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Discourse Deixis in Vietnamese Online News Headlines: Pragmatic Strategies and Ethical Implications

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The proliferation of digital news platforms and engagement-driven algorithms has fundamentally restructured standard journalistic routines. Consequently, the rapid influx of information and intense competition for audience attention have transformed news headlines from simple summary labels into strategic discourse products. This study investigates the pragmatic deployment and functions of discourse deixis in modern Vietnamese online news headlines. Focusing on how deictic signals operate as cognitive guidance tools and triggers for reader curiosity, the research examines the functional balance between communicative engagement and journalistic ethics. Adopted within a framework of corpus-assisted discourse-pragmatic analysis supplemented by descriptive statistics, the study analyzed a corpus of 300 online headlines sampled across four major Vietnamese news outlets (VnExpress, Tuoi Tre Online, Dan Tri, Znews) published between 2024 and 2026.

The findings indicate that forward-pointing cataphora relying on masked referents constitutes the most prevalent strategy (42.3%, n=127), followed by interrogative framing (28.0%, n=84), direct address structures (15.3%, n=46), and dramatized temporal/spatial deixis (14.3%, n=43). While these strategies appear pragmatically designed to induce curiosity and lower friction for audience attention, the excessive reliance on artificial information gaps presents notable ethical challenges, including potential user deception and long-term public trust erosion. The study proposes a conceptual model of headline curiosity-gap construction alongside editorial principles, such as “Cognitive Balance” and “Transparent Deixis,” to inform responsible headline composition in digital newsrooms.

Pragmatic Analysis of Deception and Miscommunication in Saki’s’ The Open Window

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This research looks at how Saki, also known as H.H. Munro, uses Grice’s maxims to accomplish practical consequences in his short story “The Open Window.” The research investigates how meaning is created through speech and how violations of these principles lead to misconceptions using a pragmatic approach. The research examines how the story’s characters interact in accordance with or without respect to Grice’s four maxims—quality, quantity, manner, and relation —using a qualitative descriptive technique. The study’s questions explore Vera’s application of these aphorisms, the irony and misinterpretation resulting from Framton Nuttel’s presumptions regarding them, Munro’s potential social critique of Victorian communication conventions, and the narrative’s thematic implications of deception, manipulation, and social anxiety.  Thirty of Grice’s maxims are found in the story, which Vera disobeys to produce hilarious consequences. The conversation sheds light on how these broken rules lead to misunderstandings and manipulation while also providing an understanding of the story’s social setting and the intentions of the protagonists. This pragmatic approach highlights the significance of effective and transparent communication in interpersonal relationships while enhancing our comprehension of the story’s dynamics, comedy, and thematic depth.