Exclamations in english and vietnamese – a contrastive analysis

Data used for analysis in this study were collected from some literary works written by Jack London and some literary works in Vietnamese written by Nam Cao.. A contrastive analysis of s

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

TRẦN THỊ KIM TUYẾN Exclamations in English and

Vietnamese – A contrastive analysis

(Phân tích đối chiếu câu cảm thán trong

Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt)

M.A THESIS Field: English Language

Code: 8220201

Hanoi, 2018

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

TRẦN THỊ KIM TUYẾN Exclamations in English and Vietnamese – A contrastive analysis

(Phân tích đối chiếu câu cảm thán trong

Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt)

M.A THESIS Field: English Language Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông

Hanoi, 2018

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled

Exclamations in English and Vietnamese – A contrastive analysis 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, 2018

Trần Thị Kim Tuyến

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông

Date:………

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the process of doing this work, I have received a lot of useful help and advices from my teachers , my parents, and my friends

First of all, I would like to express my great attitude to my own supervisor: Dr Nguyen Thi Van Dong, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose valuable ideas and advice, encouragement have helped

me shape and fulfill the thesis

I also would like to give my deep thanks to all teachers in the foreign languages Department who gave some useful materials and opinions on the thesis

My thanks are also sent to my family and my friends who gave me a lot of good conditions and encouragement to complete the thesis

Finally, my sincere thanks are due to all of you who will give me some comments after reading the thesis

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ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the syntactic and semantic features of exclamations in English and Vietnamese It is investigated with the hope of finding out the similarities and differences between the exclamation’s form in both languages and suggesting practical applications to the process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam Data used for analysis in this study were collected from some literary works written by Jack London and some literary works in Vietnamese written

by Nam Cao To carry out this research, the writer used descriptive, qualitative, quantitative 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 elements,imperatives and noun or adjective phrases meanwhile particles, adverbs, and idioms are dominated in Vietnamese

wh-iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ESL: English as a second language

EFL: English as a foreign language

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Types of interjections 22

Table 4.1: Base forms of wh-exclamations 28

Table 4.2: Variants of wh-exclamations 29

Table 4.3: Interjection in English and Vietnamese 37

Table 4.4: Different structures of exclamations in Engish and Vietnamese 39

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.3.1 The English linguists’ conception of exclamations 15 2.3.2 The Vietnamese linguists’ conception of exclamations 17 2.3.3 Exclamations with illocutionary for indicating devices 18 2.3.4 Basic structures: “How+Adjective!” and “What+a/an+Adjective+Noun!” 19

4.1.1.1 Exclamation formed with How/ what 27

4.1.1.2 Exclamation formed with Imperative 29

4.1.1.3 Exclamation formed with Noun phrases/ adjective phrases 29

4.1.2 Syntactic features of exclamations in Vietnamese 31 4.1.2.1 Exclamation formed by using interjections or exclamatory idioms 31 4.1.2.2 Exclamation created by particles 32 4.1.2.3 Exclamation formed by adverbs 33 4.1.2.4 Exclamation formed by intonation 34

4.2 A contrastive analysis of syntactic features of exclamation in English and Vietnamese in some literary works written by Jack London and by Nam Cao 35 4.2.1 Similarities in terms of syntactic features of exclamation in English and

4.2.1.1 Exclamatory structures formed by interjections 35

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study

It cannot be denied that language is a means of communication of human beings Owning to language, people are able to understand each other in the process

of working and living We can use language to express our thoughts, emotion, state and hope to the others From that deep understanding, human unite to conquer nature and society to make society more developed steps by steps

In daily conversations, expressions showing the speaker’s feelings in these cases have mono-function (i.e expressing what the speaker feels) but in other ones they function differently They do not only cover the earlier mentioned functions but they also reveal what the speaker really means and would like through their exclamations This desire of researching on functions of exclamations will be fueled most effectively

Through exclamations, the speaker’s feelings are expressed effectively In Vietnamese settings, one of the four types of sentences is exclamations and that type receives little attention from learners and thus, there have not been many studies on exclamations So far, the research of interrogatives, of imperatives and of the likes has dominated, studying exclamations becomes our interest then

Knowing that language as a mirror of culture and ‘national character’, and that language is the address of culture Using Vietnamese, English or any other languages, people have thoughts and emotion in common They have also the same tones of emotion such as: anger, joy, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, despeakerair? … However, the ways of expressing it out are different One can use gestures to show their attitude or feelings while the others may use facial expressions but the most common and important means is language Through utterances, people express their shock, surprise, fear, anger, admiration … and these utterances are called exclamations Studying functions of exclamations in terms of linguistic dimension in general and in English as well as Vietnamese in particular to

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find out equivalents and differences leads to the topic: “Exclamations in English

and Vietnamese – A contrastive analysis”

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study is expected to find out the similarities and differences about exclamations in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntax and semantics and suggest some practical applications to the process of teaching and learning English

as a foreign language in Vietnam

To reach the aim, the objectives of the study are as follows:

- To invest the syntactic and semantic features of exclamations in English in some literary works written by Jack London and by Nam Cao in Vietnamese

- To find out the similarities and differences of the identification methods of exclamations in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntax and semantics

- To give some suggestions for teaching and learning exclamations in English for Vietnamese learners

1.3 Research questions

To gain the estimated results, it is necessary to find out the proper answers for the following questions:

1 What are the syntactic and semantics features of exclamations in English

in some literary works written by Jack London and ones in Vietnamese written by Nam Cao?

2 What are the similarities and differences of the identification methods of exclamations in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntax and semantics?

