MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY N,.2
NGO THUY LINH
COMMON ERRORS IN THE USE OF COMPOUND NOUNS MADE BY STUDENTS OF COURSE 37-BIOLOGY FACULTY AT HANOI
PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY No.2
(SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH)
SUPERVISOR: MAI THI VAN ANH, M.A
Hanoi, May 2013
Trang 2ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to take this chance to express my greatest gratitude to Mrs MAI THI VAN ANH, M.A, my supervisor, for her patience in providing continuous and careful guidance as well as encouragement, indispensable suggestions and advices
I am greatly indebted to the teachers of English at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2
I wish to thank all the lecturers at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2, especially the lecturers in the Foreign Language Faculty for their dedicated instructions during my years of university work
I am particular grateful to my close friends for their enthusiasm and kindness in helping me collect valuable reference documents and data for my research
Last but not least, I owe a debt of gratitude to my beloved family, for their
whole-hearted encouragement and endless support
Trang 3ABSTRACT
The compound noun is an interesting category of English grammar A grammatical element is combined with a word, stem, or phrase to produce derived and inflected forms A compound noun is the combining form of two words or stems (green house, beautiful girl) However, the uses of the compound nouns referred to in some books have not been dealt with in full and sometimes cause
confusion to learner of English
As a result, students of English often make errors when they use the
compound nouns Therefore, this research work entails studying the uses of the compound nouns and conducting a survey for error analysis
Based on the results of the survey, the types of errors and causes have been found
Trang 4STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
Title: Common Errors in the Use of Compound Noun
(Graduation paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in English)
I certify that no part of this report has been copied or reproduced by me from any other person’s work without acknowledgments and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance from my supervisor
Date submitted: May 2013
Student Supervisor
Ngo Thuy Linh Mai Thi Van Anh, M.A
Trang 5TABLE OF CONTENTS
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PART ONE
INTRODUCTION
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VỊI SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH - «‹ 4 VIIL DESIGN OF THE RESEARCH WORK Ăn Sài 4
PART TWO
DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
I.1 LITERATURE REVIEW IN BRIEE St Hee, 6
I 9u 6u 1 9 In ae 9 1.2.2 Word-class combinafion compound nOu1n6 - - 5 «<< <++++++ 9
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Trang 61.2.7 Possessive of compound nouns
1.2.8 FUMCtION 0
CHAPTER TWO
COMMON ERRORS IN COMPOUND NOUN
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II.1.7 Method of data anaÏySIS - «6 << k1 TH HH TH HH 18
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T1.2 Common errors and Causes cececesseseseseesesescseeeeseseeeeesseseeecseeeessceneeeeaes 22 II2.1 Errors in use of stress in the compound nou1s . «5+2 22 IL2.2 Errors in combining words to make the compound nouns 22 II.2.3 Errors in using plural forms of compounds nouns - 22
II.2.4 Errors in using compound nouns as other parts of speech 23
Trang 7
SUGGESTED EXERCISES
Trang 8PART ONE INTRODUCTION
I RATIONALE
Nowadays, English becomes the most widely used language in the world Eighty percent of world information was stored in English (vietbao.vn/Giao- duc/Tieng-Anh-thong-tri-the-gioi/30174410/202/) English also is an international
language used in all aspects like: education, medicine, economy, science, tourism,
culture, etc In my opinion, English is not easy but very profound and it’s
interesting to study English learners always understand that in our life, English is vital Thanks to English, different nations with different languages and culture could close together Grammar is an essential part of every language L.G
Alexander (2009:p1) denoted that we should learn grammar because "there is no
point in learning grammar for the sake of learning grammar Grammar is the support system of communication and we learn it to communicate better Grammar explains the "why" and "how" of language We learn it because we just can't do without it." In English, nouns account most proportion and types of nouns are various but compound nouns seem to be most attractive In Vietnam as well as in other countries, there is a greater and greater need to learn English, from young to old, and from male to female No one can deny the importance of English in Vietnam at present Therefore, English is being taught at every educational level
However, learning a language is difficult, because each language has its own
system which is different from that in the learner’s native language The
Trang 9assumed that there are many errors which may be made In fact, many students confess that the compound noun is one of the biggest problems of English grammar and they often make errors in compound nouns
Moreover, as a prospective teacher, I would like to make a contribution to the English teaching in Vietnam For the reasons above, this study is conducted, which focuses on errors in compound nouns among the students of Course 37- Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N, 2
II RESEARCH PRESUPPOSITION
With regard to the errors quoted above, the problem is with the use of compound nouns in the sentence and the ways to combine words to make a compound noun
Some questions are raised:
1) What kind of errors in the use of compound nouns are made by the student of Course 37-Biology Faculty in Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2 in the academic year of 2012/2013?
2) What kind of errors in the use of compound nouns are the most often made by the students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2 in the academic year of 2012/2013?
