Unmarked plural nouns in English and theis difficulties for the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, Honoi University of Culture

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT =================== NGUYỄN THANH TÂM UNMARKED PLURAL NOUNS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR DIFFICULTIES FOR THE 1ST YEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF TOURISM, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF CULTURE (Danh từ số nhiều khơng có dấu hiệu nhận dạng tiếng Anh khó khăn sinh viên năm thứ khoa Du Lịch Đại học Văn hóa Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15 HÀ NỘI- 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT =================== NGUYỄN THANH TÂM UNMARKED PLURAL NOUNS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR DIFFICULTIES FOR THE 1ST YEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF TOURISM, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF CULTURE (Danh từ số nhiều dấu hiệu nhận dạng tiếng Anh khó khăn sinh viên năm thứ khoa Du Lịch Đại học Văn hóa Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15 SUPERVISOR: DAO THI THU TRANG, M.A HÀ NỘI- 2011 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality of study project report………………………………………… i Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………… ii Abstract……………………………………………………………………… ………… iii Table of contents……………………………………………………………………….….iv List of tables and charts……………………………………………………………… .vii PART I- INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………… 1 Rationale…………………………………………………………………… ….1 Aims of the study…………………………………………………………… Scope of the study…………………………………………………………… Methodology……………………………………………………………… … The subjects……………………………………………………….…… …2 The instruments……………………………………………….…… The procedures…………………………………………….……………….3 Data analysis…………………………………………………………… …4 Design of the study…………………………………………………………… PART II- DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………….… Chapter 1- Literature Review………………………………………….…………….… 1.1 Definition of English nouns………………………………….…………….… 1.2 Classification of nouns…………………………………………………… … 1.2.2 Proper nouns……………………………………………………… 1.2.2.1 Definition……………………………… ………………… 1.2.2.2 Classification……………………………….…………… 1.2.3 Common nouns…………………………………………………… 1.2.3.1 Definition…………………………………………………….7 1.2.3.2 Classification…………………………………………… 1.3 Grammatical categories…………………………………………………… ….7 1.3.1 Number…………………………………………………………… 1.3.1.1 Definition……………………………………………… … v 1.3.1.2 Classification of nouns in terms of number…………….……8 1.3.2 Case………………………………………………………………… 1.3.2.1 Kinds and choice of genitives…………………………… 1.3.2.3 Genitive meanings……………………………………….… 1.3.3 Gender………………………………………………………… ……9 Chapter 2- Grammatical features of plural nouns in English…………………… ….10 2.1 Definition……………………………………………………………….…….10 2.2 Classification…………………………………………………………… … 10 2.2.1 Marked plural nouns…………………………………………… ….11 2.2.1.1 Definition……………………………………….………… 11 2.2.1.2 Classification……………………………….…………… ….11 (a) Invariables…………………………………….…………… …….11 (b) Variables……………………………………….…………… … 12 2.2.2 Unmarked plural nouns……………………………………… ……13 2.2.2.1 Definition……………………………… ……………… … 13 2.2.2.2 Classification…………………………………………… … 14 (a) Unmarked plural nouns which are always used with plural verbs 14 (b) Unmarked plural nouns which refer to groups of people or things………………………………………………………………….15 (c) Unmarked plural nouns which are formed by ‘the + adjective’… 18 (d) Invariable nouns which can be singular or plurals…………….… 19 2.2.2.3 Subject-Verb agreement………………………………… … 20 Chapter 3- Findings 21 3.1 Data analysis results…………………………………………………… ……21 3.1.1 The mid-term test……………………………………………….… 21 3.1.2 The students’ questionnaires…………………………………… …22 3.1.3 The teachers’ interview……………………………………… ……27 3.2 Findings……………………………………………………….………… … 30 3.2.1 No inflectional distinction with singular form… …………… … 30 3.2.2 Subject-Verb agreement…………………………………… …… 30 Chapter 4- Some suggested solutions…………………………………………… …… 32 4.1 Towards the students…………………………………………………… … 32 vi 4.1.1 Using dictionary……………………………………………… … 32 4.1.2 Self-access materials…………………………………………….… 33 4.1.3 Making a vocabulary notebook………………………………… …34 4.1.4 Group work…………………………………………………… … 34 4.2 Towards the teachers………………………………………………………….34 4.2.1 Using effective teaching techniques………………………… …….35 4.2.2 Using vocabulary consolidation as warm-up activities……… ……35 4.2.3 Guiding students’ home revision and give them feedback…… … 36 PART III- CONCLUSION………………………………………………………… … 38 Summary of the study……………………………………………………… 38 Limitation of the study……………………………………………………… 39 Suggestion for further study………………………………………………… 39 References…………………………………………………………………………………41 Appendixes……………………………………………………………………………… I PART I- INTRODUCTION Rationale Learning to master a language is a lengthy and effortful process including both learning the