Syntactic features of exclamation in english and vietnamese

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF EXCLAMATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP CỦA CÂU CẢM THÁN TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) NGUYỄN THỊ THU VÂN Hanoi, 2016 Front hard cover Back hard cover NGUYỄN THỊ THU VÂN ENGLISH LANGUAGE 2014 - 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF EXCLAMATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP CỦA CÂU CẢM THÁN TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) NGUYỄN THỊ THU VÂN Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Hoàng Tuyết Minh Hanoi, 2016 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF EXCLAMATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2016 Nguyễn Thị Thu Vân Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc Prof Dr Hoàng Tuyết Minh Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Hoàng Tuyết Minh, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher My thanks also go to 80 students from the class 12A and 12B of Yen Phong Continuing Educational Centre for their enthusiasm and participation in this study Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family and my friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work ii ABSTRACT This study investigates the syntactic features of exclamations in English and Vietnamese It is conducted with the hope of finding out the similarities and differences between how exclamations are formed in both languages and suggesting practical applications to the learning and teaching of English as a foreign language in Vietnam Data used for analysis in this study were mainly collected from books, literary works, and questionnaire which employed 80 participants who are Vietnamese students of English at Yen Phong Continuing Educational Center in Bac Ninh province Data analysis is based on descriptive and contrastive methods The result of the study illustrates the fact that Vietnamese and English native speakers are similar in the choice of interjections as the most prominent element in exclamations However, the structures of exclamations are quite different between two languages English exclamations are mainly formed by whelements, so/such, and phrases meanwhile particles, adverbs, and idioms are dominated in Vietnamese Moreover, the findings of questionnaire showed a lot of mistakes made by Vietnamese students in using English exclamations, so the implications of the study indicate solutions to help Vietnamese students have more competence as well as confidence when using English exclamations iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS e.g : for example etc : et cetera i.e : it means that * : impossible iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Common English interjections and their communicative 23 functions Table 2: Interjection equivalents in English and Vietnamese 54 Table 3: Reasons for mistakes made by the students according to 65 their frequency degree and suggested solutions v TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES v Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Objectives of the study 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Design of the study Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies 2.2 An overview of sentence 2.2.1 Definition of sentence 2.2.2 Classification of sentence 10 2.2.3 Minor types of simple sentence 12 2.3 15 An overview of exclamation 2.3.1 The English linguists’ conception of exclamation 16 2.3.2 The Vietnamese linguists’ conception of exclamation 18 2.3.3 Forms of exclamation 19 2.3.3.1 Forms of English exclamation 19 2.3.3.2 Forms of Vietnamese exclamation 20 2.3.4 Elements used with exclamation 22 2.3.4.1 Interjections 22 2.3.4.2 Intonation 27 vi 2.3.4.3 Exclamation mark 28 2.4 29 Summary Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 31 3.1 31 Research-governing orientations 3.1.1 Research questions 31 3.1.2 Research approaches 31 3.1.3 Principles/ criteria for intended data collection and data analysis 31 3.2 32 Research methods 3.2.1 Major methods and supporting methods 32 3.2.2 Data collection techniques 32 3.2.3 Data analysis techniques 33 3.3 33 Summary Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 34 4.1 34 Syntactic features of exclamation in English and Vietnamese 4.1.1 Syntactic features of exclamation in English 34 4.1.1.1 Exclamation formed with How 34 4.1.1.2 Exclamation formed with What 36 4.1.1.3 Exclamation formed with So/ Such 39 4.1.1.4 Exclamatory questions 41 4.1.1.5 Other kinds of exclamation 43 4.1.2 Syntactic features of exclamation in Vietnamese 46 4.1.2.1 Exclamation formed by using interjections or exclamatory 46 idioms 4.1.2.2 Exclamation created by particles – thay/ cho/ thay cho/ 47 4.1.2.3 Exclamation formed by adverbs 49 4.1.2.4 Exclamation created by intonation 50 4.1.2.5 Exclamatory questions 51 4.2 A contrastive analysis of syntactic features of exclamation in 54 vii Negative yes–no interrogatives without non–assertives or assertive forms in English can be used and understood as a positive orientation in Vietnamese Wasn’t it a marvelous concert!