3 What are suggestions for teaching and learning exclamations in English for Vietnamese learners?

1.4 Methods of the study

In order to complete this study, some different research methods will be applied In this study, the descriptive, qualitative, quantitative and contrastive

methods are used for finding out the syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese exclamations

Firstly, descriptive method is applied to describe in details syntactic and

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semantic features of English and Vietnamese exclamations

Secondly, qualitative method is used to discover exclamations that emerge after close observation, careful documentation, and thoughtful analysis Moreover, the quantitative method is used for analyzing the data

Futhermore, the contrastive method is used to find out the similarities and differences of the identification methods of exclamations in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntax and semantics in some literary works written by Jack London and by Nam Cao in Vietnamese

By applying these methods, it helps to find out the syntactic and semantic characteristics of English exclamations in English and Vietnamese

1.5 Scope of the study

This study is investigated to answer the questions: whether the features of syntax and of semantics in exclamations of the two languages are the same

Concerning this study, exclamations in the two languages are considered in terms of syntax and of semantics

In the framework of the study, about 300 exclamatory sentences in some literary works written by Jack London and nearly 300 exclamatory sentences in some literary works in Vietnamese written by Nam Cao have been extracted These data are categorized into groups according to the identification methods of exclamations in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntax and semantics provided

in references

It is hoped that the outcome of this research thesis, to some extent, would be able to make a certain contribution to enhance the quality of teaching and learning English

1.6 Significance of the study

Theoretically, with the purpose of doing the research into exclamations in English and Vietnamese literary works in terms of syntactic and semantic and raising attention from Vietnamese learners so that they can be able to use them successfully in a real world of English communication

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Practically, the study provides the similarities and differences about exclamations in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntax and semantics So it could help Vietnamese learners of English to be aware of different ways of expressing exclamations and improve their competence and performance of English

1.7 Design of the study

The study consists of five following chapters:

Chapter I, Introduction, includes the rationale, the aim and objectives, the

research questions, the scope, the significance and the structural organization

Chapter II, Literature review, introduces previous studies related to the

thesis Also, this is an introduction to theoretical background which is designed to serve as the basic foundation of data analysis and discussion of findings in the following chapter

Chapter III, Methodology, presents the research questions and research

approach with various methods and techniques to conduct the research thesis

Chapter IV, Exclamations in English and Vietnamese – A contrastive

analysis, describes and analyzes the syntactic and semantic features of exclamations

in English and Vietnamese basing on some literary works in English written by Jack London and in Vietnamese written by Nam Cao, makes a comparison of exclamations in English with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents and provides some possible implications for teaching and learning exclamations in English and Vietnamese

Chapter V, Conclusion, gives the summary of the study Furthermore, this

chapter also presents the limitations of the research and some suggestions for further studies

References and Appendixes come at the end of the thesis

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies

In English, exclamations or exclamatives have been chosen to describe by most grammarians as either one of the major clause types on par with declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives, or as a minor clause type However, their approaches are different in some ways

Quirk et al (1985), for instance, use the term “exclamative” to refer to a grammatical category, i.e a specific clause type, while they use the term

“exclamation” to refer to the logical or semantic status of an utterance This means that in Quirk et al.’s terminology, some exclamations are realised by

“exclamatives”, while some are not Quirk et al (1972) seem to consider exclamations to constitute a sentence type of their own, they still recognise other constructions that can be used when making exclamations They discuss

exclamatory questions”, like Hasn’t she grown! and Has she grown!, and say that

they are “questions in form, but functionally like exclamations” (Quirk et al (1972,70)) They also recognise exclamations in which the ''emphatic degree

items''so and such are used as intensifiers and determiners respectively in statements and questions: We’ve had such atime and Why did you use to hate geography so? (Quirk et al 1972, 84) They also mention echo exclamations, which repeat part or

all of the preceding utterance:

A: I’m going to London for a holiday

B: To London! That’s not my idea of a rest (Quirk et al (1972, 84)

In conclusion, this means that both Quirk et al (1972) and Quirk et al (1985) recognize several different form types that can be used as exclamations, but still prevail in the belief that there exists an exclamatory form type on par with declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives

Radford (1997) recognises the same types of clauses/sentences as Quirk et al.(1985) do,namely declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative

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sentences Sadock & Zwicky (1985), on the other hand, hold that there are three major sentence types, interrogatives and imperatives, and some minor sentence types such as exclamations, imprecatives and optatives It may be important to make clear here that Sadock & Zwicky (1985) do not here discuss

clause types, but sentence types They consider exclamatives introduced by what (a)

or how to constitute a minor sentence type They claim that there are also a number

of exclamatory types

Bolinger (1989, 248) discusses this matter thoroughly He agrees with Quirk

et al (1972& 1985) in saying that exclamations are primarily used to express the speaker’s own feelings, and he argues that this means that if intonation is basically

affective, the connection between intonation and exclamation must be “both broad and deep”

Bolinger (1989) stresses that part of the problem concerning intonation and exclamations is related to the fact that there is a great deal of variation concerning the intonations that can be used in exclamations There is no such thing as an

“intonation of exclamation” according to Bolinger (1989, 248), not even in the more general sense in which we talk about the intonation of questions and the intonation

of commands, where certain contours do predominate

David Crystal (1995) explores many facets and varieties of the English language, bringing life to this large and complex subject Rarely has a book so packed with accurate and well researched factual information been so widely read and popularly acclaimed David Crystal recognizes four types of sentence functions: statements, questions, commands, and exclamations Exclamations can have either minor or major sentence status and are mainly investigated in syntactic form

