A study on the prosodic features in responses via english and the equivalent expressions in vietnamese

1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ************************* NGUYỄN THỊ VIỆT HOA A STUDY ON THE PROSODIC FEATURES IN RESPONSES VIA ENGLISH AND THE EQUIVALENT EXPRESSIONS IN VIETNAMESE (Nghiên cứu đặc điểm ngôn điệu phản hồi thông qua tiếng Anh thể tương đương tiếng Việt) MA Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 HANOI - 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ************************* NGUYỄN THỊ VIỆT HOA A STUDY ON THE PROSODIC FEATURES IN RESPONSES VIA ENGLISH AND THE EQUIVALENT EXPRESSIONS IN VIETNAMESE (Nghiên cứu đặc điểm ngôn điệu phản hồi thông qua tiếng Anh thể tương đương tiếng Việt) MA Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Bích Ngọc, M.A HANOI - 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF SYMBOLS vii LIST OF TABLES viii PART A: INTRODUCTION .1 Rationale Aims of the study .1 Scope of the study Method of the study Structure of the study .2 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Sentence and Utterance 1.1.1 Sentence 1.1.2 Utterance 1.1.3 Response as an utterance 1.2 Speech Acts 1.2.1 Classification of speech acts 1.2.2 Response as an act of speech 1.3 Prosodic Features 10 1.4 Intonation .10 1.4.1 Definition of intonation 10 1.4.2 Structure of intonation 11 1.4.2.1 The falling tune 13 1.4.2.2 The first rising tune 14 1.4.2.3 The second rising tune 14 1.4.2.4 The falling rising tune 15 1.4.3 Functions of intonation 15 1.4.3.1 The attitudinal function 16 1.4.3.2 The accentual function 16 1.4.3.3 Grammatical function 16 1.4.3.4 The discourse function 17 1.5 Summary .17 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 18 2.1 Context setting .18 2.2 Participants 18 2.3 Data collection .19 2.4 Research questions 19 2.5 Data analysis framework .20 2.6 Summary .20 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS .21 3.1 Findings .21 3.1.1 Differences in responses between teachers and students .21 3.1.2 Agreeing samples via English and equivalent expressions in Vietnamese 22 3.1.2.1 Teacher towards students 23 3.1.2.2 Students towards teacher .24 3.1.3 Disagreeing samples via English and equivalent expressions in Vietnam 26 3.1.4 The functions of intonation in responses .27 3.1.4.1 Intonation of agreement 28 3.1.4.1.1 The attitudinal function 28 3.1.4.1.2 The accentual function 29 3.1.4.1.3 The discourse function 30 3.1.4.1.4 Grammatical function 31 3.1.4.2 Intonation of disagreement 32 3.1.4.2.1 The attitudinal function 32 3.1.4.2.2 The accentual function 33 3.1.4.2.3 The discourse function 33 3.1.4.2.4 Grammatical function 34 3.2 Summary .34 PART C: CONCLUSION 35 Recapitulation .35 Limitations and suggestions for further study 36 REFERENCES 37 APPENDIX I LIST OF SYMBOLS Symbol of stress: ' Symbols of intonations - The glide down: - The glide up: - The take - off: - The Dive: Tonic syllable: Underlined part in an utterance Utterance is pulled: 10 LIST OF TABLES Table Page Table Agreeing samples of teachers towards students 23 Table Agreeing samples of students towards teachers 25 Table Disagreeing samples of teachers towards students .27 11 PART A: INTRODUCTION In this part, the rationale which explains the reasons for choosing this topic, the aims of the study which illustrates typical goals, the scope of the study which narrows down the research scale and the structure of the study which builds up a frame are established clearly Rationale Prosody plays an important role in communication Through prosody, people can express their emotion state or sentiment tone People can use prosody to show their attitudes such as happiness, sadness, anger, love or hate However, during communicative process, it is easy to recognize that many speakers cope with problems in using prosody They sometimes not know exactly how to use prosody in speaking and even in some cases not understand the real meaning of utterances from speakers Consequently, understanding and choosing suitable prosodies will fill in the gaps in communication Moreover, choosing fitted prosodic features is necessary because this will help speakers in reaching their aims in communication For example, speakers may raise their tone at the end of the utterance in asking instead of using question words as in: ''While the teacher is teaching, students can talk'' One more reason for choosing responses as the topic of the study is that response is a factor in communication that helps speakers or hearers go on the conversation, depending on the way they response to the others We hope that the study not only contributes a small part in the success of each