A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

At the beginning, definition, uses and types of interrogative sentence will be given to help learners have a general view about the question in English and Vietnamese.. Keywords: contras

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Instructor: Bui Nguyen Khanh Student: Nguyen Le Mong Thu Student ID: K36.701.253

Class: 4CQDP December 30, 2013

Abstract

Question is one of the types of sentences used with high frequency in process of learning, language teaching and in daily communication Normally, people use it for asking or checking information from others In special cases, it can be used as a statement, a rejection or a doubtful expression In addition, sometimes people make question not only to get information but also to use to greet each other in daily communication Although the purpose of questions in English

and Vietnamese is the same, there are a lot of differences between them That’s the reason why

leaners who study English have problem in forming questions Recognizing the importance and practical implications of the problem, we do this study in order to contrast the question in English and Vietnamese Besides that, I also mention some teaching implications at high school,

so teachers can focus on some areas where students usually make mistakes Through this one, learners will find it easier to study English At the beginning, definition, uses and types of interrogative sentence will be given to help learners have a general view about the question in English and Vietnamese In the next part, a contrast analysis is found out between them The last part shows the implications for teachers and learners in teaching and studying English question well

Keywords: contrastive analysis, question, interrogative, Vietnamese and English questions

TABLE OF CONTENT

I The question 4

1 Definition 4

2 Uses 4

II Contrast English and Vietnamese questions 4

1 Yes/No question 5

2 WH-question 9

3 Alternative question 11

4 Declarative 12

5 Tag question 13

III Teaching implications 14

Conclusion 15

References 16

I The question

1 Definition:

A question is a request for information or action When writing a question you should always end the sentence with a question mark (?) (English Grammar, par.1)

For example:

+ What are you doing?

+ Does she like watching football?

+ Is he a student?

2 Uses:

- Eliciting the information from the person being addressed

- Asking for the purpose of testing someone’s knowledge, as in the quiz or

examination

- Being used principally as polite requests

- Being used as titles of literature, art and scholarship such as the academic work

Who Asked the First Question?, the story How Much Land Does a Man Need,…

- Other different purposes

II Contrast English and Vietnamese questions

There are many ways to classify English question According to the grammar

structure, English questions are divided into 5 types (Vương, par 2):

- Yes/No question

- Wh-question

- Alternative question

- Declarative question

- Tag question

Besides that, in Vietnamese, we also have four types of questions

- Yes/No questions

- Wh - questions

- Alternative questions

- Declarative questions

1 Yes/No question

Yes/no interrogatives are questions that can be answered with a “yes” or a “no”

response You probably ask or are asked these questions every day

 In English:

Form:

auxiliary

be + S + V

do/does/did

Yes + positive verb

No + negative verb

For example:

1 Is she beautiful?

Yes, she is

2 Does he work?

No he doesn’t

3 Are you ready to go?

Yes, I am

4 Did you go to school yesterday?

Yes, I did

5 Have you had breakfast?

No, I haven’t

The verbs are inversed and the tone is raised at the end of the question

 In Vietnamese:

- The word order is the same as that of a statement and some particles are added, such

as “có…chưa”, “phải không”, “hả”…

- For example:

 Hôm qua bạn nghỉ học phải không?

 Mẹ bạn bệnh hả?

 Bạn có làm bài tập chưa?

- There is no inversion and no raising tone

Similarities: confirm the information

For example:

1 Are you a student? ( Bạn là học sinh phải không?)

Yes, I am ( , mình là học sinh)

2 Are they your parents? ( Họ là cha mẹ của bạn hả?)

No, they don’t (Không, họ không phải là cha mẹ của tôi)

Moreover, in some cases, we can also answer these questions by rejecting if the assumption is unreasonable

For example:

 In English:

A: Is Miss Ann from America?

B: I even don’t know who Miss Ann is

 In Vietnamese:

A: Hôm qua cô cho làm bài kiểm tra phải không?

B: Hôm qua có đi học đâu mà biết

Differences:

- The way answering questions

o In English:

1 Do you want to eat now? (Con muốn ăn bây giờ không?)

YES, I do (Dạ, con muốn ăn bây giờ)

NO, I don’t (Không, con không muốn ăn bây giờ)

2 Don’t you want to eat now? (Con không muốn ăn bây giờ sao?)

YES, I do (Dạ, con muốn ăn bây giờ)

NO, I don’t (Không, con không muốn ăn bây giờ)

o In Vietnamese:

Vietnamese people usually use “vâng/dạ/có” and “Không” để express if they

agree with the question

1 Con muốn ăn chưa? (Do you want to eat now?)

Dạ Con muốn ăn bây giờ ( Yes, I do)

Không Con không muốn ăn bây giờ ( No, I don’t)

2 Con không muốn ăn bây giờ sao? (Don’t you want to eat now?)

Vâng, con không muốn ăn bây giờ (Yes)

Không, con muốn ăn bây giờ ch (No)

- The way forming the questions

With all information mentioned above, in English, the order in the interrogative sentence is deserted In Vietnamese, the order is the same as the statement (Subject + Verb),then, combining with some parts: “à”, “hả”, “ạ”, “có…chưa”, “có…không”…

Especially, In English, we raise voice at the end of the question, that doesn’t present

in Vietnamese question

2 WH-question:

A Wh-question is a question that contains an interrogative pro-form to request information

The table below will give some basic forms of this kind of question

Question

Word

something

What is your name?

