Contrative analysis of primary sentences in english and those in vietnamese

Luận văn, khóa luận, đề tài

Acknowledgements In order to finish this study, indeed I received a lot of help, advice and encouragement from my teachers, my friends and my family First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, M.A Ngun ThÞ Têng who helped me a lot, guided me enthusiastically and gave me useful pieces of advice I would also like to give my heartfelt thanks to all the teachers of the Foreign Languages Department, my good friends for their documents and advice, especially, to my family who supported me with love and encouragement Vinh, April 2004 Ngun ThÞ H¬ng Giang Reasons for choosing the subject "Language is the most important communicative device of human beings"(quoted by NguyÔn Nh· B¶n, 2002: 150) Through languages, people establish and control multi - sided interactions among them Of many units of the language system, sentences are extremely important ones They are probably the most familiar of all grammatical terms In the process of communication, people use many kinds of sentences with various purposes such as exchanging information, asking someone to something Among them there are imperative sentences Their existence adds to the colour of human life It can not be denied that imperative sentences are largely used in daily conversations However, imperative sentences and using them in interactions are different in languages, involving English and Vietnamese For example, in English, when you would like someone to close the door, you can use the sentence: - Close the door, please (1) In Vietnamese, we say: - Anh ®ãng giïm em c¸nh cưa víi! (2) We can see that one of the differences of the two imperative sentences is that the English sentence has no subject meanwhile the Vietnamese one has a subject "anh" Some questions may appear in your mind: what does "please" mean in English imperative sentences? How emotional particles, "víi", for instance, affect Vietnamese primary imperative sentences? Studying the similarities and the differences of imperative sentences in English and Vietnamese helps us a lot to understand more their characteristics in teaching foreign languages, and more importantly, it helps us to use imperative utterances reasonably in the process of interaction In addition, the appearance of communicative approach and functional grammar has a great influence on our view about languages, including sentences and imperative sentences Furthermore, we find it interesting and necessary to study the differences and similarities of the imperative sentences in English and those in Vietnamese in terms of functional grammar For the reasons above, we decided to choose the subject: Contrastive analysis of primary imperative sentences in English and those in Vietnamese Aims of the study The aims of this study are:  To improve the language users’ ability of using primary imperatives in English and that in Vietnamese;  To present a brief overview on primary imperative sentences in English and that in Vietnamese;  To show some similar and different features of the structure of English and Vietnamese primary imperative sentences;  To investigate some sub-functions of primary imperative sentences in English and those in Vietnamese;  To help language learners or users to know degrees of necessity of primary imperative acts in English and those in Vietnamese;  To help language users to understand some factors that have great influences on the force of primary imperative sentences;  To show the scope of using primary imperative sentences in English and that in Vietnamese;  To suggest some practical applications about primary imperative sentences in English and those in Vietnamese Scope of the study This thesis is about contrastive analysis of the primary imperative sentences, one of the three kinds of imperative sentences In this thesis, the theory used for analyzing and contrasting is mainly based on the theory of functional grammar Also, in this thesis, we only concentrate on contrasting and analyzing some noticeable features of the structure of primary imperatives, degrees of the necessity of imperative acts, some factors affecting the force of primary imperatives, scope of using primary imperative in English and those in Vietnamese Methods of the study - Descriptive method - Analytic method - Comparative and contrastive method - Collecting method - Statistical method - Systematic method - Experimental method - Synthetic method Design of the study The thesis is composed of three main parts: introduction, investigation and conclusion Part A consists of five terms: reasons for choosing the subject, aims, scope, methods, designs of the study Part B is subdivided into three chapters: In chapter I, we state a general view on theoretical preliminaries In chapter II, we focus on contrastive analysis of primary imperative sentences in English and those in Vietnamese In chapter III, we give out some remarks when using primary imperative sentences and translating them from English into Vietnamese and vice versa Besides, we suggest some exercises and activities that may help language learners or users in learning and using primary imperative sentences in English and Vietnamese Part C is