unmarked plural nouns in english and theis difficulties for the 1st year students at the faculty of tourism, honoi university of culture = danh từ số nhiều không có dấu hiệu nhận dạng trong tiếng anh tt

COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT =================== NGUYỄN THANH TÂM UNMARKED PLURAL NOUNS IN ENGLISH AND STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF TOURISM, HANOI UNIVERSITY

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

===================

NGUYỄN THANH TÂM

UNMARKED PLURAL NOUNS IN ENGLISH AND

AT THE FACULTY OF TOURISM, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF CULTURE

( Danh từ số nhiều không có dấu hiệu nhận dạng trong tiếng Anh và những khó khăn của sinh viên năm thứ nhất khoa Du Lịch

Đại học Văn hóa Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

CODE: 60.22.15

HÀ NỘI- 2011

COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

===================

NGUYỄN THANH TÂM

UNMARKED PLURAL NOUNS IN ENGLISH AND

STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF TOURISM,

HANOI UNIVERSITY OF CULTURE

( Danh từ số nhiều không có dấu hiệu nhận dạng trong tiếng Anh và những khó khăn của sinh viên năm thứ nhất khoa Du Lịch

Đại học Văn hóa Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15

SUPERVISOR: DAO THI THU TRANG, M.A

HÀ NỘI- 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality of study project report……… i

Acknowledgements……… ii

Abstract……… ………… iii

Table of contents……….….iv

List of tables and charts……… .vii

PART I- INTRODUCTION……… 1

1 Rationale……… ….1

2 Aims of the study……… 1

3 Scope of the study……… 2

4 Methodology……… … 2

The subjects……….…… …2

The instruments……….…… 3

The procedures……….……….3

Data analysis……… …4

5 Design of the study……… 4

PART II- DEVELOPMENT……….… 5

Chapter 1- Literature Review……….……….… 5

1.1 Definition of English nouns……….……….… 5

1.2 Classification of nouns……… … 5

1.2.2 Proper nouns……… 6

1.2.2.1 Definition……… ……… 6

1.2.2.2 Classification……….……… 6

1.2.3 Common nouns……… 7

1.2.3.1 Definition……….7

1.2.3.2 Classification……… 7

1.3 Grammatical categories……… ….7

1.3.1 Number……… 7

1.3.1.1 Definition……… … 7

1.3.1.2 Classification of nouns in terms of number……….……8

1.3.2 Case……… 8

1.3.2.1 Kinds and choice of genitives……… 8

1.3.2.3 Genitive meanings……….… 8

1.3.3 Gender……… ……9

Chapter 2- Grammatical features of plural nouns in English……… ….10

2.1 Definition……….…….10

2.2 Classification……… … 10

2.2.1 Marked plural nouns……… ….11

2.2.1.1 Definition……….………… 11

2.2.1.2 Classification……….……… ….11

(a) Invariables……….……… …….11

(b) Variables……….……… … 12

2.2.2 Unmarked plural nouns……… ……13

2.2.2.1 Definition……… ……… … 13

2.2.2.2 Classification……… … 14

(a) Unmarked plural nouns which are always used with plural verbs 14

(b) Unmarked plural nouns which refer to groups of people or things……….15

(c) Unmarked plural nouns which are formed by ‘the + adjective’… 18

(d) Invariable nouns which can be singular or plurals……….… 19

2.2.2.3 Subject-Verb agreement……… … 20

Chapter 3- Findings 21

3.1 Data analysis results……… ……21

3.1.1 The mid-term test……….… 21

3.1.2 The students’ questionnaires……… …22

3.1.3 The teachers’ interview……… ……27

3.2 Findings……….………… … 30

3.2.1 No inflectional distinction with singular form… ……… … 30

3.2.2 Subject-Verb agreement……… …… 30

Chapter 4- Some suggested solutions……… …… 32

4.1 Towards the students……… … 32

4.1.1 Using dictionary……… … 32

4.1.2 Self-access materials……….… 33

4.1.3 Making a vocabulary notebook……… …34

4.1.4 Group work……… … 34

4.2 Towards the teachers……….34

4.2.1 Using effective teaching techniques……… …….35

4.2.2 Using vocabulary consolidation as warm-up activities……… ……35

4.2.3 Guiding students’ home revision and give them feedback…… … 36

PART III- CONCLUSION……… … 38

1 Summary of the study……… 38

2 Limitation of the study……… 39

3 Suggestion for further study……… 39

References………41 Appendixes……… I

PART I- INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Learning to master a language is a lengthy and effortful process including both learning the language knowledge: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc and language skills: reading, speaking, writing and listening As the final aim of learning language in general and learning English in particular is communicative, vocabulary is one of the most essential goals to achieve

