The experiential structure of nominal group in English and Vietnamese = Cấu trúc kinh nghiệm của cụm danh từ trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt. M.A Thesis Linguistics: 60 22 15

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES  TRIỆU THÀNH NAM THE EXPERIENTIAL STRUCTURE OF NOMINAL GROUP IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (CẤU TRÚC KINH NGHIỆM CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 HÀ NỘI, 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES  M.A Minor Thesis THE EXPERIENTIAL STRUCTURE OF NOMINAL GROUP IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (CẤU TRÚC KINH NGHIỆM CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 By: Triệu Thành Nam Supervisor: Nguyễn Huyền Minh, M.A HÀ NỘI, 2010 CONTENTS: PART 1: INTRODUCTION I Rationale for the study II Scope of the study .2 III Research Questions IV Methods of the study .2 V Methods of Analysis PART 2: DEVELOPMENTS CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE I Systemic Functional Grammar II Noun Phrase or Nominal Group: The problem of labeling III Noun Phrase/Nominal Group in Different Schools of Grammar Noun Phrase in Structural Grammar and Generative Transformational Grammar Noun Phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar .7 Nominal Group in Systemic Functional Grammar IV The Nominal Group in English .9 An overview of English Nominal Group The experiential structure of the nominal group in English .11 2.1 Premodifier 11 2.1.1 Deictic 11 2.1.2 Numerative 13 2.1.3 Epithet .13 2.1.4 Classifier 13 2.2 The Head: The Thing 15 2.3 The Postmodifier – the Qualifier 16 Summary on the experiential structure of the nominal group in English 16 CHAPTER 2: NOMINAL GROUP IN VIETNAMESE I An overview of studies on Vietnamese Nominal Group 18 II Nominal Group in Vietnamese .19 2.1 The Head: the Thing 20 2 Premodifier 23 2.2.1 Position (-1) .24 2.2.2 Position (-2): Cái 24 2.2.3 Position (- 3) 25 2.2.4 Position (- 4) 26 2.3 Postmodifier 26 2.3.1 The Postmodifier is a word .26 2.3.1.1 Position (1): Classifier 26 2.3.1.2 Position (2): Epithet .27 2.3.1.3 Position (3): Deictic .27 2.3.2 The postmodifier is a phrase or clause 28 CHAPTER 3: STRUCTURAL SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF THE NOMINAL GROUP IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH I Similarities 29 1.1 NGs in English and Vietnamese have the same logical structure 29 1.2 The similar realization of the experiential functions 30 1.3 The Numerative occurs before the Head 30 1.4 The structural similarity in the post-position phrases and clauses 30 II Differences 31 2.1 The function of Deictic 31 2.2 The function of Epithet 32 2.3 The function of Classifier .32 III Concluding Remark 33 PART 3: CONCLUSION .36 List of Reference .38 PART 1: INTRODUCTION I Rationale for the study Over the last few decades, the modern linguistics has seen the remarkable developments of functional linguistics in which the theory of systemic functional grammar developed by Halliday is said to have the greatest influences Vietnamese linguistics has also initiated new trends, basing on the functional grammars Some Vietnamese linguists, such as, Cao Xuan Hao with Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức (1991), Hoang Van Van with Ngữ pháp kinh nghiệm cú tiếng Việt: Mô tả theo quan điểm chức hệ thống (2001), and Diep Quang Ban with Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt (2008) are the first to apply the theory of Systemic functional grammar into the interpretation of Vietnamese language And their studies marked new important changes in the approaches to Vietnamese language These works have settled a functional base for other further studies on Vietnamese under the light of the Systemic functional grammar In these works, functional aspects and relationships, such as the issues of Theme, Mood, and Process of transitivity of clauses have been described Besides, structures below clauses, such as, nominal groups, also have received some interpretations However, on Vietnamese language in general and Vietnamese nominal groups in particular, there have to be more functional studies because theory of functional grammar can be still considered "new" in Vietnamese linguistics That, in other words, means the number of people who know and pay attention to it is still limited On Vietnamese nominal groups, although there have been some studies, the issue still has some questions to be answered and some debates to be solved, and needs further investigations One question raised to be answered is: Can the experiential functions in Vietnamese nominal groups be clearly determined based on the systemic functional grammar? One debate that has not been solved completely is about the determination of the component element(s) of the Head and Thing in Vietnamese nominal groups Furthermore, for Vietnamese learners of English, the full understanding of nominal groups in English and Vietnamese has been proved to be