(Luận văn thạc sĩ) tag questions in english linguistic features and possible padagogical implications

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****************** BÙI THỊ NGỌC TUYỀN TAG QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH: LINGUISTIC FEATURES AND POSSIBLE PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS Câu hỏi tách biệt tiếng Anh: Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ học ứng dụng sư phạm khả hữu M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 HANOI- 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****************** BÙI THỊ NGỌC TUYỀN TAG QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH: LINGUISTIC FEATURES AND POSSIBLE PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS Câu hỏi tách biệt tiếng Anh: Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ học ứng dụng sư phạm khả hữu M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang HANOI- 2014 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled TAG QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH: LINGUISTIC FEATURES AND POSSIBLE PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS ( Câu hỏi tách biệt Tiếng Anh: Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ học ứng dụng sư phạm khả hữu) submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MA in English Linguistics Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2014 Bùi Thị Ngọc Tuyền i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher I am grateful to the lecturers of M.A course for their valuable lectures from which I have had such a great motivation and benefited a lot in writing this thesis My sincere thanks also go to all my colleagues and students at Tran Phu High School for their assistance during the process of collecting data for my research work Last but not least, special words of thanks are sent to my beloved family for their encouragement and their sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfilment of this academic work ii ABSTRACT Tag question is a special type of questions in English, which is frequently used by native speakers in daily conversations However, students at Tran Phu High School, Quang Ninh Province usually make mistakes in using this grammatical structure so they cannot communicate successfully This thesis is an attempt to help students master the nature of tag questions and become more confident in using them In this thesis, the following points have been raised: the most relevant factors involving a tag question such as notions of tag questions, polarity, operators, intonation Syntactic and semantic features of tag questions are also clearly presented Besides, a study on students‟ mistakes in using tag questions is provided The data were collected among 90 eleventh grade students at Tran Phu high school by means of questionnaires The findings highlighted students‟ categories of mistakes including structural mistakes and intonation-related mistakes Through the findings, the author has also tried to find out the causes of the mistakes and suggests some possible solutions in order to help students avoid committing these types of mistakes iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Certificate of originality i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of tables vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims of the study Objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Significance of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter : LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous works related to the theme of this research 1.2 Review of theoretical background 1.2.1 English questions 1.2.1.1 Definition of questions 1.2.1.2 Classification of English questions 1.2.1.3 Definitions of English tag questions 1.2.2 Operators 1.2.2.1 Operators for Negation 1.2.2.2 Operators for Interrogation 1.2.2.3 Operators for Emphasis 1.2.3 Polarity 10 1.2.3.1 Definition of polarity 10 1.2.3.2 Polarity in tag questions 11 1.2.3.2.1 Opposite Polarity Tag Questions 11 1.2.3.2.2 Same Polarity Tag Questions 13 iv 1.2.4 Intonation 14 1.2.4.1 Definition of intonation 14 1.2.4.2 Types of English intonation 15 1.2.4.2.1 The falling tune ( The Glide- down) 15 1.2.4.2.2 The first rising tune ( The Glide-up) 16 1.2.4.2.3 The second rising tune ( The Take –off) 17 1.2.4.2.4 The falling- rising tune (The Dive) 17 1.2.4.3 Functions of intonation 18 1.2.4.3.1 Attitudinal function 18 1.2.4.3.2 Accentual function 18 1.2.4.3.3 Grammatical function 19 1.2.4.3.4 Discourse function 19 