A study on intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English

Viet nam National University, Hanoi college of foreign languages postgraduate department nguyễn thị hồng tuyên A study on Intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English Nghiªn cøu ngữ điệu nh- ph-ơng tiện biểu đạt tình th¸i tr¸ch nhiƯm tiÕng Anh M.A minor thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Hanoi-2009 Viet nam National University, Hanoi college of foreign languages postgraduate department nguyễn thị hồng tuyên A study on Intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English Nghiên cứu ngữ điệu nh- ph-ơng tiện biểu đạt tình thái trách nhiệm tiếng Anh M.A minor thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang Hanoi-2009 Viet nam National University, Hanoi college of foreign languages postgraduate department ngun thÞ hång tuyªn A study on Intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English Nghiên cứu ngữ điệu nh- ph-ơng tiện biểu đạt tình thái trách nhiệm tiÕng Anh M.A minor thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang Hanoi-2009 Part I: Introduction Rationale: In the process of learning English, a large number of learners recognize that intonation is one of the most important issues and as the backbone of English It not only causes difficulties for the speaker himself but also for the listener Since English intonation is considered as one of the most important matter and as the backbone of English, there have been a lot of opinions about this topic In J P.O’ Connor’s opinion, the words themselves are unchangeable in expressing meaning but they are enriched in the process of using tunes What enriches the words is the speaker’s feelings at that moment and this way of using tunes is called intonation Here the phonetician wanted to emphasize the important role of tunes in English because the speaker can use it to express his state, he can say it definitely or hesitantly or sometimes he can say it with interest or without interest According to Barbara Randford (1988), expressing oneself and understanding other people are two of the most necessary goals for foreign language learners in general and for English language learners in particular In order to achieve two main goals successfully we must know how to master English intonation effectively It is the best way for us to express our attitudes, feelings, emotion while we are speaking On the other hand, it is helpful for us to understand other people’s feelings, emotion in their specch so that we can lead our talks to the result full of success and intelligibility Furthermore, intonation helps us to focus on the most considerable things to speak or express This make our talks more interesting and we feel more confident when we speak in public or in a crowd With the wrong use of intonation, our speeches may be broken because the listeners not understand what are the goals of our speeches More seriously, in some cases they are not patient enough to pay attention to us and they may try to find the way to stop our conversations as soon as possible In our everyday lives, much of our time is spent for communication with other people and in our communication, we not only exchange facts but also express our emotions and attitudes, or in other words we express modality.Thus, to study modality in general and investigate how much a speaker commits to what he says in particular is very interesting and essential Modality gained much populaity among linguists According to Halliday (1985: 86), modality is “an expression of the speaker’s opinion” towards the content of what he is saying, whether he considers it is possible, probable, certain, etc For Lyon (1997), a speaker’s qualification of his commitment to the truth of his/her proposition becomes an important issue Besides, the study of modality has spawned innumerable academic papers, namely Bybee (1985), Palmer (1986) and others In Vietnam, Hoàng Phê (1984) and Đỗ Hữu Châu (1989) have studied on Vietnamese modal system and there have been a number of English-written M.A theses on this issue, for example: Modality and Modal Auxiliaries: A systematic Comparision of English and Vietnamese by Đỗ HữHuyến (1996); Modality in English by Hoµng Thu Giang (2001); A Contrastive analysis of modal meanings expressed via Must, Should, Have to in English and the equivalent in Vietnamese by Phạm Thị Mai Anh (2005) Indeed, learning to express and interpret modality is very difficult, particularly for learners of English as a foreign language The learners’ failure in the understanding of the modal meanings has already prevented the from getting the goals of communication As a learner and a teacher of English as a foreign language the writer has realized the importance of researching intonation as a means of conveying modality, specificly on deontic modality to get the success in communicating goals It is the reason the writer would like to choose Intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English as the subject for this thesis with the hopes that the research can serve as a very small contribution to liguistic studies and also to teaching and learning English as a foreign language In addition, suggestions and pedagogical implications of this study can be utilized to