conversation but also can be considered as the ground stage for further researches Aims of the study Due to the study is limited in the context of classroom in general and prosodic features in responses between the teachers and students in particular as stated in scope of the study, therefore, the goals of the study are as follows: * To find out the similarities and differences in the responses between teacher and students in context of a class * To look at the way how teachers and students express their responses showing agreement and disagreement in classroom context 12 * To find out the prominent intonation strategies preferably used in agreeing and disagreeing responses by teacher and students Scope of the study The study investigates responses in the level of speech acts There are many kinds of responses such as responses to a letter, responses to a question, responses to an invitation and so on Nevertheless, this study focuses on responses of teachers and students in showing agreements and disagreements In addition, the study examines chiefly prosodic features in which intonation in utterances will be paid attention Moreover, due to the limitation of time, ability as well as knowledge, the research context chosen is in English classes in grade 11 at Ischool Hatinh where the researcher observes and describes mostly the actions and responses between teacher and students Method of the study The study bases on quantitative research, which is to determine the relationship between one thing and another Quantitative research designs are either descriptive or experimental, which means that we use personal observation and facts to form general rules The participants of the study include teacher and students at Ischool Hatinh high school Structure of the study The study is divided into three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion Part A Introduction: As many other studies, this part introduces briefly the rationale, aims, the scope, methods and organization of the study Part B Development This part includes three chapters: * Chapter 1: Theoretical background This is an overview of the related theories It also concerns the previous works and issues on speech acts and prosodic features In each part, there are many sub-terms that explain Speech Acts theory, sentence and utterance, similarities and differences in the 13 responses between teacher and students, response as an utterance, definition of intonation, structures and functions of intonation * Chapter 2: Methodology This chapter introduces quantitative method as the main method for the research In particular, it describes the research questions, participants, data collection and data analysis framework * Chapter 3: Findings This chapter presents findings on intonation in agreeing and disagreeing responses of teacher and students in class context Part C Conclusion The last part will summarize the over all of the study and provide limitation and suggestions for further study 37 If the tune is take-off, it may show the discomfort, anger of the speaker The American teacher in the study agreed that he rarely uses this kind of tune shape He said that most of teachers use it when they feel really angry about some actions of students Eg: ''I tend to agree with you'' (Thầy đồng ý với em) /ai 'tend tu ə'gri: wið ju: / Using glide-up, the speaker tends to move from a statement to a question This is also an indirect speech act Eg: ''I tend to agree with you?'' (Thầy mà đồng ý với em à?) /ai 'tend tu ə'gri: wið ju: / The direct meaning of this sentence is agreement but if the teacher changes the utterance tune at the end, the sentence moves to a question implying a suspicion as the last example above In the interviews with both Vietnamese and American teachers, they said that they use this kind of utterance when they feel uncertain even unhappy with students' behaviors In brief, in function of attitude, the teacher can use falling tune to affirm, rising to show anger, and take-off to show his suspicion or uncertain, even surprise to students 3.1.4.1.2 The accentual function In the second function: accentual function: the position of the tonic stress indicates the most important information of the tonic unit of the utterance Normally, the last stressed syllable gets tonic stress Let us have a look at an utterance of Bradley in reflex class Teacher: "Today we will discuss "friendship" / tə'dei wi: wil dis'kʌs 'frend∫ip/ If the teacher stresses at "today" (hôm thảo luận "tình bạn"), he actually wants to emphasize to time If he puts stress at "discuss" (hôm nay, thảo luận "tình bạn"), he means his students will pay attention to discussing not writing