~ Ðó buổi hoà nhạc thật tuyệt vời! Absolute adverbs such as absolutely, extremely, completely, definitely, entirely, fully, greatly, highly, totally, deeply, and exceedingly are not in the taste of English However, it is true to say that these absolute adverbs cannot be used in exclamations, though most of which are made the best use to express extreme emotions or feelings On the other hand, besides adjectives the Vietnamese can use adverbs together with the emphatic purpose How thoughtful he is! ~ Wh–element adjective subject verb Anh thật chu đáo! Subject adverb verb adjective What, how, so, such in have many equivalents in Vietnamese and they are: thế, thật, làm sao, hết sảy, nhỉ, thật là, rất, đỗi, etc Bà thật hào phóng! Bà hào phóng làm sao! How generous she is! Bà hào phóng thế! Bà hào phóng thật! - What a generous person she is She is so generous! Bà hào phóng! She is such a generous woman! Bà hào phóng! Bà hào phóng nhỉ! Bà hào phóng lắm! 59 In Vietnamese exclamations, particles nhỉ, thế, are usually used at the end of exclamations to show the relation between the speaker and the hearer If that relation is extremely closed, interlocutors can use particles freely but in the situations in which conversations with superiors, certain strategies are set to use these particles in order not to threaten the hearer’s face but to save it How thoughtful you are! ~ Mày chu đáo nhỉ! (to friends) ~ Bác thật chu đáo! (to superiors) There is subject – verb agreement in English exclamations while it is not necessary to make a concord of subject and verb How fast Kha runs! ~ Kha chạy nhanh làm sao! The position of exclamatory elements in English exclamations is not as flexible as the one of Vietnamese exclamations In Vietnamese, these elements can appear at the beginning or jump in the middle and even come at the end of the sentences Vietnamese exclamations include the repetition of exclamatory parts in order to make their saying more emphatic She is so famous! ~ Cô tiếng! ~ Cô tiếng thế! ~ Cô tiếng đến tiếng! In summary, before doing research on exclamations under the syntactic consideration in the two languages, we study simple sentence And, it is the four major classes derived from simple sentence that help to recognize that: to the syntactic feature, the exclamations are sentences which have initial phrases introduced by How or What or exclamatory 60 expressions without inversion of subject and operator Especially, this type of sentence often ends with an exclamation mark (!) Languages are different from each other in terms of lexicology and syntax, and exclamations stay the same Differences wh–elements on focus are the ones of exclamation structures in many of dimensions Firstly, while in English are mainly used in almost every exclamation, Vietnamese use particles and adverbs instead Secondly, English requires subject–verb agreement, grammatical concord gain much attention Hence, the order of words and position of exclamation elements are not really as flexible as they are in Vietnamese In addition, a positive orientation in Vietnamese can be taken from negative yes / no interrogatives without non–assertive or assertive forms in English Related to this sense of negation, negation in Vietnamese exclamations can be regarded as a rejection to what is indicated 4.3 Implications for teaching and learning 4.3.1 Setting context Wonderings about how Vietnamese use and apply their English to exclamations interest us much and research on this topic is done through a survey The survey is aimed at finding out students’ mistakes when using exclamations and then suggesting solutions for each With these objectives achieved, the process of learning a second language will be the process of gaining more and more best results In order that this survey will work well, we chose the students of grade 12 at Yen Phong Continuing Educational Centre where I am teaching The subjects of this study include 80 students collected from two classes, one half belongs to the students of Class 12A and another is 61 students of Class 12 B All of them have ever studied structures of exclamation in English before Data got from these participants will help to have objective opinion about reasons of remaining shortcomings and give out effective solutions appropriately to each category, which enhances the second language learning process be better and better To meet the demand of having a successful investigation into Vietnamese’s habit of using exclamations, a survey questionnaire was created for the students In the survey, 10 statements were presented and students were asked to make their own exclamations based on exclamatory elements they have learnt After collecting questionnaires, the number