However, how to learn a language, especially its vocabulary effectively is really a problem

At Hanoi University of Culture (HUC), the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism often report to have a lot of difficulties in learning vocabulary, especially the number category Surprisingly, a number of plural nouns in English have no plural endings

(unmarked plural nouns) This is a big problem for students because they cannot realize

these nouns as plural by their forms It arises even more challenges for students when they often make mistakes in making the subject and the verb of the sentence agree

Up to now, no study on this matter has been carried out at HUC Therefore, the situation

encouraged the author to do a research on ‘Unmarked plural nouns in English and their

Culture’ It is the author’s hope that this study will be really useful for both teachers and

students in teaching and learning vocabulary in general and unmarked plural nouns in particular

2 Aims of the study

- to provide learners with grammatical features of unmarked plural nouns in English

- to specify difficulties which unmarked plural nouns in English cause to the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC

- to suggest some solutions for students to overcome the difficulties in their using unmarked plural nouns in English

3 Scope of the study

This study is limited to provide learners with grammatical features of unmarked plural nouns in English such as definition, classification, agreement with verbs, some usage notes, etc More importantly, it tries to serve the purpose of finding out the difficulties in using unmarked plural nouns in English faced by the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC and seeking for possible solutions to the problems

4 Methodology

The theoretical background in this study is based on the theoretical frameworks by different linguists The presentation of these linguists’ theory is to give the readers features

of plural nouns and especially grammatical features of unmarked plural nouns in English Additionally, in order to find out the difficulties of unmarked plural nouns in English for the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC, this study adopts quantitative and qualitative methods Below is a description of the subjects, the instruments, and procedures for the study

4.1 The subjects

There are two types of subjects participating in the study The first type is the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC, and the later is the teachers who have been working with these students for years

4.2 The instruments

In order to ensure the validity and reliability of the study, different tools were used, namely written test, questionnaires, and interview

Instrument 1: The mid-term test was used as a tool to investigate the difficulties of

unmarked plural nouns in English which the 1st year students have to encounter in their vocabulary learning

what difficulties unmarked plural nouns in English cause to them in their vocabulary learning, what teaching methods used by their teachers they would enjoy, and what they have done to improve their knowledge of unmarked plural nouns in English (see appendix 1)

Instrument 3: An interview was organized with 10 teachers who are teaching English to

the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism at HUC to find out what teaching methods they are using when dealing with unmarked plural nouns in English, what difficulties they find from their students in their learning unmarked plural nouns in English, and some recommendations made by them (see appendix 2)

4.3 The procedures

4.3.1 The mid-term test

4.3.2 Questionnaires

4.3.3 Interviews

4.4 Data analysis

As above mentioned, the data for this study is collected by the mid-term tests, students’ questionnaires, and teachers’ interview With the mid-term tests, students’ acquisition of

unmarked plural nouns in English can be accurately assessed Information provided from students’ questionnaires will be categorized, tabulated and converted to percentages for the convenience of analysis Moreover, information collected during teachers’ interview is added to assist interpretation

5 Design of the study

This study is divided into three main parts:

Part I: Introduction

Part II: Development

Part III: Conclusion

PART II- DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, an overview of English nouns is examined to help learners get general ideas about the matter studied This part consists of 3 sections: (1) definition of English nouns, (2) classification of English nouns, and (3) grammatical categories of English nouns

1.1 Definition of English nouns

In Gerald’s view (2001), nouns denote both concrete objects and abstract entities

Tran (2008:15) defines a noun as ‘a word used to name person, thing, animal or abstract

concept’

From my point of view, Tran’s concept of English nouns is more concrete Therefore, the definition of English nouns by Tran (2008) is mentioned in this paper

1.2 Classification of English nouns

Let’s look at the diagram to see the classification of English nouns in Tran’s point of view

Nouns

(unique reference) (generic/specific reference)

Tom, John, Mr Smith, etc

Count noun Non-count noun

man, boy, people water, oil, independence

Concrete Abstract

man, boy, water peace, war, independence

The two types of nouns (proper nouns and common nouns) will be discussed hereafter

1.2.1 Proper nouns

1.2.1.1 Definition of proper nouns

According to Collins (1992:448), names of people, places, organizations, institutions,

ships, magazines, books, plays, paintings, and other unique things are proper nouns For

example: Mozart, Romeo and Juliet, the President of the United States, the Seine, etc

