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HA NOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ THÚY WH – QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH: LINGUITIC FEATURES AND POSSIBLE ENGLISH TEACHING IMPLICATIONS (Câu hỏi có từ hỏi tiếng Anh: Một số đặc điểm ngôn ngữ học ứng dụng khả hữu giảng dạy) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2013 PART I : INTRODUCTION Rationale It is undeniable that English has been an essential means of communication and more and Vietnamese students are aware of the importance of English to their study and their future The ability to communicate clearly and efficiently in English contributes to the success of the learners at school and later in every phase of life However, the sad fact is that students’ English proficiency especially their ability to communicate in English orally does not really meet employers’ demand At Dong Trieu high school, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum and it is considered as a major subject for the high school examination It is taught with the purpose that students have some basic knowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to science and technology However, there still exist many difficulties facing the students They often keep quiet during speaking lessons; they mind speaking English There are many students who have good knowledge of grammar, can reading and writing exercises wonderfully but they cannot express themselves in English and find it hard to make questions to discuss during the speaking lessons They often make mistakes in using the correct question words and in giving the right form of a wh-question Besides making the discussion during a speaking lesson successful, questions also play an important role in our daily life We are not able to keep communicating going on well without asking questions We ask in order to exchange information, ideas, feeling and knowledge On the other hand, we sometimes ask questions not for the above purposes but for confirmation, refusal irony or reply avoidance It is undeniable that questions can not be missed in communication English wh-questions have long been the subject of the study of many researchers and linguists Each of them investigates some aspects of this types of questions Their study on English wh-questions have provided a great help for Vietnamese learners of English There are some MA thesis that pay attention to English Wh-questions Hoa N.T.X (1996) studies English questions in term of S-P inversion Meanwhile, Ms Nguyet D.T.M (1996) pays her attention to the aspect of English questions concerning teachers’ questions and politeness strategies And Tuyet L.T.A (1996) contrasts English wh-questions and their equivalents in Vietnamese in term of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features Especially there is also a Ph.D dissertation investigating English Wh-questions in English and Vietnamese in term of semantic and pragmatic features in his Ph.D projects Generally, such researchers mentioned above studied English wh-questions from different angles and mostly either focus on syntactic and semantic features of English Wh-questions or provide a theoretically general picture of wh-questions between the two languages English and Vietnamese However, besides such certain contributions, there still exist some gaps that need dealing with There are a lot of aspects concerning English wh-questions, however, in this paper the author would like to devote all my interest in linguistic features and possible English teaching implications Then he would like to investigate the kinds of mistakes in using wh-questions the students in Dong Trieu high school often make Basing on the findings, the author can make some suggestions in order to help the students to overcome these difficulties and make questions fluently Aims of the study The aims of the study are to: (i) help students gain an insightful look into linguistic features of English WH-questions (ii) deepen the author's knowledge related to the theme with a view to improving the teaching o f English WH-questions to Vietnamese learners of English Objectives of the study The objectives of the study are: (i) examining as closely as possible linguistic features of English WHquestions (ii) identifying some common errors and mistakes made by Vietnamese students in using WH – questions (iii) proposing some possible solutions to the problems identified The objectives of the study can be elaborated into these research questions: What are the linguistic features of English WH-questions? What types of errors and mistakes students at Dong Trieu High school often make in using English WH-questions? What should be done to improve students' skills in using English WHquestions? Scope of the study The study i s focused on structural, semantic and pragmatic features of WHquestions in English Two types of WH-questions will be focused on: information-seeking WH - questions and rhetorical W H - questions Alongside with this focus, this thesis is also an attempt to identify common