A study of syntactic and semantic features of the english reporting verbs and their vietnamese equivalents

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “A STUDY OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF THE ENGLISH REPORTING VERBS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other persons‟ works have been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2015 Bui Thi Tuyet Nhung Approved by SUPERVISOR Dang Ngoc Huong Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis has been completed thanks to the assistance and guidance of my teachers, friends, colleagues and relatives First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Dang Ngoc Huong, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher In addition, a special word of thanks goes to all my teachers of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, Hanoi Open University for their very useful and interesting lectures which have laid the foundation for my thesis In my study, it is inevitable that the ideas of many other writers in this field are reflected and developed Their ideas have stimulated my thinking on doing this research My debt to the authors listed in the references is equally great To all these scholars, I offer my sincere thanks I am greatly indebted to my loving parents, my parents in law, my husband, my daughter and my brother for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfilment of this academic work Finally, although great efforts have been made to complete the thesis, I am aware that this study is far from perfect Therefore, any comments or suggestions for the thesis would be welcome and appreciated ii ABSTRACT Reported speech has attracted the attention of scholars in different fields such as linguistics, poetry, logic, and the philosophy of language Reported speech is used to make the same information sound less repetitive and more precise, without having to make the voices and faces of all the people involved “A study of syntactic and semantic features of the English reporting verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents” is an attempt to find out some basic semantic and syntactic features of reporting verbs in English with their Vietnamese equivalents through the theoretical framework of componential analysis To gain the above purpose, the researcher has used two main methods: Descriptive and Contrastive Analysis methods Moreover, the data were taken from different sources such as dictionaries, books, internet, novels in English and Vietnamese The data were collected by the activities of reading the materials, identifying, classifying and synthesizing them The findings show that the reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order can occur in the same syntactic patterns, but may have different meanings depending on the situation in which they are used and they can occur in different syntactic patterns that reflect various meanings in daily communication A pedagogical implication resulting from the findings included in this research could be useful for teachers and learners who would like to broaden their knowledge concerning the six reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS Adv : Adverbial Modifier E.g : For example I.e : That is LDOCE Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English NP : Noun phrase O : Object OALDCE : Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary of Current English OD : Direct object OI : Indirect object Prep : Preposition RV : Reporting verb Sb : Somebody St : Something V : Verb iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 2.1: Sentence patterns (Quirk, Randolph, 1985) .15 Table 2.2: The chief semantic functions for each clause type 23 Table 4.1: The sentence patterns of the six reporting verbs 27 Table 4.2 Different structures of the reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order 37 Table 4.3: Sentence patterns of the reporting verbs studied in English and Vietnamese 45 Table 4.4 Different meanings of Say and their Vietnamese Equivalents 47 Table 4.5 Different meanings of Speak and their Vietnamese Equivalents 49 Table Different meanings of Tell and their Vietnamese Equivalents 50 Table 4.7 Different meanings of Talk and their Vietnamese Equivalents .51 Table 4.8 Different meanings of Inform and theirVietnamese Equivalents 53 Table 4.9 Different meanings of Order and their Vietnamese Equivalents .53 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of abbreviations and symbols iv List of tables and figures v Table of contents vi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION .1 1.1 Rationale for the research 1.2 Aims of the research 1.3 Objectives of the research 1.4 Scope of the research 1.5 Significance of the research 1.6 Design of the study .3 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies 2.2 Review of theoretical background .6 2.2.1 Theoretical Framework .6 2.2.2 Syntactic features of speech act verbs .7 2.2.3 Semantic features of speech act verbs .8 2.2.4 Synonyms 11 2.2.5 Synonymic group 14 2.3 Classification of sentences in terms of sentence elements and verb complementation .15 2.4 Sentence elements 16 2.4.1 Syntactic features of sentence elements 16 2.4.2 Semantic features of sentence elements 19 2.5 Summary 23 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 24 3.1 Research- governing orientations .24 3.1.1 Research questions 24 3.1.2 Research setting 24 vi 3.1.3 Research approaches .24 3.1.4 Principles for intended data collection and data analysis .24 3.2 Research methods .25 3.2.1 Major methods vs Supporting methods 25 3.2.2 Data collection instruments .25 3.2.3 Data analysis techniques 26 3.3 Summary 26 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 27 4.1 Syntactic and semantic features of the reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform, Order in English 27 4.1.1 Syntactic features of the reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform, Order in English 27 4.1.2 Semantic features of the reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order in English 37 4.2 The reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order in English and their Vietnamese equivalents .44 4.2.1 In terms of their syntactics 44 4.2.2 In terms of their semantics 46 4.3 Some suggestions for teaching and learning the six reporting verbs in English and Vietnamese 54 4.4 Summary 56 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION .58 5.1 Recapitulation 58 5.2 Concluding remarks 58 5.3 Limitations of the study .61 5.4 Suggestions for further studies 61 REFERENCES 62 vii Chapter INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research The verb is considered to be the king of all parts of speech At the heart of every sentence is a verb, an action word that is generally indicated what someone or something is doing or perhaps merely indicates being Verbs referring to speech constitute one of the most important areas of the vocabulary of any language This is particularly true, however, of English, and of the other languages which function as vehicles of life in complex modern societies Therefore, all verbs in English, in which, reporting verbs are also play an important role in the sentence Verbs denoting reporting are one type of verbs with a variety of meanings According to Anna Wierzbicka (1987: 288): “Reporting is related to staying in so far as both are concerned with facts, and to informing in so far as both are concerned with an addressee whom they are intended to cause to know something.” Reporting verbs are divided into many groups to express orders, suggestions, requests However, in this paper, we only focus on six following verbs such as Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order These verbs have wide occurrence in various types of contexts both in English and Vietnamese They can occur in different syntactic patterns that reflect various meanings in daily communication They can also find in the same syntactic structures, but may have different meanings depending on the situation in which they are used In fact, the same meaning that can be expressed by many words in English and Vietnamese often causes a big difficulty for English learners when expressing their ideas in communication, especially in transferring meanings of words from native language to another one, and vice verse As a teacher of English at a school, I found that my students have faced many problems when they use these verbs They cannot use them correctly and fluently in real- life communication, especially, they can also not use the right above reporting verbs in specific situations Therefore, I have carried out a study to find out how to use these verbs accurately and correctly for the analysis of their syntactic and semantic features of the typical reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order with their references to their equivalents in Vietnammese with the purpose of helping learners of English understand how to use these verbs correctly and to avoid making mistakes in using them 1.2 Aims of the research The research aims at finding out some basic semantic and syntactic features of the six reporting verbs in English and their Vietnamese equivalents It is hoped that the results of the study can help Vietnamese learners of English to apply the right use of these verbs as well as give some implications for teaching the six reporting verbs in English and Vietnamese 1.3 Objectives of the research In order to achieve the aim of the research, three following objectives will be carried out: - Describing the syntactic and semantic features of the six reporting verbs in English - Pointing out the similarities and differences between English reporting verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features - Suggesting some implications for teaching the six reporting verbs in English and Vietnamese 1.4 Scope of the research In this study, the major point is to focus on the six repoting verbs in terms of the syntactic and semantic features in English English is considered as source language, meanwhile Vietnamese is target language So, the syntactic and semantic features of the six repoting verbs in English are compared with their Vietnamese equivalents On this basis, some suggestions for Vietnamese learners of English are proposed to make their learning the six repoting verbs more effective Also, the study supplies the Vietnamese equivalents which hopefully help learners overcome difficulties when speaking and using the words 1.5 Significance of the research - Theoretical significance: the study will provide a comprehensive and overal knowledge about the syntactic and semantic features of the six reporting verbs in English