Radford (1997, 506) defines an exclamative as “a type of structure used to exclaim surprise, delight, annoyance etc.” and goes on to say that “in English

syntax, the term is restricted largely to clauses beginning with wh-exclamative words like what! or how!” The use of the word structure seems to indicate that he

20th century Those who advocated this theory were Humbon, Stundan, Russo said that human’s language derived from the sounds of anger, joy, sadness, anguished cried expressed when we were moved In some cases, interjections are signals of our emotion and thoughts In the other one, the relationship between the sounds of words and emotive state of human is considered such as the combination of sound causing the impression in our soul that is similar to the one caused bythings

In the thesis of Hà Thị Hải Yến (2000), the consideration of Vietnamese exclamations is taken into seriously But actually, this thesis deals with the scope of

a study of conversation interactions She focuses on the exclamative function of each move in each conversation without paying much attention to illocutionary force of exclaiming though it is an illocutionary act in speechacts

Besides that there have been some publications on sentence types including

exclamations such as Câu trong tiếng Việt (Cao Xuân Hạo, 1998); Ngữ pháp Việt

Nam - phần câu (Diệp Quang Ban, 2004); Giáo trình ngôn ngữ học (Nguyễn

Thiện Giáp, 2008); Nghiên cứu ngữ pháp tiếng Việt (Nguyễn Kim Thản,1963);

Câu trong tiếng Việt (NguyễnThị Lương, 2005) etc

Other Vietnamese theses have been researched into exclamation such as:

“Câu cảm thán trong Tiếng Việt” by Nguyễn Thị Hồng Ngọc, PhD thesis,

Hanoi National University, 2004

“Syntactic features of exclamation in English and Vietnamese” by

Nguyễn Thị Thu Vân, MA thesis, Hanoi Open University, 2016

However, there has not been so far a study on syntactic and semantic features

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of exclamations in English and in Vietnamese It is necessary for the writer to do a research on this matter to have a deeper understanding about exclamations in the two languages, first for her own career’s sake and then for the Vietnamese learners

or researchers of English as a foreign language

2.2 An overview of sentences

2.2.1 Definition of sentences

There is a variety of definitions of a sentence McDougal Littell (2004,36) simply defines a sentence is a group of words that conveys a complete thought Brown, Nilson, Shaw & Weldon (1984, 57) share the same and add some more

information: “a sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought The purpose of a sentence is to describe an action or state a condition of a person, a place, a thing or an idea.”

Halliday (1994, 180) argues that “describing a sentence as a construction of words is rather like describing a house as a construction of bricks, without recognizing the walls and the rooms as intermediate structural units.” He states

that a sentence should be defined as a clause complex with the simple sentence (one clause) as the limiting case

Morley (2000, 25) looks at a sentence in many aspects In meaning terms, he

says “the role of the sentence is to express one or more ideas or ‘proposition’ from the ideational component, each proposition being realized by a clause.”

As for Nguyễn Hòa (2001) “…the sentence refers to the system or language side: it can be thought of as the ideal structure behind various realizations in utterances.”

Mai Ngọc Chử, Vũ Đức Nghiệu & Hoàng Trọng Phiến (2006,285) give out

the definition about a sentence: “A sentence is the language unit which has independent inner and outer grammatical structure and ending intonation It bears

a relatively complete thought enclosed with the speaker’s attitude or only displaying the speaker’s attitude, which helps form, show and communicate ideas and affection as the smallest information unit”

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Richards and Platt (1992,330) say about a sentence: “the largest unit of grammatical organization within with parts of speech (e.g nouns, verbs, adverbs) and grammatical classes (e.g word, phrase, clause) are said to function In English

a sentence normally contains one independent clause with a finite verb.”

In language usage, Diệp Quang Ban (2004) lists three major functions of the sentence: expressive function, interpersonal function and text-making function

- Expressive function: in daily communication, one by some means

orotherexpresses one or some events in his experience This can be done thanks to

the fact that language has a mean compatible with it which is called “the sentence

in expressive function” (p.27) Those events in experience are not in fixed forms;

they are expressed through one’s viewpoint and coded in grammar of a certain language Therefore, the same event can be viewed and expressed in different ways

in different languages and even different in one language due to different expressions

- Interpersonal function: in conversations, people use sentences

tocommunicate with one another In that process, the speaker always intends to do some action to influence the hearer For example, the speaker speaks to inform about something, to ask the hearer to do something, to express his thought to the hearer or to set up a communication relation Those actions are called speech actions In each language system, there are means that mark those speech actions,

such as declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory sentences (p 29 -

30)

- Text-making function: in a certain situation, the sentences must be

organized to be in harmony with the preceding and following ones (in other words, co-text) or with the outside situation (context of situation) In this case, sentences

are regarded as a message The organization of the sentences to make a message requires two elements: Theme and Rheme The relation of these two elements is

called Theme - Rheme structure (p 30 - 31)

- Alexandra Grammatical School (300-200 BC) has considered that sentences are the combination of words to express complete thoughts Sentences are

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the largest unit of grammatical organization within parts of speech (e.g noun, verb, adjective…) are said to function

From the above definitions, the main features of sentences are listed as follows:

- The largest unit of grammatical organization

- The basic unit of written English language communication

- Constructed by grammatical rules

- Express a thought and the speaker’s feelings and attitude

2.2.2 Sentence classifications in English and Vietnamese

In English and Vietnamese, most of the grammarians share similar classifications of sentence in terms of syntax and purposes These classifications can be grouped into different types as follows:

2.2.2.1 Sentence classifications in terms of syntax

In terms of syntax, sentences are divided into three categories:

+ Simple, compound and complex

According to Quirk, R & Greenbaum, S(1985,719) “A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause.”

