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On the basis of descriptive statistical methods, the authors describe the supply chain of safe vegetables in Huong Tra Town. The primary data were collected from the survey of six households providing vegetable production in the region. 40 households growing safe vegetables (20 households per ward), 40 households growing vegetables normally (20 households per ward), 10 traders purchasing processed products to provide safe vegetables for supermarkets, 5 retailers, and 10 consumers are involved in the study. The results show that Huong Tra Town is one of the main areas for growing vegetables in Thua Thien Hue province, which mainly provides safe vegetables for Hue City and neighbouring provinces. Safe vegetable products are mainly supplied for the markets in the province, especially supermarkets, restaurants, hotels and clean vegetable shops in Huong Tra Town and Hue City. In this supply chain, safe vegetable households play an important role when creating the greatest added-value. However, their real income is low due to facing the highest risks. Other actors in this supply chain receive higher benefits and facing lower risks than the producers. Households’ income depends mainly on the price and weather conditions.Keywords: safe vegetables, supply chain, Huong Tra Town

Speaking, one of the two productive skills, has been paid much attention to by first-year students at the Faculty of English, University of Foreign Language Studies - The University of Danang (FE, UFLS - UD). There are a variety of strategies and techniques assisting EFL teachers and learners, and mind mapping technique is among these which could be implemented to improve teaching and learning performances in general and speaking skill in particular. Mind maps are being taken advantage of by EFL students in classes to improve their speaking skill. In this study, the researchers have assumed that mind maps have the facilitating impact on the oral speech performance of the first-year students at FE, UFLS - UD. We have conducted this research quantitatively and qualitatively whose data is from interview questions and a set of questionnaires for first-year students, and the researchers’ classroom observation. This is a case study which aims to explore the reality of using mind maps including the frequency, speaking stages, and freshmen’s attitudes when utilizing this technique to enhance this skill. Its suggestions could be applied in teaching and learning English speaking skill effectively.

The conceptual metaphor theory states that poetic metaphors are in fact conventional metaphors but they are made novel via four techniques - elaboration, extending, questioning, and combination. Based on this sense, our paper focuses on examining and comparing poetic metaphors of romantic love in English to those in Vietnamese. Contrastive analysis is the main method applied in the study with the data for investigation coming from English and Vietnamese love poems. Also, the metaphor identifcation procedures by Pragglejaz Group and its extension are employed to minimize the risk of impulsiveness in metaphor collection process. Our fndings reveal that the novelty of love metaphors in poetry does not lie in concepts but in linguistic expressions thanks to the four above techniques, among which combination is employed much more than the others in both languages. Furthermore, both conceptual and linguistic metaphors of love are found to be similar between English and Vietnamese poetry, which is supposed to result from the universality of metaphor. However, variations of cultures, lifestyles, and thought bring about some differences of love metaphors between these two languages.

Clause as a grammatical category has been at the centre of attention throughout most of the history of linguistics in Vietnam and has caused a lot of troubles for analysis and interpretation. Great efforts have been made to shed light on this matter. There is, however, no consensus among Vietnamese linguists on clause analysis and interpretation because each of them seems to work on clause analysis in a variety of approaches using different frameworks. In this paper, we aim at investigating some major contemporary approaches to the analysis of the Vietnamese simple clause with our critical appraisals of each approach toprovide readers with an overview of Vietnamese clause studies. The study reveals that at present structuralapproaches influenced by European and American structuralists such as Saussure and Bloomfeld, andfunctional approaches influenced by Dik’s functional grammar and Halliday’s systemic functional grammarseem to be the dominant grammatical models for the analysis of the Vietnamese simple clause.

It is difficult to track the philosophy foundation and epistemology of systemic functional grammar (SFG) formulated by Halliday in the 1980s as this kind of grammar views language as a systemic resource for meaning. Besides, it has had global impacts on linguistics and flourished in contemporary linguistic theory. Anyone who is familiar with Halliday’s work realizes that his SFG is an approach designed to analyze English texts. Halliday (1994: xv) explicitly states that “to construct a grammar for purposes of text analysis: one that would make it possible to say sensible and useful things about any text, spoken or written, in modern English.” The aim of this study is not about the applicability of SFG to text analysis as many researchers and scholars do. Our efforts are made to clarify the philosophical foundation of Halliday’s SFG. The paper presents on triangle: (i) language, mind and world; (ii) and empiricism in Halliday’s SFG.