Analysing errors in translating english questions with a bias towards assertion or nonassertion made by english majored students

It is hoped that the study will result in some recommended adjustments for improving the quality of teaching translation with the focus on the pragmatic meaning of English questions... 1

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

DAO DAT CUONG

ANALYSING ERRORS IN TRANSLATING ENGLISH QUESTIONS WITH A BIAS TOWARDS ASSERTION OR NON- ASSERTION MADE BY ENGLISH – MAJORED STUDENTS

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL)

Supervisor Senior lecturer TOÂ MINH THANH, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY-2006

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled

ANALYING ERRORS IN TRANSLATING ENGLISH QUESTIONS

WITH A BIAS TOWARDS ASSERTION OR NON – ASSERTION

MADE BY ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Program issued

by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree

Ho Chi Minh City, October 2006

ĐÀO ĐẠT CƯỜNG

I would like to express my great thanks to Dr Toâ Minh Thanh, who has given me invaluable advice and guidance without which I could not have fulfilled my work

I would also like to thank the students in my classes for their willingness to fulfill the portfolio assignments and the questionnaire

Finally, thanks go to my family and my friends for their unwavering encouragement and support

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, ĐÀO ĐẠT CƯỜNG, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL), accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Mater’s theses deposited in the University Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the University Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research,

in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, October, 2006

ĐÀO ĐẠT CƯỜNG

ABSTRACT

The study done for this M.A thesis aims at investigating pragmatic errors made

by 50 fourth-year students of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (abbreviated to USSH) when translating into Vietnamese 18 English assertive and non-assertive oriented questions Being analysed are only pragmatic errors In other words, within the scope of the study are the errors which result from the student subjects’ “production of the wrong communication effect e.g through the faulty use of a speech act” [Richards et al, 1993: 127]

The data was collected from the student subjects’ translated versions done right

in class within 60 minutes at the beginning of their seventh semester at USSH, which is in the school year 2006-2007 The results showed that most of the student subjects produced ill-translated English-Vietnamese versions because they did not understand the effect of assertive and non-assertive orientation on possible changes of the illocutionary acts of English questions, especially from direct to indirect

Using findings drawn from the analysis of the pragmatic errors, the author of the thesis firstly raises some recommendations concerning (1) a couple of adjustments in introducing part of pragmatics to the very content of such courses

as English grammar, phonology, and semantics and (2) a number of supplement textbooks for the student subjects Hopefully, these remedial suggestions will appropriately be applied to enhance the students’ understanding of English questions with a bias towards assertion or non-assertion for their better translated

TABLE OF CONTENT

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS iii

ABSTRACT iv

TABLE OF CONTENT v

LIST OF TABLES ix

LIST OF CHARTS x

LIST OF SYMBOLS xi

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Research Questions 2

1.3 Aims and Objectives 2

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Overview 3

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 The concept of equivalent translation 5

