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Declaration
I certify that all the material in this minor thesis which is not my own work has been
identified and acknowledged, and that no material is included for which a degree has already
been conferred upon me.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my great gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyn Huy of
Hanoi Junior Teacher Training College, for his enormously helpful advice, constant and
tireless help and support throughout this thesis.
I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to teachers at Hanoi National University – College
of Foreign Languages whose lectures on the area of grammar have enlightened the arguments
in this study.
I am also grateful for the support of Mrs. Mai, my former teacher, in collecting
and evaluating the statistics in the thesis.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my brother whose talent in
computer programmes has saved the thesis many times, and friends who have supported and
encouraged me during the course.
Hanoi, September, 2006
Ninh Phng Lan
Abstract
Basing on grammatical theories, especially functional ones, this study aims at
describing the nature, the main characteristics of appositive phrases in English and then
identifying classes into which these phrases are divided.
The second aim of this study is trying to find out the similarities and the differences
between appositive phrases in the two languages English and Vietnamese. And from the
findings, a further study about appositive phrases in both languages may be possible.
After the theoretical part, an achievement test is done in order to investigate the ability
of acquiring English appositive phrases among Vietnamese high school students, so that some
suggestions for research about the syllabus as well as course book design could be drawn out
to make language learners be able to learn English appositive phrases better.
Contents
Declaration
i
Acknowledgements
ii
Abstract
iii
Contents
iv
Part 1 - Introduction
1. Rationale
1
2. Objectives
2
3. Scope of the study
2
4. Methods of the study
2
5. Design of the study
3
6. Theoretical background
3
6.1. History of the subject study
3
6.2. Theory of Grammar
4
6.2.1. Definitions
4
6.2.2. Schools of Grammar
6
6.2.2.1.
Traditional Grammar 6
6.2.2.2.
Descriptive Grammar 7
6.2.2.3.
Transformational Generative Grammar 9
6.2.2.4.
Systemic Functional Grammar 11
Part 2 - Development
Chapter 1 - Functional Grammar and Syntax
14
1.1. Functional Grammar
14
1.1.1. Halliday’s Functional Grammar
14
1.1.2. Vietnamese Functional Grammar
17
1.2. Syntax
17
1.2.1. Definition
17
1.2.2. Syntactic theory and structure
18
Chapter 2 - Appositive Phrases
19
2.1. Noun Phrases
19
2.1.1. Phrases and types of phrases
19
2.1.2. Noun phrases - Definition and types
20
2.2. Apposition
20
2.2.1. Definitions
20
2.2.2. Appositive phrases and relative phrases
22
2.2.3. Types of appositive phrases
22
2.2.3.1.
Full and partial appositive phrases 23
2.2.3.2.
Strict and weak appositive phrases 24
2.2.3.3 Non-restrictive and restrictive appositive phrases 24
2.2.3.4.
Combination 25
2.2.4. Structure of appositive phrases
26
2.2.5. Scale of strict non-restrictive appositive phrases
27
2.2.5.1.
Equivalence 28
2.2.5.2.
Attribution 31
2.2.5.3.
Inclusion 31
2.2.6. Summary
32
2.2.7. Appositive phrases in Vietnamese Functional Grammar
33
2.2.7.1.
Definition 33
2.2.7.2.
Types of appositive phrases in Vietnamese Functional Grammar 34
Chapter 3 - Investigation
36
3.1. Test design
36
3.1.1. Description of syllabus and course book
36
3.1.2. Objectives of the test
37
3.1.3. Format of the test
37
3.2. Test implementation
38
3.3. Test result
38
Part 3 - Conclusion
1. Conclusion
42
2. Implementation
43
3. Suggestion for further study
43
References
I
Appendixes
Appendix 1: Achievement test
IV
Appendix 2: List of informants
IX
Appendix 3: Sample test on English appositive phrases in High School
course book
XIV
Appendix 4: Table of test results
Part 1
INTRODUCTION
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In traditional English grammar, words and sentences (morphology and syntax) were
considered as two basic grammatical elements that built up the grammar theory and most of
studies about grammar were set around these two phenomena. However, right from that time,
there have also been new linguistic issues indicating the fact that there are other linguistic
items lying between words and sentences, even overlapping these two items, or lying beyond
sentences. The need for studies about those phenomena has led to new schools of grammar
with more reasonable concepts established. According to these concepts, apart from words and
sentences, phrases are also one of the most essential linguistic factors in the grammar of the
English language.
A phrase is a syntactic construction which typically contains more than one word, but
which lacks the subject-predicate structure found in a clause (David Crystal – The Cambridge
Encyclopeadia of the English Language, 1995). So, a phrase is just a group of words forming a
grammatical unit which can appear in different places in a clause or a sentence and hold
various functions one of which is apposition whose function indicates the relation between
two or more phrases (appear in the same clause or sentence) of the same reference and the
same grammatical status. In fact, when studying English grammar, appositive phrases are not
focused as much as the other phrases. Moreover, they are sometimes mistaken to relative
phrases which cause lots of difficulties to language learners. A detail study about appositive
phrases, therefore, may partially deal with those problems and suggest some ways of acquiring
and applying the so-called English appositive phrases.