types of errors and mistakes committed by learners of English at Dong Trieu high school Methods of the study A combination of different research methods will be used in this study Firstly, the author applies the descriptive method to find out the linguistic features of the English WH-questions The study is to be conducted by carefully collecting materials from various sources Secondly, a survey is to be carried out with a view to finding out what categories of mistakes Vietnamese students often make when using WH-questions The students' errors and mistakes will be analyzed and some possible solutions to the problems will be offered Design of the study This thesis consists of three main parts: Part is the Introduction to the study It includes the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims, the objectives, the scope, the research methods, significance and design of the study Part consists of three chapters, in which chapter provides readers with (i) previous works related to the thesis and (ii) some theoretical background on English questions in general, and WH - questions in particular Chapter provides a detailed analysis of English WH-questions in terms of pr ag mat ic and semantic features Chapter presents a survey of common mistakes made by Vietnamese students in using English WH-questions Also, suggested solutions are offered Part is the conclusion of the study It provides specific conclusions on each of the thesis objectives, in addition to a summary of the main points presented in the thesis and suggestions for future research Significance of the study 7.1 Theoretical significance: The thesis can be employed as a reference that provides a systematic report on theoretical issues related to WH - questions in English 7.2 Practical significance: To some possible extent, this thesis would facilitate the teaching and learning of WH - questions in English via the obtainable information and research results provided in the thesis PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous works related to the theme of the thesis So far there have been a lot of research works ranging from journal articles to MA theses, PhD dissertation to ministry - level research projects in and outside Vietnam Understanding of English questions in general and WH - questions in particular can be obtained via the following MA theses: (i) Hoa N.T.X (1996) English questions in terms of S-P inversion, MA thesis (ii) Tuyet L.T.A (1996) English questions and politeness strategies, MA thesis Prominent among research works on English questions are the projects by Suu, Nguyen Dang and Quang, Vo Dai In the unpublished Ph.D dissertation entitled “English questions as contrasted with those in Vietnamese” (2001) Suu, Nguyen Dang has offered a clear insight into English questions non-proper Insightful looks into English questions proper can be gained via a series of research works by Vo Dai Quang (2000) Một số đặc điểm ngữ nghĩa – ngữ dụng kiểu loại câu hỏi tiếng Anh ( liên hệ với tiếng Việt)- Phần câu hỏi lựa chọn LANGUAGE magazine – National Academy for Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi; No3 – 2000, pp59-66 Vo Dai Quang (2000) Một số đặc điểm ngữ nghĩa – ngữ dụng kiểu loại câu hỏi tiếng Anh (liên hệ với tiếng Việt) – Câu hỏi không lựa chọn LANGUAGE magazine – National Academy for Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi; No4-2000, pp.34-42 Vo Dai Quang (2006) Nghiên cứu số phương tiện biểu đạt nghĩa liên nhân câu hỏi danh, câu tường thuật tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Ministry – level Vietnam National University research project, Hanoi Code: CB.03.33 In his work, Quang, Vo Dai has made a close study of all aspects of English questions from the perspective of semantico - pragmatics These aspects include question patterns, supporting IFIDs, modality markers, etc Taking advantage of the contributions made by the authors mentioned above, in this thesis, the author intends to conduct a research oriented towards applying the established research results into the field of teaching WH– questions to Vietnamese learners of English 1.2 Review of relevant theoretical preliminaries employable as tools for the research 1.2.1 English questions 1.2.1.1 Definition of questions There exists a lot of definitions of questions The most common one is that questions are sentences which seek information of some kind They are followed by a question mark (?) According to the Longman Dictionary of English language a question is a “command or an interrogative expression used to elicit information or a respond, or to test knowledge” Lynch (1991) characterizes a question as an utterance with a particular illocutionary forces Quirk et al (1970 and 1985) defines a question as a semantic class used to seek information on a specific subject And another linguist, Givon (1990), observes that language employ at least three, non-exclusive, devices to signal a question: (i) intonation; (ii) the addition of morphology or independent lexical items (“Qmarkers”); (iii) a different word-order Moreover, Quirk (1978) states that an utterance can be called a question if it fulfills one of the following criteria; the operator is placed in front of the subject, an interrogative or wh-element takes the initial position or intonation is raised at the end of the utterance 1.2.1.2 Definition and types of Wh-questions in English According to Quirk et al (1978), wh-questions are formed with the aid of one of the following interrogative words (or wh-words or sometimes called wh-elements) This types of question is known as a wh-question because such a question begins with one of a series of words beginning with wh- These include who, whom, whose, which, where, when, why and how, although how does not begin with wh- Unlike yes-no questions, wh-questions generally have falling intonation However, they sometimes have rising tone, which concerns the interest in the answer A wh-question is often formed according to the following rule - The wh-element (ie the clause element containing the wh-word) come first in the sentence apart from some conjuncts such as on the other hand - The wh-word itself takes first position in the wh-element However, in more formal style, the preposition precedes the complement For questions that are seeking information, you place an interrogative-word before the inversion, such as: E.g What are you studying? The answer here will be the “what”, and you should see that in the statement form (of a full answer), this information replaces the interrogative pronoun and becomes the object: I am studying English Because all you are asking for the “what”, you an also give a very short answer What are you studying? English 1.2.1.2.1 Information- seeking Wh-questions A wh-question is an open question (i.e it can have any number of answers) In a wh-question, a search for a missing piece of information, the element that functions as theme called wh-element requests this information This element expresses the nature of missing piece; “who, what, when, how, etc.” So in a whinterrogative, the wh-element is put first no matter what functions it has in the mood structure of the clause like: subject, adjunct, conjunct or complement, etc The meaning is I want to tell you the person, thing, time, manner,etc Unlike yes/no questions, wh-information questions always contain a presupposition For instance, when we ask the question “What did John do?” we presume that John did in fact something Questions Presumed information 2a How did they it? They did it somehow 2b Where did John go? John went somewhere 2c Whose book was stolen? Someone’s book was stolen 2d What has he done? He has done something 2e Who is doing it? Someone is doing it 1.2.1.2.2 Rhetorical Wh-questions Sometimes a question using a wh-word is a rhetorical question Rhetorical questions take the form of questions, but they are not really used for seeking information In fact they not expect an answer at all In many cases they are simply expressing a strong opinion or feeling of the part of the speaker, rather than expecting a response from the person they are speaking to: E.g Who does she think she is? She had no right to use my computer What on earth you think you are doing? It’s my private land 1.2.2 Operators in questions In a wh-question, the wh-word is often followed by a verb and this verb sometimes takes the form of a modal verb such as can, could, may, might, etc, or an auxiliary verb, such as do, be or have, etc These modal verbs or auxiliaries are called operators Operator is the term that is given to the part of the verbal group that comes before the split in a question E.g Is the lilltle girl sleeping? Does she still love you? How long have you been waiting for me? In the three examples above, Is, Does and Have are the operator Operator are very necessary when we want to form a question In an English question, there is often the inversion of subject and the operator If there is no auxiliary in the statement, is introduced as the operator in the question Lexical be and have in British, English can also act as the operator E.g What you often in your free time? How are the students? What have you here? 1.2.3 Question words Question words are often introduced by wh-form A question word is used to ask for a supply to the missing information They are called wh-question words because they generally begin with wh-, with an exception being How, The wh-word may be a pronoun, an adverb, or a determiner (i.e it introduces a noun phrase) The question words are who, whom, whose, which, what, where, when, why, and how 1.2.3.1 Functions performed by the Wh-word 1.2.3.1.1 Wh-words as interrogative pronouns Wh-words in questions can be called interrogative pronouns because these two kinds of pronouns share some characteristics According to Quirk (1978), both of them are used to replace nouns, rather whole noun phrases, since they can not generally occur with determiners such as the definite article or pre-modification He also states that there are five wh-words can be used as pronouns such as who, whom, whose, what, and which Who, whom and whose are