3) What are the causes of the errors in the use of compound nouns by the
students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N, 2 in the
Trang 10Il RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The study aims at the following goals:
1) To find out the kinds of errors made by the students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2 in the academic year of 2012/ 2013 in compound nouns
2) To find out the main error in compound nouns most often made by the students of English Hanoi Pedagogical University N,2 in the academic year of
2012/2013
3) To find out the causes of the errors in compound nouns made by the students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2 in the academic year of 2012/2013
4) Provide learners some characteristics and classification of compound nouns in order to facilitate the effective use of these compound nouns
5) Point out the structure of compound nouns to classify these compound nouns more easily and exactly
6) Identify some problems related to compound nouns used and give some suggested solutions to overcome
IV RESEARCH SCOPE
The general research area of this study is grammar
The phenomenon is errors in compound noun done by the students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2 in the academic year of 2012/2013 Others relating to compound noun are also briefly mentioned
The population involved in the study is one hundred students of Course 37- Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,2
V RESEARCH TASKS
The study involves fulfilling the following task: 1) To study the information and rules of compound noun
2) To research into the types and characteristics of compound noun
Trang 113) To compare and contrast the compound nouns with other part of speech 4) To conduct a survey to find out error types and causes On the basis of the findings possible solutions to the problems are sought to minimize the students’
errors
VI RESEARCH METHODS
To achieve the objectives of the study, the following methods have been applied:
1) Collecting documents from books listed in the references 2) Consulting the supervisor, experienced teachers and friends 3) Synthesizing theoretical documents on English grammar
4) Conducting a survey and analyzing the results
VII SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH
Errors in any language teaching and learning, particularly in English as a foreign language, are sometimes predictable and sometimes unpredictable It is, therefore, essential for teachers to have better treatment to anticipate errors After the research, it is hoped that the result will be helpful to provide:
1) Input for learners of English in order to minimize their error in compound
nouns
2) Input for teachers of English with information on error types and solutions to the problems so that they can have good methods of teaching the compound
nouns
This study is also beneficial to anyone who is interested in the compound nouns in English
VIII DESIGN OF THE RESEARCH WORK
Trang 12entitled “Theoretical Background” It consists two sections Section one reviews literature in brief The second one deals with things related to the compound nouns
such as definition, types, and rules of the compound nouns
Trang 13PART TWO DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1 LITERATURE REVIEW IN BRIEF
Compound nouns have been described by many grammarians like Steven Pinker (1999), David Crystal (2002), Elisa Sneed (2002), Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English, Cambridge University Press (2006) and so on They each have their own way to describe the compound nouns
Generally, they focus their attention on the definition, functions, formation of the
compound nouns, modifiers of compound nouns in sentences, phrases and their uses
Steven Pinker (1999) deals with the formation of the compound nouns He
also introduces the noun phrases, another name for the compound nouns, and classifies the compound nouns into two kinds: singular and plural
David Crystal, et.al (2002) in On plural Compound nouns refers to the singular and plural of compound nouns They just name the functions of compound nouns: subject, direct object, subject complement, appositive and object complement They specify the use of the genitive case in compound nouns and the use of compound noun However, they do not pay much attention to the structures
in which compound nouns are used
In the book “The Acceptability of Regular Plurals in compounds”, Elisa Sneed (2002) gives a quite understandable picture of the compound nouns She gives the forms of the simple compound noun, complex compound nouns and the compound nouns Moreover, she pays much attention to patterns with the compound noun and the noun phrase (adjective + noun)
The copy for Garner’s Modern American Usage, the successor to the similarly titled classic reference work by H.W Fowler, when I found what I felt to
Trang 14be an ironic instance: an error The book’s description refers to its attention to “questions of word-choice” and the uses of hyphenation of word pairs was rampant: to-day, co-operate, tea-cup, and so on Why on earth, I thought, did the
copywriter think that word-choice merits hyphenation?
