A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU CÂU HỎI TU TỪ TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) LE NAM THANG FIELD: ENGLISH LANGUAGE Hanoi, 2017 i MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU CÂU HỎI TU TỪ TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) LE NAM THANG Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Nguyen Dang Suu, PhD Hanoi, 2017 ii CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except for the indicated reference, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2017 Le Nam Thang Approved by SUPERVISOR Nguyễn Đăng Sửu, PhD (Signature and full name) Date:…………………… iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all I would like to thank all of my teachers in the Faculty of postgraduate H.O.U for teaching and providing me with knowledge of English language so that today I can this research I own my deepest gratitude to my respectful supervisor, Nguyen Dang Suu, who inspired me with the interest of rhetorical question and helped me to understand it to the core If not for his guidance and encouragement, this paper would not have been completed I thank him for being very caring and supportive Last but far from least, I am immensely grateful to my parents and my dear ones for their credit and responsibility toward me during my study at Hanoi Open University as well as their vital support for my writing this thesis Although every effort has been made, there still are inevitable shortcomings here and there in the paper I am, once again, grateful to any one who reads and is tolerant of those shortcomings iv ABSTRACT This study looks at rhetorical questions in English and Vietnamese The major concern is the contrastive analysis of pragmatic of rhetorical questions in English and Vietnamese It also analyzes the similarities and difference of rhetorical questions into Vietnamese and find out some mistakes on the bilingual story “An ideal husband” We use the extracts from such story to prove the mistakes The aims of doing this is to find out the similarities and difference of rhetorical questions into Vietnamese based on bilingual story – An Ideal Husband to help English learner can translating effectively translate works in general and rhetorical questions in particular into Vietnamese v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 4.1 Frequency of translation methods of questions in biligual story 50 Table 4.2 Frequency of cohesive devices in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” 52 Figure 4.1 Percentage of cohesive devices used in the bilingual “An ideal husband” 53 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of tables and figures iv CHAPTER - INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Scope of the Study 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Structure of the graduation paper CHAPTER –LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous study 2.1.1 In English 2.1.2 In Vietnamese 2.1.3 The Thesis 2.2 Theory framework 2.2.1 Theories of Speech Act 2.2.2 Criteria to Recognize Speech Act 13 2.2.3 Classifications of questions 16 2.3 Some necessary theory of translation equivalence 22 2.4 Summary 23 CHAPTER 3: CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 3.1 Characteristic of pragmatics of the rhetorical questions in English 24 3.2 Pragmatic characteristic of the rhetorical questions in Vietnamese 27 3.2.1 Questions as Greetings 27 3.2.2 Questions as Invitations 27 vii 3.2.3 Question as a wonder 28 3.2.4 Questions as requests 29 3.2.5 Questions as threats 29 3.2.6 Questions as assertions 30 3.2.7 Questions as negations and denials 31 3.2.8 Questions as complaints 32 3.2.9 Questions as suggestions/ advice 33 3.2.10 Questions as offers 34 3.2.11 Questions showing incredulity and surprise 34 3.2.12 Questions as reproach 35 3.2.13 Questions for imprecation 35 3.2.14 Questions as wishes 35 3.2.15 Questions as regret 36 3.2.16 Questions requesting for permission 36 3.2.17 Questions as promises 36 3.2.18 Questions as exclamations 37 3.2.19 Questions as jokes 37 3.3 Comparison between rhetorical questions in English and Vietnamese base on bilingual story 38 3.3.1 In terms of the similarities rhetorical question in English 38 3.3.2 Interm of the differences of rhetorical question in English 41 CHAPTER 4: AN ANALYSIS OF RHETORICAL QUESTIONS BASING ON THE BILINGUAL STORY “AN IDEAL HUSBAND” – HOANG NGUYEN 4.1 Collaborative research easy make mistake intranslating by Vietnamese learner 45 4.1.1 Equivalence of Translation 45 4.1.2 Some lexical cohesive devices cross-cutting and cross-cultural 46 4.1.3 Some major translation methods 48 4.2 The analysis of translation used in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” 49 4.2.1.Translation methods in the bilingual story “An ideal husband 49 4.2.2.The uses of cohesive devices in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” 50 viii 4.3 The analysis combinative