of mistakes were counted and ranked for repetition and then some suggestions were pointed out to help language teaching and learning in Vietnam, especially teaching and learning how to form English exclamations to Vietnamese students better and better 4.3.2 Mistakes through exclamations and suggested solutions It is frank that when delivering these questionnaires, we not require extremely complete exclamations but then the data collected, we are really wondering much because students make a lot of mistakes The mistakes can be the ones of grammar, of lexicology, of word order or of the like What coming next is the detailed analysis of mistakes made by the students of two groups We will not separate which mistakes belong to the former and which else relate to the latter but analyze the popularity Firstly, students of the two groups frequently confuse exclamations and questions They assimilate questions as exclamations by using an exclamation mark instead of a question mark without changing these 62 sentences’ word order or parts of speech of each element For example, they make it simpler as they like and they not follow any rules of syntax *How is the nice weather! (How nice the weather is!) *What a pleasant surprise was it! (What a pleasant surprise it was!) *Can you imagine how happy is she about the work! (Can you imagine how happy she is about the work?) Secondly, both of student groups are not familiar with the exclamatory questions since in any cases, they make mistakes and even some of them consider tag questions as exclamatory questions They find the structures of the two types are similar and assimilate them without differentiating them for a little bit *He is mad, isn’t he!?(Isn’t he mad!) *Aren’t we have to hard! (Don’t we have to hard!) The second example shows that students’ basic knowledge of English grammar has a very important impact on how they exclaim In their thought, they pay more attention to the content of each exclamation than to the syntactic features of such exclamations That is the reason why confusing exclamations in question forms with questions is unavoidable Maybe, exclamations in question forms cause students confused, that is possible but factually some other students still confuse statements and exclamations Thirdly, students pay much more attention to their content of exclamations thus bearing word order and parts of speech of each element included in such exclamations in their minds are neglected Furthermore, 63 the students of the two groups make wrongly mixed combinations of so, how, what, such, etc *How so tired I am! (How tired I am/I am so tired!) *It is so tired for I to cook now! (It is so tired for me to cook now!) *How the cake she has made! (How delicious the cake she has made!) *They are so disciplined boys! (They are such disciplined boys!) *What lucky guy! (What a lucky guy he is!) Another kind of mistakes made by students is the one caused by the effect of native language In practice, getting a lot of mistakes impacted on by Vietnamese leads to a conclusion that Vietnamese students are passive and transfer syntax of exclamations in Vietnamese, even Vietnamese conventional expression to their English ones This is not suitable because every language has its own syntax, especially the syntax of exclamations Therefore, utterances like *How tired I can’t cook! or *How surprisingly she is happy about the work! are not considered to be exclamations then What relates to the impact of Vietnamese is that students transfer word by word without taking a look at the semantic meaning of utterances that they make Their positive exclamation has a negative meaning and vice versa, all is because of their confusion of lexical use *How little beautiful Mary is! (How beautiful Mary is!) *How mad he isn’t! (How mad he is!) There are many other mistakes belonging to many different reasons such as: confusing adjective as in *How fascinating Mary is!, using short form as in *What a pleasant surprise it’s!, being unable to differentiate adverbs and adjectives as in *How happy it is surprisingly!, omitting 64 adjectives in exclamations as in *How the cake is!, combining incorrectly how and so as in *How so nice the weather is! These mistakes are made repetitively and if so these students make such exclamations for sure that their exclamations are grammatical and definitely right in every case What are the reactions that should be taken then? First, for effective solutions, what causes these mistakes must be taken out Anytime when the reasons are discovered, the solutions become much more possible then From the earlier mentioned mistakes, it is concluded that for what lead to students’ mistakes and these conclusions will be summarized in the following figure and they are listed according to their influence degree and the frequency one Table 3: Reasons for mistakes made by the students according to their frequency degree and suggested