aid teachers of English and learners of Enlish at Hoa Lu University in Ninh Binh province in the process of studying and learning English because in the school year of 2009-2010, the first English majored students will be trained to become junior secondary teachers of English for Ninh Binh Province Aims of the study: The study is aimed at:  providing as exhaustive as possible a description of the basic tunes in English and English deontic modality in terms of forms, functions, features and meanings  giving systematic description of two semantic features: obligation and permission as subtypes of deontic modality in English and studying the four basic tunes in English as a means of conveying those two semantic features  finding mistakes commonly made by Vietnamese learners in using Intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality  offering some suggestions on possible solutions to these mistakes and implications on teaching intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality Scope of the study It would be ideal for the thesis to study on intonation as a means of conveying both deontic modality and epistemic modality However, since the limitation of time , knowledge and the aims of the study the writer focuses on Intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality, more specificly, the four basic tunes in English as a means of conveying obligation and permission in deontic modality Method of the study In order to achieve the goal set from the beginning, a number of books and studies in the field of intonation and modality were collected and then studied thoroughly to set up the theoretical framework for the intonation and as well for the deontic modality.The study was classified mainly based on the basic tunes in English by J.D.OConnor (1991) and by Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang in “Lecture on Principles of Phonetics and Phonology” (2008), “Nghiªn cứu số ph-ơng tiện biểu đạt nghĩa tình thái câu - phát ngôn tiếng Anh tiếng Việt- (“Th«ng Tin Khoa Häc”, Sè 3-2008) About Modality, the study was mostly based on the opinion of Palmer (1986) And a combination of different methods of analysis will be used in this study: The first is the discriptive method Basic tunes in English and semantic features of deontic modality will be described in turns to find out how intonation can convey deontic modality Secondly, an investigation was made into the intonation and the deontic modality in order to find out the commonest mistakes made by Vietnamese learners when studying intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality by recording, interviewing, discussing with the Vietnamese learners of English Finally, a thorough analysis on the results of the study was made to give the suggestions and implications on teaching English intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality Design of the study This study is designed in three parts: Part is the Introduction: this part includes the rationale, scope, aims, methodology and design of the study Part is the Development: This is the main part of the study and is divided into three main Chapters Chapter One is dealt with the general theoretical concepts involving the subject under consideration Chapter Two discusses the intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English Chapter Three focuses on a number of mistakes existed on the process of studying English intonation, especially conveying deontic modality Part is the Conclusion: This part lays out the findings of the study, draws important conclusions and suggests implications of teaching and learning English as a foreign language and suggestions for further research are also presented Part II: Development Chapter 1: Theoretical background 1 Intonation in English 1.1.1 Definitions of English intonation English Intonation is a very important and difficult matter in the process of learning, studying and teaching English There are a number of lingustists have given the definitions of intonation In “Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary”, 1992, Oxford University Press, intonation is defined as: “the rise or fall of the pitch of the voice in speaking, especially as this aspects the meaning of what is said: intonation patterns.” According to the definition of Paul Tench (1996), the lingusitic use of pitch in untterances can be called intonation In his definition, two things are clearly classified Firstly, he specifies “pitch” as the essence of intonation Secondly, the definition futher specifies the concern between intonation and utterances Barbara Bradford (1988) defined Intonation is a feature of the spoken language It consists of the continuous changing of the pitch of a speaker’s voice to express meanings The author specified that people can mean different things by using the same group of words, arranged in the same oeder, but saying them in different ways J.D O’Connor (1967) mentioned to the different attitudes of expressing a word group, it can be said definitely or hesitantly, angrily or kindly, with interest or without interest, “and these differences are largely made by the tunes we use: the words not change their meaning but the tune we use adds something to the words, and what it adds is the spesker’s feelings