with methods translation in the bilingual story “An ideal husband”into Vietnamese 53 4.3.1 The methods in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” into Vietnamese 53 4.3.2 Some mistakes and suggestions Vietnamese learner when translating in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” into Vietnamese 54 4.4 Summary 57 Chapter - CONCLUSIONS 5.1 Concluding remarks 58 5.2 Limitation of the study 58 5.3 Recommendations/Suggestions for further study 58 REFERENCES ix CHAPTER - INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale In everyday communication, exchanging information is a very common activity The act of giving and receiving information takes place anywhere, which a conversation is formed The question is a category, so It is one of the common actions Questions, therefore, become an important component in communication They play a significant role in human’s activity As a result, there have been, so far, many researches on grammatical question Many grammatical issues are focused on analyzingthe structure of questions and pointed out conventional uses of questions Therefore, referring to rhetical question with response, and also to the important role in the activity and human perception, communication event research is considered to describe the elements which are relevant to achieve its Order, warning, advice, offer., However, for the past decades, new branches of linguistics, semantics, pragmatic have been developing rapidly together with phonetics, lexicology and grammar Some linguists such as, Austin, Searle, Yuleis prominent in the field of pragmatic Thus, more and more pragmatics-basing researches on aspects of linguistics are being carried out Among those researches, pragmatics-based study of questions makes a worthmentioning contribution to this development Recently, other functions or unconventional uses of questions are studied by T Givón in English and by Cao Xuân Hạo in Vietnamese These two authors state that questions are used not only for the purpose of seeking information to fulfill the questioner’s gap of information but also for many other purposes However, the study of comparing and contrasting these functions of questions in the two languages remains a gap for readers to understand the rhetorical question in English and Vietnamese, which is useful for the Teaching and Learning of translation For the above-mentioned reasons, the writer chooses the thesis A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE based on bilingual story – An Ideal Husband translated by Hoang Nguyen In the case study and other versa question in the translation “ An Ideal Husband”, the writer has found out some base mistakes 4.1.2 Some lexical cohesive devices cross-cutting and cross-cultural According to Halliday and Hassan (1976), lexical cohesion is “phoric” relation which is established through the structure of vocabulary, and it is a relation on the lexicogrammatical level It comes about through the using of items that are related in terms of their meaning Reiteration and collocations are the two major types of lexical cohesion Reiteration includes repetition, synonymy or near-synonymy, hyponymy (specific-general), metonymy (part-whole), antonymy, and general nouns Repetition This is the most occurring form of lexical cohesion Eg dog in Reza saw a dog The dog was wounded by the children However, the repeated lexical item need not be in the same morphological shape E.g Ali arrived yesterday His arrival made his mother happy Synonymy This is created by the selection of a lexical item that is in some way synonymous with the proceeding one E.g What people want from the government is frankness They should explain everything to the public Hyponymy (Specific-General) It is a relationship between two words, in which the meaning of one of the words includes the meaning of the other E.g A flamingo lives in water This bird is white Metonymy This results from the selection of a lexical item that is in some sense in part-whole relationship with a preceding item E.g I live in a large house The yard is full of trees 46 Antonymy In this type of lexical cohesion, cohesion comes about by the selection of an item which is opposite in meaning to a preceding lexical item E.g I usually wear dark colours I don’t look nice in light colours General nouns In this type of cohesion, two items have the same referent E.g Military actions against Iraq was not successful The moves were illegal Collocation This type of lexical cohesion results from the association of lexical items that regularly co-occur Yarmohammadi (1995) holds the view that collocation is achieved “through the association of lexical items that regularly tend to appear in similar environments Such words don’t have any semantic relationship” Behnam (1996) considers “collocation is one of the factors on which we build our expectations of what is to come next” E.g A huge oil boat