Moreover, the similarities and differences between these verbs in English and in Vietnamese are very helpful in contrasting two languages - Practical significance: Through the study, Vietnamese learners have a comprehensive understanding of the six reporting verbs in English The study also helps them find out the differences between these verbs to choose suitable verbs in expressing different meaning in English and Vietnamese Besides, findings of the study will also provide useful information for learners and become one of the reference materials in teaching six reporting verbs at Dang Xa school 1.6 Design of the study The thesis begins with Declaration, Acknowledgements, Abstract, Contents, Symbols and Abbreviations The thesis will be divided into five chapters: The first chapter, Introduction, gives a brief overview of the research with the rationale for choosing the topic of the research, aims, objectives, scope, significance and structural organization of the thesis The second chapter, Literature Review, reviews the previous studies related to the research topic in English and Vietnamese and a review of theoretical background of that can be considered as a foundation for conducting the whole study Tell To order / advise Sb to doSt Ra lệnh, sai bảo Let Sb know a secret Mách, tiết lộ Recognize the difference Phân biệt Table Different meanings of Tell and their Vietnamese Equivalents 1.Tell in English corresponds to “kể” in Vietnamese With the sense „ narrate‟, the verb Tell corresponds to „kể‟ in Vietnamese, especially equivalent to the phrases: kể lại, kể lại Like the verb Tell in English, the prototype of „ kể‟ in Vietnamese is generally conceptualized a saying from the beginning to end of an event ”Tell me about Mr Robot ” ( Liz & Soars , J 1993) “ Hãy kể cho nghe ông Robot ” Language is to use, to learn a language we not only learn what it means, but also how it is organized (Eggins, 1994) In the sense of narrating, if the NP is the message Content, the addressee must be present in the syntactic structure because this role is the central to fulfil the purpose of the act In this sense, there may be an omission of the address role in the sentence if the information about this role is identified in the context 2.Tell in English corresponds to “bảo, lệnh” in Vietnamese Tell in English is used with a direct meaning It is used to say that someone must something In English, this sense is usually expressed by the pattern tell somebody to something This construction has an imperative meaning, such as a request or command With the sense, it shows that the speaker has more power than the listener Tell her to come down at once, and not keep me (Thackeray, 2003) Bảo cô xuống ngay, đừng bắt phải chờ Tell in English corresponds to “tiết lộ” in Vietnamese The verb Tell in English also has the meaning of revealing a secret which corresponds to „tiết lộ‟ in Vietnamese, as follows: 50 Promise you won‟t tell (OALD 2003) Hãy hứa anh không tiết lộ 3.Tell in English corresponds to “ phân biệt” in Vietnamese When someone is able to see how one person or thing is different from another,“tell” is used in the sense of distinguishing in the pattern Tell somebody/ something from somebody/ something This sense corresponds to phân biệt in Vietnamese Can you tell Mary from her twin sister? (OALD, 2003) Bạn phân biệt Mary với người chị sinh đôi cô ta không? 4.2.2.4 Talk and its Vietnamese equivalents According to the English-English-Vietnamese Dictionary(1996), the verb Talk has the following meanings together with its Vietnamese equivalents: The verb Meanings To say words in alanguage Vietnamese equivalents 1.Nói 2.To say things/ to express feelings 2.Nói chuyện, trao đổi Talk 3.To discuss st serious / important 3.Thảo luận 4.Gossip 4.Bàn tán 5.Give information 5.Khai báo Table 4.7 Different meanings of Talk and their Vietnamese Equivalents 1.Talk in English corresponds to “nói chuyện, trao đổi” in Vietnamese The verb Talk implies a discourse topic and is often used for a two way conversation which is between two or more people It is usually a friendly and socially conversation to exchange information or express feelings, therefore, it has a more casual or informal meaning In the sense, it is equivalent to “nói chuyện” in Vietnamese.To some extent, there is a difference between, talk to and talk with Take a look at the following examples: He was talking to his father.(Võ Sĩ Khải et al, 1996) 51 Anh nói chuyện với cha If you came here yourself, he would talk with you, I‟m sure of that Nếu bạn đến đây, điều anh trao bạn 2.Talk in English corresponds to “ thảo luận, bàn luận” in Vietnamese Discussing or negotiating always presupposes that there are two parties communicating with each other In this case, we are dealing with two way communication To talk about can be translated into “ thảo luận, bàn luận” For example: The problem can‟t go on We need to talk about it Vấn đề tiếp tục Chúng ta cần thảo luận thêm 3.Talk in English corresponds to “bàn tán, tán gẫu” in Vietnamese Talking requires informality, spontaneity and an expectation on the speaker‟s part to receive verbal reactions This verb in this case means gossip which corresponds to bàn tán, tán gẫu in Vietnamese We talked for hours about the meaning of life (Võ Sĩ Khải et al 1996) Chúng hàng tán gẫu ý nghĩa sống 4.Talk in English corresponds to “khai báo” in