subjective, objective and genitive case forms respectively, and have personal gender However, what and which not have gender or case distinction They can be used to ask questions about not only persons but about things As a pronoun, the interrogative pronouns can be used as the subjects of the questions Most of the interrogative pronouns can act as the subjects of the wh-questions except whom, even whose can also appear alone as an anaphoric noun phrase E.g Who taught you some Italian? Which is his father’s car? 3.2.4 Other types Item Questions Who called me while I was out? Who did you write to last night? What is your father? Whose car are you driving? What is Mr Ba doing? What does her boyfriend look like? How is she now? Which of the five qualities for true friendship Other Number Percentage you like best? When would be the best time for a picnic? 10 When does your father often cook his special dish? 11 How does she often go to school? 12 How many students are there in your class? 13 How often you go out at night? 14 Why didn’t Mr Smith attend the meeting? 15 What don’t you mind doing? 16 Where you often spend your summer 46 46% 94 94% holiday? 17 Where is the best place for a honeymoon? 18 What did she give you? 19 What happened outside Halong city early this September? 20 What kind of books does she like best? Tables 5: Number and percentage of other types of mistakes 49 After collecting and carefully analyzing the data of the questionnaire, the author finds that there are two common mistakes which are the one involving the omission of “do” in question 15 and “are there” in question 12 The most serious mistake is the omission of “doing” in question 15 In this survey, the author has designed two situations in which the students have to ask about the main verbs of the sentence In question 5, all 100 students know that they have to replace the word watching a film on T.V by the word doing However, in situation 15, only four students make the right questions and ninety four others forget to use “doing” to replace “correcting my students’ papers” This because the students may think that they only need the verb “mind” in the question Therefore, there is a need for teachers to help students to overcome this mistake Another mistake surprising the author is that nearly half of the students (46%) leave “are there” from their questions Their question is only “How many students in your class?” I think that this mistake is due to the influence of their mother tongue on their target language This type of mistake raise the question that teachers should help their students overcome the effect of their mother tongue when learning a foreign language 3.3 Possible solutions to the problems identified Wh-questions have been taught in junior high school, however, teachers not take much notice of them They only emphasize the grammatical rules As for the different meanings of wh-words, they don’t put much emphasis, not to mention the subtle differences of the wh-words which share the same meaning, for example “which” and “what” with definite reference and indefinite reference respectively There are three drawbacks in teaching wh-questions in present classroom practice The first one is the ignorance of wh-words and wh-questions Since the grammatical rules of this type of questions are very easy, teachers not often put much emphasis on them They only ask students to memorize the grammatical rules They not emphasize the importance of using wh-questions correctly in discussing and exchanging information The ignorance of wh-questions in teaching causes students to underestimate the importance of asking questions Besides, they not know the precise roles of each wh-word They only know that who is used to ask about people and what is for non-person Although the grammatical characteristics of wh-questions 50 are very easy, their roles and the situations in which they are used are actually complicated Teachers should not ignore them The second main problem is that teachers during their lessons are so used to asking questions themselves that they automatically regard their students’ main role as to answer what has been asked rather than to make questions As a result, students may have a lot of time practicing listening to and answering the questions, but have so little practice asking them Therefore, students have a lot of difficulties giving a question to find out some certain information or respond to the addressers while the communication process is taking place This cause can be called “students lack of practice” In order to solve the problem above, teachers should try to encourage students to participate actively in the lessons by making full use of the situations in each lesson for the students to discuss, to exchange their opinions freely as well as try hard to finish all related exercises assigned by the teachers The open and friendly interactions between teachers and students and among students themselves can motivate the students When the students feel confident in sharing their opinion by making and answering