polluted the sea Many fishes lie along the beach Using a conjunction is another way of creating cohesion in texts In analyzing cohesion of narratives in Persian, Roberts et al (2009) have divided conjunctions into four categories, following Dooley & Levinsohn (2001) Here, a brief explanation for each sub-type and their corresponding Persian examples will be provided, each of which serves or specifies a semantic relation: Associative conjunctions: ‘either… or’, ‘neither… nor’, … Some of the conjunctions signal a few conceptual relations between propositions For example, when ‘and’ links propositions together, it does not represent anything about the conceptual relations between them, but it just associates that propositions together Additive conjunctions: and, also, in addition, not only… Some conjunctions assist the hearer in finding a corresponding proposition to link it to current proposition These propositions are often not contiguous What is different from the first proposition can be expected to be in the focus of the second one These are used in some languages to confirm a previous proposition (Dooley & Levinsohn 2001) Adversative conjunctions:but, still, yet, whereas, while, nevertheless,… 47 The adversative ties indicate a contrastive relation; these conjunctions are used when a contradictory proposition is appended to the previous one Developmental markers While associatives and some additives help the hearer to associate the given information together, developmental markers the opposite and lead the hearer to move on to the next point in discourse They represent a new development in an argument or a story This is especially seen in SOV languages, which allow several subordinate clauses to come after the main verb Developmental markers are usually attached to the end of a subordinate clause (Dooley & Levinsohn 2001) 4.1.3 Some major translation methods 4.1.3.1 Word-for-word translation This is often demonstrated as interlinear translation, with the TL immediately below the SL words The SL word-order is preserved and the words translated singly by their most common out of context You are skinny and she is fat Anh gầy chị ta béo (M.A PROGRAMME 2016, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY, Nguyễn Đăng Sửu, PhD) There is a book on the table Có sách bàn Chị chơi piano hay She plays piano very well (cẩm nang Phương pháp dịch Anh Việt, Nguyễn Thanh Chương) 4.1.3.2 Literal translation The SL grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context As a pretranslation process, this indicates the problems to be solved “Năm 2002, 87% học sinh tốt nghiệp trung học 49,8% học sinh tốt nghiệp trường cao đẳng dạy nghề theo học trường đại học.” “In 2002, the ratio of high school graduates who advanced to institutions of - higher learning was 87 percent for general high schools and 49.8 percent for vocational high schools.” This programe is sponsored by Walls 48 Literal translation: Chương trình hãng Walls tài trợ She is deaf to all his advice Word for word translation: Cô ta điếc với tất lời khuyên Literal translation: Cô ta lờ tất lời khuyên 4.1.3.3 Communicative translation Communicative translation attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership …And finally they have been able to give them a proper burial …Và cuối họ mai táng em mồ yên mả đẹp 4.2 The analysis of translation used in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” 4.2.1.Translation methods in the bilingual story “An ideal husband On investigation of 90 questions in the biligual story “An ideal husband”, we have found that the author applied the following methods of translation as word-for-word translation and communicative translation Word-for-word translation L G : May I ask are you staying in London long? L G : Tôi xin phép hỏi bà có Ln Đơn lâu khơng? M C : Aren’t you coming to the music-room? M C : Ơng khơng sang buồng âm nhạc sao? Ma C : What are you doing? Ma C :Ơng làm vậy? (82, 83) L G: Yes, It was a pleasant surprice What did she come here for? L G:Có , thật bất ngờ khơng thích thú chút Bà ta lại có việc gì? (A.H, P84, 85) Communicative translation L C : Good everning, Lady Chiltern! Has my good-for-nothing young son been here? L.C : Chào Sin tơn phu nhân! Khơng biết cậu vơ tích tơi có tới khơng? 