

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type of text to mediate communication – the multimodal text which is moving
from textual to more displaying, visual representations (Kress & Leewen,
2006). Hence, the theorists realize the need for extending the work of Halliday
(Halliday, 1985) to create new and suitable theories of representations.
In Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2006), Kress and
van Leeuwen introduced Visual Grammar, which is a clear multimodal
approach to visual communication and gives a thorough and systematic
illustration of the grammar of visual design. They named representational
meaning, interactive meaning, and compositional meaning in correspondence
with Halliday's ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions.
Representational meaning
“Any semiotic mode has to be able to represent aspects of the world as
it is experienced by humans. In other words, it has to be able to represent objects
and their relation in a world outside the representational system” (Kress &van
Leeuwen, 2006: 42). Corresponding to Halliday’s ideational metafunction,
visual grammar introduces representation meaning which functions well in
visual mode. Objects or elements existing in visual images will be called
“participants” which compose of people, places, and things of various kinds
represented in and by images. Actually, every semiotic act comprises two types
of participants, one is interactive participants and the other is represented
participants. Interactive participants are those in the act of communication,
“who speak and listen or write and read, make images or view them” (Kress
&van Leeuwen, 2006: 48). Represented participants mention those “who
constitute the subject matter of the communication; that is, the people, places
and things (including abstract “things”) represented in and by the speech or

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writing or image, the participants about whom or which we are speaking or
writing or producing images” (Kress &van Leeuwen, 2006: 48).
Representational meaning can be classified into two categories: narrative
representations and conceptual representation.
- Narrative representation refers that “when participants are connected by a
vector, they are represented as doing something to or for each other” (Kress
&van Leeuwen, 2006: 59)
- Conceptual representation, in contrast with the narrative structure, represents
“participants in terms of their more generalized and more or less stable and
timeless essence, in terms of class, or structure or meaning” (Kress& van
Leeuwen, 2006: 79).
Interactive meaning
The interaction between the producer and the viewer of the image
(interactive participants) is the second dimension presented by Kress and van
Leeuwen (2006) and it is based on Halliday’s interpersonal function. According
to them, producers visually encode social meanings into images through the
gaze of the represented participant, the distance of the participant from the
viewer, and the angle from which the participant is seen by the viewer.
Compositional meaning
The third dimension of the framework is related to Halliday’s textual
metafunction. The focus here is on “the composition of the whole, how the
representational and interactive elements are made to relate to each other, the
way they are integrated into a meaningful whole” (Kress & van Leeuwen,

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2006). The image elements can be analyzed according to three systems:
information value, salience, and framing.
- Salience: The elements or participants are made to draw the attention
of the viewer to different degrees, as recognized by factors such as
placements in the foreground or background, relative size, contrasts
in tone value, differences in sharpness (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006).
- Information value: It is the placement of elements or participants that
relate them to each other and to the viewer. Their placement endows
them with the specific informational values attached to the various
“zones” of the image: left-right, top-bottom, center-margin (Kress
&Leeuwen, 2006). It means that different positions of the participants
in one image refer to different meanings.
- Framing: The presence or absence of framing devices, for example,
diving lines or actual frame lines. They disconnect or connect
elements of the image, indicating that they belong or do not belong
together in some sense (Kress & Leeuwen, 2006).
To analyze images in these three “grammatical” categories, it is
necessary to base on various principles which are culturally dependent. Visual
analysis cannot be done separately from the cultural knowledge from which the
visual is produced. In this study, when applying the analytical guidance by
Kress and van Leeuwen to investigate the data, the aspects of Vietnamese
cultures and social norms are examined to interpret the hidden meanings behind
the images on the TV ads.
1.5. Summary of the chapter

24. 24
This chapter has presented the contextual background of the study as
well as the theoretical background for studying. Methodologically, gender
inequality has been studied with a multimodal critical discourse analysis-based
approach. The related studies are also reviewed to recognize the significance of
the research.

