The english complex noun phrases and their vietnamese equivalents in translated version of the novel love story by erich segal

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS THE ENGLISH COMPLEX NOUN PHRASES AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN TRANSLATED VERSION OF THE NOVEL “LOVE STORY” BY ERICH SEGAL (Cụm danh từ phức Tiếng Anh tương đương Tiếng Việt dịch tiểu thuyết “Câu chuyện tình yêu” Erich Segal) HOANG THI THOM Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Dang Suu Hanoi, 2020 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “The English complex noun phrases and their Vietnamese equivalents in translated version of the novel “Love Story” by Erich Segal” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2020 Hoang Thi Thom Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Dang Suu Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 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 Nguyen Dang Suu , 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 A special word of thanks goes to all the lecturers at the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Hanoi Open University for their useful lectures, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality Acknowledgements Table of contents List of tables List of abbreviations Abstract CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale i ii iii v vi vii 1 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Significance of the study 2 3 1.7 Structure of the study 5 7 20 34 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies 2.1.1 Previous studies overseas 2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam 2.2 Theoretical background 2.2.1 Phrase in English 2.2.2 Phrase in Vietnamese 2.3.3 The similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese complex noun phrases 2.2.4 Translation theory CHAPTER 3: THE COMPLEX NOUN PHRASES IN THE NOVEL “LOVE STORY” AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN TRANSLATED VERSION 3.1 About the work 3.2 The translated version 3.3 Complex noun phrases in the novel “Love Story” by Erich Segal and their translated version 3.4 Results of survey 3.5 Mistakes of Vietnamese students when learning English iii 42 43 43 43 43 53 54 complex noun phrases 3.6 Implications for teaching and translating complex noun phrases 56 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION 4.1 Recapitulation 4.2 Concluding remarks 58 58 58 4.3 Limitation of the research 58 4.4 Suggestions for further studying 59 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………… APPENDICES……………………………………………………………… iv LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: The Structure of complex noun phrase in English Table 2.2: The Structure of complex noun phrase in Vietnamese Table 3.1: Post-modification of English complex noun phrases in the novel “Love Story” Table 3.2: The learners’ acquisition levels on the identify of postmodification in English complex noun phrases Table 3.3: The learners’ acquisition levels on syntactic function of English complexnoun phrases Table 3.4: The learners’ acquisition levels on the use of word order in English complex noun phrases Table 3.5: The learners’ acquisition levels on the ability of translating English noun phrases into Vietnamese v 18 33 48 53 53 53 54 NPs: CNPs: S: O: C: A: App: N: V: Adj: Art: CL: Num: RC: AP: PP: PossP: LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Noun phrases Complex noun phrases Subject Object Complement Adverbial Appositive Noun Verb Adjective Article Classifier Numerals Relative clause Adjective phrase Prepositional phrase Possessive phrase vi ABSTRACT The study aims at helping Vietnamese teachers and learners of English identify functional and structural features of complex noun phrases in English and Vietnamese and pointing out the expressions of complex noun phrases in the novel "Love Story" by Erich Segal and their equivalents in Vietnamese translated version as well as providing them some suggestions for improving the teaching-learning process of English complex noun phrases To achieve this end, descriptive method is used to give the deep and detail description of functional and structural features of English complex noun phrases reference with Vietnamese equivalents Basing on the qualitative and quantitative approaches, the study has pointing out the various features of English complex noun phrases with reference to Vietnamese from examples extracted from the novel "Love Story”.Furthermore, basing the result of survey, the author has pointed out the difficulties in learning English complex noun phrases at high school, so the study will provide a comprehensive and overall knowledge about functional and structural features of complex noun phrases in English Besides, the Vietnamese learners will get new knowledge about the structure of complex noun phrases which appear in the novel "Love Story" This thesis has focused only on studying the English complex noun phrases in the novel “Love Story” by Erich Segal with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents Therefore, there are still some aspects related to this problem left for further researchers vii Chapter INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale In today’s world of globalization, the English language has become