Who Asking about the information about

someone

Who is she?

Why Asking for the reason Why do you take the IELTS exam?

How Asking about the manner or the quality How did your final test?

Besides that, these interrogative questions above will be extended into many different forms in order to ask for the specific information

1 Which (one)? : Choice of alternatives

Eg: Which color do you want?

2 Whose? - Possession

Eg: Whose turn is it?

3 Whom? - Person (objective formal)

Eg: Whom did he see?

4 How much? - Price, amount (non-count)

Eg: How much does it cost?

5 How many? - Quantity (count)

Eg: How many people in your family?

6 How long? - Duration

Eg: How long have you stayed there?

7 How often? - Frequency

Eg: How often does she go to school?

8 How far? - Distance

Eg: How far is it from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi?

9 What kind (of)?- Description

Eg: What kind of question will we have in the listening test?

Similarities:

The order when forming the question with interrogative words which become Subject

In English:

Who is Mary?

Subject verb

In Vietnamese:

Ai là Mary?

Chủ ngữ động t

Differences:

- When interrogative words is not subject, the English question needs the operator

after the interrogative word or there must be an inversion

Eg: Why did you go to the cinema lately yesterday?

Operator

- However, in Vietnamese, there is no operator used in the question

- Intonation

+ In English: There must be a falling intonation at the end of question

+ In Vietnamese: It is no need to use intonation

3 Alternative question

An alternative question is a question that presents two or more possible answers and

presupposes that only one is true

Eg: Would you like chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry ice cream?

Similarities: use “or” (hay là, hoặc….) between options

For example:

- In English: Are you listening to music or watching TV?

- In Vietnamese: Bạn là học sinh hay giáo viên?

Differences: intonation

- English: stress with the option chosen

- Vietnamese: don’t need to do that

4 Declarative question

- A declarative question is a question used to express surprise or ask for verification

- It is used in informal speech and it has a rising intonation at the end

Eg: Wow, you ate that whole thing?

 To express surprise

Similarities: To check information or express feeling

 In English:

For example:

You have already bought all tickets?

 To express surprise this information because before hearing this sentence, everyone thinks that he doesn’t want to go there

 In Vietnamese: it usually combine with some words such as “à, hả, á, ” at

the end of the sentence For example:

Mày không ăn thật hả?

 The speaker thinks the hearer wants to eat

Differences:

In English: need to raise the voice at the end of the question

In Vietnamese: don’t do that or it’s difficult for people to do that

5 Tag question

- A question used after a statement when seeking or expecting confirmation of that statement

- The intonation in most tag questions is going down to create agreement and rapport

between the speakers

- The structure of tag question:

Subject + Verb (affirmative), Verb (negative)?

Subject + Verb (negative), Verb (affirmative)?

Eg: You love me, don’t you?

She doesn’t want to go with me, does she?

 There is no tag question in Vietnamese that is formed following this rule The only

possible way to form this kind of question is to add “phải không” after a declarative

question

Eg: Cô ấy đẹp, phải không? (She is beautiful, isn’t she?), ans especially no intonation is

added

III Teaching implications

As English is a second language, students make mistakes easily However, I would like to list some common mistakes

1 Because there is no intonation in Vietnamese, Vietnamese students tend to speak English

like the way they speak Vietnamese, with a flat intonation Somehow they have an improper intonation when speaking English in different contexts Having no intonation or have a wrong intonation will make the communication boring and the listeners will feel uncomfortable or misunderstand

2 Realize the difficulties that students have to deal with is that the way to answer to the

Yes/No question with the negative form They find them find them difficult because they

don’t know how to answer this kind of questions It’s not simple to answer a normal

interrogative question like “Is he a teacher?”, they will answer “Yes” or “No” to show

agreement or disagreement Nevertheless, they feel confused when answering the

opposite kind of questions like “Didn’t you go to the cinema last night?” It’s very

important for the teacher to realize this problem in order to help students avoid making this mistake

3 The learners usually forget the operator or inversion when they form the question For instance, they ask “where you live?” instead of “where do you live?” or “How long you

have been there?” instead of “How long have you been there?”

4 As knowing the weak aspect of Vietnamese student, teacher should give student more

chances to practice to make them form question correctly and naturally by using the form

of role-play in a variety of contexts

Conclusion

To sum up, questions have an important role in our life because it is presented in most of our conversation Actually, there are many similarities as well as differences between English and Vietnamese question In addition, conducting a contrastive analysis between two languages can bring about many applications in both teaching and learning For that, we can have a proper method to teach and learn English well

References

 Eugene E.Loos What is a question? 2013

<http://www01.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAQuestion.htm >

 Richard Nordquist Interrogative

sentence.2013.<http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/interrogaterm.htm >

 Le, Quang Thiem (2004) Ngôn ngữ học đối chiếu các ngôn ngữ Hanoi: Hanoi National

University Publisher

 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2013) Question Retrieved December 22nd

, 2013 from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question