of the great importance, especially, when they want to develop skills of high proficiency, such as translation As a matter of fact, dense scientific terms, expressions of complicated abstract issues, etc are in the forms of nominalization, and their meanings are not easy to be grasped The understanding of the experiential functional components and the effects that each component can have on the whole meaning of the nominal group in the two languages can help much in this case Those discussed above are the reasons for doing this thesis which is titled: The Experiential Structure of Nominal Groups in English and Vietnamese II Research Questions The aims of the study are stated in the following research questions: How are Nominal Groups in English and Vietnamese constructed in the light of Systemic Functional Grammar? What are the similarities and differences in the functional construction of the Nominal Group in English and Vietnamese? III Scope of the study As can be inferred from the research questions, the study focused on the experiential functions of nominal groups in the two languages The study is to describe the experiential functional components of which the nominal group is comprised Based on the descriptions, the comparison between English and Vietnamese nominal groups will be made Due to limited time, the issue of reference of nominal group/noun phrase is put out of the study That will lead to the fact that some relevant structural features of the nominal group will not be discussed fully The study is within the nominal group structure and the relations of its functional components Nominal groups that are used for the description and demonstration tend to be of the standard ones IV Methods of the study The basic methods used in this thesis are descriptive and contrastive methods of language research First, a description of NG in English is given in the chapter of theoretical background and literature review, and then that in Vietnamese will be done in the next chapter Nominal groups that are used as examples for analyses and descriptions are taken from books of different genres in English and Vietnamese The contrastive method is used to figure out the similarities and differences between nominal groups in the two languages V Methods of Analysis To answer the first question, with the Systemic Functional approach the study will look into the structures of the nominal groups in the two languages Each functional component of the nominal group will be described separately, and defined first in the interpretation of English nominal groups In the description of Vietnamese nominal groups, there will be marked positions in the structure; each position will be examined to determine the function that the element in that position realizes Examples of Vietnamese nominal groups will be used accompanied with their English translations The answer to the second research question is obtained through comparing the typical orderings of the functional components of the nominal groups in the two languages For the demonstration of the similarities and differences, examples of English Vietnamese nominal groups are given The similarities and differences are intended for further studies and unstated implications for learning and teaching English for Vietnamese learners 10 PART 2: DEVELOPMENTS CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE I Systemic Functional Grammar Systemic Functional grammar (SFG) developed by Halliday is a theory that is based mainly on the work of the British linguist J.K Firth It is also influenced by Hjelmslev, the anthropologist Malinowski, and the Prague School The theory is systemic because it is “a theory of meaning as choice, by which a language, or any other semiotic system, is interpreted as networks of interlocking options” (Halliday, 1994, xiv) It is functional because it is designed to explain “how the language is used”; “language has evolved to satisfy human needs, and the way it is organized is functional with respect to these needs.” (Halliday, ibid, xiii) What Halliday made himself different and developed from Firth and Malinowski, is that he has put more concerns on social and cultural motivations than on psychological/cognitive processes “Indeed, the social dimension is more strongly developed in SFG than in any other functional theory” (An Encyclopedia of Linguistics, p.701) Halliday‟s theory focuses firmly on meaning and he is opposed to the autonomous syntax when he tries to avoid using the term “syntax” and to use his term “Lexicogrammar” as an alternative He claimed that grammar and lexis “are not totally different kinds of patterning but are part of the same level different in degree” Moreover, the line separating Lexicogrammar and Semantics in SFG is not made clear; that is why SFG is (called) the grammar which is pushed into the direction of semantics In SFG, fundamental components of meaning in language are functional components, and the use and meaning of language