Analysing errors in translating english questions with a bias towards assertion or nonassertion made by english majored students

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES DAO DAT CUONG ANALYSING ERRORS IN TRANSLATING ENGLISH QUESTIONS WITH A BIAS TOWARDS ASSERTION OR NONASSERTION MADE BY ENGLISH – MAJORED STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) Supervisor Senior lecturer TOÂ MINH THANH, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY-2006 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled ANALYING ERRORS IN TRANSLATING ENGLISH QUESTIONS WITH A BIAS TOWARDS ASSERTION OR NON – ASSERTION MADE BY ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree Ho Chi Minh City, October 2006 ĐÀO ĐẠT CƯỜNG i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my great thanks to Dr Toâ Minh Thanh, who has given me invaluable advice and guidance without which I could not have fulfilled my work I would also like to thank the students in my classes for their willingness to fulfill the portfolio assignments and the questionnaire Finally, thanks go to my family and my friends for their unwavering encouragement and support ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, ĐÀO ĐẠT CƯỜNG, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL), accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Mater’s theses deposited in the University Library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the University Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan or reproduction of theses Ho Chi Minh City, October, 2006 ĐÀO ĐẠT CƯỜNG iii ABSTRACT The study done for this M.A thesis aims at investigating pragmatic errors made by 50 fourth-year students of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (abbreviated to USSH) when translating into Vietnamese 18 English assertive and non-assertive oriented questions Being analysed are only pragmatic errors In other words, within the scope of the study are the errors which result from the student subjects’ “production of the wrong communication effect e.g through the faulty use of a speech act” [Richards et al, 1993: 127] The data was collected from the student subjects’ translated versions done right in class within 60 minutes at the beginning of their seventh semester at USSH, which is in the school year 2006-2007 The results showed that most of the student subjects produced ill-translated English-Vietnamese versions because they did not understand the effect of assertive and non-assertive orientation on possible changes of the illocutionary acts of English questions, especially from direct to indirect Using findings drawn from the analysis of the pragmatic errors, the author of the thesis firstly raises some recommendations concerning (1) a couple of adjustments in introducing part of pragmatics to the very content of such courses as English grammar, phonology, and semantics and (2) a number of supplement textbooks for the student subjects Hopefully, these remedial suggestions will appropriately be applied to enhance the students’ understanding of English questions with a bias towards assertion or non-assertion for their better translated versions in the near future iv TABLE OF CONTENT CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS iii ABSTRACT iv TABLE OF CONTENT v LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF CHARTS x LIST OF SYMBOLS xi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Research Questions 1.3 Aims and Objectives 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Overview Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 The concept of equivalent translation 2.2 Speech acts 2.2.1 Sentences vs utterances 2.2.2 Locutionary meaning vs illocutionary meaning 2.2.3 Locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts 2.2.4 Five categories of illocutionary acts 10 2.2.5 Direct and indirect illocutionary acts of a speech act 10 2.2.6 Three degrees of indirectness found in an illocutionary act 11 2.3 Translation errors 12 2.3.1 Errors vs mistakes 12 2.3.2 Sources of errors 13 2.3.3 Pragmatic errors in translation 15 v 2.3.4 Significance of Error Analysis 15 2.4 Five tones in the English intonation 16 2.4.1 The falling tone 17 2.4.2 The rising tone 17 2.4.3 The level tone 17 2.4.4 The fall-rise tone 17 2.4.5 The rise-fall tone 18 2.5 Gap in related research 18 Chapter 3: ASSERTIVE AND NON-ASSERTIVE ORIENTATION ASSOCIATED WITH VARIOUS SYNTACTIC FORMS OF ENGLISH QUESTIONS 20 3.1 Syntactic forms of English questions 20 3.1.1 The mood structure in English clauses 21 3.1.1.1 The mood element 22 3.1.1.2 The Residue 23 3.1.2 Types of the mood structure in English clauses 24 3.1.3 Syntactic forms of the English