or reading 38 If the teacher stresses at "friendship" (hôm nay, thảo luận "tình bạn"), he wants to narrows down the topic discussion So that students will focus on friendship only In the reflex period, Bradley used this function of intonation to make his students pay attention to key words He, therefore, stressed at three of "today", "discuss" and "friendship" Teacher: "Today we will discuss about "friendship" / tə'dei wi: wil dis'kʌs ə'baut 'frend∫ip/ All of stressed syllables or key words consequently, should be stressed with an aim to make students concentrate on the main idea of utterance 3.1.4.1.3 The discourse function The next function is discourse function, which not only makes the hearers achieve what is called new information (unknown information) and old information (already known information), but also connects one utterance to the next In English conversation, the falling tune provides new information, the rising tune and the falling rising tune indicates the given information In the responses in general and direct responses in particular, the intonation falling helps the hearers to reach new information in conversation Eg: Teacher: "Your first answer about extend family is good, however, the second one is not quite right" / jɔ: fə:st 'ɑ:nsə ə'baut iks'tend 'fæmili iz 'gud hau'evə ðə 'sekənd wʌn iz nɔt kwait 'rait / The old information is the first part ("Your first answer about extend family '') and new information is the rest (''is good, however, the second one is not quite right") This can be illustrated in the following intonation: / jɔ: fə:st 'ɑ:nsə ə'baut iks'tend 'fæmili iz 'gud hau'evə ðə 'sekənd wʌn kwait 'rait/ iz nɔt 39 In this study, the teacher agrees if the utterance is too long, he mostly uses discourse function to emphasize old and new information after responding agreements towards his students This will help students to determine which parts of utterance are already old and new 3.1.4.1.4 Grammatical function In this function, intonation plays an important role in defining the types of sentences or the structures of phrases On the other hand, the place, where an intonation is changed, helps the hearer to find out the grammatical structure in an utterance for example question or statement in the following example Eg: Student: "Fantastic" / fæn'tæstik / Students in this case want to state a statement so that they use falling tune at tonic syllable Nevertheless, if they want to reconfirm, they may raise their voice at tonic syllable to form a question: Eg: Student: "Fantastic" / fæn'tæstik / The agreeing utterances are analyzed in the light of intonation functions The attitudinal function shows the teacher's attitude when uttering He uses falling tune when the utterance is a confirmation, take-off when he wants to express discomfort to his students and glide-up when he moves a statement to a question Beside attitudinal function, the accentual function states the role of tonic syllables in expressing key words Teacher in this study often uses this function to emphasize important words if the utterance is too long The discourse function contributes old information by using rising tune and new information by using falling tune This is very necessary in responding students' ideas 40 because students, who have shortage of vocabulary, will determine needed information by concentrating on intonation used by their teachers Moreover, the grammatical function helps students in mastering structures of words and sentences This kind of intonation is quite difficult for students understanding because it relates to both intonation and grammar In term of agreeing responses, students mostly use the attitudinal function They use falling tune to express their agreements The reason is that they want to affirm their agreements and a part, because of their vocabulary ability 3.1.4.2 Intonation of disagreement 3.1.4.2.1 The attitudinal function Intonation is universal in English because it helps people to express their emotion However, in Vietnamese, which has tone, is contrary In particular, the teacher who wants to state his felling may use intonation meanwhile with a language without intonation as Vietnam, people will use tone to state their felling by stressing at the key words Basing on the observation, Vietnamese people stress at tone when they feel discomfort, and really want to criticize someone Let us have a look at the following example as to prove for expressing emotion in English Eg: Teacher: ''I will explain again'' / wil iks'plein ə'gen / The teacher in this case is confused because her students answered her question in the wrong way Therefore, he uses the glide up in this