at that moment; this way of using tunes is called intonation.” Here the phonetician wanted to emphasize the important role of tunes in English and a necessary study about the shapes as well as the meanings of tunes in English For Peter Roach (1983), “no definition is completely satisfactory but any attempt at a definition must recognize that the pitch of the voice plays the most important part Only in very unusual situations we speak with fixed, unvarying pitch and when we speak normally the pitch of our voice is constantly changing.” In sum, all the above mentioned definitions have mentioned intonation is the change of the pitch of the voice in speaking 1.1.2 Functions of English Intonation 1.1.2.1 Grammatical function According to Peter Roach (1983), with the help of intonation the listener can recognize the grammar and syntactic structure of what being said More clearly, the listener is better able to realize the placement of boundaries between phrases, clauses or sentences, the difference between questions and statements and the use of grammatical subordination may be indicated Look at a typical example by Peter Roach (1983): “ Those who sold quickly mame a profit." This can be expressed in at least two different ways: a/ Those who sold quickly mame a profit b/ Those who sold / quickly made a profit We can see the placement of tone-unit boundary causes the difference in the above example Besides, consider two different paraphrases of the sentences: a A profit was made by those who sold quickly b A profit was quickly made by those who sold With this function, we are easy to clarify the different types of sentences, they can be the declaratives, the interrogatives, the exclamatives, the requests, etc For example, if the speaker use the falling tune (or in the lower pitch) at the end of the statement sentence, the listener can realize that is the declarative But if the speaker use the rising tune (or raise voice) at the end of the utterance, the listener can understand that is the interrogative, even that is incomplete utterance and the expecting answer for the utterance is “Yes/ No” For example: She is Peter's wife (falling tune at the end of the utterance, and this sentence plays a role in providing the listener with the information that: that woman is Peter’s wife.) She is Peter's wife (raising tune at the end of the utterance, and this sentence can be understand as a question: She is Peter’s wife?) In short, with the grammatical function, sentences can be divided into different spoken purposes Each kind of sentence has a suitable kind of intonation So we can conclude that intonation plays an important role in expressing the grammatical meaning of a sentence 1.1.2.2 Attitudinal Function This function is probably the most familar With attitudinal function, the speaker can express their feelings, attitudes while speaking It helps to transfer a special meaning in questioning and answering It corresponds most clearly to the observation “Not what they said but the way they said it.” (Paul Tench-1996) Here, Paul Tench wanted to emphasize the term: “the way they said it”, that conveys the mood of the speaker or his attitude shown to the addressee Moreover, the speaker can give a message with different ways depending on the his states of emotion A message can be given politely, angrily, grumpily, warmly and so on Specifically: - The Glide-down: cofirming in categoric statement or expressing a forceful agreement from the questionner in tag question - The Dive: expressing the hesitation, uncertainty, sarcasm - The Take-off: expressing the anger, annoyance - The Glide-up: tranfering the interrogative meanings The great importance of attitudinal function of English intonation is undeniable If a person who has a dull voice with neither rises or falls sounds like a dull person, but one who can express that he is bored, indignant, friendly or angry and so on by using different pitches of his voice can have greatly good impression on the listener Unless the learners of English learn the appropriate way to use this function of intonation in a given situation, he will be facing with a great risk that the listener does not understand his attitude or emotion expressed in the sentence, for example, in his talk, he would like to express his bored or unhappy state but with wrong intonation he seems to be expressing a very happy mood This misleading view of intonation must have caused unnecessary anxiety to many learners of English Therefore, it is very necessary to learn this function of intonation thoroughly 1.1.2.3 Discourse function Looking at the larger context of speech, we can see that intonation helps the listener to identify the given information as well as the new information In conversation, intonation can convey to the listener what kind response is expected We call the above functions are intonation’s discourse function 30 + The Take-off is used to convey permission in the questions to show the annoyance, resentfulness or for repetition + The Take-off is used to convey permission in question tag after commands + The Take-off is used to convey permission in question tag when we don’t want the other person to agree with you, but to give his opinion, we can use the Take-off As the same with the role in