49 L.B : Terribly trivial! What did your man talk about? L.B : Tầm thường kinh khủng! Thế người đàn ơng dẫn bà vào nói chuyện gì? L.C: Into what? L.C : Phát triển thành gì? SIR R C: But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist? SIR R C: Nhưng xin thành thật hỏi bà: bà người theo chủ nghĩa lạc quan hay bi quan? Table 4.1 Frequency of translation methods of questions in biligual story “An ideal husband” Translation methods Frequency Percentage Word-for-word 34 34,68% Communicative 65 65,32% The results in the table 4.1 shows that communicative method is mostly used to translate the questions into Vietnamese, It takes up 65,32% while the percentage of word-for-word method is smaller, 34,68% Word for word translation or literal translation is the rendering of text from one language to another one word at a time with or without conveying the sense of the original text It tends to focuses on the source text Communicative translation, on the other hand, is focused on the target text and aims to ensure that the readers will understand the message of the text In translation studies, word-for-word translation is often associated with scientific, technical, technological or legal texts rather than literature texts Therefore communicative translation method is mostly used in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” is preferable 4.2.2.The uses of cohesive devices in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” As mentioned in 4.1.2, cohesion system was mainly introduced by Halliday & Hasan (1976) They argued that cohesion has a semantic concept, which refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text and define it as a text Halliday (1989) 50 confirms that cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some elements in discourse is dependent on that of another Cohesive devices or ‘cohesive ties’ might be grammatical or lexical and consist of words, phrases or clauses that link the discourse items together More precisely, the cohesive relations are made by the ways two or more items are semantically joined to each other in a text Based on Morris & Hirst (1991), cohesion is the textual quality that makes the text sentences hang together The cohesive devices in the bilingual story “An ideal husband”are repetition, synonym, antonym, conjunctions 4.2.2.1 Repetition You mean you cannot help doing it You know you are standing on the edge of a precipice (A.H p.70) I have to think of Mabel’s future happiness And I don’t think her happiness (A.H p.266) would be safe in your hands 4.2.2.2 Synonym …to try and kill her love for him, to put poison in her heart, and bitterness in her life, to break her idol, and, it may be, spoil her soul (A.H p.210) 4.2.2.3 Antonym Why you ask me such a question?Why you not answer it? (A.H p.90) At the time I was poor, you were rich (A.H p.202) 4.2.2.4 Additive conjuntions: and I don’t know what to do, and you are my only friend (A.H p.188) Life is never fair, Robert And perharps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not (A.H p.102) 4.2.2.5 Adversative: but, however, unless, yet, or The post should suit him admirably, unless he has deteriorated since I knew him first (A.H p.140) 51 Power?But power is nothing in itself (A.H p.92) Supposing, for instance, that - any public man, my father, or Lord Merton, or Robert, say, had, years ago, written some foolish letters to someone (A.H p.128) Perhaps the people are a little jaded I have often observed that the Season as it goes on produces a kind of softening of the brain However, I think anything is better than high intellectual pressure (A.H p.78) And yet I have come here to you a service (A.H p.156) 4.2.2.6.Associative conjunction: either…or I never believe a single word that either you or I say to each other (A.H 232) The frequency of cohesive devices is presented in the table below Table 4.2 Frequency of cohesive devices in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” Cohesive devices Frequency Percentage Repetition 81 26.82 Synonym 36 11.92 Antonym 14 4.64 And 98 32.45 But 52 17.22 However 0.99 Unless 0.66 Yet 0.99 Or 11 3.64 Either…or 0.66 52 Figure 4.1 Percentage of cohesive devices used in the bilingual “An ideal husband” Percentage of cohesive devices 35 30 25 20 15 10 The results reveal that repetition and conjunctions and, but are the most used A little less are synonym, antonym and or The least of all are however, unless, yet and either or 4.3 The analysis combinative with methods translation in the bilingual story “An ideal husband”into Vietnamese 4.3.1 The methods in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” into Vietnamese Communicative translation method is applied to translate rhetorical questions into Vietnamese We found no other method except for communicative method The translator is right to apply this method because this is literature, not scientificwork By using this method he can tranfer exactly what the questions mean MRS C: Will you see me down, Sir Robert? Now that we have both the same interest at heart we shall be great friends, I hope! MRS C: Ngài Rô bớt, ngài gặp tơi Bây có lợi ích chung với bạn thân , nhỉ? SIR B.C: Good everning, Lady Markby! I hope you have brought Sir John with you? SIR B.C: Xin chào Macbai phu nhân Hy vọng phu nhân đưa ngài Giôn tới đây? 53 L B ( emphatically):Yes, always to others, have we not? L B ( nói cách trang trọng) : Vâng, ln ln phải tìm đến người khác có phải khơng? 