are understood as the performance of the metafunctions: the ideational, the interpersonal, and the textual These functions are realized in every units of language in use ranging from the whole text to phrases and groups and so on It can be said that the theory of metafunctions is the thread line in SFG by Halliday It also helps to distinguish SFG from other functional theories The ideational metafunction is divided into two subtypes: the experiential and logical metafunctions The experiential function is to reflect our experience and 11 understanding of the world, which include all that come from our imagination The logical metafuntion works above the experiential It builds up our reasoning on the basis of our experience The second metafunction is the interpersonal metafunction which comprises the three component areas: the speaker/writer persona, social distance and relative social status, and which serves to establish and maintain social relations The textual metafunction is to provide links of building/setting up discourses By this function, we can tell a text from a set of sentences randomly mixed together It can be said that the theory of metafunctions is the underlying background of SFG II Noun Phrase or Nominal Group: The problem of labeling In doing this thesis, we have run over the two terms: Noun Phrase and Nominal Group, which are used to refer to the same thing but in different respects of meaning For the sake of further investigations later into the issues, it is better to look into the two terms at the right beginning for any distinction to be made Within the scope of this study, the two terms: Noun phrase and Nominal group are the two labels to refer to the same structural unit in language The thing that matters to be mentioned here is that each term is used in a certain context reflecting a certain choice Noun phrase is a term of formal grammar; it has been used in formal traditional grammar for a long time and has become so popular in linguistics As a formal term, it is likely to be understood fully in terms of intrinsic formal features of structural constituents To the term Nominal Group, it is easily understood that Halliday has his own reason for his choice As a functionalist, Halliday has always made himself a distance from formal grammar One of his ways of doing this is trying to avoid formal terms in SFG Therefore, he uses Nominal Group Also, he makes a distinction between the concept of Group and of Phrase A group is defined as “an expansion of a word”, whereas “a Phrase is a contraction of a clause The choice of the term Phrase is more preferable when dealing with it as a larger unit in clausal relationship However, this distinction makes no meaningful differences to the content of our analysis in this thesis In other words, in the scope of our study, Noun Phrase and/or Nominal Group are interchangeable, but because the study is based on the Systemic Functional Grammar by Halliday the thesis will use the term Nominal Group 12 III Noun Phrase/Nominal Group in Different Schools of Grammar In this part, we would discuss some typical points of view on Noun Phrase/Nominal Group from different schools of grammar with the aim to get an overview into all the studies on Noun Phrase/Nominal Group We will investigate the Noun Phrase in Structural Grammar and Generative Transformational Grammar Then we also look at the concept of Noun Phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar Finally, we discuss Halliday‟s point of view on Nominal Group Noun Phrase in Structural Grammar and Generative Transformational Grammar In schools of formal grammars, Noun Phrase is defined as a group of words with a Noun or Pronoun as the main part (the Head), and other words (coming before or after the Head) taking the role of modifiers A Noun Phrase may consist of only one word, which means it has only the Head without any modifiers Dogs and cats in the following sentence are examples: Dogs are more intelligent than cats Noun Phrases can have a noun as the Head and some other words such as a Determiner coming before the Head and modifying it Because the modifying words come before the Head, they are called Premodifiers In the sentence below the Noun Phrase: The house consists of the Head house and the Premodifier the: The house was pulled down yesterday When a Noun Phrase has the modifiers that follow the Head, the modifiers in this case are called the Postmodifiers In the following sentence, the noun phrase taking the role of the subject consists of three parts: the Premodifier, the Head and the Postmodifier” The girl who lives next door is now on holiday The a determiner is the Premodifier, girl a noun the head, and who lives next door a relative clause is the Postmodifier Going into the structure of the Noun Phrase, formalist have given a part model as mentioned above and diagramed below: Premodifier Head Postmodifier Following this model, the analysis into the structure of the Noun Phrase can