utterance to show his wonder whether he should explain again to his students or not He furthermore wants to imply that her students' answer is wrong so he has to explain again With the same utterance as above, if the teacher reduces tone (using the glide down), it would be understood as his unwilling to explain again Eg: Teacher: ''I will explain again'' / wil iks'plein ə'gen / 41 In Vietnamese, with the utterance "tôi giải thích lại", if the teacher in this situation is unwilling to explain again and is angry at students' slowness, he may stress at "tơi", "giải thích", "lại" 3.1.4.2.2 The accentual function As introduced at the first part, there is one or more stressed syllable in an utterance Normally, the stress is on lexical words, bringing back the key information That depends much on the aim of the speaker Eg: Teacher: "Actually, we may think of others' opinions'' / 'æktjuəli wi: mei θiηk əv 'ʌðə(r) ə'piniən / ''opinions '' includes the tonic syllable and it is made prominent, so the utterance's focus is on the ''opinions" In addition, the teacher also stresses at "others'" to imply that the previous answer is not true The American teacher in the study asserts that normally, when using indirect disagreements in responding students' answers, teacher mostly has to pay attention to the key words that make his students understand As the example above "Actually, we may think of other opinions'', the teacher does not respond directly As a result, he uses stress to state disagreement to avoid losing face for his students 3.1.4.2.3 The discourse function Discourse function is useful in communication It helps students to determine necessary information in conversation with their teacher The scope of study is in class context in which agreeing and disagreeing responses from teacher and students are taken into consideration Basing on observation, the teacher in three periods does not use this function to express his disagreements 3.1.4.2.4 Grammatical function In case of the utterance is too long to catch, teacher in this situation will use intonation to clarify grammar structures to make his students understand his aim This is called grammatical function of intonation The table of disagreeing samples of teacher is categorized clearly Through it, we can see that teacher does not use any long responses The teacher explains that if he uses long sentences to respond his students' opinions, they cannot catch his idea Therefore, it is out of the range of the study 42 3.2 Summary This chapter focuses on three issues: Firstly, we clarify differences between responses of teacher and students Students in Vietnam often use "ạ", "dạ", ''thưa'' to show their respect to their teacher, in English, Students reduce intonation to express their emotion to their Teacher's responses are on contrary, they often use neutral voice to show their equality to all students Secondly, the agreeing and disagreeing responses between teacher and students in reflex periods, taught by Bradley- a volunteer teacher at Ischool Hatinh High School, are taken into account The teacher normally uses the best ways to respond with an aim to encourage his students and students always try to find out the respectful ways to answer Therefore, the tables of teacher and students' responses are established based on observation of the researcher Lastly, an investigation of agreeing and indirect disagreeing responses in the light of intonation functions In agreeing responses, both of teacher and students often use falling tune to affirm information Meanwhile, in disagreeing responses in this case, teacher often responds indirectly if the students' answers are wrong He furthermore, elicits more answers from other students PART C: CONCLUSION The last part is conclusion The first is recapitulations which summarizes the main aims of the study The next is limitation and suggestions for further research which are mainly discussed about things that are not covered in the study Recapitulations The aims of the study are to examine the differences in the responses between teacher and students in context of a class, to look at the ways how teacher and students express their responses showing agreements and disagreements in classroom context, and to find out the prominent intonation strategies preferably used in agreeing and disagreeing responses by English teacher and students In type of data, which are collected in class context at Ischool Hatinh high school, the results of the study indicate that: (1) With an aim to attract students in studying, teacher tries to avoid making them lose face in front of other students in the class by finding the most delicate responses