1.3 Summary 19 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 20 2.1 Research-governing orientations 20 2.1.1 Research questions revisited 20 2.1.2 Research setting 20 2.2 Research methods 21 2.2.1 Participants of the research 21 2.2.2 Research Instrument – Questionnaire 21 2.2.2.1.Principles for questionnaire formulation 21 2.2.2.2 Structure and purposes of questionnaire 21 2.2.3 Data collection procedures 22 2.2.4 Data analysis techniques 23 2.3 Summary 23 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 24 3.1 The linguistic features of tag questions 24 3.1.1 Syntactic features of tag questions 24 3.1.2 Semantic features of tag questions 25 3.1.3 Other types of tags 26 3.1.3.1 Tags with imperatives 27 3.1.3.2 Tags with exclamative sentences 27 v 3.1.3.3 Echo tags 28 3.1.3.4 Invariant tags 28 3.2 Common mistakes made by students when using tag questions 3.2.1 Structural mistakes 29 30 3.2.1.1 Wrong use of operators 31 3.2.1.2 Wrong use of pronouns 31 3.2.1.3 Wrong use of polarity 31 3.2.2 Intonation-related mistakes 32 3.2.3 Other mistakes 33 3.3 The causes of students‟ mistakes in using tag questions 34 3.3.1 Teaching methods and learning materials 34 3.3.2 Students‟ poor competence and performance 34 3.4 Solutions to the problems 35 3.4.1 Solutions for teachers 35 3.4.2 Solutions for students 35 3.5 Pedagogical implications in teaching tag questions 36 3.6 Summary 38 PART C – CONCLUSION 39 Recapitulation 39 Conclusions 39 Limitations and suggestion for further study 41 REFERENCES 42 BIBLIOGRAPHY 44 APPENDIX I vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The number and percentage of each category of mistakes Table 2: Number and percentage of structural mistakes Table 3: Number and percentage of intonation- related mistakes vii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Tag question in English is a special type of questions which frequently appear in daily conversations by native speakers Tag questions have a complex structure and diversity of meaning During the time of teaching English at Tran Phu High School, I have had a hard time correcting students‟ errors and mistakes Most of these common errors and mistakes center round linguistic features of this question type Moreover, I find that most of the students get confused when answering a tag question They can answer the question, for instance, “Do you live near here?” without any difficulties Nevertheless, it is not easy for them to answer such questions as “You live near here, don‟t you?” or “ You don‟t live near here, you?” Also, in many situations during English lessons, I receive the same answer for one tag question which is said with different patterns of tunes (rising or falling) Obviously, my students are unaware of the role of intonation in functions of tag questions These students‟ errors and mistakes in using tag questions have, therefore, urged me to choose this topic as the theme for my M.A thesis in English language I hope that this research -Tag questions in English: linguistic features and possible pedagogical implications- can serve as a contribution to teaching and learning English Suggestions and pedagogical implications of this study can be utilized to aid teachers and students in the process of instruction as well as learning a second language Aims of the study This thesis is an attempt to help learners of English in general and students at Tran Phu high school in particular gain an insight into tag questions in English, and on this basis, improvement can be made in using English tag questions Positive stem, negative tag ( You are a student, aren‟t you?) Negative stem, positive tag (You aren‟t a student, are you?) However, in some cases in which the negation is not expressed by means of operators, but by the subject or adverb of the statement, students use wrong polarity in the tag For example, 40 among 52 mistakes in Q1 belong to polarity value He hardly ever makes a mistake, doesn‟t he? and 35 among 47 mistakes in Q2 lie in polarity Nobody likes the play, don‟t they? 3.2.2 Intonation-related mistakes These are very common mistakes among students 70 students asked say they never pay attention to the intonation when using tag questions, 20 of them say sometimes, and nobody choose “always” for their answer Look at the following table to see the errors and mistakes in detail Questions Correct answer Number/percentage of errors, mistakes 17 Em nghĩ ngữ điệu có ảnh hưởng đến ý nghĩa câu hỏi đuôi không? 