2.2 Speech acts 8

2.2.1 Sentences vs utterances 8

2.2.2 Locutionary meaning vs illocutionary meaning 8

2.2.3 Locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts 9

2.2.4 Five categories of illocutionary acts 10

2.2.5 Direct and indirect illocutionary acts of a speech act 10

2.2.6 Three degrees of indirectness found in an illocutionary act 11

2.3 Translation errors 12

2.3.1 Errors vs mistakes 12

2.3.2 Sources of errors 13

2.3.3 Pragmatic errors in translation 15

2.3.4 Significance of Error Analysis 15

2.4 Five tones in the English intonation 16

2.4.1 The falling tone 17

2.4.2 The rising tone 17

2.4.3 The level tone 17

2.4.4 The fall-rise tone 17

2.4.5 The rise-fall tone 18

2.5 Gap in related research 18

Chapter 3: ASSERTIVE AND NON-ASSERTIVE ORIENTATION ASSOCIATED WITH VARIOUS SYNTACTIC FORMS OF ENGLISH QUESTIONS 20

3.1 Syntactic forms of English questions 20

3.1.1 The mood structure in English clauses 21

3.1.1.1 The mood element 22

3.1.1.2 The Residue 23

3.1.2 Types of the mood structure in English clauses 24

3.1.3 Syntactic forms of the English question 26

3.1.3.1 Yes-no questions 26

3.1.3.2 Wh-questions 26

3.1.3.3 Alternative questions 27

3.1.3.4 Tag questions 28

3.1.3.5 Echo questions 29

3.2 Assertive and non assertive orientation in English questions 30

3.2.1 Assertion and non-assertion 31

3.2.2 Types of questions 32

3.2.2.2 Assertive questions 33

3.2.2.2.1 Yes-no questions 34

3.2.2.2.2 Tag questions 37

3.2.2.2.3 Wh-questions 38

3.2.2.3 Non-assertive questions 39

3.2.2.3.1 Yes-no questions 39

3.2.2.3.2 Tag questions 40

3.2.2.3.3 Wh-questions 41

Chapter 4: METHODOLOGY 42

4.1 Population 42

4 2 Materials 43

4 3 Procedures 44

Chapter 5: ERROR ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 46

5.1 Question 1 and Question 18 46

5.2 Question 2 50

5.3 Question 3 52

5.4 Question 4 and Question 5 54

5.5 Question 6 57

5.6 Question 7 and Question 9 59

5.7 Question 8 62

5.8 Question 10 and 11 63

5.9 Question 12 and 13 65

5.10 Question 14 and 15 68

5.11 Question 16 71

5.12 Question 17 73

Chapter 6: RECOMMENDATION 75

CONCLUSION 80 REFERENCES 82 APPENDIX I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Result of students’ translating the tag response in (1) 47

Table 2 Result of students’ translating the tag response in (18) 49

Table 3 Result of students’ distinguishing the meaning of the tag response in (1) from that in (18) 50

Table 4 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (2) 51

Table 5 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (3) 54

Table 6 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (4) 56

Table 7 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (5) 57

Table 8 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (6) 58

Table 9 Result of students’ translating the exclamative in (7) 60

Table 10 Result of students’ translating the exclamative in (9) 61

Table 11 Result of students’ translating the wh-question in (8) 63

Table 12 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (10) 64

Table 13 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (11) 65

Table 14 Result of students’ translating wh-question in (12) 66

Table 15 Result of students’ translating the wh-question in (13) 67

Table 16 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (14) 69

Table 17 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (15) 70

Table 18 Result of students’ translating the wh-question in (16) 72

Table 19 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (17) 74

LIST OF CHARTS

CHAPTER 5

Chart 1 Result of students’ translating the tag response in (1) 47

Chart 2 Result of students’ translating the tag response in (18) 49

Chart 3 Result of students’ distinguishing the meaning of the tag response in (1) from that in (18) 50

Chart 4 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (2) 52

Chart 5 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (3) 54

Chart 6 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (4) 56

Chart 7 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (5) 57

Chart 8 Result of students’ translating the yes-no question in (6) 59

Chart 9 Result of students’ translating the exclamative in (7) 61

Chart 10 Result of students’ translating the exclamative in (9) 61

Chart 11 Result of students’ translating the wh-question in (8) 63

Chart 12 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (10) 64

Chart 13 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (11) 65

Chart 14 Result of students’ translating wh-question in (12) 66

Chart 15 Result of students’ translating the wh-question in (13) 68

Chart 16 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (14) 70

Chart 17 Result of students’ translating the tag question in (15) 71

Chart 18 Result of students’ translating the wh-question in (16) 73

Chart 19 Result of students’ translating the yes-noquestion in (17) 74

LIST OF SYMBOLS

*

\ /

Level tone

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Vietnam has been attracting a lot of foreign visitors The majority of them can manage to use English in communication Therefore, the need of translating English to Vietnamese and vice versa is ever-increasing The teaching of translation at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities aims to satisfy this need The students begin to study English-Vietnamese translation from their third semester at the university By the beginning of their seventh semester, the students have covered a number of subjects in linguistics such as phonology, morphology and syntax which are all of some help to the students in learning translation

My years of teaching linguistics and translation at the university allow me to get aware of potential difficulties encountering the students in translating English sentences, especially where the students can not rely on syntactic and semantic features to produce good versions They almost certainly lack knowledge of pragmatics when translating the sentences The study of this M.A thesis has been carried out to have a close look at the student subjects’ problem in order to check how serious their pragmatic errors are It is hoped that the study will result

in some recommended adjustments for improving the quality of teaching translation with the focus on the pragmatic meaning of English questions

1.2 Research Questions:

a Do the student subjects find it really difficult to translate into Vietnamese English questions with a bias towards assertion or non-assertion?

b What are possible causes of the student subjects’ ill-versions?

c What recommendations can be raised from the study’s findings to help the students deal with pragmatic errors?

