Aims of the study
This research is directed to accomplish three goals:
- To investigate the syntactic structures used in describing trends in English and in Vietnamese from the perspective of traditional grammar
- To make a contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese syntactic structures used in describing trends in business articles to deduce their differences and similarities
- To propose some pedagogical implications for better teaching and learning of describing charts or graphs and some recommendations for more effective translation works
Scope of the study
Due to the constraint of time and effort, the study only investigates the English and Vietnamese syntactic structures on the levels of clauses and phrases
Also, as suggested in the title of the thesis, the object of the research is narrowed down to syntactic structures used in trend description in business news The trends are either concerned with specific statistics and figures or with general remarks about changes or tendency
The resources of the analysis are English and Vietnamese business articles from business and economic newspapers.
Methodology of the study
As the title of the thesis suggests, the study is aimed at comparing and contrasting the syntactic structures used in describing trends in English and Vietnamese business articles; therefore, three methods namely descriptive, comparative and contrastive are employed
By descriptive method, a systemic list of structures used to describe trends in business articles will be presented Their syntactic features will be shown explicitly Comparative and contrastive methods enable the author to discover the similarities and differences between structures used in describing trends in the two journalistic languages
The basic process of the research is as follows Firstly, four English and four Vietnamese business and economics newspapers are chosen with two copies each Three articles are taken from each copy, so in total forty-eight articles are selected for the examination Then the samples are thoroughly analyzed, calculated in percentage and put into charts or tables in order to find out the prominent syntactic structures frequently used in describing trends in the two languages Next, English and Vietnamese syntactic structures are contrasted to highlight the similarities and differences between the two groups The findings of this process are finally applied into improving English-Vietnamese translation and teaching students how to describe charts and graphs effectively.
Design of the study
The thesis is divided into three main parts namely Introduction, Development and
In the first part of the study, the author introduces the reasons for choosing the topic, the objectives to be obtained in conducting the research, the scope of the study, the methods
The second part, Development, is the focus of the thesis, to which most time and effort are devoted This part consists of three chapters In the first chapter, Literature Review , the writer presents the theoretical background knowledge about contrastive analysis, syntax and syntactic structures, journalistic register and trend description in books and newspapers These will serve as a springboard for the writer to dash into the exploration of the topic The next chapter, A contrastive analysis of syntactic structures used in describing trends in English and Vietnamese business articles , studies the syntactic structures i.e clauses and phrases used to describe changes in English and Vietnamese business articles Similarities and differences are accordingly presented with a view to the data shown in charts and tables The last chapter,
Implications and recommendations is a practical application one because the outcome of the contrastive analysis will be used to improve English Vietnamese translation of trend description as well as helping students how enhance their skills of describing charts and graphs in English
Lastly, the Conclusion part includes a review of the study, some concluding remarks and suggestions for further research.
DEVELOPMENT
Literature Review 1.1 Contrastive Analysis and Transfer Theory
In this chapter, some basic theoretical issues related to contrastive analysis, syntactic structures, news language and trend description will be reviewed to form a theoretical framework for the next chapter First, the history of contrastive analysis and theory of language transfer will be revisited Then an overview on English and Vietnamese syntax and syntactic structures in comparison will be provided Also, journalistic register with its particular characteristics and types will be briefly mentioned Last is a description of the language of trend and trend description in books and mass media of communication
1.1 Contrastive analysis and transfer theory
Contrastive analysis (CA), according to Richards (1992:83), is simply ‚the comparison of the linguistic systems of two languages, for example the sound system or the grammatical system.‛
Comparatively, the definition put forward by James seems to be more specific, ‚CA is a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted (i.e contrastive, not comparative) two-valued typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the assumption that languages can be compared.‛ (1980:3)