conveying obligation, the Take-off is also used to convey permission in different communicative contexts With the use of the Take-off, we can find the attitude of annoyance, resentfulness, or anger on the part of the speaker The followings are typical examples with the settings referring to the commonest situations that the speaker uses to convey permission: Example 1: Setting: Jane is a new staff but she usually uses the office phone for personal calls Today, her boss has made many phone calls to her office for an urgent request but he has failed times by times He comes to Jane’s office in anger and more anger when he catches into his eyes a scene: Jane is joking cheerfully with her friend on the phone He comes toward her seat but she can not realize, she goes on chatting till the time he shouts at her resentfully: You can't use the office phone for / personal calls (you ought to know better) (You are not allowto use the office phone for personal calls) In this situation, the boss expresses his great resentfulness over his staff for her permission to use the office equipments The Take-off here shows its clear role in conveying permission Example 2: Setting: Jane comes in the classroom for the lecture at 1.30 p.m She is very surprised because it’s very hot and stuffy in the classroom but no one opens the windows She goes toward one of the closed windows and said to a person sitting near that closed window with an annoyed voice: Would you mind if I open the / window? The speaker in this case uses a polite question but with the use of the Take-off to convey permission, we clearly find out the implication of resentfulness in it 2.4 The Dive The Dive is generally used to express the hesitation, uncertainty, sarcasm, contrast, pleading request or warning The presentation of the Dive as a means of conveying Obligation and Permission through its main functions below will reveal more clearly 31 2.4.1 The Dive as a means of conveying obligation in deontic modality in English The idea of obligation expressed mostly by the modal verbs which has already mentioned in the above parts + The Dive is used to convey obligation in the statements which show the reservation, correction or warning on the part of the speaker over the addressee + The Dive is also used to convey obligation in the statements having two parts, of which the first is more important than the second + If the speaker wants the command to sound more pleading, the Dive is also used to convey obligation The followings are typical examples with the settings referring to the commonest situations that the speaker uses the Dive to convey obligation: Example 1: Setting: Jane’s mother is talking to her about the new recipe for the cocktail She is warning Jane of bad taste for it, she says: You' mustn't \ shake it too /much In this example, the mother has a warn over her daughter for a good result of the cocktail The role of the Dive in conveying obligation is very clear Example 2: Setting: Peter has a plan to go abroad for business next Monday, but there is an urgent change in his plan from the foreign co-operating company The boss called him and said to him in reservation: You 'ought to go V tomorrow (but not next Monday) In this case, the boss said to Peter in reservation because the sudden change that Peter has not known about it yet The clear role of the Dive in this example in conveying obligation 2.4.2 The Dive as a means of conveying permission in deontic modality in English The idea of permission expressed mostly by the modal verbs which has already mentioned in the above parts + The Dive is used to convey permission in the statements which show the reservation, correction or warning on the part of the speaker over the addressee + The Dive is also used to convey permission in the statements having two parts, of which the first is more important than the second + If the speaker wants the command to sound more pleading, more a request than an order, the Dive is also used to convey permission 32 + In the Yes/No questions for requesting, if the speaker wants to show his/her reservation or hesitation over the addressee, the Dive is used to convey permission The followings are typical examples with the settings referring to the commonest communicative situations that the speaker uses the Dive to convey permission: Example 1: Setting: In the office, a lot of people come in and out without closing the door Moreover, there are a lot of noises outside Jane’s seat is near the door so she feels very tired She has given a pleading request to her roomates: \ Shut the / door In this example, Jane expresses her pleading attitude toward her roomates to shut the door so the Dive is very effective in conveying permission in this case Example 2: Setting: In a farewell party, Jon is drinking wine with his friends He has drunk so much and felt very tired He does not want to drink anymore but his friends try to plead him of drinking some more wine: \ Do have some more / wine The use of the Dive in this example has effectively expressed its role in conveying permission 2.5 Summary In this chapter, the writer has presented the most popular functions of the four basic tunes in English on the view of Connor For each basic tune, two semantic features of deontic modality: Permission and Obligation are analyzed through the system of modal verbs which reveal the idea of obligation or permission to show how this basic tune conveys those semantic features The typical examples illustrated below and the given settings help clearer and futher understandings However, the fuctions of the tunes in English with the functions of conveying deontic modality are changable The question: “Would you mind if I open the window?" will be illustrated as below for clearer and better understandings: + If it is used as a genuine Yes/No-question will always be used with the Glide-up Would you mind if I open the / window? + If this sentence is used as a polite request, it will be be asked with the Glide-down Would you mind if I open the \ window? 