1.2.1.2 Classification of proper nouns

(a) Personal names: Tom, John, Mr Smith, Bill Clinton, Sir Jones, etc

(b) Geographical names (including names of continents, countries, counties, states, cities,

towns, lakes and mountains): America, Brazil, Arkansas, Boston, Silver Lake, Mount

Everest, the Nile, etc

(c) Names of institutions or organizations: London University, FAO, UNICEF, etc

(d) Name + common noun: Park Lane, Kennedy Airport, etc

(e) Calendar items: January, Monday, Christmas, etc

1.2.2 Common nouns

1.2.2.1 Definition of common nouns

If proper nouns usually refer to unique individuals, places or events in the calendar, all

other nouns are common nouns

1.2.2.2 Classification of common nouns

According to Tran (2008:16), the most important classification of common nouns is the distinction between (a) count and (b) non-count nouns

1.3 Grammatical categories

Grammatical categories of nouns can be another aspect which needs to be mentioned when dealing with nouns Accordingly, grammatical categories of nouns consist of number, case and gender

1.3.1 Number

1.3.1.1 Definition

Regarding Tran’s view (2008), number is the grammatical category that divides count nouns into singular and plural

1.3.1.2 Classification of nouns in terms of number

Tran (2008:17) classifies nouns in terms of number into invariables and variables which can be seen clearly through the below diagrams

1.3.2 Case

1.3.2.1 Kinds and choice of genitives

Quirk (1987) and Tran (2008) state that there are 2 genitives: ‘s genitives and of - genitives

1.3.2.2 Genitive meanings

1.3.3 Gender

Gerald (2001:38) states that nouns in English are not in themselves either masculine or feminine They do not have grammatical gender, though they may refer to male or female people or animals

CHAPTER 2- GRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF PLURAL NOUNS IN ENGLISH

This chapter covers the following issues of English plural nouns: (1) definition, (2) classification For the purpose of this study which focuses on grammatical features of unmarked plural nouns in English, the other grammatical features of plural nouns, such as spelling rules, pronunciation, rules of plurality making, agreement with verbs, etc will be discussed in other studies

2.1 Definition

Naturally, the concept of plural nouns is based on that of plural That is ‘plural nouns refer

to more than one person or thing or consist of different kinds of people or things.’

(English Language Dictionary)

2.2 Classification

From the author’s point of view, plural nouns in English can be classified into 2 major

groups: marked plural nouns and unmarked plural nouns The first group consists of

regular plural nouns (have –s ending) and irregular plural nouns which have markers to be realized, such as voicing, -en ending, vowel change, etc The later consists of nouns which have no plural endings or have same forms with singular nouns or in other words, they are not realized as plural by their forms

2.2.1 Marked plural nouns

2.2.1.1 Definition

As aforementioned, marked plural nouns can be understood as nouns which have characteristics to be easily noticed, such as –s endings, -en endings, voicing, vowel changes or markers of foreign plural In other words, people can notice marked plural nouns based on their forms

2.2.1.2 Classification

(a) Invariables

(i) Summation plurals

(ii) Pluralia tantums

(b) Variables

(i) Regular

(ii) Irregular

+ mutation

+ en ending

+ foreign plural

2.2.2 Unmarked plural nouns

2.2.2.1 Definition

Unmarked plural nouns can be understood as nouns that have no plural endings (-s ending,-en ending) They also have no voicing, no vowel changes or no rules to change into plural like foreign nouns

In other words, unmarked plural nouns are nouns that cannot be realized as plural by their

forms

2.2.2.2 Classification

(a) Unmarked plural nouns which are always used with plural verbs

Cattle, people and police are plural words with no singular They are invariable plural

ones

(b) Unmarked plural nouns which refer to groups of people or things

These nouns are variable ones (e.g: family, team, crew) They can be changed into plural

by just adding ‘s’ to the end (e.g: families, teams, crews)

(c) Unmarked plural nouns which are formed by ‘the + adjective’

(i) the + adjective

Adjectives like the following are used after ‘the’ to represent a group as a whole such as

the blind, the deaf, the dead, the rich, the poor, the young, the old, the unemployed, etc

(ii) the + adjectives of nationality

We use ‘the’ with adjectives of nationality to mean ‘the people of that country’

(d) Invariable nouns which can be singular or plural

These nouns are names of certain creatures like fish, sheep, deer, etc They have the same spoken and written form in both singular and plural Thus, we can say ‘a fish’ or ‘those

fish’