4.3.2 Some mistakes and suggestions Vietnamese learner when translating in the bilingual story “An ideal husband” into Vietnamese According to the An Ideal Husban “bilingual the story”, we think that when people translate English questions, they often get mistakes: language structure (phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, etc.) Use the wrong word, put the wrong sentence Example: Lord Goring : “Have you missed me?” Marbel Chiltern : “Awfully” Lord Goring : “Then I’m sorry,I did not stay away longe I like being missed.” Marbel Chiltern : “How very selfish of you!” (A.H.p46) Nam tước Gorinh : “Cơ có thấy thiếu không?” Mabơn Sinhtơn : “Thiếu ghê lắm.” Nam tước Gorinh : “Nếu tơi tiếc khơng chỗ lâu Tơi thích thấy thiếu tơi” Mabơn Sinhtơn : “Ơng thật ích kỷ!” (A.H p 47) Through the above dialogue, we see an error in the use of words In the context of the above text the word "missed" here has to be translated as "nhớ" in Vietnamese "Miss" is a polynomial polyglot in English The translator has used the expression that does not match the verb from the date in the above context So we should translate: Do you miss me? I miss you so much If so then I regret that I have not been there longer I like you to miss me! He is selfish! When translating "missed" into "Nhớ" in Vietnamese, the meaning is corect in the right context (the above dialogue) because the Vietnamese hardly say "I lack you so much-Anh thiếu em lắm" -“Have you missed me?” -“Awfully” -“Then I’m sorry, I did not stay away longe I like being missed.” -“How very selfish of you!” This dialogue should be translated into Vietnamese as: - Cô có nhớ tơi khơng? - Nhớ ghê 54 - Nếu tơi tiếc khơng chỗ lâu nữa.Tơi thích thấy nhớ tơi - Ông thật ích kỷ! Some English questions in the translated documents into Vietnamese, we have a general comment that basically translators with high levels of foreign language have moved quite precisely Form and content of English questions into Vietnamese However, there are also a few bugs that we would like to highlight below There are cases where English questions are used to indicate a certain semantic content, but when translated into Vietnamese, it is not meaningful and does not convey the context of communication Example : Mrs Chevely : “And what is Lord Goring?” Bà Sêvêly : “Thế Nam Tước Gorinh?” (A.H.p140) (A.H.p140.141) In English, "what" isused in the question, usually to ask about something? But when "what" is used with a noun or pronoun referring to a person, it has the meaning of asking about the profession It's like "What is your sister?" So the question "What is Lord Goring?" Is used to specifically ask about the job of the Baron Gorinh Therefore, it should be translated closely to the context and content of communication "Lord Gorinh is the president!" (A.H, P 140,141) It is also possible in certain contexts, many times when the translator does not translate in semantics, but only in the general sense (literary translation) That is why the real meaning of question was not successully translated Sometimes translators did not highlight this meaning Example : Mrs Chevely: “It was you who made him write that insolent letter to me? It was you who made him break his promise?” (A.H.p140 156) Bà Sêvêly : “Bà người khiến ông ta viết thư láo xược cho tơi? Bà người khiến ơng ta nuốt lời hứa?” (A.H.p140 157) These are two questions Yes - Not sure if it contains the "it who" stress construct The translation does not emphasize the meaning of the question in the content of the question in accordance with the intention of the speaker These two sentences should be translated: Phải bà người khiến ông ta viết thư láo xược cho tôi? Phải bà người khiến ơng ta nuốt lời hứa ? In some cases, the translator did not find the right context meanings For example: 55 Sir Robert Chiltern: “Give me a week-three days!” Mrs Cheveley: “Imposible! I have to telegraph to Vienna tonight.” Sir Robert Chiltern: “My God! What brought you into my life?” Mrs Cheveley: “Circumstance” (A.H.p 77) Ngài Rôbớt Sintơn: “Xin bà cho tuần lễ ba ngày!” Bà Sêvêly: “Không thể Đêm phải đánh điện Viên.” Ngài Rôbớt Sintơn: “Trời ơi, đưa bà vào đời tơi?” Bà Sêvêly: “Hồn cảnh.” (A.H.p 77) What in English is a Q-word or commonly called question word It is not used to ask for objects of human nature that are used to ask for objects, things or things in specific situations Thus, the translator translated the question "What brought you into my life?" Into Vietnamese, "Whoa, who brought you in my life?" Is not the right context meaning of "What" In the phone, Cheveley forced Mr Sinton to withdraw the report and support her plan of doing business If Sothon Robbit did not withdraw the report, his career would be dissolved by Cheveley The Sinton Robotee has retreated time, but Szevle disagreed; So he had the blame for asking Cheveley "What" in this case can not be translated into "who" in Vietnamese but must be translated into "what", because soon Cheveley replied to Robert Chiltern that due to circumstances she was forced to meet him In short, the question should be translated as follows: "What made you come to me?