33 + If this sentence is a request said with annoyance or anger, it will be used with the Take-off Would you mind if I open the / window? +If this sentence is a request said with hesitation or uncertainty, it will be asked with the Dive Would you mind if I V open the window? Thus, the use of the tunes in English as a means of conveying deontic modality are also changable and has got a flexibility depending on different aims of communicative situations and the speaker’s attitudes 34 Chapter 3: Mistakes Commonly made by Vietnamese learners of english at hoa lu university in using English Intonation as a means of conveying Deontic Modality 3.1 General observation For second language learners, especially in their early stage of learning English, making mistakes is an inevitable matter The main reason is the influence of their native language For the Vietnamese learners, the different characters between English and Vietnamese lead to some confusion in creating the interlanguage Specially, in the fields of English intonation and more complicatedly, English intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality In traditional teaching methods, students are very afraid of making mistakes because the teachers never accept mistakes and immediately stop or interrupt to correct them, even criticism and comments are introduced As a consequence, learners are not very happy or even not want to join the classroom activities Modern analysis of teaching methods considers the problem of making mistakes as the natural sequence of development However, the important thing that counts is how to help learners be aware of their mistakes casually in the process of competence and using, this is trully an effective teaching In the following parts, the writer will mention to the commonest mistakes made by Vietnamese learners in using four basic tunes in English as means of conveying Deontic modality A table of the analysis of studensts’ mistakes in using intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality at Hoa Lu University, Ninh Binh Province, a number of difficulties and causes facing Vietnamese learners in the process of competence and using are also mentioned to in order to arrive at some practical value 3.2 Mistakes related to the use of four basic tunes of English intonation One of the most popular mistakes made by Vietnamese learners in using four basic tunes of English intonation is the way to express the tunes In some cases, they are aware of the tunes but they not know how to express the in a correct way They mostly use the Rising tune instead of the Falling one and vice versa The main reason leading to this kind of mistake is many learners simply think that learning English well means learning well its vocabulary and grammar In fact their thinkings are not wrong but insufficient because the prosodic events, specifically the intonation, in a language can bring a lot practical value that play a great role in the success of communication However, many of them are not 35 aware of them and are very shy when using the tunes to express their attitude that leads to the wrong expression of the tunes and even the failure in their communication The second common mistake is related to the use of word stress and sentence stress A lot of learners are not aware of the stress in a word, especially the multi-syllable words as well the stress in a sentence Moreover, some learners realize the important functions of intonation in their communication, but they are completely confusing in expressing it correctly because they not know where the tonic syllable is and where the starting point is in a tune Therefore, they produce their speech with flat intonation that causes great difficulties for the listeners and even leads to the failure in communicative interaction Other mistake related to the use of the English intonation is the wrong expression of the rythm and pause in a sentence The role of rythm and pause are very important in produducing an utterance because when the speaker uses the wrong rythm and pause in their communication, the listener will not understand what is the most important information the speaker wants to transfer to him and the misunderstandings between the speaker and the listener is unavoidable In fact, the mistakes related to the use of English intonation from the Vietnamese learners exist a lot in the process of learning English Because of the scope of the study and the limitation of time, the writer has just mentioned to the three above commonest ones