language knowledge: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc and language skills: reading, speaking, writing and listening As the final aim of learning language in general and learning English in particular is communicative, vocabulary is one of the most essential goals to achieve However, how to learn a language, especially its vocabulary effectively is really a problem At Hanoi University of Culture (HUC), the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism often report to have a lot of difficulties in learning vocabulary, especially the number category Surprisingly, a number of plural nouns in English have no plural endings (unmarked plural nouns) This is a big problem for students because they cannot realize these nouns as plural by their forms It arises even more challenges for students when they often make mistakes in making the subject and the verb of the sentence agree Up to now, no study on this matter has been carried out at HUC Therefore, the situation encouraged the author to a research on ‘Unmarked plural nouns in English and their difficulties for the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, Hanoi University of Culture’ It is the author’s hope that this study will be really useful for both teachers and students in teaching and learning vocabulary in general and unmarked plural nouns in particular Aims of the study - to provide learners with grammatical features of unmarked plural nouns in English - to specify difficulties which unmarked plural nouns in English cause to the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC - to suggest some solutions for students to overcome the difficulties in their using unmarked plural nouns in English Scope of the study This study is limited to provide learners with grammatical features of unmarked plural nouns in English such as definition, classification, agreement with verbs, some usage notes, etc More importantly, it tries to serve the purpose of finding out the difficulties in using unmarked plural nouns in English faced by the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC and seeking for possible solutions to the problems Methodology The theoretical background in this study is based on the theoretical frameworks by different linguists The presentation of these linguists’ theory is to give the readers features of plural nouns and especially grammatical features of unmarked plural nouns in English Additionally, in order to find out the difficulties of unmarked plural nouns in English for the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC, this study adopts quantitative and qualitative methods Below is a description of the subjects, the instruments, and procedures for the study 4.1 The subjects There are two types of subjects participating in the study The first type is the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC, and the later is the teachers who have been working with these students for years 4.2 The instruments In order to ensure the validity and reliability of the study, different tools were used, namely written test, questionnaires, and interview Instrument 1: The mid-term test was used as a tool to investigate the difficulties of unmarked plural nouns in English which the 1st year students have to encounter in their vocabulary learning Instrument 2: Survey questionnaires on the 1st year students were employed to find out what difficulties unmarked plural nouns in English cause to them in their vocabulary learning, what teaching methods used by their teachers they would enjoy, and what they have done to improve their knowledge of unmarked plural nouns in English (see appendix 1) Instrument 3: An interview was organized with 10 teachers who are teaching English to the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism at HUC to find out what teaching methods they are using when dealing with unmarked plural nouns in English, what difficulties they find from their students in their learning unmarked plural nouns in English, and some recommendations made by them (see appendix 2) 4.3 The procedures 4.3.1 The mid-term test 4.3.2 Questionnaires 4.3.3 Interviews 4.4 Data analysis As above mentioned, the data for this study is collected by the mid-term tests, students’ questionnaires, and teachers’ interview With the mid-term tests, students’ acquisition of unmarked plural nouns in English can be accurately assessed Information provided from students’ questionnaires will be categorized, tabulated and converted to percentages for the convenience of analysis Moreover, information collected during teachers’ interview is added to assist interpretation Design of the study This study is divided into three main parts: Part I: Introduction Part II: Development Part III: Conclusion PART II- DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER – LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, an overview of English