The novel "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte, one of four famous works we have learnt in the subject "English-American literature", was written with many compound nouns With students of English, recognizing and analyzing compound nouns is not simple and may cause some problems
Martin Hewing (1999) In the book Advanced Grammar in Use only focuses author’s attention on verbs and adjectives that are followed by noun phrase forms and infinitives
In the book A Reference Grammar for Students of English, R.A Close (1979) describes the functions of the compound noun as well as the difference between the compound nouns and other parts of speech
“Words can be combined to form compound nouns These are very common, and new combinations are invented almost daily They normally have two parts The second part identifies the object or person in question (man, friend, tank, table, room) The first part tells us what kind of object or person it is, or what its purpose is (police, boy, water, dining, bed)”
Compound nouns often have a meaning that is different from the two separated words Stress is important in pronunciation, as it distinguishes between a compound noun (e.g greenhouse) and an adjective with a noun (e.g green house) In compound nouns, the stress usually falls on the first syllable In addition, he concentrates on cases where compound noun are obligatory, cases in which the gerund and the infinitive are either acceptable and cases in which the compound nouns and the noun phrases are possible but with different meanings
Trang 15Compound nouns are written as separate words (grapefruit juice), as words linked by a hyphen (sister-in-law), or as one word (schoolteacher) A compounded noun whose form no longer clearly reveals its origin (such as bonfire or marshall) is sometimes called an amalgamated compound Many place names (or toponyms) are amalgamated compounds: e.g., Norwich (north + village) and Sussex (south + Saxons)
"The compound noun structure is extremely varied in the types of meaning relations it can indicate It can be used to indicate what someone does (language teacher), what something is for (waste-paper basket, grindstone), what the qualities of something are (whiteboard), how something works (immersion heater), when something happens (night frost), where something is (doormat), what something is made of (woodpile), and so on." (Ronald Carter and Michael
McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English Cambridge University Press, 2006)
"An interesting property of most compounds is that they are headed This means that one of the words that make up the compound is syntactically dominant
In English the head is normally the item on the right hand of the compound The
syntactic properties of the head are passed on to the entire compound Thus, if we have a compound like easychair which is made up of the adjective easy and the noun chair, syntactically the entire word is a noun." (Francis Katamba, English
Words: Structure, History, Usage, 2nd ed Routledge, 2005)
In brief, much research has been done on the compound noun but only Ronald Carter & Michael McCathy (2006) point out the errors in the use of
compound noun In fact, there are far more errors that learners of English often
Trang 161.2 Compound nouns
1.2.1 Definition
Compound noun is a word made up of two or more words put together to
make a word with its own meanings
The words tooth and paste are each nouns in their own right, but if you join them together they form a new word — toothpaste
The word black is an adjective and board is a noun, but if you join them together they form a new word- blackboard
They normally have two parts The second part identifies the object or person in question (man, friend, tank, table, room) The first part tells us what kind of object or person it is, or what its purpose is (police, boy, water, dining, bed)
1.2.2 Word-class combination compound nouns
Compound nouns can be formed using the following combination of words:
1 Noun + Noun: toothpaste, bedroom, water tank, motorcycle, printer
cartridge, rainfall, bus stop, fire-fly, football
Example: Is this the bus stop for the number 12 bus?
2 Adjective + Noun: monthly ticket, software, redhead, blackboard, full moon, software
3 Verb + Noun: swimming pool, washing machine, driving license, swimming pool, breakfast
Example: We always have breakfast at 8 a.m
4 Preposition + Noun: underground, underworld
Example: Do you think the police accept money from the underworld? 5 Noun + Verb: haircut, train-spotting, sunrise
Example: His hobby is train-spotting
6 Noun + Preposition: hanger-on, passer-by, mother-in-law, love-in Example: My mother-in-law lives with us
7 Adjective + Verb: dry-cleaning, public-speaking 8 Adverb + noun: onlooker, bystander
Trang 179 Verb + preposition; take-off, drawback, take-out, check-in, lookout
10 Preposition + Verb: output, overthrow, upturn, input
1.2.3 Form
The two parts may be written in : 1.2.3.1 Closed or solid
Example: tooth + paste = toothpaste Bed + room = bedroom 1.2.3.2 Hyphenated- hyphen between words
Example: check-in six-pack 1.2.3.3 Open or spaced
They appears as two separate words, space between words
Example: full moon, tennis shoe
1.2.4 Pronunciation
Compound nouns tend to have more stress on the first word: ‘golf ball Stress is important in compound nouns Stress is important in pronunciation,
as it distinguishes between a compound noun (e.g greenhouse) and an adjective with a noun (e.g green house)
For example, it helps us know if somebody said “GREENHOUSE”(a house which is painted green) or “a GREENhouse’(a building made of glass for growing plants inside)
Compound nouns often have a characteristic stress pattern (accent pattern) The main stress (position of heaviest accent) comes on the leftmost member of the compound Certainly the majority of what are usually considered compound words exhibit this feature
The compound movie star is pronounced MOVIEstar (where capital letters indicate the location of the heaviest accent), not movieSTAR; the compound bathroom is pronounced BATHroom, not bathROOM The American President's
Trang 18residence is the WHITEhouse, which is a compound, as opposed to WHITE
HOUSE