The dificulties leading to those mistakes are a lot of and the following presentation refers to a number of them The first difficulties are considered the internal ones They are included the learners’ insufficient awareness of the use of English intonation They have a simple viewpoint that good understanding and using of grammar and vocabulary are enough for a good English learner and successful communication without the prosodic facts and intonation is one of them Moreover, the laerners’ weak abbility of expressing and imitating the tunes of English intanation is one of the internal difficulties Some learners even are not aware of the combination between the rising with the falling to make a different tune and where the tonic syllable is and the starting point is in a tune Besides, many learners are shy in using the tunes to express their attitude or emotion that leads to the weakness of developing language skills The other difficulties are the external ones A lot of learners study English without the English learning environment, they not have chance to communicate with the native or the English speaking people They have to study in a very large class (45 to 50 students/ 36 learners in a class) and in short time for a period with a lot of knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, etc Furthermore, the assessment and testing are mostly designed as in the traditional teaching method with the written test as a dominance that makes learners pay attention to only the good competence and usage of grammar, vocabulary without paying any attention to the oral test with the communicative goals and the use of intonation - one of the main keys to the success in their communication that will help them a lot in their future career 3.3 data analysis and the description of studensts’ mistakes related to the use of four basic tunes in English as means of conveying Deontic modality at hoa Lu University, Ninh Binh Province In English, one of the ways to express the speaker’s attitudes, emotion, feelings, etc, or in the other word: modality, mainly depends on the tunes and the prominent words From those main factors, the listeners are easily aware of the state of feelings or attitudes on the part of the speakers to decide whether the speakers are showing their obligation as strong commands, the definiteness, the encouragement, etc, or their politeness, their annoyance, etc, in giving or asking for permission However, this is very hard task for the Vietnamese learners in general and the learners at Hoa Lu University in specific and mistakes are inevitable in using intonation The following presentation refers to some common mistakes from learners in the field of intonation as a means of conveying Deontic modality in English in order to get their tendency of correct use To help learners with this, the writer has developed a survey questionnaire The survey questionnaire is aimed at examining how well students understood the use of the tunes of English intonation in conveying deontic modality It was administered to 50 nonEnglish major students who were in the second year at different departments of Hoa Lu University All students asked to deal with this survey questionnaire were good at English last schoolyear, even some of them studied English as a major subject for the entrance examination to the university Students were asked to tick at the correct tune conveying attitude illustrated below In order to indicate scores and analyze data, it firstly appeared on the writer to introduce the number of correct choice from the collected copies and show proportion of correctness and incorrectness in percentage in the below table The description is perfomed following: 37 Table 1: The analysis of students' mistakes No Correct choice Incorrect choice 16 / 50 (32%) 34 / 50 (68%) 19 / 50 (38%) 31 / 50 (62%) / 50 (18%) 41 / 50 (82%) 13 / 50 (26%) 37 / 50 (74%) 17 / 50 (34%) 33 / 50 (66%) / 50 (16%) 42 / 50 (84%) 14 / 50 (28%) 36 / 50 (72%) The survey questionnaire indicated that most of the students understand the use of the tunes of English intonation in conveying deontic modality However, some of common mistakes were found These are analyzed as follow: 3.3.1 The Glide-up: There is still the carelessness in using the Glide-up In general, the Glide-up is used to show the interrogativeness (for yes/no question is often a genuine one), the soothing, the encouragement, the surprise, etc, in conveying obligation or permission Many of them think that with the use of “Would you mind .?” as the genuine yes/no question in number refers to asking for permission in a very polite way which is general used with the Glide-down and number indicates the definiteness on the part of the speaker not the encouragement, so they choose the Glide-down instead of the Glide-up (55% of the students chose the Glide-down) 3.3.2 The Glide-down: The Glide-down, in general, is used to convey obligation and permission on the part of the speaker with his definiteness, completeness, interests or politeness, etc, over the addressee or over himself as self-decipline, etc However, a large number of students use the Glide-up instead of the Glide-down to show this kind of attitude that makes the listener thinks he is asked for some information as in number 