nouns is examined to help learners get general ideas about the matter studied This part consists of sections: (1) definition of English nouns, (2) classification of English nouns, and (3) grammatical categories of English nouns 1.1 Definition of English nouns In Gerald’s view (2001), nouns denote both concrete objects and abstract entities Tran (2008:15) defines a noun as ‘a word used to name person, thing, animal or abstract concept’ From my point of view, Tran’s concept of English nouns is more concrete Therefore, the definition of English nouns by Tran (2008) is mentioned in this paper 1.2 Classification of English nouns Let’s look at the diagram to see the classification of English nouns in Tran’s point of view Nouns Proper nouns (unique reference) Tom, John, Mr Smith, etc Common nouns (generic/specific reference) Count noun man, boy, people Non-count noun water, oil, independence Concrete man, boy, water Abstract peace, war, independence The two types of nouns (proper nouns and common nouns) will be discussed hereafter 1.2.1 Proper nouns 1.2.1.1 Definition of proper nouns According to Collins (1992:448), names of people, places, organizations, institutions, ships, magazines, books, plays, paintings, and other unique things are proper nouns For example: Mozart, Romeo and Juliet, the President of the United States, the Seine, etc 1.2.1.2 Classification of proper nouns (a) Personal names: Tom, John, Mr Smith, Bill Clinton, Sir Jones, etc (b) Geographical names (including names of continents, countries, counties, states, cities, towns, lakes and mountains): America, Brazil, Arkansas, Boston, Silver Lake, Mount Everest, the Nile, etc (c) Names of institutions or organizations: London University, FAO, UNICEF, etc 5 (d) Name + common noun: Park Lane, Kennedy Airport, etc (e) Calendar items: January, Monday, Christmas, etc 1.2.2 Common nouns 1.2.2.1 Definition of common nouns If proper nouns usually refer to unique individuals, places or events in the calendar, all other nouns are common nouns 1.2.2.2 Classification of common nouns According to Tran (2008:16), the most important classification of common nouns is the distinction between (a) count and (b) non-count nouns 1.3 Grammatical categories Grammatical categories of nouns can be another aspect which needs to be mentioned when dealing with nouns Accordingly, grammatical categories of nouns consist of number, case and gender 1.3.1 Number 1.3.1.1 Definition Regarding Tran’s view (2008), number is the grammatical category that divides count nouns into singular and plural 1.3.1.2 Classification of nouns in terms of number Tran (2008:17) classifies nouns in terms of number into invariables and variables which can be seen clearly through the below diagrams 1.3.2 Case 1.3.2.1 Kinds and choice of genitives Quirk (1987) and Tran (2008) state that there are genitives: ‘s genitives and of - genitives 1.3.2.2 Genitive meanings 1.3.3 Gender Gerald (2001:38) states that nouns in English are not in themselves either masculine or feminine They not have grammatical gender, though they may refer to male or female people or animals CHAPTER 2- GRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF PLURAL NOUNS IN ENGLISH This chapter covers the following issues of English plural nouns: (1) definition, (2) classification For the purpose of this study which focuses on grammatical features of unmarked plural nouns in English, the other grammatical features of plural nouns, such as spelling rules, pronunciation, rules of plurality making, agreement with verbs, etc will be discussed in other studies 6 2.1 Definition Naturally, the concept of plural nouns is based on that of plural That is ‘plural nouns refer to more than one person or thing or consist of different kinds of people or things.’ (English Language Dictionary) 2.2 Classification From the author’s point of view, plural nouns in English can be classified into major groups: marked plural nouns and unmarked plural nouns The first group consists of regular plural nouns (have –s ending) and irregular plural nouns which have markers to be realized, such as voicing, -en ending, vowel change, etc The later consists of nouns which have no plural endings or have same forms with singular nouns or in other words, they are not realized as plural by their forms 2.2.1 Marked plural nouns 2.2.1.1 Definition As aforementioned, marked plural nouns can be understood as nouns which have characteristics to be easily noticed, such as –s endings, -en endings, voicing, vowel changes or markers of foreign plural In other words, people can notice marked plural nouns based on their forms 2.2.1.2 Classification (a) Invariables (i) Summation plurals (ii) Pluralia tantums (b) Variables (i) Regular (ii) Irregular +voicing (/f//vz/) + mutation + en ending + foreign plural 2.2.2 Unmarked plural nouns 2.2.2.1 Definition Unmarked plural nouns can be understood as nouns that have no