25. 25
CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY
2.1. Research setting
In modern society, people's life is daily affected with advertisements,
which consciously and unconsciously shape our beliefs, values, attitudes, and
behaviors. Along with various types of media, commercials on TV attract
higher attention from everyone. Dastjerdi et al. (2012) agree there is no doubt
that television commercials are among the most pervasive of all media products
in the world. It can be seen clearly that the frequency of television commercials
is consecutive and repetitive in the period of time. The content of those adverts
creates a great impact and influence on the audience every hour, every day, in
which language and images are the crucial and important features of ads on
television. The words are carefully chosen and images in the videos are
purposely selected to meet particular needs for social and commercial
functions.
As a result, there is no doubt that advertising plays a powerful role in
helping to shape social norms and reinforce gendered ideas about what it means
to be a woman or man and how women and men are valued in our society.
Fairclough (1989) indicates that social products, such as advertisements are
sites where language and society interest, with ideologies, both being produced
by and reproduced in the advertisement. Therefore, the study of advertising
discourse is becoming increasingly important to understand the social practices
and ideologies on gender.
2.2. Research questions

26. 26
In tailoring the methodology for the research, it is beneficial to refer back to
the three questions posed in the first chapter, which are:
(1)Are the portrayals of men and women equally manifested in TV
commercials?
(2)Do the socio-cultural norms and ideologies influence gender gap in
society?
(3)To what extent do these gender representations sustain or challenge
gender equality in society?
2.3. Research approach
This thesis adopts multimodal critical discourse analysis – a new
extension of critical discourse analysis as the methodological approach. The
three-dimension model given by Fairclough (2001) is applied simultaneously
with the grammar of visual images by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) to find
out the message.
2.4. Data collecting procedure
2.4.1. Collecting and logging data
Firstly, the researcher collected TV advertisements on the internet. The
data of the study include a hundred advertisements broadcast on TV from 2016
until 2020. These ads are related to food and drink products from the different
brands and they last from 20 to 45 seconds. Due to the timing factor, the analyst
researched the commercials broadcast in previous years, therefore to make sure
the authentic data, the videos with logo of popular channels in Vietnam such as
VTV, HTV, and so on are selected and saved.

27. 27
Secondly, the collected videos are classified to assist the researcher in
the analysis process. For easy follow-up, the TV commercials arranged in order
from Ad1 to Ad100, along with the brand’s name of products shorted in
abbreviation and numbering. For example:
Ad20-Choco1: is the twentieth video in the list of data and this is the first
frame of the advertisement “Choco Pie” brand.
In the following step, the author started logging the information of each
advertisement such as the duration of video, the timeline that video was posted,
the context of advertisement, the number of participants (females and males) in
the video with their attitude, actions and gestures were taken notes.
2.4.2. Viewing data
In the next step, the author viewed the videos repeatedly. Video data was
viewed with both sound and image. In order to see the data in different ways,
the analyst watched the advertisements with vision only, sound only, both
sounds and images, fast forward, in slow motion. This helps recognize various
modes used in the videos.
By viewing data, the important images were taken snapshots and saved
for non-verbal elements analyzing purpose. And for the verbal mode (if any),
recordings of voiceovers were transcribed and entered into the database. These
texts were later translated into English and were taken into investigation.
2.5. Data analysis method
In this thesis, the researcher chiefly uses multimodal critical discourse
analysis plus qualitative content analysis to seeks the answers to the stated