be continued by investigating the components of each part At the end of the process of analyzing, single word classes can be shown in the chart of the Noun Phrase structure, as in the following example: 13 In short, Cái accompanied by another deictic element in the Postmodifier such as này/đấy (this/that) has the experiential function of a Special Deictic It also signals some kind of attitude which is clarified in the later part of the message 2.2.3 Position (- 3) Position (-3) is where the quantity expressing words/numerals go into These words and expressions in this position can be classified into sub-types as follows: - Words to indicate exact quantities, such as một, hai, ba, in ngựa, hai qủa chuối, ba mèo - Words to indicate inexact quantities in estimations, such as vài, dăm, số in vài người, dăm trứng - Expressing number nouns, such as, đôi cặp, chục, tá, triệu - Plural markers: những, các, - Words to indicate the delivery: mỗi/từng (each), (every) The elements in position (- 3) can have the function of Numerative and Deictic 2.2.4 Position (- 4) In this position, the totality markers: toàn bộ, tất cả, which all mean “all/whole” can be used Like in position (- 3), the element in this position performs the function of Numerative Some examples are: (1) Tồn sách (all those books) (2) Tất sinh viên (all the students) From the discussion above, it can be seen that, most of the elements (position (-4, 3, -2) found in the Premodifier part of the NG in Vietnamese are to express the quantitative features performing the function of Numerative Another experiential function located in the Premodifier part is the Generalizing Classifier which is realized by the element in position (-1) Besides, in position (-3) the element Cái accompanied with này/nọ elements functions the Special Deictic which also signals some attitudinal meaning 31 2.3 Postmodifier Most of the modifiers in Vietnamese NGs are located in the post-position, and the elements occurring in this part of the NG are of a very wide range The postmodifier can be a single word, a phrase or even a clause 2.3.1 The Postmodifier is a word When the postmodifier elements are words, there are positions that can be marked as in the following: hai mèo Premodifier Numerative đen Head Gen Thing Classifier dễ thương Postmodifier 2.3.1.1 Position (1): Classifier As mentioned previously, the element in position (1) is called the particularizing classificator (yếu tố phân loại chi tiết) which functions as the particularizing Classifier It is to indicate and clarify the subset of the Thing which can be classified in general by the classificator in the premodifier Consider the following examples; (1) bàn gỗ cũ kĩ (an old wooden table) (2) bóng tenis (tennis balls) (3) xe đạp Nhật (a Japanese bike) Cái, and are classificators functioning as the generalizing Classifiers which are to inform the general class of the Thing referred to; in (1) Cái signals that the Thing following is of an inanimate things (bàn) Gỗ, tennis, and Nhật are particularizing Classifiers which indicate the sets of the Things referred to In (2), bàn that is referred is made of wood not of other materials The function of particularizing classifier in this position is usually realized by a noun or an adjective It is the correspondence of the Classifier in the NG in English through the rendering 2.3.1.2 Position (2): Epithet In position (2), the element has the function of Epithet Like in English, the function of Epithet in this position in Vietnamese NGs can be classified into types: experiential epithet and interpersonal/attitudinal The former indicates some objective quality of the Thing; the later expresses some speaker‟s attitude towards the Thing The 32 two kinds of Epithet can co-occur in the NG Like in English, the function of Epithet in this position is typically realized by an adjective Examples: (1) cô gái xinh đẹp (a beautiful girl) (Epithet) (2) sách cũ (the old books) (Epithet) (3) mèo đáng yêu (a lovely little cat) (Epithet) 2.3.1.3 Position (3): Deictic The element in this position has the function of Deictic It is realized by a closedsystem of words and their derivations They are này, đây, kia, đấy, The core meaning they express is này/kia (this/that) Some examples are (1) cô gái (that girl), (2) phim (this film), (3) xe đạp Nhật (this Japanese) 2.3.2 The postmodifier is a phrase or clause Like in English, the postmodifier of the NG in Vietnamese can have a phrase or clause One thing worth mentioning here is the function of the phrase and clause in this position, like of the phrase and clause in this position in English, is to indicate some quality, characteristic, and feature of the Thing In other words, phrases and clauses occurring after the Head in Vietnamese nominal groups also have the function of Qualifier Some examples are: (1) cô gái mà bạn gặp hôm qua (the girl who you met yesterday) (relative clause as postmodifier) (2) người làm việc cơng ty (the people working in that