1.3 Aims and Objectives

This paper covered basic concepts of equivalent translation, speech acts, translation errors, the five tones in English intonation, the theories of functional grammar and English assertively or non-assertively oriented questions to analyse pragmatic errors in English-Vietnamese translation made by the students majoring in English at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities In the light of the analysis of translation errors, recommendations were made in order

to help the students produce appropriate translated versions from English

questions with a bias towards assertion or non-assertion and avoid such

pragmatic errors in their future translating activities The study’s subsequent recommendations on applying a few supplement textbooks for the translation course and introducing part of pragmatics to other related courses such as English grammar, phonology, and semantics could be of great help for the sake of more efficient teaching and learning translation as well as of better-translated works

1.4 Scope of the study

English negative, assertive and non-assertive forms combined with tones in intonation were mentioned in this paper to find out their effect on changing the direct illocutionary act of a question to indirect ones In the light of this understanding, the techniques of equivalent translation were used to render English questions with a bias towards assertion or non-assertion into Vietnamese The study was applied to the fourth-year students at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities who have captured some background knowledge of phonology, morphology and syntax The assignments with the most representative structures of English questions with a bias toward assertion or non-assertion were used to check the students’ capability of English-Vietnamese translation

Chapter 2: Literature Review

The chapter reviews the concepts of equivalent translation, speech acts, translation errors and five tones in the English intonation In the process of studying the literature review of the study, the gap of a number of previous studies was realized, and on the condition of such a fact that the study’s research questions were made

Chapter 3: Assertive and non-assertive orientation associated with various syntactic forms of english questions

The chapter aims to identify the syntactic forms of the English questions and then represents questions with a bias towards assertion o non-assertion

Chapter 4: Methodology

The chapter deals with a number of methodological aspects including the population, the material and the procedure

Chapter 5: Error analysis, findings and discussions

The chapter presents error analysis in the student subjects’ translated versions of eighteen English assertively or non-assertively oriented questions The study’s findings are then raised for subsequent discussions

Chapter 6: Recommendations

The chapter puts forwards some recommendations for the sake of improving the students’ capacity of translation, as far as English questions with a bias towards assertion or non-assertion are concerned

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 The concept of equivalent translation

Translation is ultimately a human activity which enables human beings to exchange ideas and thoughts regardless of the different tongues used It is a highly complex phenomenon which involves a large number of variables other than the linguistic ones In translation, equivalence can be said to be the central issue and many different theories of the concept of equivalence have been elaborated within this field in the past fifty years It would appear that there are

no such things as identical equivalents, so one must in translating seek for the closest possible equivalent Nida [1964: 159] proposes that there are

fundamentally two different types of equivalence: one is called formal and the other primarily dynamic:

Formal equivalence focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content In such a translation one is concerned with such correspondences as poetry to poetry, sentence to sentence, and concept to concept Viewed from this formal orientation, one is concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language This means, for example, that the message in the receptor culture is constantly compared with the message in the source culture to determine standards of accuracy and correctness

In contrast, a translation which attempts to produce a dynamic rather than a formal equivalence is based upon “the principle of equivalent effect” In such a translation one is not so concerned with matching the receptor-language message with the source-language message, but with the dynamic relationship, that the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message

To achieve dynamic equivalence, a translation aims at complete naturalness of expression by relating the receptor to modes of behavior relevant to his culture;

it is unnecessary for the receptor to understand the cultural patterns of the source-language context in order to comprehend the message On the contrary, it

is the translator’s duty to master those of the target-language context to produce satisfactory translated versions

To illustrate the two types of equivalence, the English sentence He works like a

horse can be translated into Vietnamese in the two ways The first version, which

is Anh ấy làm việc như ngựa, is a formal equivalence in translation As a dynamic equivalence, the second version Anh ấy làm việc như trâu sounds much more

culturally natural than the first one to Vietnamese receptors

“A translation which aims at dynamic equivalence inevitably involves a number

of formal adjustments.” [Nida, 1964: 170] For example, the English invitation in

the interrogative form Why don’t you come for a meal one day next week? can be rendered into Vietnamese like an invitation in a normal declarative form Tuần

tới hôm nào anh đến dùng bửa nhé The adjustment in the form makes the

invitation natural and thus accepted to Vietnamese receptors

In the text book named A Course In The Theory Of Translation with regard to

levels of equivalence and the concept of adequate translation1 Nguyễn Tiến Hùng [1986: 7-8] distinguishes three levels of equivalence The first is formal