Teacher, moreover, uses the same voice to all students to show equality to all of his 43 students Students' attitude to their teacher are very respectful Although American students cannot use "ạ", "dạ" or "thưa" as Vietnamese students, intonations are frequently used in stead (2) There are three tables, in which illustrate agreeing and disagreeing responses between teacher and students via English and equivalent expressions in Vietnamese Teacher in this case agrees directly and disagrees indirectly Students with their lexical limitation agree with familiar expressions, which are shown in table number three (3) Teacher and students in this case usually use falling tune to show agreements However, when the teacher wants to get more explanations and to elicit more answers from other students, he uses the first rising tune In case, the responses are too long, the teacher states accentual function to stress at tonic syllables, which mean key words in an utterance He, moreover, utilizes grammatical function of intonation to classify clauses' structures if the utterance is too ambiguous to understand Therefore, whether the prominent intonation strategies preferably used in agreeing and disagreeing responses by English teacher and students depend on the aim of the speakers Nevertheless, the involved teacher and students mostly use falling tune to agree directly and to reconfirm the right answers Especially, the teacher uses the first rising tune (the glide-up) to disagree indirectly and politely Limitation and Suggestions for further research The focus of this study is mainly on intonation in agreeing and disagreeing responses of teacher and students in class context at Ischool Hatinh high school In spite of the effort in analyze collected data, there still have limited and unexpected shortcomings due to the limit of time and other factors The result of the study would be more convincing if it was involved more participants In addition, because of the time limitation, the researcher has to narrow down the scope of the study Consequently, another study with larger scale and more participants are advisable to achieve more conclusions Furthermore, the non-verbal responses not only in class context but also between men and women, between members in family for example are recommended topics for further studies Last but not least, any critical opinions and contributions for this thesis paper will be highly appreciated 44 REFERENCES Vietnamese: 45 Diệp Quang Ban (1996), Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Tập 2-Nhà xuất giáo dục Đỗ Hữu Châu (1995), Giáo trình giản yếu ngữ dụng học, Nhà xuất giáo dục Huế Đỗ Hữu Châu & Bùi Minh Tồn (1993), Đại cương ngơn ngữ học Tập Nhà xuất giáo dục Nguyễn Hịa (1999), Lực ngơn trung kiểu câu, vấn đề ngữ dụng học kỷ yếu Hội thảo khoa học "ngữ dụng học " lần thứ Hà Nội Nhà xuất Khoa Học Xã Hội Hà Nội Nguyễn Huy Kỷ (2006), Ngữ điệu tiếng Anh người Việt Nhà xuất Văn hóa thơng tin 6.Nguyễn Quang (2009), Cú điển dụng Anh-Việt Nhà xuất Từ điển bách khoa Võ Đại Quang (2009), Một số phương tiện biểu đạt nghĩa tình thái tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội Lê Quang Thêm (2004), Nghiên cứu đối chiếu ngôn ngữ Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội Trần Ngọc Thêm (1997), Cơ sở văn hóa Việt Nam Nhà xuất giáo dục English: Arne Vanvik et al (1979), English Intonation CUP Austin, J L (1962), How to Do Things with Words CUP London-Oxford-New York 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Thu (2007), An Investigation into Some Types of Verbal Responses to Questions in English and Vietnamese Conversion MA thesis Vietnam national university 26 Quang,Vo Dai & Tam, Ha Cam (2009), English Phonetics and Phonology Hanoi 27 Richards, J C., Platt, J., Platt, H (1992), Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (second edition) London: Longman 47 28 Richards, J C., Platt, J., Platt, H (1985), Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics London: Longman 29 Richards, J C., Platt, J., Platt, H (1992), Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (second edition) London: Longman 30 Roach, P (1988), English Phonetics and Phonology: a Practical-Course (7th Ed.) Cambridge : Cambridge University Press 31 Searl, J R (1976), Speech Acts Cambridge, England OUP 32 Searle, J R (1976), “Indirect Speech Acts”, in Cole, P and Morgan, J (eds.): Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts New York: Academic Press 33 Sit, Hoang Van (1980), Tone in Modern Vietnamese MA thesis University of Sydney 34 Tam, Dao Thi (2007), Contrastive Analysis of Intonation in English Yes-No Questions and Vietnamese Equivalent Expressions MA