part and parcel of every existing field It has been an international language of communication, business, science, information technology, entertainment and so on It is now the main language of books, newspapers, airports, international business and academic conferences, science technology, medicine, diplomacy, sports, international competition, pop music and advertising A lot of career opportunities are opened to English speaking people anywhere and everywhere Therefore, increasingly people are getting in the learning of English, since it is really important to both the personal and professional level However, teaching is not always easy There are many differences in phonology, vocabulary and grammar Vocabulary is central to English language teaching because without sufficient vocabulary students cannot understand others or express their own ideas, while grammar is the study of words and the ways words work together, an invisible force that guides us as we put words together into sentences Any person who communicates using a particular language, consciously or unconsciously becomes aware of the grammar of that language Learning and teaching English, reading with comprehension or translating material from English into Vietnamese or vice versa, always create difficulties for learners particularly because of the differences between English and Vietnamese In order to help learners have a better knowledge of English, it is of great importance to predict difficulties from the differences between the two languages and solve them In English grammar, word combination in phrase is considered to be one of the most difficult phenomena Noun phrases, especially complex noun phrases seem to cause great deal of trouble when translating them in general from the source language text into the target language text and vice versa This is also the case when the author reads the novel “Love Story” by Erich Segal While the translation process is quite complex as it requires translators to put a lot of thoughts on a variety of aspects beyond the materials to be translated The materials are not only written in different languages, but they also represent different cultures, differ greatly in terms of linguistic, literary and cultural-social conventions For this reason, the author concerns a good deal with the translation of literary works and assigned the paper the title “The English complex noun phrases in the novel “Love Story” by Erich Segal and their Vietnamese equivalents in translated version” 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study The aims of the study are to help Vietnamese learners and translators have deeper knowledge of noun phrases, especially complex noun phrases and then analyzing the complex noun phrases from the novel “Love Story ” by Erich Segal and the equivalents in the translated version in Vietnamese The study helps them avoid making mistakes in translation There are three main objectives in this study The first object is describing the syntactic features of English complex noun phrases with the references to their Vietnamese equivalents The second one is finding out the similarities and differences between the structure of complex noun phrases in English and in Vietnamese And lastly, it is giving some suggestion for teaching and translating complex noun phrases to Vietnamese learners in effective ways 1.3 Research questions To fulfill the objectives mentioned above, the study tries to seek the answer to the following questions: What are the syntactic features of English and Vietnamese complex noun phrases? What are the similarities and differences of the complex noun phrases between English and Vietnamese in the novel “Love Story”? What are the implications for learning and teaching English complex noun phrases to students of English? 1.4 Methods of the study Firstly, the descriptive method is used in the first stage to give the deep and detail description of syntactic features of English complex noun phrases with reference to Vietnamese equivalents Moreover, questionnaires are used to collect reliable data,error analysis is used to find out the particular mistakes made by students at Vinh Bao high school when using English complex noun phrases Secondly, qualitative research is used It can involve collecting quantitative information, involves gathering mass of raw data from different powerful sources In addition, quantitative research is used to count and classify features and construct statistical modelsand figures to explain what is observed on structural and functional features of English complex noun phrases with Vietnamese equivalents ... knowledge of noun phrases, especially complex noun phrases and then analyzing the complex noun phrases from the novel ? ?Love Story ” by Erich Segal and the equivalents in the translated version in Vietnamese. .. appear in the novel "Love Story" This thesis has focused only on studying the English complex noun phrases in the novel ? ?Love Story? ?? by Erich Segal with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents Therefore,... Translation theory CHAPTER 3: THE COMPLEX NOUN PHRASES IN THE NOVEL ? ?LOVE STORY? ?? AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN TRANSLATED VERSION 3.1 About the work 3.2 The translated version 3.3 Complex noun phrases