1 Adequate translation may be defined as that which is determined by semantic and pragmatic equivalence between the original and the target-language text [Nguyễn Tiến Hùng, 1986: 8]

equivalence which results from similarity of grammatical forms and lexical items

of the two languages For example, there exists a formal equivalent between the

English sentence He often walks in the park and its Vietnamese version Anh ấy

thường đi bộ trong công viên because the two sentences have similar

grammatical forms and lexical items In translation, such a formal equivalence rarely happens among various languages The second, which is s emantic equivalen ce, occurs when the same meanings are expressed in the two languages

in a different way The Vietnamese sentence Tôi đi tắm is considered as the semantic equivalence, not a formal one, of the English sentence I have a bath

because they have the same meaning but differ from each other in the form of

the lexical item: bath in English is a noun meanwhile tắm in Vietnamese is a

verb

The last but not least is pragmatic equivalence which implies a close fit between communicative intent and the receptor’s response units required at all levels of equivalence When discussing the effect of the pragmatic motivation of the original message, Nguyễn Tiến Hùng [1986: 5] notices that in the process of translation, the translator should be aware of the sender’s communicative intent

In other words, he is supposed to identify whether or not the message is a statement of fact, a request, a command, etc Very often the speaker’s communicative intent differs from what the message seems to say For example,

Who has any money? can hardly be considered as the English equivalent of the

Vietnamese question *Ai có chút ít tiền? Instead, it would rather behave like the negative statement Chẳng có ai có tiền cả! due to the speaker’s conveyed

intention

It is possible to confirm that Nida’s two types of equivalence as well as Nguyeãn Tieán Huøng’s three levels of equivalence have been employed in this thesis to solve problems which can be countered by Vietnamese learners of English in translation, especially in dealing with English questions

2.2 Speech acts

2.2.1 Sentences vs utterances

Levinson [1995: 18] states that “a sentence is an abstract theoretical entity defined within a theory of grammar, while an utterance is the issuance of a sentence, a sentence–analogue, or sentence–fragment, in an actual context.” Whenever a word or a group of word is uttered, an utterance is made But this is not true for sentence If anyone utters the same sentence many times, there is only one sentence to be talked about Therefore, “a sentence can be thought of

as the ideal string of words behind various realizations in utterances and inscriptions.” [Hurford and Heasley 1984: 18] For example, the hearer can

choose such answers as walking, I am walking, etc to answer the question What

are you doing? These utterances are the different realizations of the same

sentence as I am walking

2.2.2 Locutionary meaning vs illocutionary meaning

Speakers of every language can really do a lot of things in the process of communicating and interacting with one another when they make utterances Austin [1962: 5] points out that there are a number of utterances that do not describe, report or state anything and are not therefore true or false, but that the

uttering of the sentence is, or is a part of, an action For example, on uttering the

sentence I name this ship Queen Elizabeth, the speaker actually performs the act

of naming the ship rather than making a statement that can be regarded as true or false Such an act of naming is called a speech act

According to Richards et al [1993: 342-343], in speech act theory, utterances have both propositional meaning and illocutionary meaning Propositional meaning, also known as locutionary meaning or locutionary force, is the basic literal meaning of an utterance conveyed by its individual words and structure Meanwhile, illocutionary meaning, also called illocutionary force, is the effect that the utterance/written text has on the listener/reader For example, the

utterance I have a terrible headache has its propositional meaning, i.e what the

utterance says about the speaker’s physical state Besides this propositional meaning, the utterance also causes an effect on the listener: the speaker may request for some medicine In this case, the speaker performs a speech act of requesting This is the illocutionary meaning of the utterance

2.2.3 Locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts

Austin [1962: 103] also distinguishes three kinds of speech acts: the locutionary,

the illocutionary, and the perlocutionary We first distinguished a group of things we do

in saying something, which together we summed up by saying we perform a locutionary act, is roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sentence with a certain

sense2 and reference3, which again is roughly equivalent to meaning’ in the traditional