Greenbaum, S (1996,632) defined that “A simple sentence consists of one

main clause, without any subordinate clauses: No fingerprints were found

anywhere in the house.”

According to Diệp Quang Ban (2004), A sentence is thelanguage unit which has independent inner and outer grammatical structure and ending intonation It bears a relatively complete thought or the speaker’s attitude, or only displaying the speaker’s attitude, which helps form, show and communicate ideas and affection A sentence is the smallest information unit

(1) He is a good father This example is a simple sentence

Most of textbooks (ESL, EFL…) gave a definition about complex sentence

as follows: A complex sentence contains at least two independent clauses, often joined by a coordinating conjunction

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The coordinating conjunctions are as follows: but, and, nor, either, so,not only, but also…Except for very short sentences, coordinating conjunctions are

always preceded by a comma

(2) I gave her a present on her birthday, but she did not like it This example

is a complex sentence

Compound sentence which contains more than one clause of which one is the main clause, the others are subordinate clauses being part of the main clause The subordinate clauses and main clause are jointed together by subordinating conjunctions

The main clause is a clause which has a meaningful unit by a independent clause but it also needs one or more subordinate clause complementing for it

The subordinate clause (dependent clause) is a clause which has to depend

on the main clause

- There are three subordinate clauses:

Subordinate clause has a function as a noun (noun clause)

Subordinate clause has a function as an adjective (adjective clause) Subordinate clause has a function as an adverb (adverbial clause)

(3) The film that interested me was aboutatrue love.This is a complex

sentence

+ Complete and incomplete

Sentences serve as a framework for people to clearly express their ideas in writing There are several characteristics that must be met in order for a written thought to be considered a complete sentence A complete sentence must: begin with a capital letter, end with a punctuation mark (period, question mark, or exclamation point), and contain at least one main clause A main clause includes an independent subject and verb to express a complete thought A complete sentence has at least one main clause, or subject-verb pair

A sentence can be very long but still be an incomplete sentence if it lacks an element necessary to complete a thought By contrast, a very short sentence can be a

complete sentence if the missing elements are provided by context

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(1) I’m glad to see you (Complete sentence)

(2) Glad to see you.(Incomplete sentence)

+ Major and minor

David Crystal (1995) divides sentences into two main types: regular and irregular sentences Regular sentences are often referred to as major sentences, irregular ones as minor sentences

The major sentences are ones which can be broken down into a specific and predictable pattern of elements

(3) We like parties (Major sentence)

Minor sentences are no constructed in irregular way They use abnormal patterns which cannot be clearly analyzed into a sequence of clause elements as can major sentences Minor sentences do not follow all the rules ofgrammar

(4) Hands up! (Minor sentence)

If sentences are divided into 2 types above, exclamations belong to minor sentences Those are frequently used in every day conversation and look quite complex because they have no grammatical rules The speaker of any language can accomplish a great many communicative tasks with the sentences of their language They can start a conversation, order someone to do something, narrate a tale, ask for information, promise to do something at some future time, report what they have known or have heard, express surprise or dismay, suggest a joint action, give permission for someone to do something, make a bet, offer something to someone and so on For some of these uses of sentences, a language will have specific syntactic constructions, or even specific forms Such a coincidence of grammatical structure and conventional use, we call a sentence type

2.2.2.2 Sentence classifications in terms of purposes

Semantically, sentences can be classified into four categories: declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory

Following definitions of each of them are quoted from Quirk et al (1990,

231), “Declaratives are sentences in which it is normal for the subject to be present and to precede the verb Interrogatives are sentences, which are formally marked in

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one of two ways: yes-no interrogatives (an operator is placed in front of the subject),

and wh-interrogatives (an interrogative wh-element is positioned initially and there

is generally subject-operator inversion) Imperatives are sentences, which normally

have no overt grammatical subject, and whose verb has the base form

Exclamatives are sentences which have an initial phrase introduced by what or how,

usually with subject-verb order.” Radford (1997, 506) has defined an exclamative as

“a type of sentence used to exclaim surprise, delight, annoyance etc.”

In a declarative sentence, a statement is made

E.g.: “A plane had landed right in the middle of the cornfield.”

(Nguyễn Cao Hy 2004, p 62)

In an interrogative sentence, we ask a question

E.g.: “Now then, what are your plans for the future?”

(Nguyễn Cao Hy 2004, p 130)

In an imperative sentence, an order or request, etc is made

E.g.: “Keep out of my way!”

(Phan Tường Vân 2004, p 107)

In an exclamatory sentence, we show strong feeling, etc

E.g.: “My, what a nice place you have here!”

(Phan Tường Vân 2004, p 116)

(5) How happy we were when the dawn came and our flag was still there! (6) How did he do his hair! (exclamation formed as a question)

(7) I just won the race! (exclamation formed as a declarative sentence)

The same classifications of sentence are found in the sentence theory of Quirk et al (54: 6), sentences may be divided into four major clauses, whose use correlates with different communicative functions: statements, questions, commands and exclamations

(8) They’ve got a new house (statement)

(9) Have they got a new house? (question)

(10) Buy them a new house (command)

(11) They’ve got a new house! (exclamation)

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2.2.3 Minor types of simple sentences

Most grammarians have chosen to describe exclamatives as either one of the major clause types on par with declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives, or as a minor clause type This is not surprising since utterances lacking inversion, beginning with “what” and “how” do not function in the same way as ordinary declaratives or interrogatives

We know, however, that declarative clauses, for instance, can be used to fulfill many different functions in natural languages, i.e there is no one–to–one relation between language form and language function Consequently, exclamations need not be of a clause type, but may instead be a pragmatic phenomenon, a claim comes from the fact that those who consider exclamations to be of a sentence type (e.g Quirk et al 1972, 1985) have to introduce minor sentence types having the same exclamatory function as the sentences they call exclamations

Quirk et al (1972) recognizes four major classes in which simple sentences may be divided, and the division seems to have been made on the basis of (syntactic) form and (pragmatic) function:

(i) Statements: sentences in which the subject is always present and

generally precedes the verbs such as “Kama will come here today.”