Vietnamese Moreover, the verb Talk also means give information to somebody, which corresponds to “khai báo”, as in the following example: The police questioned him, but he refused to talk (Võ Sĩ Khải et al, 1996) Cảnh sát tra hỏi, cự tuyệt khai báo 4.2.2.5 Inform and its Vietnamese equivalents „Informing‟ implies that the speaker not only wants the addressee to know, but also thinks that the addressee should know It means that the message is likely to be important to the addressee.Therefore, the verb Inform is typically used in official contexts According to the English- English- Vietnamese Dictionary (1996), the verb Inform has many meanings together with their Vietnamese equivalents, as follows: 52 The verb Meanings Vietnamese equivalents To tell somebody about something, 1.Thông báo especially in an official way Inform To find out information about 2.Nói đến/ tiết lộ something 3.Đề cập đến 3.To have an influence on something Table 4.8 Different meanings of Inform and theirVietnamese Equivalents 4.2.2.6 Order and its Vietnamese equivalents According to “Từ điển Anh-Anh-Việt”(1996),(English-English- Vietnamese Dictionary based on The Oxford Dictionary,Collins English Dictionary), the verb Order has many meanings together with its Vietnamese equivalents: The verb Meanings Vietnamese equivalents 1.To tell sb to st Nói 2.To give an authoritative instructions to 2.Ra lệnh, lệnh Order St/ to command To request St to be made/ served 3.Đặt, gọi, đặt hàng To arrange St in an appropriate way 4.Sắp đặt Table 4.9 Different meanings of Order and their Vietnamese Equivalents These structures, when translated into Vietnamese, often take the meaning of “lệnh” Moreover, the verb Order is followed by to-infinitive with or without a preceding noun,the Vietnamese equivalent is “được lệnh” Furthermore, after the verb Order, some modifiers are used such as nouns, noun phrases and particles such as the preposition to, into The Vietnamese equivalents are “ Ra lệnh…đến…”, “Ra lệnh cho…cho…” 53 After identifying the senses of these verbs, the researcher has found out that each sense of these verbs in English has one meaning corresponding in Vietnamese Moreover, it can be confirmed that the six reporting verbs studied shows a fair degree of polysemy within the field of verbal communication On a different level, stressed verbal particles and some noun phrases specialise various subgroups of the speech act domain, and thereby generate meanings such as discuss, narrate, suppose, The following table summarizes the differences derived sense possessed by these verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents 4.3 Some suggestions for teaching and learning the six reporting verbs in English and Vietnamese The reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order have some syntactic features that they are easy to make the teachers and learners misunderstand For instance, in English, these verbs have the structure S+V+O1+pre+O2 It can make the learners misconceive that it is the structure SVOA, such as: We not have the book in stock but we can order it for you S V O1 pre O2 (Jonathan Crowther, 1995: 816) Besides, the verbs inform and order are different from other verbs in English, that is, inform means “to give information in an official way”; order means “ to give instruction to something meanwhile other verbs usually means “to give information ” The verb say is monotransitive verb followed by only one object: John didn‟t say when she would return ( Dixon, 1991: 203) This is also the basic mistake that the learners might make when they studying these reporting verbs Moreover, from the contrastive analysis in the two languages in chapter IV, it can be seen that the reporting verbs have the 54 same structure SVOO in both English and Vietnamese However, in English, the order of the objects is SVOiOd but in Vietnamese, the order of the objects is SVOdOi: We ordered him to leave immediately Oi Od (Hồ Hải Thụy, 1993:1884) Ủy ban nhân dân huyện thị cho xã chuẩn bị chống lũ lụt Od Oi (Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh,1994: 26) These reporting verbs in English and Vietnamese have quite various meanings It is the reason why teachers and learners meet some difficulties in studying their semantics Remembering a set of various syntactic and semantic features of the reporting verbs in English is not always an easy task for many students To eliminate this limitation, teachers should give the meaning of the word varying in different patterns so that the students can take advantage of connecting similar lexical units in the process of memorizing and they can remember them more easily From the contrastive analysis of these reporting verbs in the two languages in chapter IV, it can be seen that some verbs share the similarities of structures or semantics For example, this verb group has the same syntactic feature SVOO in both languages Therefore, discovering and using suitable equivalences in the inventory is the best way to have a perfect teaching and learning these verbs in both English and Vietnamese This is to say that a teacher must have a profound knowledge of the target language and the source language so that the teaching of the reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order can be exactly and effectively Also, the English teachers should not ignore cultural