2 The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other

sense Second, we said that we also perform illocutionary acts such as informing, ordering, warning, undertaking, etc., i.e utterances which have a certain (conventional) force Thirdly, we may also perform perlocutionary acts: what we bring about or achieve by saying something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring, and even, say, surprising or misleading

2.2.4 Five categories of illocutionary acts

As for illocutionary acts, “there are five general ways of using language, five general categories of illocutionary acts We tell people how things are (Assertives), we try to get them to do things (Directives), we commit ourselves to doing things (Commissives), we express our feelings and attitudes (Expressives), and we bring about changes in the world through our utterances (Declarations) [Searle, 1999: viii]

2.2.5 Direct and indirect illocutionary acts of a speech act

A person can utilize any of the five types of illocutionary acts to do things he or she wants However, he or she may perform the acts directly or indirectly Hence, linguists distinguish between direct and indirect illocutionary acts of a certain speech act Yule [1996: 54] states that there is an easily recognized direct relationship respectively between the three structural forms — declarative, interrogative and imperative — and the three basic general communicative

functions — statement, question, command/request Whenever there is a direct

relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act

3 According to Hurford and Heasley [1984: 26], reference is a relationship between

parts of a language and things outside the language (in the world)

Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function,

we have an indirect speech act For example, when the declarative It’s cold

outside is used to make a statement with the meaning that I hereby tell you about the weather, it functions as a direct speech act When it is used to make a

command/request with the meaning of I hereby request of you that you close the

door, it functions as an indirect speech act

2.2.6 Three degrees of indirectness found in an illocutionary act

Phạm Văn Thấu [1997: 24] notices that there are three degrees of indirectness found in an illocutionary force The first is the zero degree of indirectness When the direct illocutionary force of an utterance and its indirect one are identical, we say that such an utterance has the zero degree of indirectness In other words, when the propositional meaning of an utterance and its indirect illocutionary

meaning are the same, the utterance has no indirect effect The utterance Keep

order, please!, for example, has its propositional meaning as an instruction or a

command; the target of such an utterance is at the same time a command

The second, the low (also called medium) degree of indirectness, shows some difference or divergence between the direct illocutionary force and the indirect one Such a divergence is marked by modal verbs, modal particles, specific structures, etc., which dictate how an utterance changes its pragmatic orientation, its practical effectiveness and thus its direct illocutionary force In other words, the indirect illocutionary force of an utterance can be determined on these divergence markers Typical and also universal examples of such indirect illocutionary forces are questions without asking for any supply of information

relating to the content of the questions; the targets of the so-called questions could be affirmations, negations, demands, instructions, etc For example, when

uttered, the question Could you be quiet, please? has a direct illocutionary force

of asking for some information and an indirect illocutionary force of requesting

the hearer to do something

The third, the high degree of indirectness, comes into existence when there is no superficial indicative relationship between the direct and the indirect

illocutionary force of an utterance For example, when saying It is too hot here, the speaker can perform a direct illocutionary act of asserting; however, the same utterance may have an indirect illocutionary force of complaining This

case is really demanding because there is no linguistic sign explicitly indicating the change from directness to indirectness found in the illocutionary force of the utterance

English negative, assertive and non-assertive forms, combined with five tones in the English intonation, can help to change the illocutionary force of English questions, from direct to indirect This is mentioned in detail in Chapter 3

2.3 Translation errors

2.3.1 Errors vs mistakes

With a regard to distinction between errors and mistakes, Richards et al [1993: 127] states that “A distinction is sometimes made between an error, which results from incomplete knowledge, and a mistake made by learners when writing or speaking and which is caused by lack of attention, fatigue,

carelessness or some other aspect of performance.” Brown [1994: 205] also shows that a mistake is “a performance error that is either a random guess or a slip in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly” whereas an error is

“a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker, reflecting the interlanguage competence of a learner.” As a result, due to failure to utilize

a known system correctly rather than the lack of linguistic competence, a mistake can be more or less self-corrected Meanwhile, deal to the incomplete knowledge of linguistic competence an error cannot be recognizable by the learners and is, therefore, not amenable to self-corrected

Richards et al [1993: 127] notes that errors are sometimes classified according to vocabulary (lexical error), pronunciation (phonological error), grammar, (syntactic error), misunderstanding of a speaker’s intention or meaning (interpretive error), production of the wrong communicative effect e.g through the faulty use of a speech act or one of the rules of speaking (pragmatic error) The focus of this thesis will be on analysing pragmatic errors made by the student subjects when they translate English questions with a bias towards assertion or non-assertion into Vietnamese