(ii) Questions: sentences marked by one of the following criteria:

a The placing of the operator in front of the subject, as in “Will Kama come here today?”

b The initial positioning of a wh – element as in “When will Kama comehere?”

c Rising question intonation as in “Kama will come heretoday?”

(iii) Commands: sentences which normally have no overt grammatical

subject andwhose verbs are in the imperative mood, e.g.: “Do it right now!”

(iv) Exclamations: sentences that have an initial phrase introduced by “what”

or “how” without inversion of subject and operator as in “What a nice dress you have!”

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2.3 Exclamations

According to http://www.oxforddictionaries.com, the root or main word in

exclamatory is exclaim It comes from the Latin word “exclamare”, which in its

turn, and is the combination of “ex” and “clamare” “Ex” means “ out of, from” and

“clamare” means “to cry out” Therefore, an exclamatory sentence is a statement of

a complete thought or a way of thinking that show a great and usually sudden emotion of some kind More clearly, David Crystal (1995), exclamations are sentences, which show that a person has been impressed or roused by something For example, visiting someone’s house for the first time, the admiration or interest

are expressed with the following utterances:

- What a beautiful house you have!

- It is such a nice house!

- Your house is so nice!

- Nice house!

- How nice ahouse!

- Isn’t the house nice!

- So nice a house!

All the above sentences are exclamations because they convey strong feelings of speakers towards something

2.3.1 The English linguists’ conception of exclamations

According to David Crystal in the English language: “Exclamation are sentences which show that a person has been impressed or roused by something.”

They often take the form of a single word or short phrase- a minor sentence such as: Gosh!, Oh! dear!, or of all the nerve! But exclamations can have major sentence status too, with a structure which differentiates them from statement, questions and directives

- Their first element begins with what or how and is followed by a subject

and a verb

- What a lovely day it is!

- What a mess they’ve made!

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- How nice they look!

(David Crystal, 1995) They also occur frequently in a reduced form, using only the first element:

-What a lovely day!

- What a mess!

- How nice!

Besides, David Crystal’s definition of exclamation, there are many different

ones For instance, in “Enter the world of English grammar”: exclamations are

considered as sentences used to express surprise, shock, fear, anger, admiration…or exclamation is simply a more forceful version of a declarative sentence marked at the end with an exclamation mark

- The butler did it!

In English, exclamation can be uttered in many ways basing on the context For example, visiting someone’s house for the first time, we can show our admiration or interest by these following ways:

- What a beautiful house you have!

- It is such a nice house!

- Your house is so nice!

- Nice house!

- How nice a house!

- Isn’t the house nice!

- So nice a house!

All above sentence are so-called exclamations because they convey strong feeling of speakers towards something, here, it is a new house

Besides David Crystal’s definition of exclamation, there are many different

ones For instance, John Eastwood (1994), in “Oxford Guide to EnglishGrammar”

confirmed that “An exclamation is a kind of statement with emphasis and affection”

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Kersti Bửrjars và Kate Burridge (2001), in "IntroducingEnglish

Grammar” wrote: “ Exclamation has a very characteristic structure”

Although there are many opinions about exclamation, the common characteristics in the linguists’ conception of exclamation is that: exclamation are words and structures that express something emphatically They are used to express surprise, shock, fear, anger, admiration…We usually show this in speech by our intonation and in writing by the use of an exclamation mark at the end of sentence, although full stops are often used instead If the exclamation is only a part of sentence, it is separated from the rest of sentence by a comma

2.3.2 The Vietnamese linguists’ conception of exclamations

The Vietnamese linguists have combined syntactic description with semantic content which is showed by the fixed syntactic form in order to definite the types of sentences in Vietnamese However, there is the fact that we can use one

or more different forms of sentence to express one certain content or vice versa So

it is very difficult for us to define the common type of exclamation And they come

to an agreement that “Exclamations are sentences used to express the certain degree of different emotion, the attitude of assessment, the unusual mental state of speaker towards things or events”

And “Exclamations in Vietnamese have particular forms They are often used

with interjections such as: Ôi, quá, thay, sao, chao ôi Ô hô, a ha, ái chà, ồ ơi… or groups of interjections: ối chao ơi, ối cha mẹ ơi, ối trời ơi là đất ơi… and pronouns expressing degree of feeling: biết bao nhiêu, biết bao… and adverbs: quá, ghê, vô cùng…….”as in the following examples:

- Chao ôi! Sao mà cái đời nó tù túng, nó khốn nạn đến như vậy

(Oh, dear! Why is my life so miserable and cooped up!)

(Sống mòn -Nam Cao)

- Trời ơi! Nhưng kia hắn đã về

(Oh my God! He came back.)

(Dì Hảo- Nam Cao)

- Lý Cường đã về! Phải biết…]A ha![Một cái tát rất kêu

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(Ly Cuong has gone home! As you know…A ha! A loud slap on the face.)

(Chí Phèo - Nam Cao)

- Buồn thay cho đời!

(Sad life!)