The stress pattern can sometimes be a clue to whether a sequence of two words is a compound noun or not For example, the sequence high and chair can be pronounced either HIGHchair, in which case it is a compound noun denoting a special kind of chair that babies sit in; or it can be pronounced highCHAIR, in which case it is simply the noun chair modified by the adjective high, denoting some chair that happens to be high
Unfortunately, the stress criterion is not found in all compounds There are compounds like APPLE PIE, MANMADE and EASY-GOING which show no accent reduction
A purely phonologically based division would make BLACKberry a
compound but blackPUDDING free sequence, BLACKlist a compound but black
MARKET a free sequence Equally striking is the fact that whereas Oxford ROAD (also Oxford AVENUE, etc.) would be a free collocation, OXFORD Street would
be a compound These inconsistencies underline the fact that the category of compounds is a grammatical one, and that, although there is a tendency for it to be
phonetically marked in a certain way, such marking is not perfectly regular
1.2.5 Plural forms of compound nouns
In general we make the plural of a compound noun by adding —s to the “base word” (the most significant word)
Singular Plural
a tennis shoe three tennis shoes
one assistant headmaster five assistant headmasters the sergeant major some sergeants major
a mother-in-law two mothers-in-law
Trang 19an assistant secretary of state three assistant secretaries of state
my toothbrush our toothbrushes
a woman-doctor four women-doctors
a doctor of philosophy two doctors of philosophy
a passerby, a passer-by two passersby, two passers-by
1.2.5.1 Pluralize the principle word
The vast majority of compound nouns form their plurals by adding “s” to the
principle word
Example:
He now has two mothers-in-law (plural of mother-in-law)
They were visited by the Knights Templar (plural of Knight Templar)
Jerry had attended over a dozen courts-martial (plural of court-martial) 1.2.5.2 No principle word
«3 Ss
When there is no obvious principal word, add “‘s” or “es” to the end of the compound nouns
Forget-me-nots make a wonderful present (plural of forget-me-not) Pack two toothbrushes (plural of toothbrush)
Some compound nouns have no obvious base word and you may need to consult a dictionary to find the plural:
e Higher-ups e Also-rans
Go-betweens e Good-for-nothings
e Grown-ups
Note that with compound nouns made of noun + noun, the first noun is an adjective and therefore does not usually take an —s A tree that has apples but we say apple tree not apples tree, matchbox not machesbox, toothbrush not teethbrush
Trang 20With compound nouns made of noun + noun, the second noun take an -s for plural The first noun acts like an adjective:
Long plural form plural compound noun
100 trees with apples 100apple trees
1000 cables for telephones 1000 telephone cables
20 boxes for tools 20 tool boxes
10 stops for buses 10 bus stops
3 wheels for cars 3 car wheels
1.2.6 Hyphens
Use a hyphen to eliminate ambiguity:
There are no specific rules on forming compound nouns For example “ink-
well” can also written “ink well” or “inkwell”-all are correct spellings However,
you should use hyphen to eliminate ambiguity Ambiguity is particularly prevalent when the first word of the pairing is a substance (like water or ink)
Examples:
e Ice-axe makes it clear that the axe is not made of ice e Paper-clip/ paper clip
If the clip were made of paper, paper clip could be used e Plastic wire-fastener
A fastener made of plastic not wire
There is also ambiguity when the first word of the pairing ends “ing” Examples:
e Changing-room/ changing room
Changing-room makes it clear that the room is not changing e Laughing-gas/ laughing gas
Laughing-gas makes it clear that the gas is not laughing
1.2.7 Possessive of compound nouns The basic rules of possessive nouns:
Trang 21Rule 1: Add an ‘s to make a singular noun possessive
Example: I pick up my father-in-law’s backpack off the floor Rule 2: Add an ‘ to make a plural noun possessive
Example: the young soldiers’ uniforms were ready to be worn Rule 3: add an ‘s to a plural noun that does not end in s
For example: these women’s bedrooms were very untidy
1.2.8 Function 1.2.8.1 As a subject
According to Randolph Quick (1976) in the book A University Grammar of
English, a subject is normally a noun or a clause with a nominal function The bathtub in the kids’ bathroom is full
1.2.8.2 As a direct object
I gave some extra money for her
1.2.8.3 As a indirect object
He wants to invite Jamie to his birthday
1.2.8.4 As an appositive
An appositive is a word that renames a noun that it is adjacent to, such as: “Suzie, my lovely dog, ran down the street.”
1.2.8.5 As an object complement
A compound noun can be an object complement, which follows the noun or pronoun it modifies An example is “We elected his son-in-law mayor.”
Trang 22CHAPTER TWO: COMMON ERRORS IN COMPOUND NOUNS
This chapter presents the finding of the practical research with the students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University number 2 It falls into three sections Section II.1 deals with the survey questionnaire, which was designed to map out some common errors made by the students of Course 37- Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University number 2 Section II.2 presents common errors and causes Section II.3 provides students and teachers with some suggested solutions to minimize the errors in compound nouns
II.1 Survey
As it was mentioned in chapter one, the study does not only help students of
English have deep insight into the compound nouns but also find out errors in the
use of compound nouns Due to the framework of a thesis, to show all the mistakes made students at all educational level is impossible Therefore, this thesis is only focused on common errors in compound nouns made by the students of Coursse 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University number 2 To find out the errors made by those students, a survey questionnaire was conducted
II.1.1 Purpose of the survey
The overall objectives of the survey questionnaire are to test students’ understanding of the compound nouns and find out common errors made by the
students of K37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2 in the
school year of 2012/2013
11.1.2 Population of the survey