Ellis points out that CA derived from the need to teach a L2 in the most effective way or in other words, the origins of Contrastive Analysis ‚were pedagogic‛ (1985:23) Evidently, when making a comparison between the foreign language and the native language of the students, teachers can identify their actual difficulties in learning a new language and find out suitable solutions to accommodate the teaching work, according to Lado (1957) as quoted in Ellis (1985:23)
As far as the history of CA is concerned, an early example of CA was found by Di Pietro
1892 (James, 1980:8) James also cites another milestone document paving the way to modern
CA, which is Lado’s Linguistics across Cultures (1957)
Richards states that this branch of linguistics was developed and practiced in the 1950s and 1960s and is based on the following assumptions: a the main difficulties in learning a new language are caused by interference from the first language b these difficulties can be predicted by contrastive analysis c teaching materials can make use of contrastive analysis to reduce the effects of interference (1992:83)
Characteristically, James (1980) believes that ‚CA belongs to interlanguage study, and, since
‘emergence’ is an evolutionary concept, it follows that CA is to be viewed as diachronic rather than synchronic in orientation.‛ (1980:3) Also, he points out the relation between CA and language learning, especially foreign language learning, ‚CA is concerned with the way in which native language affects foreign language learning in the individual ‛ (1980:9)
1.1.2 Language transfer and its influence on foreign language teaching and learning
The idea of language transfer started from the post war years and continued its influence into the 1960s It was defined by Ellis (1965) as ‚the hypothesis that the learning of task A will affect the subsequent learning of task B‛ (Quoted in James, 1980:11) At that time, it was strongly believed that ‘most of the difficulties facing the L2 learner were imposed by his or her first language.‛ (Ellis, 1985:6) Specifically, where there were differences between the L1 and L2, the learner’s L1 knowledge would interfere with the L2, and where the L1 and L2 were similar, the L1 would actively aid L2 learning (Ellis, 1985:7) Therefore, by identifying the similarities and differences between L1 and L2, teachers might find the ways to make use of the positive transfer and eliminate the negative transfer during students’ learning process
Odlin presents similar ideas while claiming that "teaching may become more effective through a consideration of differences between languages and between cultures." (2000:4) Also, according to this author, research on language transfer may result in goals other than pedagogical ones, for example, "For historical linguists, such knowledge can lead to insights about the relation between language contact and language change." (2000:4)
Controversially, some inappropriateness and irrationality in language transfer theory has been found up to now The findings of some researchers such as Dulay and Burt (1973; 1974a) question the role of negative transfer as a major factor in the process of second language acquisition A great number of grammatical errors could not be explained by L1 interference
(Ellis, 1985:7) However, it is a matter of fact that language transfer inherently takes place in various aspects of linguistics such as discourse, semantics, phonetics and phonology and syntax Studies in language transfer still play a crucial role in improving second language teaching and learning With a view to the thesis’s objectives, the author focuses on syntactic transfer i.e the transfer happening in studies of word order, relative clauses, and negation etc
Within the scope of the paper, the investigation will deem to cover the similarities and differences between syntactic features of English and Vietnamese phrases and clauses in business newspapers
As implied in the title of the thesis, a study on syntax and syntactic structures is one of the research targets to be aimed at Syntax together with lexicon, morphology, semantics, phonetics and phonology compose of grammar of a language (Fromkin et al, 2000:7) In other words, it is an integral part of grammar in particular and linguistics in general As a result, linguists and grammarians have put a lot of efforts and time into cultivating this appealing field In the early 1950s, ‘approaches to syntax subsequently formalized as phrase structure grammar’ (Borsley, 1999:10) Modern syntax originates itself from Transformation Grammar approach specified in the book Syntactic Structures written by Noam Chomsky (1957) Since then, Chomsky has reinforced his dominance in syntax study by many other related theories presented in books such as Aspect of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Lectures on Government and Binding (1981) or A minimalist program for linguistic theory (1993) Together with the founder of modern Syntactic Theory, Pollard and Sag were also great authors who put more colors to the syntax mosaic with their so-called Phrase Structure Grammar in the books
Information-based Syntax and Semantics Volume I: Fundamentals (1987) and Head-driven phrase structure grammar (1994)
Evidently, syntax has quite a long history of independent development and has been an indefinite source of inspiration for grammarians and linguists A preliminary question is then put forward, ‘what is syntax?’