2.3.2 Sources of errors

It is crucial to find out all possible causes of the students’ errors in translation It

is commonly known that there are the two kinds of sources of errors: interlingual

and intralingual Closely related to “negative interlingual transfer” [Brown, 1994: 214] is the interlingual error which is “an error which results from language transfer”, especially caused by the learner’s native language [Richards et al,

1993: 187] In other words, interlingual erros are caused by the interference which happens when a structure in the second language manifests some degree of difference from and, at the same time, some degree of similarity to, the equivalent structure in the learner’s first language Therefore, the translation of the source language into the target language is sometimes influenced by the impacts of the translator’s mother tongue Negatively influenced by the Vietnamese preposition trên found in the expression trên bầu trời, which is, in

this case, equivalent to the English preposition in found in the expression in the

Vietnamese sentence Có nhiều đám mây trên bầu trời

Richards et al [1993: 187] notices that “intralingual errors result from faulty or partial learning of the target language, rather than from language transfer.” In other words, an intralingual error may be caused by the influence of one target language item upon another occurring “when the learner attempts to build up hypotheses about the target language on the basis of limited experience.” Below

is Nguyễn Tiến Hùng’s illustration of intralingual errors [1986: 11]:

Out came the chaise- in went the horses – on sprang the boys – in got the travellers

If a student do not realize that the above-mentioned English sentence is employed to convey the additional meaning of rapidity of movement, his

Vietnamese version could be Xe ngựa kéo ra, mấy con ngựa được dẫn tới, mấy

chú bé nhảy lên mình các con ngựa, đám lữ khách trèo lên xe, which is in fact,

quite unsatisfactory Other Vietnamese lexical means of expressions must be

used to produce an accepted translated version like Ngay lập tức cỗ xe ngựa được

kéo ra, và rồi chỉ thoáng một cái các chú ngựa được dẫn tới, và rồi thoắt một cái

các chú bé dẫn đường nhẩy phốc lên mình các con ngựa, và rồi liền ngay sau đó đám lữ khách vội vã trèo lên cỗ xe.”

The study done for this M.A thesis sets its own goal of trying to give adequate evidence to the assertion that in English-Vietnamese translation Vietnamese learners make more intralingual errors than interlingual errors, as far as English questions are concerned, because they may be unaware of, and thus completely fail to identify, subtle features of meaning conveyed by the English questions they have had an opportunity to encounter up to now

2.3.3 Pragmatic errors in translation

Peccei [1999: 2] states that “pragmatics concentrates on those aspects of meaning that cannot be predicted by linguistic knowledge alone and takes into account knowledge about the physical and social world.”

Within the scope of the study are pragmatic errors which result from the student subjects’ “production of the wrong communication effect e.g through the faulty use of a speech act” [Richards et al, 1993: 127] Take the following as an

example The English wh-question Why don’t you come for a meal one day next

week? has an indirect illocutionary force of invitation and its Vietnamese version

may be Tuần tới hôm nào bạn đến dùng bữa cơm nhé? However, the students

often produce their translated versions with a direct illocutionary force of asking

for the reason: *Tại sao anh không đi ăn trong một ngày của tuần tới? Such a

version could be considered as a pragmatic error

2.3.4 Significance of Error Analysis

Error analysis is a type of linguistic analysis that focuses on the errors made by second or foreign language learners Asher et al [1994: 740] confirm that error analysis pedagogically provides feedback concerning teaching methods and materials; psycho-linguistically, on the other hand, error analysis throws light on how languages are learned and produced

According to Corder [1967], errors are 'indispensable' for learners since the making of errors can be regarded as a device the learner uses in order to learn Making errors can help the learner test his hypotheses about the nature of the language he is learning The author of this thesis believes that this is only true for learners in English speaking countries For Vietnamese learners, however, errors are unavoidable, being made while the learners test his hypotheses about the nature of the language he is learning To some extent, the making of errors can be regarded as a device by which the learner makes progress after a number

of wrong applications, gradually moving along the way toward correct constructions, including those of English questions

As for researchers, they are interested in errors because they are believed to contain valuable information on the strategies that people use to acquire a language According to Richards and Sampson [1974: 15], “error analysis will continue to provide one means by which the teacher assesses learning and teaching and determines priorities for future effort.”