The number of students joining in the survey questionnaire is one hundred at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2 They have to learn English as a compulsory subject Most of them have been learning English for 5 years Some have learnt English for 8 years Therefore, the expected English level among them is
Trang 23intermediate Naturally, they have been taught the rules of compound nouns Some of them are really good at grammar, but some of them are bad at grammar in
general and compound nouns concord in particular
11.1.3 Type of the survey
To collect data, a completion test was used It involves such activities as choosing the correct answer, supplying the correct form of the verb, rewriting the sentence and indicating the word having different spelling way
11.1.4 Construction of the survey
The material used in the test was taken from grammar books high-school finals and other exams concerned with the compound nouns The survey has seven
exercises
1) Exercise 1: Choose the underlined word spelled different from others This exercise consists of five items
2) Exercise 2: Choose the correct answer There are five items in this exercise
3) Exercise 3: Match a word from the left with a word from the right to form compound nouns
This exercise has six items
4) Exercise 4: Give plural forms of these compound nouns This exercise consists of nine items
5) Exercise 5: Choose the best answers There are ten items in this exercise 6) Exercise 6: Choose one suitable words There are ten items in this exercise
7) Exercise 7: Choose and circle the ten compound nouns from the list There are ten items in this exercise
Trang 24H.1.5 Preparation of the survey 11.1.5.1 Test items
There are many possible errors in the use of compound nouns that a survey
can not find out Thus, it is necessary to predict possible errors and include them in
the survey In this survey, possible errors were classified into the following categories
1) Errors in the use of using stress in the compound nouns
2) Errors in the use of combining words to make the compound nouns 3) Errors in the use of using plural forms of compounds nouns
4) Errors in the use of compound nouns as other parts of speech
5) Errors in the use of hyphens between two elements of compound nouns 6) Errors in the use of possessive of compound nouns
11.1.5.2 Arrange of the survey
After being classified, the test items were arranged into the following numbers:
1) Test on the use of stress in the compound nouns, number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 2) Test on combining words to make the compound nouns, number 6, 7, 8, 9,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 31, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 50, 51, 55, 59
3) Test on the use of the plural forms of compounds nouns, number 17, 18,
19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 58
4) Test on the use of hyphens between two elements of compound nouns,
number 11, 27, 28, 29,32, 56, 57
5) Test on the use of compound nouns as other parts of speech, number 34,
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 53, 54, 60
6) Test on the use of possessive of compound nouns, number 26, 27, 28, 29,
30, 31, 32, 33, 34
Trang 2511.1.6 Administration of the try-out H.1.6.1 Preparation of the try-out
The teacher in charge of the two classes which were intended to do the
survey questionnaire was asked for permission before the try-out was carried out
HI.1.6.2 Try-out
The try-out was carried out on April, 29", 2013 The students from two
classes were gathered in a room and asked to do the questionnaire as well as
possible in compliance with their own ability They were instructed carefully before answering the questionnaire Importantly, they were reminded that the result on the questionnaire was to serve the research and it had not influence on their study results Hence, they made their effort to do the questionnaire without copying from the others The allocated time for sixty questions was | hour
II.1.7 Method of data analysis
The data was analyzed in five steps In the first step, the student’s self- assessment about their English level and their knowledge of compound nouns were analyzed Errors in the compound nouns were found in the second step In the next step, the average percentage of errors at each level was calculated Then, the error level was ranked from the highest to the lowest Based on this arrangement, the highest error was considered as the major error in the compound nouns Students who made the most errors were identified in the last step
11.1.8 Result of the survey
In the part of the survey, the students were asked to give their self- assessment of their English levels and their understanding of nouns types A great number of them said that their English was not good About 30% of them said that they were rather good at English Some students were good at English, and they were self- confident in this subject There were about ten of them confessed that they were bad at English and this subject It can be seen the result of the survey
Trang 26that every student could quickly recognize the types of compound nouns However, they could not distinguish the use of types of compound nouns The information about the survey of compound nouns can be shown by this chart
% percent 100, 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Types of errors 5 6
This is the information and results from the survey:
total
ordinal Types of errors Total The total error | Percentage of
sentences per sentences errors for each error made by total number
type students of sentences
1 Errors in use of stress in 50 30 60.00%
the compound noun
2 Errors in combining 240 139 58.00%
Trang 27
words to make a compound noun
3 Errors in use of plural 140 40 40.00%
forms of compound
nouns
4 Errors in the use of 130 26 20.00%
compound nouns as other parts of speech
5 Errors in the use of 130 58 45.00%
hyphens between 2 elements 6 Errors 1n use of 90 10 5.00% possessive of compound nouns
Also based on the survey analysis, the errors made by the students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2 were noted as follows
1) Errors in use of stress in the compound nouns 60.00% 2) Errors in use of words to make the compound nouns 58.00% 3) Errors in use of plural forms of compounds nouns 40.00% 4) Errors in use of compound nouns as other parts of speech 20.00%
5) Errors in use of hyphens between 2 elements of compound nouns 45.00%
