Examination on the information structure operators in the classified-advertising columns in 1884 Gia Dinh Bao

Abstract

This paper examines the information structure operators which are used in classified column and advertisement column in Gia Dinh Bao (Gia Dinh Newspaper) in 1884. “Focus information operators” (focus-sensitive operators) is a prominent term of modern pragmatics theory. On the contrary, 1884 Gia Dinh Bao provided important data foundation about texts written in Quoc ngu (romanized Vietnamese writing system) in the 19 th century. The fact that we applied the approach of a modern theory to research this data of Quoc ngu expresses our sensitive viewpoint in this paper. We have found and analyzed functionwords which convey information structure expressions in texts in Quoc ngu to contribute to affirming the special value of the 19 th century Vietnamese vocabulary in general and Vietnamese function-words during that century in particular.