A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

HCMC UNIVERSITY OF PEDAGOGY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Instructor: Bui Nguyen Khanh Student: Nguyen Le Mong Thu Student ID: K36.701.253 Class: 4CQDP December 30, 2013 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Abstract Question is one of the types of sentences used with high frequency in process of learning, language teaching and in daily communication Normally, people use it for asking or checking information from others In special cases, it can be used as a statement, a rejection or a doubtful expression In addition, sometimes people make question not only to get information but also to use to greet each other in daily communication Although the purpose of questions in English and Vietnamese is the same, there are a lot of differences between them That’s the reason why leaners who study English have problem in forming questions Recognizing the importance and practical implications of the problem, we this study in order to contrast the question in English and Vietnamese Besides that, I also mention some teaching implications at high school, so teachers can focus on some areas where students usually make mistakes Through this one, learners will find it easier to study English At the beginning, definition, uses and types of interrogative sentence will be given to help learners have a general view about the question in English and Vietnamese In the next part, a contrast analysis is found out between them The last part shows the implications for teachers and learners in teaching and studying English question well Keywords: contrastive analysis, question, interrogative, Vietnamese and English questions A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TABLE OF CONTENT I The question Definition Uses II Contrast English and Vietnamese questions Yes/No question WH-question .9 Alternative question 11 Declarative 12 Tag question 13 III Teaching implications 14 Conclusion 15 References 16 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE I The question Definition: A question is a request for information or action When writing a question you should always end the sentence with a question mark (?) (English Grammar, par.1) For example: + What are you doing? + Does she like watching football? + Is he a student? Uses: - Eliciting the information from the person being addressed - Asking for the purpose of testing someone’s knowledge, as in the quiz or examination - Being used principally as polite requests - Being used as titles of literature, art and scholarship such as the academic work Who Asked the First Question?, the story How Much Land Does a Man Need,… - II Other different purposes Contrast English and Vietnamese questions There are many ways to classify English question According to the grammar structure, English questions are divided into types (Vương, par 2): A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE - Yes/No question - Wh-question - Alternative question - Declarative question - Tag question Besides that, in Vietnamese, we also have four types of questions - Yes/No questions - Wh - questions - Alternative questions - Declarative questions Yes/No question Yes/no interrogatives are questions that can be answered with a “yes” or a “no” response You probably ask or are asked these questions every day  In English: Form: auxiliary be + S + V do/does/did Yes + positive verb No + negative verb A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE For example: Is she beautiful? Yes, she is Does he work? No he doesn’t Are you ready to go? Yes, I am Did you go to school yesterday? Yes, I did Have you had breakfast? No, I haven’t The verbs are inversed and the tone is raised at the end of the question  In Vietnamese: - The word order is the same as that of a statement and some particles are added, such as “có…chưa”, “phải khơng”, “hả”… - For example:  Hơm qua bạn nghỉ học phải không?  Mẹ bạn bệnh hả?  Bạn có làm tập chưa? - There is no inversion and no raising tone Similarities: confirm the information For example: Are you a student? ( Bạn học sinh phải không?) A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Yes, I am ( , học sinh) Are they your parents? ( Họ cha mẹ bạn hả?) No, they don’t (Không, họ cha mẹ tôi) Moreover, in some cases, we can also answer these questions by rejecting if the assumption is unreasonable For example:  In English: A: Is Miss Ann from America? B: I even don’t know who Miss Ann is  In Vietnamese: A: Hôm qua cô cho làm kiểm tra phải không? B: Hơm qua có học đâu mà biết Differences: - The way answering questions o In English: Do you want to eat now? (Con muốn ăn không?) YES, I (Dạ, muốn ăn bây giờ) NO, I don’t (Không, không muốn ăn bây giờ) Don’t you want to eat now? (Con không muốn ăn sao?) A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE YES, I (Dạ, muốn ăn bây giờ) NO, I don’t (Không, không muốn ăn bây giờ) o In Vietnamese: Vietnamese people usually use “vâng/dạ/có” and “Không” để express if they agree with the question Con muốn ăn chưa? (Do you want to eat now?) Dạ Con muốn ăn ( Yes, I do) Không Con không muốn ăn ( No, I don’t) Con không muốn ăn sao? (Don’t you want to eat now?) Vâng, không muốn ăn (Yes) Không, muốn ăn ch (No) - The way forming the questions With all information mentioned above, in English, the order in the interrogative sentence is deserted In Vietnamese, the order is the same as the statement (Subject + Verb),then, combining with some parts: “à”, “hả”, “ạ”, “có…chưa”, “có…khơng”… Especially, In English, we raise voice at the end of the question, that doesn’t present in Vietnamese question A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE WH-question: A Wh-question is a question that contains an interrogative pro-form to request information The table below will give some basic forms of this kind of question Question Function Example Word What Asking for information about What is your name? something Asking about the information about Who is she? Who someone When Asking about time When will we submit this project? Where Asking about the place Where are you from? Why Asking for the reason Why you take the IELTS exam? How Asking about the manner or the quality How did your final test? Besides that, these interrogative questions above will be extended into many different forms in order to ask for the specific information Which (one)? : Choice of alternatives Eg: Which color you want? Whose? - Possession Eg: Whose turn is it? A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Whom? - Person (objective formal) Eg: Whom did he see? How much? - Price, amount (non-count) Eg: How much does it cost? How many? - Quantity (count) Eg: How many people in your family? How long? - Duration Eg: How long have you stayed there? How often? - Frequency Eg: How often does she go to school? How far? - Distance Eg: How far is it from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi? What kind (of)?