(Chí Phèo - Nam Cao) From the above things mentioned, we can see that both English and Vietnamese linguists have the same ideas in definiting exclamation Here another question raised: ''Whether exclamatory structures in the two languages are similar or different?''

2.3.3 Exclamations with illocutionary for indicating devices

Exclamations in written form is mainly discovered and studied in this study and due to this written form, the interlocutors can get many useful hints when communicating These hints are Illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs), and

as suggested by the term, they are the ones that transfer illocutionary force to both the speaker and the hearer Based on these tokens, IFIDs help interlocutors to the appropriate strategy for everyday conversations

2.3.4 Basic structures: “How+Adjective!”and“What+a/an+Adjective+Noun!”

Exclamatives how and what modify different types of constituents Exclamative how can modify an adjective as (a) How tall they are! a degree determinative such as very, absolutely, remarkably, as in (b) How very much time

we wasted!, a verb, as in (c)How they deceived her!or an adverb, as in (d)How quickly it grows! (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002) Therefore, how can have the

syntactic function of modifier and adjunct (Collins, 2004) and is a degree modifier The modifier function of the wh-phrase is illustrated in examples (a) and (b) and the adjunct function in (c) and (d)

a How tall they are!

b How very much time we wasted!

c How they deceived her!

d How quickly it grows!

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Collins (2004) noticed that exclamative what functions as a modifier in a noun phrase Huddleston & Pullum (2002) observed that exclamative what can be followed by a count noun, as shown in What a game it was! a plural noun as in What games he played! or a mass noun, as What music he played! illustrates

(Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, p 919)

When followed by a count noun, the exclamative is headed by what a, and when followed by a mass or a plural noun it is what which heads the exclamative Furthermore, they also noticed that what exclamatives are concerned with quality

and degree

e What a game it was!

f What games he played!

g What music he played!

Besides, it can be observed that these wh-phrases have to appear obligatorily displaced, since the construction becomes ungrammatical when the wh-phrase appears in these examples:

h It was what a disaster!

i She hated it how!

(Adapted from Huddleston & Pullum, 2002,18) The occurrence of the wh-phrase in initial position and the impossibility of having it in situation, as shown in (a-b), are properties which are also characteristic

of interrogatives In fact, the similarities between exclamatives and interrogatives have been noted by many scholars such as Elliot (1974) and Huddleston and Pullum (2002) among others

The most remarkable similarity is that both exclamatives and interrogatives contain a wh-phrase which obligatorily appears in the left-periphery

wh-of the sentence However, in the case wh-of wh-exclamatives, the wh-phrase can only

be what or how as What games he played! and How tall they are! (Huddleston &

Pullum, 2002, p 919) whereas wh-interrogatives are compatible with a wider range

of phrases such as when, why or where which cannot appear in exclamatives, as illustrated in When you came! and Where you went!

wh-20

a What games he played!

b How tall they are!

c When you came!

d Where you went!

(Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, 919) Once mentioning hints of exclamations, “How” and “What” are regarded as master keys to learn their derived forms as:

“How + adjective + S + verb!” as in “How beautiful she is!”

“How + adjective!” as in “How generous!”

“What + a/an + N!” as in “What a nuisance!”

“What + noun!” as in “What luck!”

“How” and “What” are known as the basic components of exclamations Positioning right at the beginning, their function is to monitor the remaining components in sentences It is the structures of “how” and “what” that are the basic hints to know its sentence type These wh–elements have an utmost significant role

so communicators make best use of these hints in their interactions

2.3.5 Interjections

Interjections are exclamations used to express emotion in a natural, uninhibited way, and are not part of speech in the same sense as the words we have discussed; that is, entering into the structure of a sentence

Interjection is a big name for a little word In other words, interjections are short exclamations like “Oh!”, “Um!” or “Yeah!”… When interjections are inserted into sentences, they have no grammatical connection to the sentences They often express emotions in a natural, uninhibited way and they are more recognizable in their written forms as they tend to be accompanied by exclamation marks (!)

It is noteworthy that almost any words may be used as anexclamation, but they still retain their identity as noun, pronoun, verb…

E.g.: - Books! Light houses built on the sea of time (noun)

- Halt! The dust brown ranks stood fast (verb)

- Up! For same! (adverb)

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- Impossible! It cannot be (adjective) The interjections will be studied in detail through the examples in the followingtable:

Interjection Meaning Example

Ah

Expressing pleasure “Ah! That feels good.”

Expressing realization “Ah! Now I understand.”

Expressing resignation “Ah, well, it can’t be helped.”

Expressing surprise “Ah! I’ve won!”

Alas Expressing grief or pity “Alas! She’s dead now.”

Dear Expressing pity “Oh dear! Does it hurt?”

Expressing surprise “Dear me! That’s a surprise.”

Eh Expressing surprise “Eh! Really!”

Hello Expressing greeting “Hello Khanh! How are you today?”

Expressing surprise “Hello! My car’s gone!”

Hey Calling attention “Hey, you Buck, wake up!”

Expressing surprise, joy “Hey! What a good idea!”

Hi Expressing greeting “Hi! Get up there!”

Hmm Expressing doubt,

hesitation or disagreement

“Hmm, I’m not sure.”

Huh Expressing scorn “They steal your ideas, they steal your

guitar licks, they steal your songs, they steal your money - huh!”

Expressing anger ''Huh,'' she snorted, ''Over my dead

body!'' Expressing surprise “They'll go, huh, this is cool.”

Oh Expressing surprise “Oh, how bravely her brown eyes

looked at me! How piteously brave!” Expressing

disappointment

“Oh, shut up!” Scott cried out through the darkness

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Ouch

Expressing delight “Oh! I'm so glad you came!”