18 Câu trả lời cho câu hỏi "Snow isn't white, is it?" câu nào? 19 Câu trả lời cho câu hỏi "Snow is white, isn‟t it?" câu nào? 20 Em hiểu mục đích câu "Today is March 26th, isn't it?" nói với ngữ điệu xuống giọng cuối câu gì? 21 Em hiểu mục đích câu "Today is March 26th, isn't it?" nói với ngữ điệu lên giọng cuối câu gì? 22 Muốn người nghe trả lời "Yes" câu hỏi " You live near here, don't you ?" nói với ngữ điệu sau đây? 23 Người nghe trả lời “Yes” “No” câu hỏi “ Your father is a teacher, isn‟t he?” nói với ngữ điệu sau đây? Total Có 30 (33.3%) Yes, it is 80 (88.8%) Yes, it is (0%) Tìm kiếm đồng 42 (46.7%) tình người nghe Hỏi người nghe 48( 53.3%) xác nhận thông tin Xuống giọng 42 (46.7%) cuối câu Lên giọng cuối câu 48 (53.3%) 290 Table 3: Number and percentage of intonation-related errors 32 From the result shown in the table we can see that my students are unaware of the relation between different intonations and different meaning of tag questions As a result, they not know whether they should use a falling or rising intonation when their expected answer is a confirmation or an agreement 46.7% of the students give a wrong answer for Q20 and another 53.3% answer incorrectly in Q21 Obviously, students know that different purposes can be expressed with different patterns of tunes But the problem is that they not know which pattern for which purpose Surprisingly, the same number of students are ambiguous when answering Q22, Q23 which are about the expected answer of a tag question Besides, answering a tag question without realizing the purpose of the speaker is a common mistake It means that they take little care of patterns of intonations used in the question Many students get confused when replying to a tag question They wonder if their answer must be for the stem or for the tag Nearly 90% of the students give a wrong answer to the question „Snow isn‟t white, is it?‟ Instead of saying „Yes, it is‟, they choose „No, it isn‟t‟ for their answer Meanwhile, 100% of the students answer correctly to Q19 „Snow is white, isn‟t it?‟ (- Yes, it is) 3.2.3 Other mistakes Besides the mistakes in using polarity, operators and pronouns as well as in using intonation, there are 110 mistakes related to the structural form of the tag questions It happens in some sub-types of tag questions (imperatives, exclamations, subjectless sentences, let‟s structure…) For example: Statement Q8: Tag Don‟t touch that button, you?/do they?/will they? Q10: Not a very good film, does it?/is the film? Q14: What a beautiful girl, doesn‟t she?/ is she?/ isn‟t the girl? 33 3.3 Causes of students’ mistakes in using tag questions From the analysis, students‟ difficulties in using tag questions are concluded to be caused by two main factors 3.3.1 Teaching methods and learning materials: Many teachers and grammatical books in Vietnamese written for high school students just focus on the structure or the form of tag questions They not mention other aspects of this type of questions such as semantic patterns and intonations As a result, almost all students even the ones who are well aware of the structure of all types of tag questions are unaware of the important role of intonations in the meaning of the questions Most of them speak tag questions with a rising intonation like in Yes/ No questions and simply, they thought that the purpose of tag questions is similar to that of Yes/No questions, which is to ask the hearer to confirm the information Additionally, because of the pressure of written tests or exams in Vietnam, most students pay no attention to communication but exercises This learning methods leads to the fact that they have difficulties in real conversations, sometimes they cannot utter the answer to questions and sometimes they reply to the questions uncorrectly For example, many students wonder whether the correct answer to the question „Snow isn‟t black, is it?‟ is „Yes, it is‟ or „No, it isn‟t‟ 3.3.2 Students’ low competence and inadequate practice: Grammatical mistakes in using tag questions are because they not have deep understanding about operators, negation and pronouns in English Many of them cannot remember when to use „be” and when to use “do” In other words, they think only “be” is the operator in situations where “do” is absent They sometimes use wrong polarity as negative meaning in the statement is expressed not only by „not‟ but also by rarely, seldom, hardly, never, nothing, nobody, no one Structural mistakes in using tag questions are also due to students‟ lack of practice “Practice makes perfect” Therefore, if they