solutions Reasons Solutions Teachers - Low English competence grammar of and lexicology - Lack of confidence and creation - Effect of native language - Implication of pragmatics Students - Consolidate grammar through - Take all chances to practice exercises including exclamations oral presentation - Give more lectures on - Be more self-confident, Semantics and Pragmatics more active - Enable students to take chances - Forming the habit of using to present their thought exclamatory indicating comprehensible devices (What, How, So, clarification of exclamations in Such) and interjections in - Low thinking of each question forms and questions, particular in speech and and semantics - Present a element’s part of speech writing 65 - Rareness of chances to especially tag ones - Practice to express their present orally - More instruction to limit the ideas more cohesively - Low competence of impact of mother tongue expressing ideas - Shallow understanding of questions and exclamations in question forms 4.4 Summary In this chapter, various syntactic features of exclamations in English and Vietnamese are described clearly The result of study shows that both English and Vietnamese exclamations can be formed with interjections and created by structure of exclamatory questions However, there are great differences in exclamation structures in many dimensions Firstly, while wh– elements in English are mainly used in almost every exclamation, Vietnamese use particles and adverbs instead Secondly, English requires subject–verb agreement, grammatical concord gain much attention Hence, the order of words and position of exclamation elements are not really as flexible as they are in Vietnamese In addition, a positive orientation in Vietnamese can be taken from negative yes/no interrogatives without non– assertive or assertive forms in English Related to this sense of negation, negation in Vietnamese exclamations can be regarded as a rejection to what is indicated Because of these differences, the learners of English may encounter a lot of difficulties in making exclamations, as a result could commit inspected mistakes In order to solve the problems, some implications for teaching and learning exclamations effectively are pointed out at the end of the chapter 66 Chapter CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation The research paper is conducted based on valuable reference sources in reference books, literary works, and dictionaries The research on exclamations under the syntactic considerations has been taken Especially, a contrastive analysis of exclamations in English and Vietnamese is made for the sake of finding out the similarities and differences in terms of syntax between two languages It is also concerned about using English exclamation kinds and mistakes made by students via their English exclamations Concerning the success of an investigation, the questionnaires are delivered to discover mistakes made by students at Yen Phong Continuing Educational Center, so that suggested solutions could be pointed out to help the process of teaching and learning English exclamations to Vietnamese learners better Hopefully, coming to this topic, this writing helps its readers achieve a better understanding of exclamations in English and Vietnamese under the considerations of syntax Then, our ultimate aims are achieved and more importantly, it may set a good base for the further study on the same topic or the topic of such kind 5.2 Concluding remarks The aim of the study is to investigate the syntactic features of exclamations in English and Vietnamese as well as to find out the similarities and differences between them Based on the findings presented in the previous chapter, the following remarks can be drawn: 67 Syntactically, there is a variety of structures used in exclamations in English and Vietnamese More specifically, in English, we have found 16 structures under types: wh-elements, so/such, exclamatory questions, and phrases In Vietnamese, exclamations are mainly formed in devices including interjections and idioms, particles, adverbs, intonation, and exclamatory questions It is significant to find out the prominent elements in exclamations in both languages are using interjections and exclamatory questions However, while English exclamations are concretized by certain structures, Vietnamese ones are formed by using combination with subordinate elements in initial, neutral or final position in the sentence 5.3 Limitation It is obvious that the research paper has brought about reference material in term of syntactic features of exclamations in English and Vietnamese However, due to the limitation of time, reference materials, researcher’s knowledge and some other limitations of the researcher make it impossible for the researcher to provide sufficient and intensive focus on all aspects of exclamations in English and in Vietnamese Therefore, mistakes and