questions, their communicative competence will also improve By that way, their skill to make questions will be better Although the structures of the wh-questions are quite easy, many students still make mistakes in forming them This raises the need that teachers should help them to distinguish among the types of wh-questions The normal wh-questions come in two basic varieties, depending on where the questions get the information The first type is that the information gap is in the predicate and the other one is in the subject With a predicate information gap, the word order becomes object-verb-subject (OVS) In a subject information gap question, however, the word order remains as in a normal statement Moreover, in a wh-question, wh-word stands at the beginning of the sentence, the subject and operator must be inverted; and, if no operator is present, must be added to carry tense For example: “What did you eat for lunch today?” Another matter is that when the wh-word acts as a determiner ( Whose book is that?) or an adjective (What colour is your car?); the noun modified by the word (book and colour, respectively) must be fronted along with the wh-word Therefore, it is necessary to help students to master the structural patterns of wh-questions 51 Through the careful description, the English wh-words, their functions, the operator system, how these two items are used to form a question and what presupposition is it in each question are made out Students can clearly distinguish these things and apply them in the right situations In addition, through the study findings, the students’ difficulties in making a wh-question are anticipated and therefore, can be prevented in advance In other words, most problems mentioned above can be solved 52 PART III: CONCLUSION Recapitulation As far as the theoretical background is concerned, the study has briefly presented concepts of wh-questions both wh-information questions and wh-rhetorical questions, operators and wh-words and their functions as well as the wh-word semantic features and some other related factors such as information structure, theme-rheme structure, and the most semantic feature of a wh-question – presuppositions This theory has been so solid framework for the analysis of the wh-questions Structurally, the English wh-questions are divided into several subtypes based on their characteristics Basing on the functions of the wh-words, we have wh-questions for subjects, wh-questions for non-subjects and wh-questions for the main verb Whquestions are also devided basing on their discourse functions such as reply questions, formulaic questions and rhetorical questions Semantically, the author describes six types of presupposition of the wh-questions based on Yule (1983): The existential, the factive, the non-factive, the lexical, the structural and the counterfactual By analyzing the sheets of questionnaire collected from one hundred students in Dong Trieu high school some interesting findings have been made It is discovered that there are four most stiking types of mistakes that the students often make They are wrong use of wh-word, wrong use of operator, non-inversion failure and the omissions of “do” in questions about main verb and the omission of “are there” From the result of the survey, the author can assume the causes of the mistakes and suggest some ways to help the students to overcome the difficulties in making wh-questions Conclusion on each of the research objectives 2.1 Conclusion on objective (i) In this paper, I found that there are three major linguistic features of Wh – questions like structural features, semantic features and pragmatic features 53 2.2 Conclusion on objective (ii) Four common types of errors and mistakes, in descending order, are listed as follows: wrong use of wh – word, wrong use of operaror, non – inversion failure and other mistake 2.3 Conclusion on objective (iii) Some possible solutions were worked out to reduce students’errors in using Whquestions Firstly, in the teaching process, teacher should emphasize the importance of using wh-questions and wh-words correctly in discussing and exchanging information Secondly, in English lessons, teachers should try to encourage students to make Whquestions sentences and interact between teachers and students more and more Thirdly, teachers should help students to distinguish among the types of wh – questions to apply them in the right situations Suggestions for further research In this thesis, linguistic features of Wh – questions have been investigated What is left for future research might be related to cultural traits detectable in Wh – questions This might be one of the themes for future research works 54 REFERENCES English materials Alexander, L.G (1992) Longman English Grammar Longman Brown, G, and George Yule ( 1983) Discourse Analysis Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dixon R M V (1992) A New Apprach to English grammar on Semantic Principles, Oxford, Clarendon Press Frawley, W (1992) Linguistic Semantics Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers Givón, Talmy (1984, 1990), Syntax: A Functional – Typological Introduction, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Halliday, M A K., and Ruqaiya Hasan, (1976) Cohesion in English London: Longman Hoa, N.T.X (1996) English Questions in terms of Subject-Operator inversion, MA, Thesis, Hanoi University of Foreign Studies Hoa, Nguyen, (2004) Understanding English Semantics VNU Publishing House, Hanoi Huddleston, Rodney D (1984) Introduction to the Grammar of English, Cambridge University Press 10 Hudson, G (2000) Essential Introductory Linguistics Michigan: Blackwell Pulishers Inc 11 Kuno, S (1972) Functional Sentence Perspective Linguistic Inquiry 3,269-320 12 Leech, G.