6) Errors in use of possessive of compound nouns 5.00%
From the data above, it can be identified which error level of the compound nouns is the highest and which is the lowest The order is as follows:
1) Errors in use of stress in compound nouns 60 00% 2) Errors in use of words to make compound nouns 58 00% 3) Errors in use of hyphens between 2 elements words 45 00% 4) Errors in use of plural forms compound nouns 40 00%
Trang 285) Errors in use of compound nouns as other parts of speech 20 00% 6) Errors in use of possessive of compound nouns 5.00%
From the information of the chart, we can see that there are six errors which
made by students about compound nouns: errors in the use of stress, use of words to make compound nouns, use of hyphens, plural, possessive and use of compound nouns as other part of speech
Errors in the use of stress of compound nouns account for 60.00% of errors This is caused by many reasons: pronunciation is not good, practicing is not regular, communication of students is very limited The percent of errors in the use of words to make compound nouns is equivalent to the use of stress: 58% The students often don’t know how to combining words to create a compound noun Because of misunderstanding of meaning of compound nouns when combining
element words, they have difficulties in matching them to make a meaningful word Errors in the use of hyphens between two words are 45% In some
compound nouns which made of more two words, they often have hyphens between them For example: four-page essay, two-hour meeting but they often
add “s” after nouns and don’t have hyphens between words According to theory,
“33 S
we often add in the end of words in the plural forms so that the students add
“39 Ss after compound nouns But in compound nouns, we must define which the
«33 Ss
principle word is and add or “es” after it so that the students often confuse them The number of students make mistake in the use of compound nouns as other part of speech is smaller, only 20% of total number of errors Errors in the use of possessive is the lowest: 5%
From the data, percent of errors in the use of stress is the highest and percent of errors in the use of possessive is the lowest It’s seen that students must practice more about pronunciation The use of hyphens, plural forms also are made mistake by many students
Trang 29II.2 Common errors and causes
II.2.1 Errors in use of stress in the compound nouns
The errors in among the students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2 are the most common The errors of the type makes up 60.00% According to the analysis, there are twenty-five students whose percentage of errors in using the stress This number is extreme high it compared to
nine respondents who did not make errors
For example: ‘football, blackboard, 'breakfast, over'come
Students often make errors in stress because they don’t practice about pronunciation regularly They rarely speak to the foreigner so that the pronunciation is very not good
H.2.2 Errors in combining words to make the compound nouns
The errors like with the compound nouns by nouns + nouns, make up 58 00% They rank second to the errors in the use of the nouns and nouns to make
compound nouns
1.Bus
A jam B stand C stop
Only five students choose this sentence incorrectly Most choose the right answer: bus stop But in this following sentence, students often use taxi stop
2.Taxi_
A jam B stand C stop
Answer: taxi stand
This error is caused of misunderstanding the meaning of compound noun when combining words
11.2.3 Errors in using plural forms of compounds nouns
The errors related to the plural of compound nouns make up 40,00% There are thirty eight students who made of errors in this case In general we make the
Trang 30plural of a compound noun by adding -s to the "base word" (the most "significant" word) Look at these examples:
Singular Plural
a tennis shoe three tennis shoes
one assistant headmaster five assistant headmasters
the sergeant major some sergeants major a mother-in-law two mothers-in-law
an assistant secretary of state _ three assistant secretaries of state
my toothbrush our toothbrushes
a woman-doctor four women-doctors
a doctor of philosophy two doctors of philosophy a passerby, a passer-by two passersby, two passers-by
«3 S
Originally, we often a after nouns to make a plural so that many students add “‘s” after compound nouns and they don’t define which principle word is
11.2.4 Errors in using compound nouns as other parts of speech
The errors of the use the compound nouns as other kinds of words account for 20.00% There were fifty nine students whose percentage of errors in this case
is 100%
For example: output, overthrow, upturn, input
Sometime they mistake compound nouns for verbs
For example: check-out, read-out, push- up, intake, outcome
Especially with two words: underworld, truckful
- Do you think the police accept money from the underworld? - We need 10 truckfuls of bricks
The words which have “ful” in the end of word is often considered as adjectives so that students mistake this compound noun for an adjective
Trang 31II.2.5 Errors in using hyphens between two elements of compound nouns For example: word-processor, golf-course, a window- cleaner, air-traffic controller, office-worker, a ten-minute speech, a 60-piece orchestra, a five-year-old child, a two-third ( or two-thirds majority), a five-time winner (or five-times winner)
Forty-five percent of students don’t use hyphen between two elements of a compound noun Example: five year plan, four leaf clover
Correct answer: five-year plan, four-leaf clover
11.2.6 Errors in using possessive of compound nouns
Based on the theory, possessive “‘s” is used between two words to show that the second word belong to the first word
Example: New Year’s Eve, Women’s liberation movement
II.3 Suggestion solutions II.3.1 Suggestion solutions
Giving a solution to this problem is never easy However, after analyzing the mistakes made by the student of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2, some suggestions are made in the hope of minimizing students’ errors in connection with the compound nouns