28. 28
research questions. Content analysis is the method of analyzing text written,
verbal or visual communication messages (Cole, 1988). As in most qualitative
research studies, discourse analysts often begin with collecting data, describing
and analyzing them to bring about findings and conclusions and ultimately to
attain the goals specified. Hence, the qualitative analysis is appropriate to
investigate gender representation and the ideology behind the content.
Applying the proposed analytical frameworks, the data after recorded
from the website were analyzed at three levels as follows:
a. Discourse description: The first layer shows how the discourse is
designed and depicted visually and verbally. Regarding visual elements, the
author captures featured screenshots and examines the elements such as
participants, distance, angle, and gaze.
Regarding verbal elements (if any), Vietnamese voiceover/text and its
English translation are analyzed with Transitivity, Mood, and Theme. For the
Inter-mode relations, both visual and verbal elements are simultaneously
evaluated.
b. Discourse interpretation: This section explores how the production
and consumption of this discourse influence viewers.
c. Social explanation: The section explicates the hidden ideology that
controls the production and consumption of this discourse.
These steps are taken not separately but intermingled to yield findings
and arguments. The data is examined from its surface; that is looking at the
images and listening to the voice-over as many times as needed. The author
takes notes on the social actors, the participants, and how they are presented

29. 29
(doing what? with whom? and being whom?) then explicates the underlying
meanings of the advertisements discourse. In the process of interpreting the
hidden meanings, the researcher attempts to see how the patterns occur then
based on the knowledge of gender issues, these patterns are investigated in the
social context. It is important to look back at the data again to make sure all the
elements are analyzed carefully. The analysis is performed frame by frame. The
chosen frames are ones in which either the women and/or the men appear in the
frame or the verbal language contains gender difference.
After investigating carefully all the data, the result of the study is
presented in the following chapter (chapter 3). In presenting the findings of the
study, the researcher presents the images of women and men presented in the
TV advertisements with supporting evidence from data analysis. It is necessary
to reveal how their opposite gender is reflected in those advertisements. And
the underlying ideologies found, are also discussed in the socio-political
context.
2.6. Summary of the chapter
This chapter is devoted to presenting the data for analysis and the
methods that will be deployed. The steps of collecting and logging data are
described in detail for the analysis process. And the methodology section
outlines the analytical tools that will be deployed to seek the answers to the
proposed research questions.

30. 30
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33. I
APPENDIX
No. Products Category Advert’s name
1 7 Up - 01 Drink Ad1-7up.1
2 7 Up - 02 Drink Ad2-7up.2
3 Acecook Instant noodles Food Ad3-Ace
4 Ajiquick 01 Food Ad4-Aji1
5 Ajiquick 02 Food Ad5-Aji2
6 Alpenlibe 01 Food Ad6-Alpen1
7 Alpenlibe 02 Food Ad7-Alpen2
8 Anpha Gold Dielac Drink Ad8-Dielac1
9 Aquafina 01 Drink Ad9-Aqua1
10 Aquafina 02 Drink Ad10-Aqua2
11 Bánh LU Food Ad11-LU
12 Beer 333 - 01 Drink Ad12-333-01
13 Beer 333 -02 Drink Ad13-333-02
14 Beer Hà Nội 01 Drink Ad14-HNB1
15 Beer Hà Nội 02 Drink Ad15-HNB2
16 Beer Tiger 01 Drink Ad16-Tige1
17 Beer Tiger 02 Drink Ad17-Tige2
18 Bibica 01 Food Ad18-Bibi1
19 Bibica 02 Food Ad19-Bibi2
20 Chocopie 01 Food Ad20-Choco1

34. II
21 Chocopie 02 Food Ad21-Choco2
22 Coca Cola Tết 2016 Drink Ad22-Coca1
23 Coca Cola Tết 2021 Drink Ad23-Coca2
24 Con bo cuoi 01 Food Ad24-Phomai1
25 Con bo cuoi 02 Food Ad25-Phomai2
26 Cosy Biscuit, Kinh do Food Ad26-Cosy1
27 Cream O Cake Food Ad27-Creamo
28 Custard cake 01 Food Ad28-Custar1
29 Custard cake 02 Food Ad29-Custar2
30 Dielac Alpha Milk Drink Ad30-Dielac2
31 Fami 01 Drink Ad31-Fami1
32 Fami 02 Drink Ad32-Fami2
33 Grow Plus (4:19) Drink Ad33-Grow1
34 Grow Plus (4:42) Drink Ad34-Grow2
35 Halida 01 Drink Ad35-Hali1
36 Halida 02 Drink Ad36-Hali2
37 KFC Food Ad37-KFC
38 Knorr 01 Food Ad38-Knor1
39 Knorr 02 Food Ad39-Knor2
40 Kokomi 01 Food Ad40-Koko1
41 Kokomi 02 Food Ad41-Koko2
42 La Vie 01 Drink Ad42-Lavie1
43 La vie 02 Drink Ad43-Lavie2
44 MacCoffee - Café pho 01 Drink Ad44-Cfpho1
45 MacCoffee - Café pho 02 Drink Ad45-Cfpho2
46 Malkist Biscuit Food Ad46-Malki
47 Matcha tea plus Drink Ad47-Matea
48 Meizan 01 Food Ad48-Meiz1
49 Meizan 02 Food Ad49-Meiz2