- Description Eg: What kind of question will we have in the listening test? Similarities: The order when forming the question with interrogative words which become Subject 10 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE In English: In Vietnamese: Ai Mary? Who is Mary? Subject - verb Chủ ngữ động t Differences: When interrogative words is not subject, the English question needs the operator after the interrogative word or there must be an inversion Eg: Why did you go to the cinema lately yesterday? Operator - However, in Vietnamese, there is no operator used in the question - Intonation + In English: There must be a falling intonation at the end of question + In Vietnamese: It is no need to use intonation Alternative question An alternative question is a question that presents two or more possible answers and presupposes that only one is true Eg: Would you like chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry ice cream? Similarities: use “or” (hay là, hoặc….) between options For example: - In English: Are you listening to music or watching TV? 11 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE - In Vietnamese: Bạn học sinh hay giáo viên? Differences: intonation - English: stress with the option chosen - Vietnamese: don’t need to that Declarative question - A declarative question is a question used to express surprise or ask for verification - It is used in informal speech and it has a rising intonation at the end Eg: Wow, you ate that whole thing?  To express surprise Similarities: To check information or express feeling  In English: For example: You have already bought all tickets?  To express surprise this information because before hearing this sentence, everyone thinks that he doesn’t want to go there  In Vietnamese: it usually combine with some words such as “à, hả, á, ” at the end of the sentence For example: Mày không ăn thật hả?  The speaker thinks the hearer wants to eat Differences: 12 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE In English: need to raise the voice at the end of the question In Vietnamese: don’t that or it’s difficult for people to that Tag question - A question used after a statement when seeking or expecting confirmation of that statement - The intonation in most tag questions is going down to create agreement and rapport between the speakers - The structure of tag question: Subject + Verb (affirmative), Verb (negative)? Subject + Verb (negative), Verb (affirmative)? Eg: You love me, don’t you? She doesn’t want to go with me, does she?  There is no tag question in Vietnamese that is formed following this rule The only possible way to form this kind of question is to add “phải không” after a declarative question Eg: Cô đẹp, phải không? (She is beautiful, isn’t she?), ans especially no intonation is added 13 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE III Teaching implications As English is a second language, students make mistakes easily However, I would like to list some common mistakes Because there is no intonation in Vietnamese, Vietnamese students tend to speak English like the way they speak Vietnamese, with a flat intonation Somehow they have an improper intonation when speaking English in different contexts Having no intonation or have a wrong intonation will make the communication boring and the listeners will feel uncomfortable or misunderstand Realize the difficulties that students have to deal with is that the way to answer to the Yes/No question with the negative form They find them find them difficult because they don’t know how to answer this kind of questions It’s not simple to answer a normal interrogative question like “Is he a teacher?”, they will answer “Yes” or “No” to show agreement or disagreement Nevertheless, they feel confused when answering the opposite kind of questions like “Didn’t you go to the cinema last night?” It’s very important for the teacher to realize this problem in order to help students avoid making this mistake The learners usually forget the operator or inversion when they form the question For instance, they ask “where you live?” instead of “where you live?” or “How long you have been there?” instead of “How long have you been there?” As knowing the weak aspect of Vietnamese student, teacher should give student more chances to practice to make them form question correctly and naturally by using the form of role-play in a variety of contexts 14 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Conclusion To sum up, questions have an important role in our life because it is presented in most of our conversation Actually, there are many similarities as well as differences between English and Vietnamese question In addition, conducting a contrastive analysis between two languages can bring about many applications in both teaching and learning For that, we can have a proper method to teach and learn English well 15 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE References  Eugene E.Loos What is a question? 2013  Richard Nordquist Interrogative sentence.2013.  Le, Quang Thiem (2004) Ngôn ngữ học đối chiếu ngôn ngữ Hanoi: Hanoi National University Publisher  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2013) Question Retrieved December 22nd, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question 16 ... languages can bring about many applications in both teaching and learning For that, we can have a proper method to teach and learn English well 15 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND. . .A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Abstract Question is one of the types of sentences used with high frequency in process of learning, language teaching and in daily... question well Keywords: contrastive analysis, question, interrogative, Vietnamese and English questions A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TABLE OF CONTENT I The question