Also, it is important to remember that some particularities could be recognized easily
through analysis done with the target language (English) but the others that could not be
touched upon if the research is done with the target language only, will be found out and
clarified if a contrastive analysis (based on both target language and source one, which is
Vietnamese in this case) is implemented. It means a comparison between two languages is
necessary throughout the study. That is the reason for contrastive analysis trend of the study.
Additionally, as this study focuses on the appositive function a phrase takes in a clause
or a sentence, functional grammar in contact with syntax may be the best choice to follow
among plenty of schools of grammar. With syntax and functional grammar, the construction,
the specific functions that an appositive phrase takes and the relationship between it and other
elements of a clause or a sentence could be put in a closer and a more detail view. Therefore,
functional grammar and syntax are the main stream of our study.
With al the above mentioned, we have come to the decision of doing “A study of
appositive phrases in English in comparison to Vietnamese”.
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The study, as entitled, focuses on English appositive phrases in comparison to
Vietnamese ones not only about the structure but also about the use. Thus, the study is aimed at:
Identifying and pointing out the nature of English appositive phrases through
functional grammar with basic concepts such as noun phrases, references and then coming
to clarify structures and types of appositive phrases in English.
Giving the description and characteristics of English appositive phrases and their
equivalent realizations in Vietnamese to work out the similarities and differences between the
two languages in terms of both theory and practice.
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Due to the duration of time limit and the length as well as the references available, this
thesis does research on English appositive phrases in sentences in contrast to Vietnamese
equivalents and concentrates mainly on the materials and documents available to students at
High School (especially their textbooks and practice books) and also the errors
those students may encounter in using English appositive phrases in writing.
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Due to the main aims of the study, a systemic contrastive analysis on the aspects of
function of the two languages is carried out throughout the progress. Also, the thesis makes
use of the English language as the target language and the Vietnamese one as the source
language (the base language). Besides, techniques on statistics, on systemic functional analysis
and on error analysis are applied as well.
In order to serve the targets stated before, a linguistic contrastive analysis is carried out
mainly on the phrase level with the focus on Noun Phrases as well as on the sentence level.
The sources for the analysis are from materials and references written by linguists in English
and in Vietnamese as well as some bilingual reference books available in Vietnam. This will
help to make clear both the similarities and the differences between two language systems
(English and Vietnamese).
The use of translationally equivalent structures of English and Vietnamese allow the
differences and similarities of appositive phrases in the two languages to be detected so that
some reasonable predictions can be extracted. Moreover, a survey of the use of appositive
phrases is in process with the help of 100 students from Nh©n ChÝnh High School and the
application of statistic techniques to confirm the predictions.
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This study consists of three parts, excluding the appendixes and the references.
Part one, Introduction, consists of the background for the study, the aims, the scope of
the study and the method of study. It also introduces a literature review about the history of the
subject studied, different concepts about schools of grammar.
Part two, Development, is the heart of the study which deals with appositive phrases in
English and in Vietnamese under the influence of functional grammar, syntax and contrastive
analysis. This part is divided into three chapters coping with functional grammar (in
Halliday’s theory) and syntax, appositive phrases in the two languages, and an investigation
done on appositive phrases respectively.
The last part is the conclusions as well as some suggestions for implementation
achieved from all the discussion in the thesis.
The appendixes show the exercises used in the survey done to compare appositive
phrases in English and in Vietnamese.
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Appositive phrases are not very important grammatical unit both in English and in
Vietnamese. However, linguists in general and grammarians in particular still pay much
attention to this type of phrase, especially when study English. Discussions about appositive
[...]... - 2 33 There have been many different concepts about grammar Some linguists understand the grammar of a language as a book written about it and believe that grammar is found only in written language – spoken language has no grammar or at least fluctuate so much that they are only partially grammatical In fact, grammar exists in both written and spoken forms as language users need grammar to organize... materials, and to describe in detail the patterns they contain Rooted in American linguists’ history study about the language of the Indian in North America, this type of grammar was most developed under strong influence of Bloomfield and Fries’ theory on Behaviourism from 1930s to 1950s which described language in a technical process Therefore, descriptive grammar only focuses on the yes/no answers given... between the grammatical sentences and the ungrammatical ones Chomsky has developed his ideas over the years but all of the changes are based on the same background which was known as universal grammar – a theory which claims to account for the grammatical competence of every adult no matter what language he or she speaks (This means that there is a set of principles which apply to all languages and... and developed in order to solve three goals describing and explaining linguistic phenomena, and understanding the cognitive basis of language This means that among aspects of linguistics there are very strong relationships which link linguistic units together Semantics and syntax also exist in such a relationship The linking between these two phenomena is, according to Van Valin, governed by completeness... R.D Van Valin and R.J Lapolla, 1997) Maybe it is this kind of relationship that makes Quirk et al., during their study about apposition, recognize a semantic scale of strict non-restrictive appositives – which is said to outnumber the other appositive phrases The scale runs from the equivalence to the attribution and ends at the inclusion as follows This scale is based on two criteria to put these three .
I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to teachers at Hanoi National University – College
of Foreign Languages whose lectures on the area of grammar have enlightened.
which lacks the subject-predicate structure found in a clause (David Crystal – The Cambridge
Encyclopeadia of the English Language, 1995). So, a phrase
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