many different types of exercises 34 related to tag questions again and again, they will remember all the rules about this type of questions 3.4 Solutions to the problems Many students find it hard to make a correct tag question, they may make mistakes in structure or intonation or even semantics Therefore, they not participate actively in the discussion activities during a speaking lesson and cannot communicate freely and confidently The findings are very important for English teachers If English teachers can make out the problems, they can figure out some solutions to help their students 3.4.1 Solutions for teachers: In order to get a better result in teaching and learning tag questions, it is very necessary for teachers to have a deep understanding of linguistic features of tag questions which are their structures, semantic patterns and intonations And teachers should be aware of the importance of teaching all these features to students, teaching the forms must not be separated from patterns of intonations because different pitches of the voice can change the purpose of tag questions To get the goal, all of the games, activities and exercises designed for students should cover full characteristics of tag questions 3.4.2 Solutions for students: As usual, Vietnamese learners are afraid of making mistakes when they speak English This makes them become silent learners during English lessons To overcome this difficulty especially in using tag questions students firstly need to spend more time to as many exercises about this grammatical category as possible, pay attention to special cases, try to remember all the rules related to the forms Then they should actively take part in all the activities organized by the teachers during the lessons, try to realize the purpose of questions based on their intonation 35 3.5 Possible implications for teaching tag questions * In order for students to be well aware of the structure of tag questions, the grammatical matters of operators, polarity and pronouns must be clearly defined Structurally, wrong use of operators is the most common mistakes committed by students in using tag questions Therefore, teachers should help students to realize the functions and the use of English operators in certain setting by regarding to the context of utterance „Which operator is used in the tag of a certain question‟ needs clarifying Many examples of operators in tags should be given before asking students to practise Moreover, teachers should raise students‟ awareness of some special cases with operators like „aren‟t I‟ and the abbreviation form of „‟s‟ and „‟d‟ in the stem, which means they must realize what word it is ( is or has; had or would) so that they can use a correct operator in the tag The rules of polarity or opposite and pronouns are rather simple for students to understand However, students should be presented that the negative meaning of the stem lies not only in the word „not‟ but also in adverbs such as „ never, seldom, hardly, rarely‟ and pronouns like „ nothing, nobody, no one…‟ Also, students should be asked to remember corresponding pronouns with some special subjects such as „ this, that, these, those, both, something, everything, someone, everyone…‟ Another thing cannot be omitted is that teachers need to introduce the tag of some special cases like “Let‟s‟ structures, imperatives, exclamations, subjectless sentences and embedded sentences * One thing very important in teaching tag questions is that they are structures used mostly in spoken language and the meaning of the question can be changed with different musical pitches of voice Therefore, purposes and intonations of tag questions should be taught together Commonly, tag questions are uttered for two main purposes: to confirm information or to seek agreement and they are spoken with a rising intonation and a falling intonation respectively 36 For example: Intonation patterns Function Purpose Expected answer You are a student, aren‟t you?/ Real question Confirm Yes, I am / No, I‟m not You are a student, aren‟t you?\ Not a real question Seek agreement Yes, I am Tag questions elicit a Yes-No answer (or „I don‟t know‟) Often, we just say Yes or No Sometimes we may repeat the tag and reverse it (They don't live here, they? - Yes, they do) Nevertheless, replying to tag questions is not simple at all Some questions are confusing to answer There are two factors that teachers should ask students to pay attention to when answering a tag question The first factor is the intonation As mentioned above, intonations express speakers‟ meaning If speaker raises the voice at the end of the question, he/she wants you to confirm the information So you answer Yes or No For example: A: You can answer this question, can‟t you? / B: Yes, I can.