company) (verbal group as postmodifier) (3) đường đến trường (the way to school) (prepositional phrase as postmodifier) In general, NGs in Vietnamese can have all the experiential functions as in English The position of each function is fixed That means we can create an experiential fame of functional structure for NGs in Vietnamese, and then by looking at the fame, we can check any nominal groups to claim that they are well built or not The investigation into the structure of NGs in Vietnamese shows that there are similarities and differences between Vietnamese NGs and English ones in terms of the 33 logical and experiential structure The interpretation of nominal groups in the two languages is the important ground for the next chapter which aims to clarify the similarities and differences in the structure of NGs in the two languages 34 CHAPTER 3: STRUCTURAL SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF THE NOMINAL GROUP IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH In this chapter, some similarities and differences in the structure of nominal group in Vietnamese and English will be discussed The discussion will cover both the logical structure and experiential structure aspects, but much more focus and attention will be putt on the experiential structure aspect because it is the content of this thesis In order to make the comparison clearer, examples of nominal groups with the translations will be used Implicit implications for language learning and teaching can be found in the similarities and differences discussed I Similarities 1.1 NGs in English and Vietnamese have the same logical structure Concerning the logical structure, English and Vietnamese NGs consists of parts: Premodifier, Head, and Postmodifier In the logical structure of NGs in the two languages there is a noun or pronoun that is the centre of the group, that carries the most meaning and that is called the Head of the NGs The elements are to modify the Head The logical structure pattern of NGs in the two languages can be summarized as follows: Premodifier Head Postmodifier This similarity points out that the logical construction of group and phrase in English and Vietnamese in general has much in common This can also be guidance for Vietnamese learners of English when they have to the translation between the two languages, for example As far as the experiential structure is concerned, the similarity can be seen is that Vietnamese NGs like English ones hold the full potential for having six experiential functions: Deictic, Numerative, Epithet, Classifier, Thing, and Qualifier It means that a Vietnamese NG is completely capable of expressing all what an English NG has To put it in another way, in translation between the two languages, an English NG can be completely interpreted by a Vietnamese one without the loss of meaning 1.2 The similar realization of the experiential functions Each experiential function in the structure of the nominal group is typically realized by one or two certain classes of word, by a certain type of phrase and clause In Vietnamese and English NGs, this is done similarly The Classifier in English is usually 35 realized by a noun and/or an adjective In Vietnamese, nouns and adjectives also usually realize the function of Classifier Consider the NGs below: (1) giáo viên trẻ (a young teacher) (2) vài ý tưởng (some new ideas) (3) vị Giáo sư mà anh gặp hôm qua (the professor who you met yesterday) (4) người công nhân làm việc cho bố (the workers working for his father) The italics show the functions which are realized in the same ways in the two languages 1.3 The Numerative occurs before the Head Like in English, in Vietnamese the NG also has the function of Numerative realized by elements occurring before the Head/Thing Look at some examples below: (1) hai sách (two books) (2) vài nghi vấn (some doubts) (3) tất câu hỏi sức khoẻ (all the questions on the health) (4) số phát minh (several new inventions) As can be seen from the examples, apart from the same expressions of exact quantities coming before the Head/Thing, Vietnamese also has words and expressions to indicate inexact quantities, such as vài, dăm, số, vài, and words to express the single delivery such as mỗi, từng, mọi, which have their equivalences in English and which also precede the Head/Thing functioning as the Numerative 1.4 The structural similarity in the post-position phrases and clauses The Postmodifier of Vietnamese and English NGs can have verbal groups, prepositional phrases, and relative clauses which function as the Qualifier The thing worth mentioning here is the group, phrase or clause in the postmodifier in this language has the structure similar with that of its equivalence in the other language That means if we have a relative clause in the Postmodifier of an English NG, we also have a relative clause in its translation in Vietnamese Some examples are given below: (1) người đàn ông mà chị gặp chủ nhật tuần trước (The man