To put it simply, according to Delahunty and Garvey (1994), ‚the word ‘syntax’, in its root sense, means ‘arranging together’ The –tax root is the same one as in tactics Syn means ‘with’ or ‘together’ Syntax concerns the combining of words into phrases and sentences.‛ (p.175) Miller (2002) asserts that ‚syntax has to do with how words are put together to build phrases, with how phrases are put together to build clauses or bigger phrases, and with how clauses are put together to build sentences.‛ (p.xiii) He also emphasizes that words alone cannot help us communicate easily and effectively Syntax has an indispensable role to play ‚because without syntax human beings would be unable to construct complex messages conveying information about complex situations, proposals or ideas‛ (p.134)
In his book English Syntax, Jacob (1995) defines syntax as ‚the grammatical principles, units, and relations involved in sentence structure.‛ (p.4) This body of rules and principles governs the way people produce sentences grammatically and acceptably in their own language even if they are aware of it or not
Fromkin et al (2000) confirms the above idea by defining syntax as a part of our linguistic knowledge that decides what constitutes a well-formed string of words and how to put words together to form phrases and sentences The grammaticality and ungrammaticality can be differentiated through the two following examples:
*Had three Lear daughters (p.8) Obviously, native speakers or learners of English will notice at once that the second is ill- formed and thus ungrammatical
Though Universal Grammar approach suggests that there is a common set of grammar and linguistic knowledge in human brain, syntax varies from one language to another This acceptable rule in this language is unacceptable in another language Let us consider the following English and Vietnamese examples:
The oil price has increased
Giá dầu đã tăng lên
A contrastive analysis of syntactic structures used in describing trends in
IN DESCRIBING TRENDS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE BUSINESS ARTICLES
This chapter mainly discusses the similarities and differences between syntactic structures used in describing trends in eight business newspapers among which four English newspapers and four Vietnamese ones were analysed In the first place, a brief introduction on the eight papers is provided for general background Then, the contrastive analysis is made with reference to clause patterns and phrase patterns found in the English and Vietnamese articles
2.1 An overview on the business newspapers used in contrastive analysis
Among a variety of business newspapers and magazines in English and Vietnamese, eight were selected English publications included two British English ones and two American English ones namely The Economist, The Financial Times Asia, Business Week, and Wall
Street Journal Asia respectively Vietnamese publications involved two Northern Vietnamese ones and two Southern Vietnamese ones i.e The Vietnam Economic Times, Investment, The Saigon Times, and Saigon Financial Investment respectively
The resource choices were made because of three reasons First, these are the major business newspapers in English and Vietnamese, so the business news language will be representative for the mass Second, it would be possible to find out the similarities and differences between regional and cultural factors i.e between American English and British English, Northern Vietnamese and Southern Vietnamese Third, the variety of the papers will be useful in comparison because the news language varies from one newspaper to another
The general procedure of the analysis was carried out as follows For clause structures, three business articles in each copy was selected and read carefully so that clause and phrase patterns could be highlighted For phrase patterns, only two articles of each newspaper exhibiting trends most prominently were selected to keep the analysis focused and detailed
That means 16 articles were searched for differences and similarities with a view to five categories of phrases The findings are calculated in percentage and put into tables or figures in order to exhibit the outstanding similarities and differences Finally, the analysis would be implemented basing on the statistics worked out
Before the analysis is further implemented, some background information about the eight newspapers and magazines will be given below
This is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London Its primary focus is world news, politics and business However, in recent years the paper has also improved its diversification by adding sections such as Europe, Asia, Latin America, international issues, and science and technology, books and arts
With over 1 million copies being sold out every week, and more than four-fifths circulated outside Britain, the figures indicate that The Economist, though a British newspaper, mainly looks for subjects to write about and for circulation abroad
* The Financial Times The Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business news organizations, is recognized internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy The paper's main focus is British and international business and economic news Providing extensive news, comment and analysis, the newspaper is printed at 23 print sites across the globe, has a daily circulation of 411,988
(ABC figures, June, 2009) and a readership of 1.3 million people worldwide in print and online
* Business Week Business Week is a business magazine published by McGraw-Hill at the headquarters in New
York City Since 2005, Business Week has delivered a single global edition instead of providing separate regional ones Business Week is a global source of essential business insight that inspires leaders to turn ideas into action As a market leader, it has more than 4.8 million readers each week in 140 countries