plural endings (-s ending,-en ending) They also have no voicing, no vowel changes or no rules to change into plural like foreign nouns 7 In other words, unmarked plural nouns are nouns that cannot be realized as plural by their forms 2.2.2.2 Classification (a) Unmarked plural nouns which are always used with plural verbs Cattle, people and police are plural words with no singular They are invariable plural ones (b) Unmarked plural nouns which refer to groups of people or things These nouns are variable ones (e.g: family, team, crew) They can be changed into plural by just adding ‘s’ to the end (e.g: families, teams, crews) (c) Unmarked plural nouns which are formed by ‘the + adjective’ (i) the + adjective Adjectives like the following are used after ‘the’ to represent a group as a whole such as the blind, the deaf, the dead, the rich, the poor, the young, the old, the unemployed, etc (ii) the + adjectives of nationality We use ‘the’ with adjectives of nationality to mean ‘the people of that country’ (d) Invariable nouns which can be singular or plural These nouns are names of certain creatures like fish, sheep, deer, etc They have the same spoken and written form in both singular and plural Thus, we can say ‘a fish’ or ‘those fish’ 8 CHAPTER 3- FINDINGS The issues mentioned in the previous chapters only belong to the theoretical category To seek for an insight into the difficulties of unmarked plural nouns for the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC both theoretically and practically, this chapter presents the results derived from analyzing the data collected, thus findings are identified 3.1 Presentation of data analysis results 3.1.1 Mid-term test 3.1.2 The students’ questionnaires How you think of the role of vocabulary in learning a foreign language? What is the most difficult for you when you learn English plural nouns? As shown in the chart, what students find the most difficult in learning English plural nouns is unmarked plural nouns How you usually practice unmarked plural nouns at home? Which way of presenting unmarked plural nouns you like? What difficulties unmarked plural nouns in English cause to you? What kinds of vocabulary consolidation are you most interested in when learning unmarked plural nouns? Which way of practicing unmarked plural nouns you like most? What kind of task you find most difficult in you last examination? 3.1.3 Teachers’ interview What difficulties you find from your students in their learning unmarked plural nouns in English? What techniques and activities you often use to present unmarked plural nouns in English? Specifically what kinds of exercises on unmarked plural nouns you think interesting and effective for students to remember the taught words? What techniques and activities you often use to help students to consolidate and remember the taught words? What recommendations should be made to improve your students’ learning unmarked plural nouns? 3.2 Findings Having analyzed the data from the above mentioned sources, the researcher notices that there is a high level of agreement on the results from students’ responses and teachers’ That is, the difficulties which unmarked plural nouns cause to the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC belong to main categories: No inflectional distinction between singular and plural Subject-Verb agreement 3.2.1 No inflectional distinction between singular and plural As mentioned in the Introduction part, according to Bache (1997), a noun is marked inflectionally as singular or plural by means of –s (and other markers such as voicing, -en endings, vowel changes or foreign plural) or Ø respectively Unfortunately, a great number of nouns in English have no plural markers To put it in another way, they have the same form as singular This causes so many difficulties for students since students cannot realize these nouns as plural by their forms Consequently, they make mistakes in word use and in communication 3.2.2 Subject-Verb agreement Subject-Verb agreement and plurality making are complex phenomena and vary in different languages, depending on the morphological possibilities of these languages (Gazdar et al, 1983) To some extent, this second difficulty can be considered as a consequence of the first one Since students not know unmarked plural nouns as plural, they often make mistakes in making the subject and the verb of the sentence agree It arises even more difficulties for students in the case of collective nouns which can be either singular or plural Therefore, students have to consider whether the noun refers to singular undivided body or a collection of individuals to make the right concord between subject and verb CHAPTER 4- SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS Based on the results obtained from the study, herein after are some solutions suggested by the researcher, with a hope to partly overcome the difficulties