MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M A THESIS MODALITIES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE OFFERS (Tính tình thái trong lời đề nghị tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt) HO THI MINH THAI Field Englis.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS MODALITIES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE OFFERS (Tính tình thái lời đề nghị tiếng Anh tiếng Việt) HO THI MINH THAI Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Hanoi, 11 / 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS MODALITIES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE OFFERS (Tính tình thái lời đề nghị tiếng Anh tiếng Việt) HO THI MINH THAI Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh Hanoi, 11 / 2020 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “Modalities in English and Vietnamese offers” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2020 Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Assoc Prof Dr Hoàng Tuyết Minh Date:………………………… …… ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i I would like to express my sincere thanks to many people who have supervised, advised and encouraged me during my research, and acknowledge their contribution directly or indirectly to the accomplishment of my thesis First and foremost, I am really grateful to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh for her insightful questions, comments and advice for me right from sketching out the plan of the research, and especially her enthusiastic supervision during the time I composed my research, at various stages of developing my thinking and writing this thesis Without her supervision, this thesis would not have been led to itssubmission Also, I deeply indebted to all my lecturers at HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY for their useful lectures as well as their constant support and insightful suggestions In addition, I am also grateful for my friends who gave me unconditional encouragement and inspiration Last but not least, I wish to express my thanks to my family With their support and invaluable help, I could pay more attention on my studies and thesis TABLE OF CONTENTS ii Certificate of originality Acknowledgements Table of contents Abstract List of abbreviations List of tables and figures i ii iii vi vii viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Structure of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies 2.2 An overview of modalities 2.2.1 Classification of modalities 2.2.2 Linguistic means to express modalities 2.3 An overview of offers 2.3.1 Offering as a speech act 2.3.2 Offering and forms of offers 2.3.3 Politeness in offering 2.4 Summary CHAPTER 3: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF MODALITIES IN OFFERS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 3.1 Modalities in English offers 3.1.1 In direct offers 3.1.1.1 Lexical markers in direct offers 3.1.1.1.1 Modal verbs 3.1.1.1.2 Other lexical markers 3.1.1.2 Grammatical markers in direct offers 3.1.1.2.1 Imperative mood 1 2 5 7 11 17 22 26 28 31 34 36 37 iii 37 37 39 39 40 40 40 3.1.1.2.2 Vocative 3.1.1.2.3 Precatives 3.1.1.3 Prosodic markers – Intonation 3.1.2 In conventionally indirect offers 3.1.2.1 Lexical markers 3.1.2.1.1 Modal Verbs 3.1.2.1.2 Other lexical markers 3.1.2.2 Grammatical markers 3.1.2.2.1 Interrogative 3.1.2.2.2 Conditional 3.1.2.3 Prosodic markers – Intonation 3.1.3 In non-conventionally indirect offers 3.1.3.1 Lexical markers 3.1.3.2 Grammatical markers 3.1.3.3 Prosodic markers– Intonation 3.2 Modalities in Vietnamese offers 3.2.1 In direct offers 3.2.1.1 Lexical markers in direct offers 3.2.1.1.1 Modal verbs 3.2.1.1.2 Other lexical markers 3.2.1.2 Grammatical markers in direct offers 3.2.1.2.1 Imperative mood 3.2.1.2.2 Vocative 3.2.1.2.3 Precatives 3.2.1.3 Prosodic markers – Intonation 3.2.2 In conventionally indirect offers 3.2.2.1 Lexical markers 3.2.2.1.1 Modal verbs 3.2.2.1.2 Other lexical markers 3.2.2.2 Grammatical markers 3.2.2.2.1 Interrogative 3.2.2.2.2 Conditional 3.2.2.3 Prosodic markers – Intonation 3.2.3 In non-conventionally indirect offers iv 41 42 42 43 44 44 44 44 44 45 45 45 45 46 46 47 47 48 48 49 51 51 52 53 53 54 54 54 55 56 56 56 56 56 3.2.3.1 Lexical markers 3.2.3.2 Grammatical markers 3.2.3.3 Prosodic markers– Intonation 3.3 A comparison between modalities in offers in English and Vietnamese 3.3.1 In terms of direct offers in English and Vietnamese 3.3.2 In terms of conventionally indirect offers in English and Vietnamese 3.3.3 In terms of non-conventionally indirect offers in English and Vietnamese 3.4 Inplications of the study 3.4.1 For teaching 3.4.2 For learning 3.5 Summary CHAPTER4: CONCLUSION 4.1 Recapitulation 4.2 Concluding remarks 4.3 Limitation of the study 4.4 Recommendations and suggestions for further research 57 57 57 58 REFERENCES APPENDIX I IV ABSTRACT v 58 60 62 64 64 65 66 67 67 68 69 70 Natural languages offer speakers many and various linguistic devices to facilitate their communication It can be said that modalities play an important part in communicating activities This study investigates how speakers of English and Vietnamese express the modal meaning in different offering strategies in terms of linguistic means It attempts to seek what are the similarities and differences of the modal tools in English and Vietnamese offers Data used in this study are collected from various sources of textbooks, literature works, internet, especially English practical textbooks, articles, and novels, stories in English and Vietnamese To obtain the main objective of the study which is to show the similarities and differences of the modal tools in the two languages, we take examples in both English and Vietnamese into consideration The results show that in offers, both two languages have three kinds of modal markers, which are lexical markers, grammatical markers, and prosodic markers However, the usage of these markers is not the same in English and Vietnamese This study wishes to help teachers and learners of English have more knowledge of modalities in English and Vietnamese offers when teaching and learning English The most important thing is to help them improve their skills by providing some applications for teachers and learners vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CA: E.g : EFL: Etc : Fig : Ibid: I.e: M.A: VS: Contrastive analysis For example English as a Foreign Language Et cetera Figure The same author/ resources That is Master of Arts Versus vii