In fact, the teaching process is complex, requiring the teacher of foreign language to have not only a good knowledge but also patience Students expect teachers will help them be aware of the nouns phrase and everything related to it through clear teaching Therefore, it is important for the teacher to enable the students to see the importance of the vocabulary in the English The teacher should introduce all knowledge related to the vocabulary Each of type should be introduced systematically such as form, use and give examples to illustrate them The introduction should be simple and easy to understand
In addition, it would be better for teacher to include the differences between
the kinds of compound nouns The teacher should explain the cases in which uses
Trang 32the compound nouns, cases in which use the stress, plural and use the complex words Giving the list of key words as adverbs related to the compound nouns is
necessary
To students, it is essential to master the vocabulary uses They can’t do exercises if they don’t know how the compound nouns are used Moreover, they should do more exercises relating to the vocabulary as much as possible
One more important thing is that students should pay attention to English
grammar The exercises contain grammatical structures which the students have no
choice but to learn by heat through practicing exercises The students should read English grammatical books as much as possible such as books of Oxford, Cambridge and so on Besides that, students should aware of their linguistic competence to fully understand the meaning of the sentences
All in all, there are quite a large number of students making the error types
above That problem is that the way students study the past tenses is not suitable or they are just lazy to practice this kind of exercise To make things easier, some
suggested solutions for both teacher and student have been made Hopefully, the students in general and the students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi
Pedagogical University N,.2 in particular can minimize errors in the use of the compound nouns
II.3.2 Suggested exercises
There are many exercises on the compound nouns in vocabulary, grammar
and test books Teacher could make use of them to consolidate what students have learnt Moreover, they should design particular exercise types to minimize students’ errors in compound nouns Here are some suggested exercises types
1 Give the correct stress of the compound nouns 2 Chose the correct answer
3 Connect words to make compound nouns 4 Give plural forms of these compound nouns
5 Choose and circle the compound nouns from the list
Trang 33As for the first exercise, the student has to give the correct stress of compound nouns It means that the student has to hold knowledge of compound nouns steady They can define which type of the compound nouns, and give the correct pronunciation of compound nouns, define the base word and give the
correct stress
As for the second exercise, the aim is helping the students know functions of compound in the sentence as well as structures in which the compound nouns are used
As for the third type of exercise, the aim is helping the student pronoun correctly “s, es” of regular form
The forth type is designed to consolidate what students have learnt about the compound nouns It required students’ comprehensive understanding of the rules
of compound nouns
The last one is aimed at consolidate all knowledge of students not only the compound nouns but all English grammar and the way which students solute structures, meaning and functions of sentences In addition, this type of exercise
can help the student minimize the influence of the mother tongue
To sum up, by doing exercise types, students can master the compound nouns and minimize the errors in compound nouns
Trang 34PART THREE CONCLUSION
It is undeniable that grammar is very important in the language system However, it is complex and often causes embarrassment to students of English, even to advanced learners Compound noun is a grammatical category that is said
to have caused many difficulties to learners For this reason, the study has focused
on errors in the use of compound nouns among the students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2
By considering this point, the study gives an understandable and complete picture of compound nouns Everything related to compound nouns such as definition, types, structures, functions, and uses of compound noun has been introduced and clarified Hopefully, the students will have a full look at this grammatical category
The study does not only help students of English have a deep insight into
compound nouns but also find out errors in the use of compound nouns In
addition, it can help to recognize the causes of mistakes made by the students at all
educational levels, especially made by students of Course 37-Biology Faculty at Hanoi Pedagogical University N,.2
During the process of study, a survey was conducted with the aim of testing the student’s understandings of suffixes and finding their common errors in the use of compound nouns The result of the survey proves that a large number of the tenth-grade students of Course 37-Biology Faculty University N,.2 often make mistakes in the use of compound nouns and they need some extra instructions to
avoid the errors as much as possible
It can be seen from the survey that the highest percentage of errors is in the use of meanings, which account for 65.55% The second one is the errors in the use of forming compound noun from noun, which stand 55.07% The errors related to
Trang 35the use of compound noun as verbs and adjectives are the fewest, only 12.34% Most of the errors above are structural ones
From the result of the survey, it has been proved that the major causes are
students’ limited understanding of compound nouns and misunderstanding about meaning and word class Based on the findings, some suggested solutions to the problems have been made for both teachers and students, as follows:
To teachers:
1 Provide students with a good knowledge of compound nouns 2 Clarify and simplify compound nouns uses
3 Make a list of words and phrases related to uses of compound nouns 4 Give students some techniques to help them memorize and use compound nouns correctly
5 Provide students with various types of exercises on compound nouns
To students:
1 Master the uses of compound nouns
2 Do exercises relating to compound nouns as much as possible
3 Learn by heart grammar structures in which compound nouns are used