gaps between source language and the target language because interlingual errors are originated from the deficiency of cultural knowledge The best way to solve it is to 55 supply our students with background knowledge of history, culture, traditions, customs, related to speech act verbs in general and the reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order in particular Knowing vocabulary consists of knowing how to use words which represent the image we wish others to have of us Language learners typically learn core or basic meanings of words in dictionaries to understand what they hear or read without knowing enough about their communication functions, register sppropriateness, or collocations in specific contexts Missuse of vocabulary causes misunderstanding in communication Therefore, learning or teaching of vocabulary is necessarily attached to the context of use Acquiring a word, we have to learn how the meaning of that word varies in different patterns In addition, what may be sufficient in one circumstance will be probably not sufficient in others Language teachers then should provide his learners with relevant information concerning contexts of situation in which a particular word is used This can be carried out by frequent practice in class with the guidance of the teacher and with students‟ self-study at home This study may imply the need of encouraging students to explore the diversified meanings of these verbs to use them flexibly and properly Therefore, learners should be provided with more opportunities to practice these reporting verbs in context, which help them get acquainted with them or distinguish different structures of reporting verbs 4.4 Summary In this section, we have discussed about the syntactic and semantic features of the reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order in English The syntactics of these verbs in English are analyzed in detail in terms of two sentence patterns (SVO, SVOO) and three sentence elements (S, V, O) The semantics of the reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order in English are described as different senses of the six verbs Then the 56 comparison is given to collate with their Vietnamese equivalents As comparison, the result of the study proves that there are some similarities and differences between the reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order in English and in Vietnamese Meanings conveyed by the six English verbs are not restricted in most dictionaries Also, the study points out that the speaker‟s choice of a language form to interpret an event is rather important depending on his cognition of the situation he is talking about A speech act in different contexts can be perceived differently; as a result, these speech act verbs, which are used to interpret this act, has several meaning 57 Chapter CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation This chapter covers a brief summary of the study, some recommendations for teaching and learning the reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell,Talk, Inform, Order and some limitations of the study Also, some suggestions for further studies on related to the field are presented The study has presented the overview of the six reporting verbs with their basically syntactic and semantic features and some previous studies relating to the research area of the study Basing on this background and data collection, an investigation into these verbs in reliable books has been conducted to give a detailed description of this specific group with their Vietnamese equivalents Consequently, a number of the syntactic and semantic features; their Vietnamese equivalents have been found to help finding out some possible implications for teaching and learning the reporting verbs studied 5.2 Concluding remarks The findings drawn from this study have answered the three research questions raised in chapter of this thesis The two first objectives will be summarized briefly hereafter and the third has been presented in the previous chapter Firstly, in terms of syntactic features, the reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order are analyzed into two parts: according to the sentence patterns and sentence elements According to the sentence elements, subject is the element that is most often present The subject in this group is normally a noun phrase or a nominal clause, a pronoun Verbs belonging to these verbs are two main verb classes: intransitive verb (talk, speak) and transitive verbs (say,tell, inform, order) In fact, there are two types of object: direct object 58 (Od) and indirect object (Oi) Obligatory adverbials are a subclass of predication adjuncts that belong to SVOA type Most of the six reporting verbs can be transitive, therefore, they can take direct objects, indirect objects, or intransitive verbs, without any object However, Say is a monotransitive verb, controlling a direct object and can take any type of Od (direct speech, a noun phrase object or that-/wh-clause) Say is never followed directly by an indirect object pronoun If there is an indirect object, Say must be used with a “to” Meanwhile, the verb Tell is a ditransitive verb with two objects Tell often takes at that-/wh-/to-clause The verb Tell must have an overt indirect object in all contexts, that is, a word that refers to a person