(1978) Semantics Penguin Books 13 Levision, S.C (1997) Pragmatics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 14 Lynch, T (1991) Questioning Roles in the classroom ILT Journal 45 (3): 201-210 15 Lyon, J (1977) Semantics London: Cambridge University Press 16 Nguyet, D.T.M (1996) A Cross – Cultural Study of Question Functions and The English Department at Hanoi University of Foreign Studies in Vietnam MA Thesis Hanoi University of Foreign Studies 55 17 Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S.(1987) A University Grammar of English London: Longman 18 Quirk, R, Greenbaum, S, Leech, G and Svartvik, J (1985) A Comprehensive grammar of the English language Longman Group Limited 19 Quirk, R, Greenbaum, S, Leech, G and Svartvik, J (1972) A Grammar of Contemporary English Longman Group Limited 20 Seuren, Peiter, (1985) Discourse Semantics Blackwell, Oxford 21 Swan, M (1991) Practical English Usage Oxford: Oxford University Press 22 Tuyet, L.T.A (2001) Graduation Paper: English Wh-Questions and their equivalents in Vietnamese, VNU-CFL, Hanoi 23 Yule, G, (1998) Explaining English Grammar Oxford University Press Vietnamese materials 24 Nguyen Dang Suu (2001) Câu hỏi tiếng Anh đối chiếu với tiếng Việt Unpublished PhD dissertation Hanoi 25.Nguyen Dang Suu Câu hỏi khơng danh Luận án tiến sĩ Ngơn ngữ học Institute of Linguistics Hanoi 26.Vo Dai Quang (2001) Nghiên cứu đối sánh kiểu câu hỏi danh tiếng Anh tiếng Việt bình diện ngữ nghĩa – ngữ dụng Ministry – level Vietnam National University research project Hanoi 27.Vo Dai Quang (2003) Nghiên cứu đối chiếu phương tiện ngữ dụng bổ trợ câu hỏi danh tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Ministry – level Vietnam National University research project Hanoi 28.Vo Dai Quang (2009) Một số phương tiện biểu đạt nghĩa tình thái tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Vietnam National University Publishing House, Hanoi 29.Vo Dai Quang (2008) Tình thái câu phát ngơn: Một số vấn đề lý luận “LANGUAGE & LIFE” magazine – Vietnam Linguistics Association, Hanoi; No3 (149) – 2008, pp.1-8 Vo Dai Quang (2009) Một số vấn đề lý luận nghiên cứu đối chiếu hành vi ngôn ngữ HỎI (Trên liệu tiếng Anh tiếng Việt) SCIENCE magazine – Vietnam National University, Hanoi; Volume 25, No3 – 2009.pp.133-139 30.Vo Dai Quang (2006) Nghiên cứu số phương tiện biểu đạt nghĩa liên nhân 56 câu hỏi danh, câu tường thuật tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Ministry – level Vietnam National University research project, Hanoi Code: CB.03.33 31.Vo Dai Quang (2007) Nghiên cứu số phương tiện biểu đạt nghĩa tình thái câu – phát ngôn tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Ministry – level Vietnam National University research project, Hanoi Code: QN.07.05 32.Vo Dai Quang 920100 Nghiên cứu số phương tiện biểu đạt nghĩa tình thái phủ đinh câu – phát ngơn tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Ministry – level Vietnam National University research project, Hanoi Code: QN.08.02 33.Vo Dai Quang (2005) ‘ Ngữ nghĩa – ngữ dụng’ hay ‘Ngữ nghĩa, Ngữ dụng” SCIENCE magazine – Vietnam National University, Hanoi; Volume T.XXI, No52005,pp.15-25 34.Vo Dai Quang (2001) Vấn đề tiền giả định câu hỏi tiếng Anh, xét bình diện ngữ nghĩa ngữ dụng SCIENCE magazine – Vietnam National University, Hanoi; Volume t.XVII, No1-2001, pp.13-19 35.Vo Dai Quang (2006) Phát ngôn ngữ vi, biểu thức ngữ vi dấu hiệu ngữ vi SCIENCE magazine – Vietnam National University, Hanoi; No – 2006 36.Vo Dai Quang (2000) Một số đặc điểm ngữ nghĩa – ngữ dụng kiểu loại câu hỏi tiếng Anh ( liên hệ với tiếng Việt)- Phần câu hỏi lựa chọn LANGUAGE magazine – National Academy for Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi; No3 – 2000, pp59-66 37.Vo Dai Quang (2000) Một số đặc điểm ngữ nghĩa – ngữ dụng kiểu loại câu hỏi tiếng Anh (liên hệ với tiếng Việt) – Câu hỏi không lựa chọn LANGUAGE magazine – National Academy for Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi; No4-2000, pp.34-42 57 DECLARATION This paper is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Mater of English I certify that this thesis is the result of my own research, and that it has not been submitted for any other degree Hanoi, December, 2013 SUPERVISOR’S SIGNATURE Assoc Prof Vo Dai Quang, Ph.D STUDENT’S SIGNATURE Vũ Thị Thúy 58 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful for many people who