4 Read the instructions and analyze the sentences carefully before doing exercises on compound nouns
By following these suggested solutions, both teachers and students are believed to have the right ways to approach inversions and especially students are hoped to have their own methods to better understand this kind of grammatical structure as well as avoid the errors as much as possible
It is hoped that the study has made certain contributions to the English teaching and learning practices in Vietnam Although I have made great efforts, mistakes and shortcomings are unavoidable I would be much grateful to welcome
all possible comments from readers to accomplish the work
Trang 36REFERENCES
Pinker, S (1999) Words and Rules New York: HarperCollins 185
Sneed, Elisa (2002) “The acceptability of regular plurals in compounds.” Proceedings of the 38" Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, 617- 631Alexander, L G (1990)
Longman English Grammar Practice for Intermediate Students Essex: Longman Crystal, David May 18, 2002 “On plural compound nouns.” Blog post on
DCblog Accessed July 21,2011 http://david-
crystal.blogspot.com/2010/05/on-plural-adjectives.html
Fowler, H.W (1993) Garner’s Modern American Usage Oxford: Oxford
University Press
Bronte, C (2002) Jane Eyre Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Close, R.A (1979) A Reference Grammar for Students of English Essex: Longman
Hewings, M (1990) Advanced Grammar in Use Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Aik, K.C & Hui, K.K (1992) Longman Dictionary of Grammar and Usage Essex: Longman
Carter,R & McCarthy,M (2006) Cambridge Grammar of English.Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Lauer, M (1995) Designing Statistical Language.Learners: Experiments on Noun Compounds PhD thesis Macquarie University
Plag, I (2003) Word Formation in English.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Whitman, N (2010) audiblepodcast.com/gg
Murphy, R (2000) English Grammar in Use Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Walker, E , & Elsworth, S (2000) Grammar Practice for Upper-intermediate
Students Essex: Longman
Trang 37Alexander, L G (1990) Longman English Grammar Practice for Intermediate Students Essex: Longman
Folley, M., & Hall, D (2003) Advanced Learners’ Grammar: A self-study reference & practice book with answers Essex: Longman
John, G (1988) Explaining English Grammar Oxford: Oxford University Press Lauer, M_ (2003) Worksheets, games and quizzes log _ onto
www.englishbanana.com
Venkatapathy, S and Joshi, A K (2005) Measuring the relative
compositionality of verb-noun (v-n) collocations by integrating features In Proceedings of the joint conference on Human Language Technology and
Empirical methods in Natural Language Processing, pages 899-906,
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Widdows, D (2008) Semantic vector products: Some initial investigations In Second AAAI Symposium on Quantum Interaction, Oxford
Lin, D (1999) Automatic identification of non-compositional phrases In Proceedings of the 37th annual meeting of the Association for
Computational Linguistics on Computational Linguistics, ACL ’99, pages 317-324, Stroudsburg, PA, USA Association for Computational Linguistics
Trang 38APPENDICES
SURVEY QUESTIONAIRES
Part A: Could you please give some personal information?
1 How long have you been learning English? -¿- 5+ +++s++£+e++exxexeeeeerse 2 What is your English like?
A Excellent B Good C Rather good
3 I like reading science fiction
In this sentence, “science fiction” is called:
A a single noun B a compound noun
C an adjective D a gerund
4 We must increase our output to meet demand
In this sentence, “output” is called:
A a verb B an adverb
C a compound noun D a single noun 5 Do you think the police accept money from the underworld?
In this sentence, “underworld” is called:
A an adjective B a compound noun
C a verb D an adverb
Part B: Please do the exercises below:
I Choose the word whose main stress is placed differently from the others: 1 A football B.blackboard C breakfast D overcome
2 A software B underworld C outweigh D haircut 3 A upfront B forward C truckful D sunrise 4 A hot-tempered B good-looking C kind-hearted D homesick 5 A expect B expected C expecting D expectation
II Choose the right alternative to make compound nouns:
Trang 396 Police
A stand B sign C station
7.Bus |
A jam B stand C stop
§.Taxi
A jam B stand C stop
9 Bike _
A station B lane C stand
10.Traffic _
A jams B stand C station
Ill Match a word from the left with a word from the right to form six compound nouns
11 First A.,meter eee cece cee ce eee esse eee eeeee eee ee eens 12 Cheque B machine
13 Film C.ÐOOK Q.0 nhe
14 Washing D.DAD€T QQ nh khườn
15 Parking EF aid hee eee eneeeeceneeeeeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeaenes 16 Writing F star heecececeeeeecececeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eee
IV Give plural forms of these compound nouns :
Singular Plural
17 a tennis shoe HC - c1 n3
18 one assistant headmaster ¡2 =a -
19 the sergeant major SOIT€ <5 s5 <5 << s5 <<
20 a mother-in-law D5
21 an assistant secretary of state (three e- «se sec se
22 my toothbrush 0
Trang 4023 a woman-doctor ÍOUT c0 10585110558
24 a doctor of philosophy h5
25 a passerby, a passer-by D5
V Choose the best answers:
26 is the time when family members gather to welcome the first day of the year
A New Year Eve — B New Year’s Eve C Eve of New Year D Eve-New-Year 27 Can you please tell me what is?
A your phone number C your’s phone number
B your number of phone D your phone of number 28 Mary usually has a before going to school
A glass of milk B glass’ milk C milk glass D milk’s glass 29 is very interesting, I guess
A The book of the second chapter C The book second chapter
B The second chapter book D The second chapter of the book
30 I can not remember though I have seen it
A The name of the film C the film of the name
B The name-film D The name’s film
31 has changed lives of many women
A Liberation movement’s women C Liberation movement of women B Women liberation movement D Women’s liberation movement
32 My uncle is a
A driver of taxi C taxi driver
B taxi’s driver D taxi-driver
33 Most people admire , and so do I
A the accomplishment’s Bill Gates C Bill Gates accomplishments C accomplishments of Bill Gates D Bill Gates’s accomplishments