question 26 3.1.3.1 Yes-no questions 26 3.1.3.2 Wh-questions 26 3.1.3.3 Alternative questions 27 3.1.3.4 Tag questions 28 3.1.3.5 Echo questions 29 3.2 Assertive and non assertive orientation in English questions 30 3.2.1 Assertion and non-assertion 31 3.2.2 Types of questions 32 3.2.2.1 Neutral questions 32 vi 3.2.2.2 Assertive questions 33 3.2.2.2.1 Yes-no questions 34 3.2.2.2.2 Tag questions 37 3.2.2.2.3 Wh-questions 38 3.2.2.3 Non-assertive questions 39 3.2.2.3.1 Yes-no questions 39 3.2.2.3.2 Tag questions 40 3.2.2.3.3 Wh-questions 41 Chapter 4: METHODOLOGY 42 4.1 Population 42 Materials 43 Procedures 44 Chapter 5: ERROR ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 46 5.1 Question and Question 18 46 5.2 Question 50 5.3 Question 52 5.4 Question and Question 54 5.5 Question 57 5.6 Question and Question 59 5.7 Question 62 5.8 Question 10 and 11 63 5.9 Question 12 and 13 65 5.10 Question 14 and 15 68 5.11 Question 16 71 5.12 Question 17 73 vii Chapter 6: RECOMMENDATION 75 CONCLUSION 80 REFERENCES 82 APPENDIX I viii LIST OF TABLES CHAPTER Table Result of students’ translating the tag response in (1) 47 Table Result of students’ translating the tag response in (18) 49 Table Result of students’ distinguishing the meaning of the tag response in (1) from that in (18) 50 Table Result of students’ translating the tag question in (2) 51 Table Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (3) 54 Table Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (4) 56 Table Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (5) 57 Table Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (6) 58 Table Result of students’ translating the exclamative in (7) 60 Table 10 Result of students’ translating the exclamative in (9) 61 Table 11 Result of students’ translating the wh-question in (8) 63 Table 12 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (10) 64 Table 13 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (11) 65 Table 14 Result of students’ translating wh-question in (12) 66 Table 15 Result of students’ translating the wh-question in (13) 67 Table 16 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (14) 69 Table 17 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (15) 70 Table 18 Result of students’ translating the wh-question in (16) 72 Table 19 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (17) 74 ix Chart 18: Result of students’ translating the Wh-question in (16) 84% 100% 80% Accepted Translation 60% Unaccepted Translation Good Translation 40% 20% 12% 4% 0% 5.12 Question 17 The question marked (17) has a negative orientation When uttering (17), the speaker exposes his surprise or disbelief because the reality is inconsistent with his thought To be precise, (17) means I’d thought he would, but it seems he didn't Vietnamese questions can also be used to perform an illocutionary force of expressing surprise Such Vietnamese final modal particles as aø, ư, cơ, à, etc in questions indicate that the speaker is surprised at the reality at variance with what he or she has thought [Nguyễn Thúy Oanh, 2002: 100], Therefore, (17)’ can be a Vietnamese version of (17): (17) Didn’t he recognize you either? (17)’ Ông không nhaän anh sao? A haft of the students (52% of the total subjects) produced such good Vietnamese versions as Anh ta không nhận cậu à?, Anh không nhận bạn ư?, etc The rest either mistranslated (17) or did not know how to translate it, leaving (17) non-translated Below are some of the unacceptable versions: *Anh ta có nhận cậu không? *Anh ta không nhận bạn, phải không? 75 * Anh ta có nhận bạn vhững người khác không? *Anh ta không nhận bạn chứ? *Có phải không nhận bạn lại? ,etc Table 19: Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (17) Students’ total number 50 Acceptable translation Unacceptable translation 42 Good translation Chart 19: Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (17) 84% 100% 80% Accepted Translation 60% Unaccepted Translation Good Translation 40% 20% 12% 4% 0% 76 Chapter RECOMMENDATION The study’s findings reflect the students’ lack of knowledge in pragmatics, resulting in their low quality translated works as far as English questions are concerned Some thing should be done as soon as possible at the Department of English Linguistics and Literature of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities to improve the students’ capacity of translation Firstly, courses in English grammar, phonology, and pragmatics should be revised The students are supposed to take a succession of three courses in English grammar during their first three semesters at the university Only the first course in English grammar does mention something related to English