( or No, I can‟t.) If the question is spoken with a falling tune, he/she wants you to agree with the statement For example: A: The dress is beautiful, isn‟t it? \ A: The dress isn‟t beautiful, is it? \ B: Yes, it is B: No, it isn‟t The other factor should be paid attention to when replying to a tag question is the fact in the statement The answer to a tag questions is based on the truth of the situation, it reflects the real fact, not the question In other words, it is the main sentence that the listener is responding to, not so much the tag Let‟s consider the following examples: Questions Correct answer (a)Men don‟t have babies, they? (b) Men have babies, don‟t they? No, they don‟t No, they don‟t (a) Snow is white, isn‟t it? Yes, it is (b) Snow isn‟t white, is it? Yes, it is 37 We can see that the answer for 1a and 1b is the same because the fact is that „Men don‟t have babies‟ Similarly, the answer for both cases in 2a and 2b is the same just because „Snow is white‟ * As mentioned above, tag questions infrequently appear in writing Therefore, teaching tag questions in communicative ways is much more effective than in grammatical approaches Teachers should design or organize games or activities or exercises which make students fun and encourage them both to answer and ask tag questions Oral practice and written exercises should be come together because they allow students to practise intonation which is required in tag questions and remember rules of structures of tag questions Moreover, tag questions should be taught not only in the lessons about this grammatical matter but in various situations in English lessons as well For example: - Your name is Nam, isn‟t it? - The test wasn‟t too difficult, was it? - Nice weather today.isn‟t it? - Close the door, can you? It is the use of tag questions in daily conversations that helps students acquainted with realizing the purpose of the question basing on its intonation As a result, they know how to answer the question correctly, and they know which pattern of tunes should be used to express their purpose when making a tag question 3.6 Summary In this chapter, the findings of the study have been reported and discussed The main findings are that tag question is a structure with complex syntactic features and different uses Common errors and mistakes committed by students are wrong use of operator, wrong use of polarity, wrong use of pronoun, wrong reply to a tag question, misuse of intonation and so forth Based on these findings, the causes of students‟ errors and mistakes were pointed out and some possible pedagogical implications for teachers and learners of English were also provided 38 PART C : CONCLUSION Recapitulation With the aims to know deeply about tag questions and help students improve their skills of using such a grammatical category, the author has made great efforts to this research Concepts and usage of tag questions, operators, polarity and intonations which are important factors in tag questions are discussed clearly Syntactic and semantic features of tag questions are also presented so as to help readers know about the nature of tag questions in real conversations The author has done a research to identify common mistakes committed by students in the school where she works Analyzing the finished sheets of questionnaire helps her realize the causes of such problems and find some possible solutions for them Finally, several pedagogical implications are given with the hope of improving students‟ English learning and their communicating skills Conclusions 2.1 Conclusions on objective (i): (Linguistic features of tag questions in English) Tag question is a special construction in English It is a statement followed by a mini-question An English learner must be well aware of its linguistic features which are its structure, semantic patterns and intonations Structurally, a tag question consists of two parts: the statement and the tag They are set in one sentence by the rule of polarity- negative and positive According to the rule of polarity, tag questions are divided into five types Besides, there are invariant types which are tag questions with imperatives and exclamations and some other structures Semantically, we use tag questions