shortcomings are unavoidable 5.4 Suggestions for further study This study is hoped to provide a brief foundation for a look into exclamations in English and in Vietnamese If having conditions to continue this topic, we hope to investigate exclamations in more kinds of speech act in real life in order to provide a system more comprehensively Here are some suggestions for further studies: A study on semantic features of exclamations in English and in Vietnamese 68 A study on pragmatic features of exclamations in English and in Vietnamese A study on exclamatory utterances in a specific literature work or a specific film 69 REFERENCES In English Alexander, L.G (1988) Longman English Grammar Longman, New York Biber, D (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English Longman, London Bolinger, D.L (1989) Intonation and Its Uses Edward Arnold, London Crystal, D (1995) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language CUP, Cambridge, Essberger, J (2009) Interjections Retrieved February 10, 2009 from http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/interjections.htm Oshima, A & Hogue, A (2006) Writing Academic English Pearson Longman, New York Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G & Svartvik, J (1972) A Grammar of Contemporary English Longman, London Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G & Svartvik, J (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language Longman, London & New York Radford, A (1997) Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English A Minimalist Approach Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 10 Rosengren, I (1997) Expressive Sentence Types - A Contradiction in Terms The Case of Exclamation, in Swan, T & O Jansen Westvik (eds), Modality in Germanic Languages Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 11 Sadock, J M & Zwicky, A M (1985) Speech Act Distinctions in Syntax Edward Arnold, London 12 http://www.oxforddictionaries.com 70 In Vietnamese 13 Cao Xuân Hạo (1998) Câu tiếng Việt Nxb Giáo dục, Hà Nội 14 Diệp Quang Ban & Hoàng Văn Thung (1996) Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Tập Nxb Giáo dục, Hà Nội 15 Diệp Quang Ban (2004) Ngữ pháp Việt Nam – phần câu Nxb Đại học Sư phạm, Hà Nội 16 Diệp Quang Ban (2008) Giáo trình Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt (Theo định hướng ngữ pháp chức năng) Tập – phần câu Nxb Giáo dục, Hà Nội 17 Hà Thị Hải Yến (2000) Hành vi cảm thán, biểu thức cảm thán tiếp nhận cảm thán Luận văn Thạc sĩ, ĐH sư phạm Hà Nội 18 Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu & Hoàng Trọng Phiến (2008) Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học tiếng Việt Nxb Giáo dục, Hà Nội 19 Nguyễn Kim Thản (1963) Nghiên cứu ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Nxb Giáo dục, Hà Nội 20 Nguyễn Thị Lương (2005) Câu tiếng Việt Nxb Đại học Sư phạm, Hà Nội 21 Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (chủ biên), Đoàn Thiện Thuật, Nguyễn Minh Thuyết (1997) Dẫn luận ngôn ngữ học Nxb Giáo dục, Hà Nội 22 Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2008) Giáo trình ngơn ngữ học Nxb Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội, Hà Nội 71 BIBLIOGRAPHY Emily Brontë (1998) Wuthering Heights Oxford University Press, USA Jennifer Bassett (2008) One Way Ticket Oxford University Press, USA Rowena Arinyemi (2008) Love or Money? Oxford University Press, USA Thomas Hardly (2005) Tess of the D’urbervilles Oxford University Press, USA Nam Cao (2012) Tuyển tập Nam Cao Nxb văn học, Hà Nội Nguyễn Du (1999) Truyện Kiều Nxb Đồng Nai, Đồng Nai Nguyễn Anh Vũ (2012) Huy Cận – Thơ đời Nxb Văn học Hà Nội Thế Lữ (1995) Tập vần thơ Nxb Sư phạm, Hà Nội 72 QUESTIONAIRE Dear Participants, This questionnaire aims to find out whether you are aware of commonly used English exclamations and whether you can make them correctly Please note that your answers will be kept confidential _ Change the following sentences into exclamatory sentences Make as many answers as possible The weather is nice She has made a delicious cake He is a lucky guy It was a pleasant surprise I can’t cook now because I am tired Surprisingly, she is happy about the work They are disciplined boys It isn’t fascinating that Mary is beautiful I think he is mad 10 We have to hard Thank you for your participation! 73 ... Summary Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 34 4.1 34 Syntactic features of exclamation in English and Vietnamese 4.1.1 Syntactic features of exclamation in English 34 4.1.1.1 Exclamation formed... in English and Vietnamese - Point out the similarities and differences of syntactic features of exclamation in English and Vietnamese - Suggest some implications for teaching and learning English. .. at investigating syntactic features of exclamation in English and Vietnamese and making a contrastive analysis on the syntax of exclamation between two languages in order to help the teaching and