Expressing pain “Ouch! That hurts!”

Shh Expressing for silence “Sh, the marvel of it! The marvel of it!”

Uh Expressing hesitation “Uh…I don’t know the answer to that” Well Expressing surprise “Well I never!”

Introducing a remark “Well! What did he say?”

Wow! You look terrific!

Table 2.1: Types of interjections

2.3.6 Intonation

Intonation is one of the factors that make great contributions to create exclamations in both English and Vietnamese Compared with statements, melodic contour of exclamations is not greatly different The differences stay in words that carry the lexical meaning in which people show their emotion or feelings…

What characterises the intonation of exclamations is instead, according to

Bolinger (1989) that it “reaches for the extreme” In the default case, an

exclamation is spoken with an extremely high pitch, but the pitch may also be lower than usual, as long as it is extreme Related to this is the fact that the intonation contour may be either extremely varied, or extremely monotone The important thing here is that exclamations are, in some way or another, expected to show the

voice in some manner “out of control” This “out of control” feature is naturally

related to the fact that exclamations are directly emotionally triggered

- That’s so funny!

- What a beautiful day!

As far as exclamations concerned, depending on the falling tone or rising one, one can read the speaker’s mind (whether he means well or not) and his emotion (whether he is happy or disappointed with something) The following

If intonation is a signal of exclamations in spoken language, in written one it

is an exclamation mark (!) Exclamation mark is one kind of punctuations, which helps writers express their intention exactly and logically

- She is so tall!

- How much I love Khathy!

However abundant forms of exclamations are, they convey one force, that is exclamatory force

- We are the champions! (as declarative sentence)

- How do you risk? (as interrogative sentence)

2.4 Summary

In this part, it is significant to discover that the most common thing shared by the two languages is that: when classifying sentence types, the criteria of purpose and of structure are on focus, thus there are no differences of sentence subtypes between English and Vietnamese, the detailed subtypes are complete or incomplete, major or non-major, simple, complex or compound (ranking of structure) and statements, questions, commands or exclamations (ranking of purpose) Then exclamations are studied in detail In terms of exclamations, different scholars have different opinions, however the most prominent one is cited from David Crystal’s work (1995) According to this scholar, exclamations are sentences, which show that a person’s feeling has been impressed or roused by something

Thanks to researching in detail on exclamations’ definition, we are really

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enlightened by encountering main IFIDs in most of exclamations The importance

of IFIDs is so high and everything comes from structures and no doubt, the ones such as: “How + adjective!” and “What a + (adjective) + noun!” in English and

“Adjective + Particle!” in Vietnamese are the stable basements for learners to study further on exclamations These structures as useful hints, hence, they gain much attention Besides structures, IFIDs are also interjections, intonation or exclamation marks

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In this section of the study the researcher explains the way through which the data are collected The section is divided as follows: subjects, instruments, procedure and statistical analysis

3.1 Subjects

Firstly, a large number of exclamation sentences were collected in order to make corpus of this thesis In order to have exclamation sentences and knowledge supporting for the study, some literary works written by Jack London were read

such as: The People of the Abyss (1903), The Call of the Wild (1903), The Sea Wolf (1904), White Fang (1906), The Iron Heel (1908), Martin Eden (1909), Adventure (1911), South Sea Tales (1911) …

Besides, some literary works written by Nam Cao were purposively selected

for example: Nghèo (1937), Chí Phèo (1941), Dì Hảo (1944), Cái chết của con Mực (1940), Nhỏ nhen (1942), Cái mặt không chơi được (1942), Lão Hạc (1943), Một đám cưới (1944), Trẻ con không được ăn thịt chó (1942), Một bữa no (1943), Truyện tình (1943), Sao lại thế này (1943), Xem bói (1943), Điếu văn (1943), Từ ngày mẹ chết (1943), Mua danh (1943), Ở hiền (1943), Giăng sáng (1942), Tư cách

mõ (1943), Đời thừa (1943)…

After collecting the data from reliable sources, the author classifies and analyzes them into syntactic and semantic fields in order to find out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese exclamations

3.2 Instruments

To get illustrative examples of the linguistic phenomena at hand, a corpus consisting of literary works in English and in Vietnamese has been investigated For

a complete list of the literary works included in the corpus, see the list of references

at the end of the paper

The method of contrastive analysis is used in conducting the study The model of exclamations in the two languages The researcher concentrates on their similarities and differences

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The data required for this research to the specific area of investigation focuses on the exclamatory construction of the two languages concerned

In this research the researcher use some methods as following:

- Descriptive method: used to describe the particular mistakes when people exclaim and the features of syntax and semantics of exclamations in English and Vietnamese

- Qualitative method: is used to discover exclamations that emerge after close observation, careful documentation, and thoughtful analysis

- Quantitative method: this method is applied to analyse the data

- Contrastive method: this method is applied to point out the differences and similarities in the ways people from different culture background exclaim

3.3 Procedures

The collected data were tabulated and compared to discover the similarities and differences between the two languages in exclamations Each type of exclamations of both languages is described and exemplified, then the similarities and dissimilarities between them are discussed

Data are collected from some literary works in English written by Jack London and in Vietnamese written by Nam Cao These data are categorized into groups according to the identification methods of exclamations in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntax and semantics

In this study, about 300 exclamatory sentences in some literary works written

by Jack London and nearly 300 exclamatory sentences in some literary works in Vietnamese written by Nam Cao have been collected

3.4 Statistical Analysis

In this part of the study, the data are analyzed and discussed how English and Vietnamese exclamations are formed and what are the similarities and dissimilarities between them in exclamation construction