2, 48% of the students choose the Glide-up In number 5, 60% of the students choose the Take-off instead of the Glide-down beacause they think the speaker is expressing his / her annoyance and anger in using such kind of sentence 38 3.3.3 The Take-off: The Take-off is used to convey obligation and permission on the part of the speaker with his annoyance, anger, resentfulness, etc Here, many students used the Glide-down instead of the Take-off as in number (65% of the students) because they consider this sentence is used to show the definite attitude on the part of the speaker over the listener not the annoyance as illustrated 3.3.4 The Dive: The table of the analysis of the students’ mistakes shows a great number of students take the wrong use with this tune in conveying obligation and permission The general usage of the Dive is to show the speaker’s hesitation, uncertainty, sarcasm, contrast, pleading request or warning, etc However, in number 3, 75% of the students take their choice on the Take-off instead of the Dive because they think that this sentence is used for showing the anger much better than for a warning as it is illustrated In number 6, students think this is a genuine yes/no question so they take the Glide-up for their choice not the Take-off to show a polite question with an attitude of hesitation here 3.4 Summary In this chapter, the writer has given an overall observation on the learners’ mistakes in the process of learning English as a foreign language and presented the commonest mistakes made by Vietnamese learners in using basic tunes in English as means of conveying deontic modality in English The writer also mentions to the difficulties leading to those mistakes A table of the analysis and description of the students’ mistakes in using basic tunes in English as means of conveying deontic modality in English at Hoa Lu University, Ninh Binh province are given and thoroughly analyzed for the suggestions on possible solutions to these mistakes and implications on teaching intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English in the next part 39 Part III: Conclusion Recapitulation The writing of thesis has been finished As far as theoretical background is concerned, the study has briefly presented concepts, functions, basic tunes of intonations and the concepts, types of modality The notion of obligation and permission as semantic categories of deontic modality is also mentioned to paving the way to the investigation of basic tunes of intonation as means of conveying obligation and permission in deontic modality in the later chapters to get the main goal of the study and the results of which are summarized below A general observation mentions the commonest mistakes in the process of competence and use English, especially English intonation as means of conveying modality from Vietnamese learners Subsequent pedagogical implications, on the basic of these findings and the practical analysis of students’ mistakes, are also discussed, as well as possible directions for further research Because of limited knowledge of the writer, and the time allowance for the thesis, a lot of work is left to be further studied in this field And during writing the thesis, the writer can not avoid some shortcomings both in the content and the presentation Therefore, any criticism and comments from the reader will be much welcomed Concluding remarks The followings are the conclusions on its of the four objectives of the study: Objective 1: providing as exhaustive as possible a description of the basic tunes in English , modality and English deontic modality in terms of its forms, functions, features and meanings Conclusion 1: The study has given the definitions of Intonation and Modality in English on the views of different linguists, especially J.D.O’Connor and Palmer It helps the reader have an overview on intonation and modality in English Conclusion 2: an exhaustive description of the four basic tunes in English and English deontic modality in terms of their forms, functions, features and meanings has been provided so that the readers take its easy understandings Objective 2: giving systematic description of two semantic features: obligation and permission as subtypes of deontic modality in English and studying the four basic tunes in English as a means of conveying those two semantic features 40 Conclusion 1: a description of two semantic features: Obligation and Permission of deontic modality in English is systematically presented paving the way for the investigation in the later chapter Conclusion 2: a system of modal auxiliaries presented for each feature is clearly illustrated with the examples that helps the readers distinguish their uses between deontic modality and epistemic modality Conclusion 3: The clear presentation of four basic tunes of intonation as a means of conveying two semantic features: Obligation and Permission in deontic modality in English and the typical examples illustrated below are given This is one of the main findings of the study that plays an important role in choosing the right tunes for different communicative situations in order to get the goal of communication Objective 3: finding mistakes commonly made by Vietnamese learners in using Intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality Conclusion: a number of mistakes made by Vietnamese learners in using Intonation in general and as a means of conveying deontic modality and difficulties leading to those mistakes are taken into the consideration It helps the readers be aware of the mistakes in using intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English to avoid them in their communicative situations that leads to the great success of their speech Objective 4: offering some suggestions on possible solutions to these mistakes and implications on teaching intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality Conclusion: some suggestions to avoid mistakes in using intonation and implications on teaching Intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality to at Hoa Lu University, Ninh Binh Province are offered with the great hope from the writer that the teachers as well the students at Hoa Lu university will realize the great role of intonation, especially intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in their process of mastering English Pedagogical implications This study is found to have some implications for teaching, learning , and researching English intonation in general and as a means of conveying deontic modality Based on the theory of English intonation and English modality and the findings, the teacher could help learners understand clearly what the intonation is, what the basic tunes of English intonation are and how they convey deontic modality Furthermore, two types of 41 English modality and two semantic features of Deontic modality: Obligation and Permission with a number of modal auxiliaries expressing those features are systematically described that help learners have a clear distinction between them in the usage of modality in English In addition, with the commonest mistakes in the usage of English intonation and as a means of conveying deontic modality are pointed out, teachers can help learners be aware of those mistakes to avoid them in the process of mastering English Moreover, teachers can help learners realize an important thing that the success in their learning English is not only based on the good competence of its grammar and vocabulary, but also based much on the prosodic events in which intonation plays a very important role Teachers are the people who signal the right path for their students in mastering intonation and raise their awareness of the importance if it in communication The followings are some suggestions for the practice of intonation: + Teachers present an insightful introduction on English intonation and two basic tunes: the rising and the falling are asked to practise repeatedly in different contexts and with different attitudes or feelings, by different ways such as: listening directly to the teachers, listening to the tapes, etc and finally teachers give some concludings on the most popular usage of these tunes for learners + Teachers present various situations and ask the learners to play roles to express different attitudes to make the role of intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality clearer + Teachers should take the use of intonation, especially intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality, into the consideration in the testing and assessment not only for the English majored students but also for the non-English majored ones and for the students at high schools, too In the other words, for the beginning of the process of learning English to have the some considerable success in both learning and teaching English The writer really hopes that in the future, the topic under the discussion will be studied further and the result of the study will be applied for the teaching and learning of English phonetics, especially for the non-English majored and the English majored students at Hoa Lu University Suggestions for further research This study has been an attempt to find out the intonation as a means of conveying deontic modality in English A further study, if possible, should deal with the intonation as a means of conveying epistemic modality in English 42 References English Anh, Phạm Thị Mai., 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§HNN_§HQG Hµ Néi, NXB §HQG Hµ Néi 44 Appendix: Survey Questionnaire Tick () in the box for your best choice among four basic tunes in English conveying attitude illustrated below Would you mind if I open the window? - Speaker’s attitude: Genuine Yes / No Question The Glide-up The Glide- down The Take-off The Dive Would you mind if I borrow your newspaper? - Speaker's attitude: Polite Request The Glide-up The Glide- down The Take-off The Dive You mustn't shake too much - Speaker's attitude: Warning The Glide-up The Glide- down The Take-off The Dive You shouldn’t have given him all that money, you silly boy - Speaker's attitude: Annoyance / Anger The Glide-up The Glide- down The Take-off The Dive You must leave here right now - Speaker's attitude: Definiteness The Glide-up The Glide- down The Take-off The Dive Do you mind if I smoke here? - Speaker's attitude: Hesitation / Uncertainty The Glide-up The Glide- down The Take-off The Dive You needn’t go away - Speaker's attitude: Soothing The Glide-up The Glide- down The Take-off The Dive