at the end of statements to ask for confirmation or agreement They mean something like: "Am I right?" or "Do you agree?" Tag 39 questions are sometimes used simply as a kind of oil to keep the conversation running smoothly Tag questions are mainly used in spoken communication, and therefore the intended meaning of a tag question is strongly influenced by voice inflection With a rising intonation, it sounds like a real question But if our intonation falls, it sounds more like a statement that does not require a real answer 2.2 Conclusions on objective (ii): (Common mistakes committed by students at Tran Phu high school) By analyzing the sheets of questionnaire collected from 90 students in Tran Phu high school, some interesting findings have been made It is discovered that there are two most striking types of mistakes that the students often make - Mistakes related to structure: In the tag, students may use operators, polarity or pronouns which not correspond with the stem They may not know the tag of some special structures like Let‟s structure or imperatives or exclamations - Mistakes related to intonation: Students may misunderstand the purpose of a tag question or misuse patterns of tunes Wrong answer to a tag question is also a common mistake among English learners It is undeniable that making mistakes in using tag questions is an obstacle preventing students from participating in discussions and daily conversations 2.3 Conclusions on objective (iii): (Possible solutions to the problems encountered by students at Tran Phu high school) From the result of the survey, the author can assume the causes of the mistakes and suggest some ways to help the students to overcome the difficulties in making tag questions There are both subjective and objective causes for the problems Some teachers not have a deep understanding of linguistic features of 40 tag questions Many teachers not cover all the points of the features to students, they only introduce the grammatical form of tag questions without looking into other aspects such as their purposes and intonations Students make mistakes because they not have good knowledge of some concepts like operators, polarity, pronouns and intonations Their mistakes are also due to their inadequate practice to remember all the rules related syntax of tag questions In addition, it is their unselfconfident characteristics and their shyness that prevent them from taking part in speaking in English lessons To get a better result in teaching and learning tag questions, first of all teachers must master the nature of English tag questions, cover all the features including syntactic and sematic features and intonations when teaching students Teachers should use multiple types of practice both written and oral so that students can remember the rules of structure and practise intonations as well Students should highlight what structure they commonly make mistakes; learn by heart the tag of some special cases and pracise using tag questions as much as possible Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research This thesis is mainly concerned with the structural and semantic aspects of tag questions and categories of common mistakes made by students at Tran Phu high school only Therefore, the size of the dataset was rather small Further research can be conducted on the cultural values exhibited in tag questions 41 REFERENCES Alexander, L.G (1992) Longman English Grammar Longman Andersen, Gisle (1998) Are Tag Questions questions? Evidence from spoken data Paper presented at ICAME 19, Belfast Cowan, Ron (2008) The Teacher‟s Grammar of English: a course book and reference guide Cambridge University Press Đào, Bùi Thị (2007) M.A Thesis Syntactic and semantico-pragmatic features of Yes-No questions in English Givón, Talmy (1984,1990), Syntax: A Functional-Typological Introduction, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Hà, Phạm Thu.(2006) M.A Thesis Tag questions in English and the equivalent expressions in Vietnam Halliday, M.A.K., & James, Z.L (1993) A quantitative study of polarity and primary tense in the English finite clause In J.M Sinclair, M Hoey, & G Fox (Eds.), Techniques of description: Spoken and written discourse (pp 32-66) London: Routledge Huddleston, Rodney D (1984) Introduction to the Grammar of English, Cambridge University Press Kelly, G (2000) How to teach Pronunciation London: Longman 10 Kilby, David 1984 Descriptive syntax and the English verb Dover, New Hampshire: Croom Helm 11 Lynch, T.