* The Wall Street Journal (Asia) The Wall Street Journal is an English-language international daily newspaper published by
Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, in New York City, with Asian and European editions
The Journal newspaper primarily covers U.S and international business and financial news and issues—the paper's name comes from Wall Street, the heart of the financial district in New York In 2007, it has a worldwide daily circulation of more than 2 million, with approximately 931,000 paying online subscribers
The Wall Street Journal Asia is a regional edition of this paper Since 1976, it has provided latest news and analysis of regional and global business developments for Asian audience of corporate and government decision-makers
* Thời báo Kinh tế Việt Nam (The Vietnam Economic Times) The paper is a major economic publication focusing on many aspects of economic life in Vietnam and other countries
38.900 copies are released every weekday and Saturday Its topic ranges from domestic and international business news, stock market reports, monetary and banking, estate information to socioeconomic issues, information technology and health care service
* §Çu t- (Investment) §Çu T-, the representative of Ministry of Planning and Investment, was started on June 6, investment of Vietnam state government, providing news about the country and the world for the sake of investment opportunities, giving reports on achievements in cooperation and investments as well as acknowledging progressive individuals or enterprises in cooperation and investment
The newspaper’s target audience ranges from economic organizations, domestic and international investors, administrative state offices to people who are concerned with business, trade, import-export, banking and finance or stock market in Vietnam and abroad
* Thời báo Kinh Tế Sài Gòn (The Saigon Times)
Thời báo Kinh Tế Sài Gòn, a Southern Vietnamese economic newspaper, provides articles of various sections ranging from economic forum, editorial opinion, business & laws to book introduction, health or culture What is more, it has an in-depth look into economic and business matters
Its readers are mainly businessmen, managers, economics experts, students and people who are interested in economics and business
* Sài Gòn Đầu t- Tài chính (Saigon Financial Investment) Sài Gòn Đầu t- Tài chính, a Southern Vietnamese newspaper, is an edition of Saigon Giai
Implications and recommendations 3.1 For translation: difficulties in translating syntactic structures used in describing trends from English into Vietnamese and vice versa and some recommendations 40 3.2 For teaching students to describe charts and graphs in English
The last chapter is devoted to clarifying some of the common problems and difficulties that emerge in some English - Vietnamese translations in Vietnamese business newspapers and during the process of writing about charts and graphs of Vietnamese learners Suggestions and recommendations will be supplied after each problem or difficulty for easy tracking Besides, some suggested exercises based on syntactic structures for trend description in business articles will be given for students’ practising to write about charts
3.1 For translation: difficulties in translating syntactic structures used in describing trends from English into Vietnamese and vice versa and some recommendations
Vietnamese articles used in the research include translation versions of business articles in foreign newspapers They usually belong to International Economy section or International Stock News In light of the differences between English and Vietnamese structures, two main problems were found out
First, there is some unnatural translation from English into Vietnamese due to the application of English structures into Vietnamese ones Typically, it is the translation of structure SVC with to be as the verb and an adjective or a past participle as the complement Động cơ tăng tr-ởng là ch-a ổn định (Growth motive has not been stable) Cách thức hồi phục là không cân bằng (Recovery methods are unbalanced)
Sự hồi phục là đã đ-ợc khẳng định (Recovery has been affirmed)
(Trung Quốc tăng tr-ởng trong khó khăn, TBKTVN, p.15, July 18, 2009)
The redundancy of ‘là’ in the Vietnamese translations makes the clauses sound informal and awkward Thus, an advisable remedy for these ailing statements is to exclude ‘là’, transforming SVC into SC or use structure SVO, turning adjective phrases into noun phrases with appropriate verbs
Second, there are more synonyms to denote trends in English, so it is rather demanding for Vietnamese authors to convey the complete meaning of English synonymous words or phrases
From my observation, articles about stock news in Vietnamese with a high frequency of upward and downward movements do not have many alternatives beside the verbs and nouns
‘tăng, mức tăng, sự gia tăng – increase’, ‘giảm, mức giảm, sự sụt giảm - decrease’ This fact makes the picture of ups and downs in Vietnamese seem less lively and colourful
In this case, a suitable adverb or adjective such as ‘nhanh, chậm, mạnh, nhẹ, đáng kể, đột biến’ to modify the movements will be the most powerful tool at hand Otherwise, Vietnamese translators can try to keep the translation as close to the original versions as possible though they might sound strange in Vietnamese Examples are ‘jump – nhảy vọt’, ‘fall – rơi xuống (mức)’, ‘plunge – tụt xuống (mức), ‘soar – tăng vọt lên’, ‘rocket – tăng chóng mặt’
3.2 For teaching students to describe charts and graphs in English
As mentioned in the Introduction part, describing charts and graphs in English is a must to my students of Economics They are exposed to this requirement frequently while reading their text books, reference books, or newspapers, doing tests and making presentations They must build the skills of recognizing prominent trends, making remarks and describing the trends properly Besides, students who would like to take part in the IELTS exams have to master this skill as describing charts or diagrams is a compulsory section