the conclusion of the thesis Chapter Theoretical preliminaries 1 An overview on sentences 1 Different opinions about the definition of the sentences We are introduced to sentences in our early school years and they quickly become a part of our linguistic awareness We speak in sentences, we are taught to write in them, making sure that they are put in all the periods of time It might therefore be thought that sentences are easy things to identify and define The opposite turns out to be the case Because of the fact that, about the definition of sentences, so far, there have been a lot of definitions with various opinions For example, Alexandria grammatical school (300-200 B.C) said that sentence is a combination of words which expresses a complete thought * According to Vinogradov, a Russian grammar professor, "a sentence is a complete unit of the utterance grammatically constituted with rules of a certain language, being the most important device to denote and to convey thoughts In sentences, there exists not only the description of reality but also the relationship between the speaker and the reality" ** Vietnamese grammarians have been trying their best to give out exact and full definitions of sentences For instance, Ngun L©n wrote that:" Many words combined to show a clear sense about actions, states or characteristics of things are called a sentence *** Another author, Đỗ Thị Kim Liên [1998: 101] defines a sentence as follows: “a sentence is a unit of words which is set up in the process of thinking, relating to a particular and certain context so as to inform something or express an attitude A sentence has an independent grammar structure and ending- intonation “, etc (*, ** and *** are quoted by Đỗ Thị Kim Liªn, 1998: 100) In summary, different schools have their own definitions about sentences Many linguists have recently tried to elicit the good and the radical points from many different ideas to present the most reasonable one In fact, no definition about sentences has been perfect so far The word "sentence" is actually somewhat problematic However, all opinions presented above are thought to be examples to show that the definition of the sentence has been noticed for a long time 1 Main characteristics of the sentences From what we have already mentioned and as far as we know, at present, in linguistics, there has not been a standard and complete definition about sentences On the ground of many opinions about sentences of various authors, we would like to present some outstanding and main characteristics about sentences affecting our graduation thesis: a Sentences are determined by semantic grammatical relations, these relations determine the functions of abstract units in a sentence as well as kinds of sentences in terms of meaning b Sentences exist and operate in a system of language under different forms and variants c Sentences perform specific functions (according to certain purposes of information) d Sentences have ending intonation 1 Kinds of sentences Illocutionary forces or functions are superficially indicated by a number of devices It is claimed that grammatical sentence types literally indicate functions In English, there are four main types of sentences: declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives and exclamatives Each has a typical form, which helps us to recognize it For example: - She is a brave girl (Declarative) - Is she a brave girl? (Interrogative) - Be brave! (Imperative) - How brave she is! (Exclamation) There are four main sentence types: Sentences Declaratives Interrogatives Imperatives Exclamatives Sentences, utterances, speech acts and their relations Relation between sentences and utterances A sentence is the object of grammar, the largest abstract unit of syntax According to Doctor Đỗ Thị Kim Liên, “an utterance is a unit of speech It is separated from succession of speech to communicate or from texts to express direct words of characters in conversations” [1999: 82] As for J C Richards, “what is said by any one person before or after another person begins to speak is an utterance” [1993: 395] It is obvious that, there has not been common understanding about sentences and utterances Sentences are considered the units constructing the language system Meanwhile, utterances are the units constructing speech Sentences and utterances have close relations In Vietnamese grammar, the author Hoµng Träng PhiÕn says, “Sentences are abstract things and utterances are concrete things Sentences are unchangeable but utterances are changeable Utterances’ function is to realize the syntactical model of sentences, they are also the existential means of these models” [1980: 13] Particularly, “utterances are sentences which are filled with specific lexical units, they may be used in different contexts with different goals [Đỗ Hữu Ch©u, 2001: 31] In other words, utterances are existential means of sentences In this thesis, the sentences used to analyze are equivalent to utterances 2 Relation between utterances and speech acts In daily life, people might be able to produce a number of sentences using grammatical structures and these sentences might reflect a set of functions These relate to speech acts So, what are speech acts? In Pragmatic, George