- Cái dun dủi bà đến với tôi?" The "what" in English is translated for operation in some cases, equivalent to "how," Sometimes "What" is also used to ask about the price Example: Lord Goring: “What is your price for it?” Nam tước Gơrinh: “Bà đòi nào?” (A.H.p 201) (A.H.p 201) So in this case, the translator used the expressions for the mode of operation instead of What price definition Vietnamese people often use "bao nhiêu" equivalent to "how much" in similar cases So the question "What is your price for it?" Should be translated into Vietnamese as "Bà đòi giá bao nhiêu?" 56 Sometimes, due to the pressure of the English structure, the translator has been influenced by the British expressions and the translation is not close to the Vietnamese expression Example: Lord Caversham: Which is the most comfortable chair? (A.H.p 172) (A.H.p 173) (Đâu ghế ngồi dễ chịu nhất?) "Which" is the word to ask in the choice questions in English Therefore, it should be translated into Vietnamese according to common Vietnamese expression: Cái ghế ngồi dễ chịu nhất? 4.4 Summary In this chapter, Cross-level, cross-cutting research then mention some Questions play a key role in communication Access to linguistic events is always associated with the cultural events of the corresponding language, but not identical, not even in the case the translator of language as a cultural event We also analyze the cohensive devices in bilingual story “An ideal husband” Find out some mistakes during translating made in such story is further discussed 57 Chapter - CONCLUSIONS 5.1 Concluding remarks Questions play a key role in communication They are uttered whenever and wherever there is a conversation Apart from the use of question to get information (seeking-information questions), questions are also used for other purposes (rhetorical questions) In connection it occurs and the intent of the utterance, a question can have many different functional uses However, in this thesis, we can only deal with questions in English and their Vietnamese equivalents through bilingual story and focus find out the similarities and diferences between English and Vietnamese rhetorical questions on some functions in terms of pragmatics 5.2 Limitation of the study Hard as I have tried to this research, it is definitely not a perfect paper for the lack of time and limit knowledge about the subjective perception Shortcomings are, therefore, unavoidable I would be grateful if I were given a hope of getting readers’ tolerance for those shortcomings and deficies 5.3 Recommendations/Suggestions for further study We have reseach the similarities and differences of the rhetorical question into bilingual English and Vietnames and to find out some mistakes and explanations suggested before explain rhetorical questions as a pragmatic phenomenon By uttering a rhetorical question, the speaker wants to persuade two goals: (i) get the hearer to recognize that she utters an assertion and not a question (i.e an indirect speech act), (ii) the speaker finds her utterance relevant, and (iii) the speaker accepts her assumptions without objections That explains why most of rhetorical questions are uttered in contexts where the inferential process will not require too much effort, and where the context and the relevance rinciple will guide the interpreter in the process of identifying the relevant assumption among the many potential assumptions easily Admittedly, at the end of this thesis several questions have remained unanswered Research project would be to analyze the speaker’s attitudes from an experimental pragmatic It would be interesting to analyze whether rhetorical utterances have a close set of pragmatic functions or whether these pragmatic functions can be deduced from the discourse Another issue that can be the topic of further experimental research is the relation between 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hỏi có từ ghi tiếng Anh tiếng Việt, Hội nghị quốc tế lần thứ ngôn ngữ ngôn ngữ học liên Á, 16-17 tháng 11 TP Hồ Chí Minh 32 Nguyễn Đăng Sửu (2001), Nghiên cứu đối chiếu câu hỏi khơng đích thực tiếng Anh tiếng Việt, Tạp chí Ngơn ngữ số 15 33 Hoang Trong Phien, (1980) Ngu Phap Tieng Viet, NXB DHTH 34 Một người chồng lý tưởng’, NXB The Gioi 60 ... looks at rhetorical questions in English and Vietnamese The major concern is the contrastive analysis of pragmatic of rhetorical questions in English and Vietnamese It also analyzes the similarities... the above-mentioned reasons, the writer chooses the thesis A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE based on bilingual story – An Ideal Husband translated by Hoang... unit in communication In speech act theory, an utterance has two kinds of meanings: Propositional meaning and Illocutionary meaning a) Propositional meaning (known as locutionary meaning) This basic