35. III
50 Mì 3 miền Food Ad50-3mien
51 Mì Cung đình 01 Food Ad51-CD1
52 Mì Cung đình 02 Food Ad52-CD2
53 Mì Kokomi Food Ad53-Koko
54 Mikita Candy Food Ad54-Miki
55 Milo 01 Drink Ad55-Milo1
56 Milo 02 Drink Ad56-Milo2
57 Modern Instant Noodles Food Ad57-Mode
58 Nam Ngư 01 Food Ad58-NNgu1
59 Nam Ngư 02 Food Ad59-NNgu2
60 Nam Ngư 03 Food Ad60-NNgu3
61 Neptune Food Ad61-Nep
62 Nescafe 01 Drink Ad62-Nescf1
63 Nescafe 02 Drink Ad63-Nescf2
64 Nescafe, Café Viet Drink Ad64-Nescf3
65 Nestle Cerelac Drink Ad65-Nesce
66 Nước chấm Long Đình Food Ad66-LD
67 Nước khoáng Ga Đành Thạnh Drink Ad67-NKDT
68 Nutifood, Enplus Diamond Drink Ad68-Enplus
69 Omachi 01 Food Ad69-Omc1
70 Omachi 02 Food Ad70-Omc2
71
Optimum Gold 2019, link tổng
hợp 4 (0:48)
Drink Ad71-Opti1
72 Optimum Gold 2020 Drink Ad72-Opti2
73 Oreo Biscuit 01 Food Ad73-Oreo1
74 Oreo Biscuit 02 Food Ad74-Oreo2
75 Pepsi 01 Drink Ad75-Pep1
76 Pepsi 02 Drink Ad76-Pep2
77 Snack Oishi 01 Food Ad77-Oish1
78 Snack Oishi 02 Food Ad78-Oish2

36. IV
79 Yogurt Ba vi Food Ad79-Bavi
80 Yomost 01 Food Ad80-Yomo1
81 Soya milk vinamilk Drink Ad81-Vnsoy
82 TH True milk Yogurt 01 Drink Ad82-THY1
83 TH True milk Yogurt 02 Drink Ad83-THY2
84
Thai Long Rong Vang fish
sauce
Food Ad84-TL
85 Trà Birdy Drink Ad85-Bird
86 Trà Dr. Thanh 2017 Drink Ad86-Dr.T1
87 Trà Dr. Thanh Tết 2021 Drink Ad87-Dr.T2
88 Tea Lipton Drink Ad88-Lip
89 Tea C2 - 01 Drink Ad89-C2.1
90 Tea C2 - 02 Drink Ad90-C2.2
91 Tea O long Drink Ad91-Olo
92 Twister (04:04) Drink Ad92-Twis
93 Vina café Drink Ad93-Vncf
94 Vinamilk 01 Drink Ad94-Vinamil1
95 Vinamilk 02 Drink Ad95-Vinamil2
96 Vinamilk Sure Prevent Drink Ad96 -Vinamsure
97 Vinamilk yogurt 01 Drink Ad97-Vinayo1
98 Vinamilk yogurt 02 Drink Ad98-Vinayo2
99 Wake up Café 247 Drink Ad99-Wucf
100 Yomost 02 Drink Ad100-Yomo2

37. V