which comes directly after it Moreover, in spite of being typically transitive verbs, Say and Tell were also used intransitively Meanwhile, Speak and Talk are intransitive verbs, and they not have many differences in terms of syntax Speak admits a relatively wide range of possible combinations, the most frequent usage of Speak is collocation (speak a language), and the most frequent structures of Talk in all the syntactic structures is talk about Order and Inform are transitive verbs The verb Order is usually followed by a clause or in the structure Order + to infinitive/Order + noun/NP/ Pro + to infinitive Meanwhile, the verb Inform is obligatory to have the addressee noun phrase after it as in the pattern Inform+O+that+clause Sometimes, Inform is also followed by the Message introduced by a preposition(on /of/ about) as in this case: Inform+preposition(on/about/of)+wh-/-ing complement Secondly, in terms of semantics the six verbs studied are verbs whose syntax may vary, thus, in a number of cases, affecting their semantics The wide variety of direct objects that the verb can take instantiate different senses The verb Say is followed by noun phrases when it focuses on the Content Say may be used as a transitive verb, which followed by a direct object or as an intransitive verb which conveys the meaning of hypothesizing Say can be 59 used with non-human Senders In this case, it has the sense of giving written information because such non- human senders denote objects containing written communication and convey the human message The verb Speak is the usual word to refer to the knowledge and use of languages (to know a language and to be able to have a conversation in it) Speak is often used for one-way communication and for exchanges in more serious or formal situations In addition, Speak is followed by preposition about and of, which makes it have the sense of describing or mentioning something The verb Tell in the structure tell+(to-Oi)+to infinitive, conveys the meaning of ordering or advising Tell has the sense of recognizing the difference in the structure Tell st/ sb from st/sb The verb Talk is an usual word to refer to informal communication and conversational exchanges.Talk is usually followed by Od, with the preposition about omitted, conveyed discussing something at a very serious and professional level The verb Order in this structure Order+that+the clause conveys the meaning of ordering/ demanding In another pattern, Order+ noun/ NP/Pro + to infinitive has the sense of requirement with the meaning „ra lệnh cho‟ in Vietnamese If noun / NP/ pronoun is omitted (order +to infinitive), the meaning of Order is „được lệnh để‟ in Vietnamese equivalent In contrast, Tell also can co-occur with the preposition about, the verb Inform can be followed by both prepositions on/about and it is an usual word in official contexts.The common structure of Inform is „Inform + O+ thatclause‟ with the meaning „thông báo‟ in Vietnamese equivalent Thirdly, through the study, the researcher has given the Vietnamese equivalents of six reporting verbs Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order‟ where appropriate,by using pairs of English and Vietnamese sentences which are supposed to have the same meaning 60 When studying Vietnamese grammar books and english- Vietnamese dictionaries, it is interesting to find out that translators depending on each case to apply appropriate Vietnamese equivalents to each reporting verb For example, we can see clearly different Vietnamese equivalents of Say that are đọc, ví dụ như, nói rõ and some other terms to give opinions such as thừa nhận rằng, ý kiến, etc We can draw out that the different meanings created by one lexeme are caused by different contexts in which senses of it That is why, the teachers must provide students with the meanings of each verb clearly in concrete contexts with proper Vietnamese references 5.3 Limitations of the study Due to the limitation of time and the data collected, it is difficult for us to carry out perfectly, although we have tried my best to avoid mistakes and limit shortcomings Firstly, syntactic and semantic features are analysed for six typical reporting verbs, but , not at all reporting verbs in this study Secondly, the comparison between English and Vietnamese is rather complex Lastly, the researcher‟s knowledge makes it impossible to provide sufficient and focus on reporting verbs intensively Therefore, any your comments or corrections for our better work would be highly appreciated 5.4 Suggestions for further studies In this paper, we have only focused on the six typical reporting verbs in terms of syntactics and semantics So far, different syntactic patterns and meanings conveyed by these verbs have been explored from semantic sapects through the componential analysis Therefore, the following aspects referring to reporting verbs could need further studies: - A study of pragmatic features of reporting verbs in English and their Vietnamese equivalents - A contrastive research in English and Vietnamese verbs of speaking and their usage 61 REFERENCES English Albert Sydney Hornby (1993) Oxford Advanced learner‟s Encyclopedic Dictionary Oxford University Press Biber, D (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken & Written English New York: 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