who you met last Sunday) (2) câu hỏi đặt cho vị giám đốc (The questions put for the manager) (3) cậu bé chơi vườn (the boy playing in the garden) (4) đường đến làng (the path to the village) (5) Các câu hỏi sức khoẻ (the questions on health) 36 II Differences On the whole, it can be said that the main difference in the experiential of NG in English and Vietnamese is related to the ordering of the experiential functions In English NGs, moving from left to right (from Deictic >Numerative >Epithet > Classifier > Thing > Qualifier), the specifying potential of the functional components goes from of the greatest to of the least, whereas in Vietnamese NGs the direction is reversed The specifying potential of the functional components increases when moving from left to right That means in English NGs the most specifying potential functions are put in the Premodifier In Vietnamese NGs, these functions come after the Head We will go into each function to clarify the differences 2.1 The function of Deictic The Deictic is considered to have the greatest specifying potential, so in English nominal groups, it is put in the first position of the group In contrast, the Deictic elements in Vietnamese nominal group occur in the final place in the Postmodifier This difference reflects, in the clearest way, the distinction in the ordering of the experiential functions of NGs in the two languages The following NGs are ones in the case: (1) thuyền (that boat) (2) nhà cô ( her house) (3) quan điểm (these viewpoints) (4) sinh viên (those students) Another small difference concerning the Deictic is that in Vietnamese NGs, the Deictic element in the Postmodifier can be accompanied with Cái - a special element in the Premodifier to perform the special Deictic which gains some kind of interpersonal meaning Compare: (5) anh sinh viên with anh sinh viên (this student) (6) cô vợ with cô vợ (his wife) (7) chuối with chuối (that banana) Cái does not have any effects on the experiential meaning, and it can be absent With respect to the interpersonal, it is clear that Cái indicates some speaker‟s attitude towards the Thing It conveys much more interpersonal meaning 37 2.2 The function of Epithet The Epithets in both Vietnamese and English NGs are typically realized by an adjective However, the function occurs in two different positions in NGs of the two languages In English, the Epithet element is placed before the Classifier in the Premodifier, whereas it comes after the Head in the Postmodifier Consider (1) xe đạp đắt tiền the expensive bike (2) vườn rộng the large garden (3) mèo xinh đẹp this beautiful cat It should be noticed that there is one type of mistakes made by Vietnamese learners of English when they have to construct a NG in English Due to the mother tongue‟s influence, Vietnamese learners of English can put the Epithet in the wrong place, such as the bike expensive, the garden large, and the cat beautiful 2.3 The function of Classifier The Classifier occurrence in the structure of the nominal groups in the two languages is difference The Classifier comes right before the Head/Thing in English NGs but after the Head/Thing in Vietnamese NGs, as can be seen from the following (1) sinh viên đại học (a university student) (2) hai xe đạp Nhật (two Japanese bikes) (3) mèo đen xinh đẹp (the pretty black cats) (4) súng đồ chơi (toy guns) Besides, the Classifier in Vietnamese NGs can consist of two functional elements: one generalizing element and one particularizing element The former is realized by a classificator (loại từ), and the later is realized by an adjective or a noun following the Head/Thing Consider the following NGs: (5) mèo đen (this black cat) (6) cô sinh viên đại học (a female university student) Con and cô are classificators functioning as generalizing Classifiers Con in (5) helps to classify the subset of the Thing into an animal class Cô in (6) informs that the Thing belongs to a female subset Đen and đại học are particularizing Classifiers specifying the subsets of the Thing referred in the two cases 38 In general, most of the functions that locate in the Premodifier in English nominal groups occur in the Postmodifier in Vietnamese ones The functions in English NGs are mirror images of the functions in Vietnamese NGs III Concluding Remark We will give some summaries on the content discussed with the target of giving the answers to the research questions as follows: The experiential structure of the nominal group in English and Vietnamese is made up of six experiential functions ordering in a fixed pattern The six experiential functions can be summarized as follows: - Deictic: the function of pointing - Numerative: indicating the features of quantitative and ordinative of the Thing - Epithet: indicating some objective property of the Thing and some attitude of the speakers‟ - Classifier: pointing out a specific subset of the Thing - Thing: the main experiential function holding the semantic core of the NG - Qualifier: the function of characterizing the Thing adding some quality Most of the functions in NGs of the two languages are realized by the same class of words, types of phrases and clauses However, because Vietnamese is a non-inflectional language, there are a lot of grammatical markers to present grammatical changes In the construction of the NGs in Vietnamese, many particles are used to perform an experiential function Therefore, when investigating the experiential functions in Vietnamese NGs, the functions of the particles should be clarified One example is the particle Cái, which is a sub Deictic element and which indicates some kind of speaker‟s attitude towards the Thing Besides, some particles help to make up not only one function, such as những/mấy which indicates inexact quantities, but also functions as the Deictic That is the reason why patterning the experiential structure of Vietnamese NGs is not easy Right below are the patterns for the experiential structure of NGs in English and Vietnamese 39 The general experiential structure of NGs in English can interpreted in the following table: (Table 1: The Experiential Structure Pattern of English NGs) Premodifier Deictic Dei.1 Numerative Dei.2 Quantitative Ordertative Head Postmodifier Thing Qualifier Epithet Experiential attitudinal Classifier (Table 2: The Experiential Structure Pattern of Vietnamese NGs) Premodifier Numerative Head Postmodifier Deictic Epithet Gen Totality Quan Particle marker marker : Cái Classifier Thing Deictic Par Classifier Exper Atti Demon Poss Qualifier The similarities in the experiential structure of English and Vietnamese nominal groups are related to the function of Numerative, the structure of post-Qualifier elements and the realization of the functions The Numerative comes before the Head/Thing of the NG in the two languages, indicating both the exact quantities and inexact quantities The similarity is not only in the case of expressing exact quantities by universal number, but also in the case of inexact quantities in estimations by particles There is a nearly word-to-word equivalence of the Numerative elements between English and Vietnamese NGs The post-Qualifier elements in English and Vietnamese NGs can be a phrase or clause Verbal groups, prepositional phrases, and defining relatives are typical elements in this position The similarity here is the English elements have their Vietnamese equivalences of the same structure, vice versa That means the translation in these cases can be made nearly perfectly The realization of each function is similar in English and Vietnamese NGs For example, in Vietnamese NGs, the function of Classifier is typically realized by a noun or an adjective Similarly, this function in English NGs is also by a noun or an adjective The differences in the experiential structure of English and Vietnamese NGs are in terms of the ordering of the functions In English nominal groups, the generalizing 40 process moves from the left to the right; The Deictic which the greatest specifying potential comes in the first place whereas the Deictic in Vietnamese NGs locates in the final place That is because in Vietnamese NGs going the left to the right is the process of specifying This results in the differences in the positions of the experiential functional elements in English and Vietnamese NGs The Epithet, for example, precedes the Head/Thing in English NGs, but follows the Head/Thing in Vietnamese ones 41 PART 3: CONCLUSION Systemic functional grammar is still very new to many linguists and many people who study Vietnamese linguistics Functional researches and studies on Vietnamese language are limited, and their implications and achievements are hardly found in the teaching of Vietnamese language in school and universities Done in that condition, this thesis on the nominal group is to describe the experiential structure of nominal groups in English and Vietnamese, and then to point out the similarities and differences concerning the experiential structure of English and Vietnamese nominal groups in the hope that it can bring about some implicit implications for the teaching-learning of English for Vietnamese learners This thesis describes the experiential structure of English nominal groups from the point of Systemic functional grammar Basing on this description, we have tried to investigate Vietnamese nominal group and interpret its experiential structure The thesis found that like English nominal group, Vietnamese one also potentially consists of six experiential functions In other words, a Vietnamese nominal group can have the same expressing ability as an English one This helps to confirm that theoretically in translation, each English nominal group has an equivalence of a Vietnamese nominal group However, due to the limited time, some relevant aspects of nominal groups, such as REFERENCE which can be a good suggestion for further studies on 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