have helped me much to complete this M.A thesis First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Võ Đại Quang, Ph.D, who has given me a great deal of support and encouragement to this research Without his experienced and enthusiastic guidance, his valuable suggestions and comments, my thesis would not have been completed Secondly, I am grateful to my colleagues and students at Dong Trieu high school, from whom I collected the data for my study Without their help and cooperation, the research would have been made impossible Next, I would like to thank all my lectures at HOU for giving us useful lessons, which are the foundation for my study My gratitude also goes to the leader and staff at Faculty of Post-graduate Studies of HOU, for their support in providing me with the materials and convenience in the process of learning and conducting my thesis Last but not least, special words of thanks are sent to my beloved family for their encouragement even in the hardest time when I was confused and exhausted STUDENT’S SIGNATURE Vũ Thị Thúy 59 ABSTRACT The thesis entitled “Wh – questions in English: Linguistic Features and Possible English Teaching Implications” is to analyze and illustrate the types of wh – questions and their semantic features This one is also to investigate the students’ categories of mistakes when using wh-questions, find out the causes, suggest some possible solutions to these matters and propose several pedagogical implications for the teachers at the research sites This study is divided into three major sections The first one sets out the rationale of the study as well as the aims, the methodology and the design of the study The second section contains three chapters Chapter 1offers the most relevant factors involving a wh-question such as notions of wh-questions, whrhetorical questions, operators, wh-words and their semantic features relating to information structure, presupposition, Chapter is to describe the types of whquestions based on structures and discourse functions and the types of presuppositions in wh-questions Chapter is the study about the mistakes that the students in Dong Trieu high school often make in using wh-questions The data were collected among 100 eleven grade students in Dong Trieu high school by means of questionnaires The findings highlighted students’ categories of mistakes including wrong use of whwords, wrong use of operators, non-inversion failure and some other subtypes Through the findings, the authors also assumes some causes of the mistakes and suggests some possible solutions in order to help students avoid committing these types of mistakes 60 LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Table 1: Features of pragmatic categories Table 2: Number and percentage of mistakes concerning the use of wh-word Table 3: Number and percentage of misused operators Table 4: Number and percentage of inversion mistakes Table 5: Number and percentage of other types of mistakes 61 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I : INTRODUCTION .1 Rationale Aims of the study Objectives of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study .3 Significance of the study 7.1 Theoretical significance: 7.2 Practical significance: PART II: DEVELOPMENT .5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous works related to the theme of the thesis 1.2 Review of relevant theoretical preliminaries employable as tools for the research 1.2.1 English questions .6 1.2.2 Operators in questions 1.2.3 Question words 1.2.4 Given- new information structure 13 1.2.5 Theme and Rheme in wh-questions 14 1.2.6 Presupposition 15 1.3 Summary 16 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17 2.1 Research – governing orientations 17 2.1.1 Research approach 17 2.1.2 Data – related issues 17 2.2 Methods 18 2.2.1 Major methods 18 2.2.2 Supporting methods 19 2.3 Summary 19 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DICUSSIONS .20 62 3.1 Lingistic features of Wh-questions 20 3.1 Structural features .20 3.1.1 Wh-words as subjects of the wh-questions 20 3.1.2 Non-subject wh-questions .22 3.1.3 Verb-oriented question 23 3.1.4 Wh-questions with prepositions 23 3.1.5 Emphatic wh-questions 24 3.1.6 Negative structures in Wh- questions 25 3.1.7 Response questions 25 3.1.9 Wh-rhetorical questions .28 3.1.2 Semantico – pragmatic features 31 2.2.1 Pragmatic dimensions for wh interrogatives 35 2.2.2 Pragmatic categories for the discourse function of Wh -interrogatives 36 3.2 Common types of errors and mistakes committed by Vietnamese learners of English at Dong Trieu high school .42 3.5.1 Wrong use of wh-word .43 3.2.2 Wrong use of operator 46 3.2.3 Non-inversion failure .47 3.2.4 Other types 49 3.3 Possible solutions to the problems identified .50 PART III: CONCLUSION 53 Recapitulation 53 2.Conclusion on each of the research objectives 53 2.1 Conclusion on objective (i) 53 2.2 Conclusion on objective (ii) .54 2.3 Conclusion on objective (iii) 54 3.Suggestions for further research .54 REFERENCES 55 63
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