questions This can be observed from Sentence types, which is the second chapter of Practical English Grammar — the textbook compiled by Nguyễn Việt Thu [2003] for the very first course in English grammar Almost all the questions presented in the textbook are about various question forms the direct illocutionary acts of which are to ask for information only Included in the two pages marked 14 and 15 are a few questions the illocutionary acts of which are indirect, e.g negative forms of yes-no questions used to describe a surprise, the wh-question “Why don’t you…?” used to offer a suggestion, or questions with a modal verb used to give an invitation, an offer, or a request However, the indirect illocutionary acts of these questions are simply enumerated without clarifying why they should be used in such a way 77 In addition, a major part of question drills which have ever been found in Nguyeãn Vieät Thu’s Practical English Grammar concentrate only on forms of English questions with their illocutionary acts are almost always direct Only the two drills numbered 32 and 33 request the students to recognise the meaning of the given questions the illocutionary acts of which are indirect However, these three drills focus only on English questions with a modal verb to convey either a commissive or a directive Almost neglected is the impact of assertive and non assertive forms on possible changes associated with the illocutionary meanings of English questions, specifically from direct to indirect It has been shown that assertion and non assertion are not taught sufficiently during the three semesters at University of Social Sciences and Humanities Since nothing but the first course in English grammar does mention something related to the forms, not the pragmatic uses, of English questions, it would be a necessity to provide the students with some knowledge of assertion and nonassertion A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by Quirk [1985] and Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English by Biber [1999] are highly recommended The two textbooks present English questions for communication along with their pragmatic meanings that have ever been found so far Therefore, these textbooks could be a good recommendation for grammar courses at the tertiary level 78 Included in the students’ third semester at university is Phonetics which concentrates on how to produce English discrete sounds and utterances properly and naturally Unfortunately, intonation is taught without any explicit explanation of the meaning conveyed by such a supra-segmental phonological aspect It is necessary to confirm that included in the very content of Phonology during the students’ fifth semester at university are some basic pragmatic meanings conveyed by the five English tones; nevertheless, almost nothing is explicitly taught on how to use the tones to make differences in the illocutionary meanings of English questions What have ever been taught in class are a few meanings of the tag questions conveyed by either a rising tone or a falling tone Accordingly, it would be necessary to focus on the exploitation of intonation to describe indirect pragmatic meanings associated with English interrogatives as well as with declaratives, imperatives and exclamatives In his textbook named A Course in Spoken English: Intonation, Halliday [1970] employs various intonation patterns for English sentences with various structures to describe their proliferation of meanings Should it be worthwhile to use this book as a reference while waiting for the edition of a newly complied textbook? Provided during the students’ sixth semester is a combined course called Morpho-Syntax the textbooks of which are Analysing English — An introduction to descriptive linguistics by Jackson [1980] Again, what has been presented in this textbook is only English sentences’ structure, which has no relation to pragmatic meaning Consequently, what the students may come up with are merely structural forms of English sentences; in other words, the students have no chance to understand how such structural forms are used to perform different communicative functions 79 Closely linked to Halliday [1994], Downing and Loke [1993], Dik [1978], etc., Functional Grammar not only studies languages on the dimension of syntax but also considers the use of these structural forms in the very interactions of the real life That is why textbooks in Functional Grammar partially relate to the pragmatic meaning associated with a certain structural form Accordingly, it is suggested that Functional Grammar is explicitly taught in class in to improve the students’ translation skills The students spend