During the course of my Business English teaching at College of Economics, I have been aware of several difficulties that my students face while learning how to describe charts and graphs The roots of the problems will be specified and recommendations for improvement will be offered in the following part Also, as newspapers can be used as an excellent source of materials, some types of exercises based on newspaper articles which require the use of syntactic structures in describing trends will be designed
3.2.1 Students’ difficulties in describing trends, the causes and recommendations to improve the situations
In the first place, it seems to be a challenge for my students to diversify the structures used in their writing about charts They tend to use structure SVA for most cases When required to use SVO or SVC for a change, they are often confused and ask me for help Obviously, using SVA enables them to remark on the details they have noticed more easily Take the statement below as an example
From June to August, the sales increased by 10%
S V A The information is presented in a friendly order and students find it fairly easy to follow
However, the two alternative ways below require them to practise a little more
The next three months saw a 10% increase in sales
There is a 10% increase in sales over the next three months
The solution for this situation is, in my opinion, asking learners to practice rewriting sentences without changing their original meaning (clues may be given beforehand)
Also, they have troubles with making collocations, i.e between noun and adjective, verb and adverb What goes with what is not simple as it appears at the first glance Their safe solution is choosing a few common collocations such as ‘increase slightly, rise quickly, decrease significantly, fall sharply’ and stick to those all the time However, this may lead to repetition and boredom for the description
In coping with this matter, teachers can give exercises for practice such as matching nouns with suitable adjectives, verbs with appropriate adverbs or using collocations to illustrate a graph with various trends
The third problem is, due to their limited English competency, my students prefer to use simple sentences and clauses in describing the trends so a monotonous text is predictable
The answer for this puzzle is instructing them to use alternative tools for further information such as with (‘the profits in the third quarter rose remarkably, with the return in August reaching $ 2m’), non-finite clauses (‘China’s GDP grew by 7.9% in the second quarter of this year, having grown by 6.1% in the previous three month period’), relative clauses (‘the loss which mounted to $1m last year ’), modifiers (‘that growth gap of 8.5 percentage points’, punctuation such as commas, brackets to supplement data (‘Its exports also surged, by an annualised 53%, partly thanks to strong Chinese demand’)
The next problem is their confusion in using time and direction prepositions like in, of, at, by
In order to unravel their confusion, specific explanations about the function of each preposition should be provided first; then a number of drilling exercises (gap filling, multiple choices) will be given for practice
Lastly, students often find it relatively hard to read general trends and major details in a graph quickly and properly Under this circumstance, teachers should introduce different charts or graphs with diversified movements to students or assign them to look for sample graphs in books and newspapers and learn to interpret the data with their partners
3.2.2 Suggested exercises for practising to describe charts and graphs
1 Read an article to find out verbs used to describe trends and put them into three categories: upward movement, downward movement, stability/ fluctuation Note down on the tenses of the verbs (past, present, future)
2 Find out the adverbs of degree and identify the verbs they complement Put the adverbs in order of intensity
3 Look for adjectives used in trend description in an article and identify the nouns they complement Put the adjectives in order of intensity
CONCLUSION 1 Review of the study
Conclusion
The thesis has been successful, to some extent, in accomplishing the three goals stated at the start of the research The nature of syntax and syntactic structures in English and Vietnamese was revealed and two categories of syntactic structures i.e clause and phrase, which served as the criteria for the analysis were specified through an extensive investigation Many similarities and differences due to syntactic and cultural factors as well as writing styles between the two business news languages were exhibited in the biggest part of the thesis, the contrastive analysis in Chapter 2 Accordingly, these inferences served as the ground for giving suggestions and recommendations in the last chapter in hope of improving English Vietnamese translations of trend structures to some extent and enhancing students’ skills of describing charts.
Suggestions for further research
Due to the time constraint and the limited scope of the thesis, some aspects of the topics have not been touched upon Examples are the syntactic structures in nonfinite and verbless clauses, which makes up of a considerable part in the articles The semantic features of the articles such as antonyms, metaphor, hyponymy used in describing trends also serve as a potential topic for further research The close of the thesis, therefore, is not an end but a start of a continuous process to explore the field embracing promising crops
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