Data analysis is investigated on the basis of words, phrases and clause perspectives The collected data will be qualitatively processed to investigate some specific syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese exclamations

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CHAPTER 4: EXCLAMATIONS IN JACK LONDON AND NAM CAO

LITERARY WORKS – A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

4.1 Syntactic features of exclamations in English and in Vietnamese

4.1.1 Syntactic features of exclamations in English

All the scholars who have devoted their research to exclamations have considered wh-exclamatives, imperative, noun phrases/ adjective phrases exclamtory questions to be some of the constructions which belongs to this clause type, andtherefore, these are the ones which will be presented in the following section:

4.1.1.1 Exclamation formed with How/ what

Wh-exclamations are characterized by the presence of an exclamative

phraseheaded by what, as in What a disaster it was! or howas in How she hated it!

which appears in initial position of thesentence(Huddleston & Pullum, 2002: 918)

Many different constituents of the sentence can form the exclamative phrase and therefore, bear the exclamative force In other words, wh-elements can fulfil different syntactic functions in exclamative constructions as shown in the following examples

a What ill-behaved children - were on the tram today! [Subject]

b What a provocative book she lent me ! [Direct Object]

c How very kind you are ! [Predicative Subject]

d How quickly they changed their minds ! [Adverbial]

(Trotta, 2000, p 108) These are the most commonly considered syntactic functions of the wh-phrase

For more and more similarities and differences, this demand will be met when taking a look at the study of base forms of wh–exclamations

A Base forms “How + ADJ!” and “What + a/an + ADJ +N!”

Radford (1997, 506) defines an exclamative as “a type of structure used to exclaim surprise, delight, annoyance etc.” and goes on to say that “in English

syntax, the term is restrictedlargely to clauses beginning with wh-exclamative

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words like what! or how!” Moreover, “How” and “what” are the wh - elements and

their parts of speech in particular situations are analyzed clearly by Quirk et al (1985, 833-834) as follows:

Order Structure/forms Examples Meanings Source

Và nó thật là tuyệt!

Thật lạ thường!

Tôi không hiểu

The SeaWolf - Jack London

b Wh-element as

adverbial:

“How I had welcomed each of them!”

“Tôi đã chào đón mỗi người trong

số họ như thế đó!”

The SeaWolf- Jack London

as a flash”

“Anh có ý gì!”

nhanh như chớp anh ta hỏi

The SeaWolf- Jack London

“Ôi, đôi mắt màu nâu đầy dũng cảm của cô ấy nhìn tôi!

Thật là dũng cảm!

The SeaWolf- Jack London

Table 4.1: Base forms of wh-exclamations

From these above ideas, it shows that exclamations as a formal category, resemble wh–questions when they begin with a wh–word (“what” or “how”), but differ from them in retaining the regular declarative order of subject and verb It is essential to have a comparative analysis of wh–exclamations and wh–questions

B Variants of “How + ADJ!” and “What + a/an + ADJ +N!”

It is concluded that the variable forms of “How” and “What” are plentiful

Order Structure/forms Example Meanings Source

a Derived forms of “How”

Cậu bé của tôi thật tội nghiệp!

Martin Jack London

Martin Jack London a3 How + S + V! - How we

Eden-underestimated the strength of the enemy!

Chúng ta đã đánh giá thấp sức mạnh của kẻ thù rồi!

The Iron heel- Jack London

b Derived forms of“What”

- Hắn ta là một người thật thô lỗ!

Martin Jack London

- What beautiful diamonds!

- Thời tiết mới đẹp làm sao!

- Những viên kim cương thật

là đẹp!

The Iron heel- Jack London

Table 4.2: Variants of wh-exclamations

4.1.1.2 Exclamation formed with Imperative

As another type, we may mention their imperatives, which in their turns, resemble imperatives: as in the following example:

- “Go way! Chook!” he cried

(Anh thốt lên “Cút đi! Xéo”)

(The Call of the Wild - Jack London)

4.1.1.3 Exclamation formed with Noun phrases/ adjective phrases

a Exclamatory noun phrases

As far as the exclamatory noun phrases concerned, they are modified by a

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restrictive relative clause express disapproval as in the following example:

- The dear and lovely woman!

(Người phụ nữ thân thương và đáng yêu làm sao!)

(The Sea-Wolf- Jack London)

b A pronoun is generally included in these exclamatory phrases, and this is always followed by “and” and another noun phrase with a matching possessive pronoun:

as in these examples:

- “You!"She cried “You are….”

(“Anh!” Cô ấy kêu lên “Anh thật là….”)

- “And sh, the marvel of it! The marvel of it!”

(Sh, thật là kỳ diệu! Thật là kỳ diệu biết bao!)

(The Sea Wolf - Jack London)

c Exclamatory noun or adjective phrases

Approval as well as disapproval is expressed by the exclamatory noun or adjective phrases as in this example:

- “The poor dears!”

(Chúng mới tội nghiệp làm sao!)

(The Call of the Wild- Jack London)

d Exclamatory adjective clause

With or without Wh-element, adjectives can act as exclamations

- “Good!”He exclaimed.Lively now!

(“Tuyệt!” Hắn ta kêu lên.Vui vẻ lên nào!)

(The Sea-Wolf - Jack London) 4.1.1.4 Exclamatory questions

Some sentences resemble questions in their structures but actually are used

as exclamations and express the speaker’s strong feelings Despite the presence of negative elements, they are definitely positive in meaning

Quirk et al (1985: 825) the exclamatory questions are interrogatives in structure, but have the illocutionary force of an exclamatory assertion For example:

- Won’t you sit down?