part of their eighth semester, which is also their last semester, at university to study Semantics, the textbook of which has been Semantics — a course book by Hurford and Heasley [1984] the units marked from 21 to 26 of which deal with pragmatic meaning Roughly presented in the textbook are speech acts When approaching the indirect illocutionary acts, the authors of the textbook not show which linguistic form could make which change to the illocutionary force of a certain speech act, e.g a representative, a declarative, a directive, a rogative, a commissive, or an expressive It has been presented in this M.A thesis that the impact of negative, assertive and non assertive forms together with intonation could make some changes to the illocutionary meanings of English questions Also presented in these two textbooks are linguistic forms which affect the change of the illocutionary meaning of a sentence, from direct into indirect Therefore, it is recommended that Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by Quirk et al [1995] and Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English by Biber et al [1999] would be employed as the students’ supplement reference books The author of the thesis 80 believes that the knowledge covered by the two textbooks should be highly recommended to the students so that they may understand not only the semantic meaning but also the pragmatic meaning of an English question expressed a certain form, either sound or written, and used in a particular context This will definitely result in the students’ much better translated versions 81 CONCLUSION Translation is an extremely complicated activity which originates from the differences between the various languages in describing ideas These differences intermingle in various degrees of languages and various dimensions such as structure, semantics and pragmatics They constitute a lot of barriers and obstructions which make the translation from one language to another becomes a puzzle, particilarly to the students as a whole In this thesis for the M.A degree I try to study those language factors which make changes to the illocution in English questions with a bias towards assertion and non-assertion and cause lots of difficulties to final-year students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in the translation works from English to Vietnamese The result of my study shows that the majority of finalyear students fail to translate exactly those English questions with a bias towards assertion and non-assertion The reason of this failure is that the students cannot go further than the level of formal equivalence translation and of semantic equivalence traslation To have a satisfying translation version of those English questions requires that the students must have the level of pragmatic equivalrnce translation This kind of failure can be classified as intralingual errors Strickly speaking, the failure of my students in the translation of the questions with a bias towards assertive and non-assertive forms has an impact of changing the illocutionary of the questions from direct to indirect From the above discovery, may I offer some recommendation in order to modify the teaching programs of grammar, phonology and semantics in view of 82 providing our students from the very beginning a knowledge of pragmantics so that they can perform better in the study of the English language 83 REFERENCES In English Austin, J L (1962) How to things with words Oxford University Press Asher, R E et all (1994) The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics Oxford: Pergamon Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S and Finegan, E (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English Pearson Education Ltd Brown, H D (1994) Principles of language learning and teaching 2nd ed New Jersey: Prentice- Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffts Butt, D., Fahey, R., Feez, S., Spinks, S and Yallop, C Using Functional Grammar – An Explorer’s Guide Second Edition National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research Corder, S.P (1967) The significance of Learner Errors Oxford University Press Dik, S C (1978) Functional Grammar Dordrecht: Foris C.p Third, revised edition, 1981 Downing, A and P Locke, (1992) A University Course in English Grammar Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd Hatim, B and I Mason (1994) The Translator as Communicator London and New York: Longman Group UK Limited Halliday, M A K (1970) A Course in Spoken English: Intonation Oxford University Press Halliday, M A K (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar First Edition London: Arnold Halliday, M A K (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar Second Edition London: Arnold 84 Hurford, J R and B Heasley, (1984) Semantics - A course book Cambridge University Press Jackson, H (1980), Analysing English — An introduction to descriptive linguistics Pergamon Institute of English Leech, G N (1983) Principles of Pragmatics Longman Levinson, S C (1995) Pramatics Cambridge University Press Lock (1996) Functional English Grammar Cambridge University Press Nida, E A (1964) Toward a Science of Translating with Special Reference to Principles and Procedures Involved in Bible Translating E J Brill, Leiden, Netherlands Palmer, F R (2001) Mood and Modality Cambridge University Press Peccei, J.S (1999) Pragmatics TJ International Ltd Padstow, Cornwall Quirk, R., Greenbaun, S., Leech, G and Svartvik, J (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language Longman Group Ltd Roach, P (2000) English Phonetics and Phonology Third edition, Cambridge University Press Richards, J C., Platt, J and Platt, H (1993) Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics Longman Singapore Publishers Pte Ltd Richards, J C (1996) Functional English Grammar – An Introduction for Second Language Cambridge University Press Richard, J C & Sampson, G.P (1974) The study of Learners English In Richards (ed.), 1974: 3-18 Siewierska, A (1991) Functional Grammar Routledge Searl J.R (1999) Expression and Meaning Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts Cambridge University Press 85 Thompson, L C (1965) A Vietnamese Grammar University of Washington Press, Seattle Yule, G (1996) Pragmatics Oxford University Press In Vietnamese Đỗ Ảnh (1990) Thử Vận Dụng Quan Điểm Cấu Trúc-Chức Năng Để Nhận Diện Miêu Tả Câu Cầu Khiến Tiếng Việt Tạp Chí Ngôn Ngữ, Số Diệp Quang Ban (2000) Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt Nhà Xuất Bản Giáo Dục Thái Duy Bảo (1988) Đối chiếu nghi thức lời nói đối thoại Anh – Việt Luận án Phó tiến só khoa học ngữ Văn Phạm Việt Hùng (2003) Trợ Từ Trong Tiếng Việt Hiện Đại Nhà Xuất Bản Khoa Học Xã Hội – Hà Nội Cao Xuân Hạo (1991) Tiếng Việt – Sơ Thảo Ngữ Pháp Chức Năng, Quyển Nhà Xuất Bản Khoa Học Xã Hội Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Hân (2005) Tiểu Từ Tình Thái Cuối Câu Trong Hội Thoại Tiếng Việt (So Sánh Với Tiếng Nhật Và Việc Giảng Dạy Nó Cho Người Nhật) Luận Án Tiến Só Ngữ Văn Đại Học Quốc Gia T.P Hồ Chí Minh Đặng Thị Hưởng (1992) A Cross-Cultural Study On The Way In Which Speakers Of Vietnamese And Speakers Of English Issue, Accept And Decline Spoken Invitations Nguyeãn Tiến Hùng (1986) A Course in the Theory of Translation University of Ho ChiMinh City Lê Văn Lý (1972) Sơ Thảo Ngữ Pháp Việt Nam Trung Tâm Học Liệu Bộ Giáo Dục Nguyễn Thúy Oanh (2002) So Sánh Dạng Thức Câu Hỏi Trong Tiếng Anh Và Trong Tiếng Việt Luận Văn Thạc Só Khoa Học Ngữ Văn 86 Hoàng Trọng Phiến (2003) Cách Dùng Hư Từ Trong Tiếng Việt Hiện Đại Nhà Xuất Bản Nghệ An Nguyễn Kim Thản (1997) Nghiên Cứu Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt Nhà Xuất Bản Giáo Dục Phạm Văn Thấu (1997) Hiệu Lực Ở Lời Gíán Tiếp: Cơ Chế Và Sự Biểu Hiện Tạp Chí Ngôn Ngữ số 1, trang 22-29 Nguyễn Việt Thu (2003) Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Anh Thực Hành Nhà Xuất Bản Đại Học Quốc Gia TP Hồ Chí Minh Hoàng Văn Vân (2000) Nghiên Cứu Dịch Thuật Nhà Xuất Bản Khoa Học Xã Hoäi 87 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE Translate the following sentences into Vietnamese A : Their daughter isn't \ very clever B : / Isn't she? ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… How thin she is, \ isn’t she? ………………………………………………………………………………… Do you live somewhere near Dover? ………………………………………………………………………………… Should we go down and get something to eat? ………………………………………………………………………………… Could someone dictate this to me? ………………………………………………………………………………… Doesn’t anyone know the answer? ………………………………………………………………………………… Hasn’t she \ grown! ………………………………………………………………………………… Who has any money? ………………………………………………………………………………… Am I \ hungry! ………………………………………………………………………………… I 10 He likes his job, \ doesn’t he? …………………………………………………………………………… 11 He doesn’t like his job, \ does he? …………………………………………………………………………… 12 Why don’t you come for a meal one day next week? …………………………………………………………………………………13 Why don’t you be quiet? …………………………………………………………………………………14 Open the door, / won’t you? …………………………………………………………………………………15 Open the door, / will you? …………………………………………………………………………………16.How ⌢ couldn’t you remember? …………………………………………………………………………………17 Didn’t he recognize you either? …………………………………………………………………………………18.A: Their daughter is clever B: (Yes,) \Isn't she? ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………… II \ very