thesis Vietnam national university 35 Tench, P (1996), The Intonational System of English New York: Wellington House 36 Thomson, D (1996), Second Language Acquisition PPP-ITM : Mass Lecture 37 Wierzbicka, A (1987), English Speech Acts Verbs- A Semantic Dictionary Academic Press Australia 38 Yule, G (1996), Pragmatics Oxford: Oxford University Press Websites: http://en.wikipedia.Org/wili/Intonation http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Celik-Intonation.html APPENDIX 48 REFLEX CLASS ON MONDAY 24, MAY 2010 TOPIC: NUCLEAR AND EXTENDED FAMILY Number Conversations between Teacher (T) and Students (Ss) T: ''Tell me some kinds of family in our society nowadays'' S: ''There are two kinds: nuclear and extended family'' T: ''Definitely'' T: (angry) '' How many of you complete the homework? All of you complete the exercise?" Mai: ''I am sorry'' Lan: (looks down and doesn't say anything) Dzung: "I am sorry for not doing exercise" T: ''What is the meaning of not paying attention Tu?'' Tu: ''I am sorry" T: "Ok" T: ''Our headmaster is over there" Ss: "Yes, I see" T: "Now, look at pictures and repeat" Ss: (take turn and repeat) T: ''Ok, good'' T: ''Ok'' T: "Yes/ Yeah'' S1: "I think many young people not like to live in an extended family" T: ''Is it right or wrong?'' S2: "I agree" T: "Ok" 49 S1: "I think many young people not like to live in an extended family" T: ''Is it right or wrong?'' S2: "I agree" T: "Ok" S1: "Extended family includes more than two generations lively together in a family They work in a similar factory" T: "Your first answer about extended family is good, however, the second one is not quite right" S2: "Yeah, I agree" S: "Living with parents are wonderful" T: "I tend to agree with you How about the other's opinions?" S: " Living far from home is very boring" T: "Exactly" 10 S: "In Western countries, people tend to live in nucleus families" T: "I see no reason to oppose to your opinion" 11 S: "Extended family is a family with more than two generations" T: "That's true" 12 T: "This afternoon, I will have a discussion with our headmaster about studying English through extra curricular activities so that the deadline for the essay will be tomorrow'' S: "Fantastic" 13 T: "Remember to homework" Ss: "Yeah" REFLEX CLASS ON WEDNESDAY 26, MAY 2010 TOPIC: FRIENDSHIP 50 Number Conversations between Teacher (T) and Students (Ss) T: "Can you guess what will we talk today?" Ss: "Friendship" T: "Good, today we will discuss "friendship" S1: "That's a good idea" S2: ''I " T: "Actually, we may think of others' opinions'' S3: "I am all in favor of that this topic is interesting because it may be the status for a true love" T: "I see no reason to oppose" S4: "We entirely agree with you" T: ''Ok, but the topic about love is on Saturday" S5: "Fantastic" S1: "I think the topic is related to culture shock'' T: ''Really? but we may think of other opinions'' S2: "It concerns on family" T: "Ok, I will explain again" S: "In my opinion, we should come back to the bus stop to find the boy" T: "Actually, we can find another way'' S: ''I think the girl should apologise the boy '' T: ''Good! How about others' opinions?'' S1: ''Friendship helps us overcome difficulties" T: ''That is right'' REFLEX CLASS ON SATURDAY, MAY 29, 2010 TOPIC: LOVE 51 Number Conversations between Teacher (T) and Students (Ss) T: "First, let us have a look at the picture and tell me where the couple are in the picture" S1: "Flower" T: "Good, but where?" S2: "Party" (actually it is a happy dinner in a restaurant with full of flowers) T: "Nearly right " S3: "It is a dinner in a restaurant " T: "That's a good point" S4: "That's what I mean" T: "Be quiet!" S1: "Yes" T: "Companionship" S1: (repeat) T: "Yeah, good" S2: (repeat) T: "Good, I tend to agree with you'' S1: "I think, love has two sides" T: "Uhm" S1: "The first it makes us better but it also make us not concentrate on studying" T: "That's a good idea I find the idea that you have just given out is fine" T: "Do you want to watch a film about love towards family? Ss: "I absolutely agree'' ... The thesis is about the prosodic features in responses via English and equivalent expressions in Vietnamese so that all the related factors are collected and analyzed based on data of observations... limitation of the study, the thesis will mostly focus on intonation in the following part 1.4 Intonation 1.4.1 Definition of intonation Intonation is a famous component in making every utterance... chapter, there are four main functions of intonation: they are attitudinal function, accentual function, discourse function and grammatical function By analyzing intonation of agreeing or disagreeing