of unmarked plural nouns in 10 English for the 1st years at the Faculty of Tourism at her university in particular, and to improve the English learning and teaching at the university in general 4.1 Toward students 4.1.1 Using dictionary 4.1.2 Self-access materials 4.1.3 Making a vocabulary notebook 4.1.4 Group work 4.2 Towards the teachers According to Dudley-Evans & John (1998), teachers are both good teachers and good designers of course materials To be a good provider of materials, one of their roles is to modify activities to suit their learners’ need In the case of HUC, the teachers should be encouraged to help students to reduce their difficulties by the following ways 4.2.1 Presenting unmarked plural nouns by using effective teaching techniques 4.2.2 Using vocabulary consolidation as warm-up activities 4.2.3 Guiding students’ home revision and give them feedback 11 PART 3- CONCLUSION Summary of the study To begin with, the study reviews theoretical issues related to concepts, classification, grammatical categories of nouns in English, and grammatical features of plural nouns in general and unmarked plural nouns in particular Findings from the study urge the researcher to seek some suggested solutions to the discovered difficulties in order to reduce them, and to promote the effectiveness of vocabulary teaching and learning at the university The statistics from the students’ tests and the questionnaires indicates that unmarked plural nouns in English cause some difficulties to a considerable number of the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC The difficulties are identified in two categories: no inflectional distinction between singular and plural, and Subject-Verb agreement For the first one, unmarked plural nouns have the same form as singular, which causes so many difficulties for students since students cannot realize these nouns as plural by their forms As a consequence, they make mistakes in word use and in context The second difficulty may be considered as a consequence of the first one Students often make mistakes in making the right concord between the subject and the verb because they cannot realize the plural forms of unmarked plural nouns It arises even more difficulties for students in dealing with collective nouns which can be either singular or plural The results from the teachers’ interview backs up the above-mentioned difficulties found from students’ questionnaires Moreover, the interview reveals that the GrammarTranslation method which is overused compared with other methods in vocabulary teaching is considered one of the reasons to cause difficulties in learning unmarked plural nouns, especially in word use and in communication Also, some recommendations are made by the teachers which focus on diversifying the teachers’ presentation and consolidation of unmarked plural nouns, designing exercises, and regularly checking to increase effectiveness in students’ learning unmarked plural nouns Finally, based on the study’s findings, and to the best understanding of the researcher, some solutions are suggested for both students and teachers at the Faculty of Tourism at HUC with a hope to partly improve the situation To the students, it is necessary for them to be more aware of the importance of their self-learning combined with dictionary use, learning on Internet, vocabulary notebook, and group work To the teachers, they are encouraged to look for more interesting and effective techniques and activities in 12 presenting and consolidating unmarked plural nouns with a range of exercises to their students Limitations of the study Although the study is done to the best understanding of the researcher, it is impossible to avoid some limitations of the study Firstly, if the study was conducted in the light of an experimental research, the researcher could make the best choice of what techniques should be used by both teachers and students in their teaching and learning unmarked plural nouns Secondly, if the researcher conducted an interview with some of the surveyed students in students’ questionnaires, the study could touch upon deeper insights to explore their opinions freely about the difficulties which unmarked plural nouns in English cause to them and their needs as well Suggestions for further study This study only explored the difficulties caused by internal factors of unmarked plural nouns for the 1st year students at the Faculty of Tourism, HUC Future researcher can further investigate problems and causes on learning English unmarked plural nouns in particular and English plural nouns in general by looking at learners’ internal factors like learners’ intelligence, aptitude, personality, motivation and attitudes, preferences, belief, age, acquisition, or external factors like learners’ FL environment, or learners’ cultural background, and what should be done to treat the would-be found problems