Yule proposed that “ in attempting to express themselves, people not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, they perform actions via those utterances… Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts” [1996: 47] For example, you can say, “Will you close the door, please!” “Could you close the door, please!” or “Close the door, please!” to express a request, if the addressees that action, it means that they have already performed the speech act of request In other words, speech acts are generally actions performed via utterances By producing utterances, we have speech acts In short, utterances are expressions of speech acts John R Searle and speech act theory Searle showed that it is possible to classify utterances into a very small set of functions Depending on four main criteria: illocutionary points, direction of fit, psychological states and propositional content, Searle listed a system of five categories of speech acts or utterances’ functions These include directives, commissives, representatives, declaratives and expressives [1976: 10] + Directives: Directives are speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to something They express what speakers want These kinds of acts are orders, commands, demands, requests, begs, suggestions, pleads, advice, invitation For example: - Let’s go out for a meal (1) - Why don’t you go to see the doctor? (2) The function of the first utterance is suggesting, the function of the other one is advising + Commissives: Commissives are speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves to some future action They express what speakers intend They are promises, threats, refusals For example: - I will not be late for work any more (1) - We didn’t tell her that story (2) The function of the first utterance is promising, the function of the second one is refusing + Representatives: Representatives are speech acts that state what speakers believe In other words, they describe states or events in the world, such as assertions, conclusions, reports… Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech For example: - The earth moves around the sun (Assertion) - It was a warm sunny day (Description) + Declaratives: Declaratives are speech acts that change the state of affairs in the world They are declarations, announcement, appointment, nomination, etc For example, when the chairman says: “I declare the meeting open”, a changing really takes place, people start to make speeches or address the meeting and so on + Expressives: Expressives are speech acts in which the speaker expresses psychological states, feelings or attitudes about a given state of affairs They are expressions of joy, compliment, apologizing, complaints, pleasure, sorrow … For For example: - I’m terribly sorry! (Sharing sorrow) - How intelligent you are! (Compliment) Form and function of the sentence Traditionally, there is one – to – one match between form and function of the sentence The function of each type of sentences has been associated with a particular illocutionary force For example, the function of a declarative is to make a statement, the function of an interrogative is to ask a question, that of an imperative is to give a command and that the function of an exclamation is to exclaim For example: a What a nice hat! (Exclamative – exclamation) b You wear a hat (Declarative – statement) c Do you wear a hat? (Interrogative – question) d Wear a hat (Imperative – command) Each of these is true, sometimes, but each of the four sentence types can serve different jobs, can fulfill more than one function Therefore, one particular sentence form is not tied to one meaning On the view of discourse analysis, it would be unlikely that, on any occasion, a natural language utterance or sentence would be used to fulfill only one function It means that different structures can be used to accomplish the same function and vice versa, a certain structure may be used to express various functions In other words, there seems no one - to – one relation between grammatical forms and communicative functions For example: a Where are you from? (Interrogative – question) b Could you give me that book? (Interrogative – request) c Why don’t we go out for a walk? (Interrogative – suggestion) The three sentences have the same form of interrogatives The first one has the form of an interrogative and its function is a question, but the function of the second one is a request and that of the third one is a suggestion Modality of the sentence Modality is much associated with the meaning of sentences According to Đỗ Thị Kim Liªn, “a sentence consists of two parts: one part indicates descriptive meaning, which is usually created by lexical meaning; the other part expresses the speaker’s attitude or evaluation toward the reality mentioned This part involves modality” [1999: 52] It is expressed by many modal factors such as interjections, modal verbs, intonation… For For example, to show fears we can say: - Oh, how horrible! (Interjection) With an event, the speaker can express different attitudes through emotional words (interjections) such as: - MĐ vỊ råi ? - A! mĐ vỊ råi! - MĐ vỊ ®i! In the first example, “” indicates surprise, in the second one, “a!” expresses