(1991) Questioning Roles in the classroom ILT Journal 45 (3): 201210 12 O‟Connor, J.D, Arnold, G E (1973) Intonation of Colloquial English London: Longman 12 O‟Connor, J D (1980) Better English Pronunciation ( Second edition) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 13 Quang, Nguyễn (1998) M.A Thesis The negative sentence in English and Vietnamese 42 14.Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S (1978) A University Grammar of English London: Longman 15 Quirk, R, Greenbaum, S, Leech, G and Svartvik, J (1985) A Comprehensive grammar of the English language Longman Group Limited 16 Quirk, R, Greenbaum, S, Leech, G and Svartvik, J (1972) A Grammar of Contemporary English Longman Group Limited 17 Tâm, Đào Thị (2007) A contrastive analysis of intonation in English Yes-No questions and Vietnamese equivalent expression 18 Tench, P (1996) The Intonation Systems of English New York: Cassell 19 Teschner, Richard V and Evans, Eston Earl (2007) Analyzing the Grammar of English Georetown University Press Washington, D.C 20 Tottie, Gunnel and Hoffmann, Sebastian 2006 Tag questions in British and American English Journal of English Linguistics 34(4): 283-311 43 BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, G., and George Yule (1983) Discourse Analysis Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Carter, R., Mc Carthy, M (2006) Cambridge Grammar of English Cambridge: CUP Dixon R M V (1992) A New Approach to English grammar, on Semantic Principles Oxford, Clarendon Press Kỷ, Nguyễn Huy (2006) Intonation by Vietnamsese Hanoi: Nxb Văn hóaThơng tin Quang, Võ Đại (2005) Một số vấn đề cú pháp, ngữ nghĩa, ngữ dụng âm vị học Nxb Văn hóa- Thơng tin Quang, Võ Đại (2009) Một số phương tiện biểu đạt nghĩa tình thái tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Nxb Đại học Quốc Gia Hà Nội Seuren, Peiter (1985) Discourse Semantics Blackwell, Oxford Swan, M (1991) Practical English Usage Oxford: Oxford University Press Yule, G (1998) Explaining English Grammar Oxford University Press 44 APPENDIX PHIẾU KHẢO SÁT Mục đích: Mục đích phiếu khảo sát nhằm phục vụ đề tài nghiên cứu lỗi học sinh lớp 11 thường gặp việc sử dụng câu hỏi tách biệt (tag questions) Mọi thông tin dùng cho mục đích nghiên cứu, khơng nhằm mục đích khác Sự đóng góp em đánh giá cao Xin vui lịng hồn thành câu hỏi Em hoàn thành câu hỏi đuôi sau: He hardly ever makes a mistake, .? Nobody likes the play, .? She'd save money if she bought fresh food, ? She's very' funny She's got a great sense of humor, ? Let's go out for dinner tonight, ? That isn't Bill driving, ? There used to be trees here, ? Don't touch that button, ? I'm too late, ? 10 Not a very good film, ? 11 Something is wrong with you, ? 12 You and I are busy right now, ? 13 I think he will join us, ? 14 What a beautiful girl, ? 15 You think you're some kind of genius, ? x I Em trả lời câu hỏi sau cách đánh dấu () vào phương án lựa chọn 16 Em có ý đến ngữ điệu sử dụng câu hỏi đuôi không? B  Thỉnh thoảng A. Luôn C. Không 17 Em nghĩ ngữ điệu có ảnh hưởng đến ý nghĩa câu hỏi khơng?  Có  Không 18 Câu trả lời cho câu hỏi "Snow isn't white, is it?" câu nào?  Yes, it is  No, it isn't 19 Câu trả lời cho câu hỏi "Snow is white, isn‟t it?" câu nào?  Yes, it is  No, it isn't 20 Em hiểu mục đích câu "Today is March 26th, isn't it?" nói với ngữ điệu xuống giọng cuối câu gì?  Tìm kiếm đồng tình người nghe  Hỏi người nghe xác nhận thơng tin 21 Em hiểu mục đích câu "Today is March 26th, isn't it?" nói với ngữ điệu lên giọng cuối câu gì?  Tìm kiếm đồng tình người nghe  Hỏi người nghe xác nhận thông tin 22 Muốn người nghe trả lời "Yes" câu hỏi " You live near here, don't you ?" nói với ngữ điệu sau đây?  Lên giọng cuối câu  Xuống giọng cuối câu 23 Người nghe trả lời “Yes” “No” câu hỏi “ Your father is a teacher, isn‟t he?” nói với ngữ điệu sau đây?  Lên giọng cuối câu  Xuống giọng cuối câu - Hết - Xin cảm ơn em nhiều Chúc em học tập tốt! II ... learners of English in general and students at Tran Phu high school in particular gain an insight into tag questions in English, and on this basis, improvement can be made in using English tag questions. .. thesis in English language I hope that this research -Tag questions in English: linguistic features and possible pedagogical implications- can serve as a contribution to teaching and learning English. .. speaking in English lessons To get a better result in teaching and learning tag questions, first of all teachers must master the nature of English tag questions, cover all the features including