delight and with the word “®i, the third one shows an emotional state that the daughter or the son hurries his or her mother to come back home CHAPTER CONTRASTIVE ANALYLSIS Of primary IMPERATIVE SENTENCES In ENGLISH AND those in VIETNAMese An Overview on imperative sentences 1 Different opinions about imperative sentences Imperative sentences play an important role in communication So far, lots of authors have put forward their opinions about the definition of the imperative sentences According to Lª Huy Trêng in “A grammar of the English language”, an imperative sentence is “a sentence whose purpose is to induce the person addressed to fulfill a certain action They may be done in the form of a command, order, or request” [1999: 169] As for DiÖp Quang Ban, imperative sentences are used to ask or order the hearer to what the speaker wants They have certain signs of form [1998: 235] David Crystal defined that imperative sentences instruct someone to something [1995: 219] On the view of pragmatics, imperative sentences are considered in terms of speech acts Searle analyzed, “They are attempts of the speaker to get the hearer to something They may be very modest “attempts” as when I invite you to or suggest you it or they may be very fierce attempts as when I insist you it” [1976: 11] In the book ”Vietnamese functional grammar”, Cao Xu©n H¹o states that imperative sentences are sentences in which illocutionary force affects the second person, then he or she performs a one - sided or co - operative action [2000: 132] From what we have mentioned, we see that all authors emphasize the content: imperative sentences are used to get someone to something 2 Definition of the imperative sentences From many opinions above, imperative sentences are sentences whose function is to evoke the hearer’s reaction so that he or she can reply to the speaker with actions that the speaker wants In other words, the speaker may force the hearer to complete an action as an order but he or she may expect the hearer’s willingness, kindness when he or she accomplishes that action For example, when the speaker orders the hearer to carry out an action, he can say like that, “Stop!” in English, “Dõng l¹i!” in Vietnamese However, when the speaker wants to request the hearer to something, he can use imperative sentences like that “Close the door please!” or “CËu ®ãng giïm tí c¸i cưa víi” in Vietnamese Kinds of imperative sentences Imperatives are rather various because of the fact that there are many ways of forming imperative utterances On the basic of the purposes of use and communication, we have different kinds of imperatives In this limited study, we temporarily divide imperative sentences into three types in terms of forms They are performatives, primary imperatives and indirect imperatives They can be illustrated as follows: Imperatives Performatives Indirect imperatives Primary imperatives Perfomative imperative sentences Performative imperative sentences are sentences which contain performative verbs of imperatives such as “demand”, “recommend”, “request ”, “order ”, “ask ”, “command”, “invite”, “advise” in the present tense in English or the verbs yêu cầu, đề nghị, mời , lệnh, hạ lệnh, bảo , khuyên in Vietnamese In these sentences, “there are indirect objects in second person (“you”), the subjects must be first person singular, indicating that the utterances “ count as” actions by being uttered” [George Yule, 1996: 51] For example: In English: - I order you to shut it J [Austin, 1962: 73] - I warn you not to cross the moors at night [Doyle, 1997: 7] In Vietnamese: - Đề nghị anh xét cho Nó em mà giành [Nguyễn Đăng Mạnh, 2000: 382] - Tha bà, chả dám Nhng mời bà vào chơi nhà [Khái Hng, 1989: 316] According to Austin, “In saying something we are doing something” [1962: 94] It means that, when we use these verbs (order, ask… For) in uttering sentences, we are performing equivalent actions For example, by uttering the sentence “I warn you not to cross the moors at night ”, the speaker is performing the act of warning He demonstrated that people not only use languages to make statements or questions about the world, but they also use them to perform actions that affect or change the world in some way Indirect imperative sentences As presented, there is rarely one – to – one match between forms and functions of the sentences Thus, imperative sentences can be taken into account For example: In English: - Rob, could you poor the wine, please? [Hartley and Peter, 1994: 140] - Why not you close the windows? In Vietnamese: - Anh Tuấn chơi ghi ta lắm? (It implies Anh đánh cho chúng em nghe đi) [Lu Quang Vũ, 1994: 66] 10 ... of using primary imperative sentences in English and that in Vietnamese;  To suggest some practical applications about primary imperative sentences in English and those in Vietnamese Scope of. .. 1989: 45] Final position: Contrastive analysis of primary imperative sentences in English and those in Vietnamese Structure of the primary imperative sentences According to Brown and Levinson (1978)... Vietnamese 2 Acknowledgement of primary imperative sentences in English and those in Vietnamese 2 Primary imperative sentences in English 11 2 1 Form and use * Primary imperative sentences are constituted