2.4 Five tones in the English intonation

There are five tones in the English intonation: falling, rising, level, fall-rise, and rise-fall [Roach, 2000]

2.4.1 The falling tone

The falling tone decends from a higher to a lower pitch It gives an impression of

“finality” or “definiteness” For example, if someone replies to a question by

saying\ yes or \ no, with the falling tone, it will be understood that the question is now answered and that there is nothing more to be said

2.4.2 The rising tone

The rising tone is a movement from a lower pitch to higher one Unlike the falling tone which gives an impression of finality, the rising tone conveys an impression that something more is to follow It is often used in yes-no questions:

Can I / help you? or Is it / over ?

2.4.3 The level tone

The pitch in the level tone is kept at a constant level The level tone almost

always conveys a feeling of saying something routine, uninteresting or boring For example, a teacher calling the names of pupils from a register will often do

so using a level tone on each name, and the pupils are likely to respond with _ Yes when their name is called

2.4.4 The fall-rise tone

The pitch in the fall-rise tone decends and then rises again It can express a

doubt or uncertainty: It is ◡ poss ible One of other meanings of this tone is

described as “limited agreement” or “response with reservation”:

A: It’s not really an expensive book, is it?

B: ◡No The fall-rise tone in B’s reply again indicates that he would not completely agree with A

2.4.5 The rise-fall tone

The last tone in which the pitch rises and then decends is called the rise-fall tone

It is used to describe a surprise: You are ⌢ first?, or to convey rather strong feelings of approval, disapproval

A: You wouldn’t do an awful thing like that, would you?

B: ⌢No

2.5 Gap in related research

Up to the present time error analyses and contrastive analyses in second language learning and teaching have been studied with recognition An M.A thesis written in Vietnamese by Nguyeãn Thuùy Oanh [2002] theoretically compares and contrasts English questions with Vietnamese ones; no practical application follows such a research Only a small number of studies have been carried out to analyse Vietnamese students’ errors in translation Below are two typical works of this type Both being written in English are the researches done for Ms Phạm Phuù Quỳnh Na’s article in Asian EFL Journal and the study done

for Mr Leâ Coâng Thiện’s master thesis, the former being Errors in the translation

of topic-comment structures of Vietnamese into English, and the latter being An analysis of errors in English–Vietnamese translation of modality “should” made

by English majors at the HCM University of Social Sciences and Humanities problems and solutions None has ever been found to deal with error analysis in

translating English questions with a bias towards assertion or non-assertion into Vietnamese

For further error analysis, the study done for this M.A thesis focuses on anlysing

questions into Vietnamese, especially English assertively or non-assertively oriented questions with their illocutionary forces being pragmatically changed from direct to indirect To fulfill its tasks, the study done for this thesis employs the theories of speech acts and error analysis to test its main hypothesis is that

the indirect illocutions of the English questions can cause some difficulties for the

translation process It is hoped that the study will shed some light on common errors by Vietnamese students in translating the English questions with assertive

or non-assertive orientation and that its findings will lead to recommendations to

reduce problems in learning translation

The author of this thesis, who is an applicant for an M.A in TESOL, aims at observing how 50 randomly selected fourth-year students of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities translate as many as 18 English questions with a bias towards assertion or non-assertion into Vietnamese The thesis is therefore practice-oriented, trying to find out potential problems facing the thesis’ student subjects

in translating the very kind of English questions Hopefully, subsequent solutions

to their problems will be satisfactorily raised for the students’ better translated texts in no time at all

Chapter 3 ASSERTIVE AND NON-ASSERTIVE ORIENTATION

ASSOCIATED WITH VARIOUS SYNTACTIC FORMS

OF ENGLISH QUESTIONS

3.1 Syntactic forms of English questions

Language is for communication The independent clause is considered as a major grammatical unit used in communication Every clause contains its own meaning and structure According to the functional grammar, “the three kinds of meaning and structure derive from the consideration of a clause as: (a) the linguistic representation of our experience of the word; (b) a communicative exchange between persons; (c) an organised message or text.” [Downing and Locke, 1992: 4] Lock (1996: 9-10) clarifies the three kinds of meaning and structure as follows:

Experiential meaning has to do with the ways language represents our

experience (actual and vicarious) of the world as well as the inner world of our thoughts and feelings In other words, it is concerned with how we talk about actions, happenings, feelings, beliefs, situations, states, and on so, the people and things involved in them, and the relevant circumstances of time, place, manner, and so on

Interpersonal meaning has to do with the ways in which we act upon one another

through language — giving and requesting for information, getting people to do things, and offering to do things ourselves — and the ways in which we express

our judgments and attitudes — about such things as likelihood, necessity and desirability

Textual meaning has to do with the ways in which a stretch of language is

organised in relation to its context Textual meaning is important in the creation

of coherence in spoken or written text

This M.A thesis focuses on interpersonal meaning In other words, it will explore some of the ways in which speakers and writers structure clauses in order to interact with their addressees

3.1.1 The mood structure in English clauses

Each clause has its own syntactic form corresponding to a basic communicative

function Illocution, which is also referred to as illocutionary force, is to denote

the function of the clause According to Downing and Locke [1992: 165], the clause is the major grammatical unit which a speaker or writer uses when communicating with a hearer or reader to give information, to ask for information or to give a directive These three main illocutionary acts are realised grammatically in the following way: the indicative is the grammatical category typically used for the exchange of information, in contrast to the imperative, which realises a directive Within the indicative, it is the declarative clause which typically expresses a statement and the interrogative clause a question Moreover, the fourth main illocutionary act is one that expresses an exclamation Structurally, it is a variation of declarative clause

To determine the syntactic form of the four clauses named declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative, Siewierska [1991: 123] notes that

“mood in functional grammar is recognized as one of the most common means of signaling sentence type.” The three main illocutionary acts of stating, questioning and commanding are typically realised in English by variation in the order of one part of the clause, called the Mood element, while the rest of the clause, called the Residue, remains unchanged [Downing and Locke, 1992: 167]

3.1.1.1 The mood element

Halliday [1994: 72] states that the mood element consists of two parts: (1) the Subject, which is a nominal group 4, and (2) the Finite operator, which is part of a verb group 5 Butt et al [200: 89] notes that the Finite is the first part of the verb

4 Downing and Locke, [1992: 15] states that “Nominal Groups, Adjectival Groups, and

Adverbial Groups are composed of three primary elements: a head (h) preceded by a

modifier (m) and followed by a qualifier (q) These last two elements are sometimes

called ‘pre-modifier’ and ‘post-modifier’ The term ‘qualifier’ is preferred here, because the two elements tend to express different types of information about the

‘head’ and also because this permits the use of two different symbols (m and q) in the

structural notation

In the case of Nominal Group, we also distinguish between ‘modifier’ which describe

or classify the head, and ‘determiners’ (d) which specify it in terms of definiteness,

quantity, possessiveness, etc Thus, we give the determiner, the modifier and qualifier equal syntactic status as primary elements of Nominal Groups The following are examples of these group structures:

NG dmhq those / beautiful / painting / by Goya

5 “In Verb Groups, the lexical verb is regarded as the main element (v), which either

function alone, in both finite or non- finite forms as in the example Walking along the

street, I met a friend of mine, or is preceded by auxiliaries (x), as in will go or has

been reading The first auxiliary (or the auxiliary if there is only one) is called

group which encodes the primary-tense 6 or the speaker’s opinion to express the

interpersonal meanings Thus, the Finite in the verb group has two-main interpersonal roles: a sign of time in relation to the speaker or a sign of modality 7

expressing the speaker’s opinion The nominal group which interacts most closely with the Finite is known as the Subject The significance of the Subject-Finite relation can sometimes be seen in the effect of the Subject on the Finite When the nominal group changes its number, from singular to plural, or its person, from the first to the third; and the Finite reflects such changes in its form

The Finite element is often realised by an operator which is the first auxiliary So the operator is the element that contributes pieces of information about tense, modality, number and person, and so helps to make the verb group finite and fully operative If the clause does not contain any auxiliary, the Finite element is realised by the lexical verb 8 which has two roles: the Finite in the Mood element

and the predicate in the Residue

3.1.1.2 The Residue

number and person, and so helps to make the VG finite and fully ‘operative’ A

Verbal Group structures is illustrated as follows:

VG oxxv must / have / been / played” [Downing and Locke, 1992:15]

6 Primary tense means past, present or future at the moment of speaking; it is time

relative to ‘now’ A proposition may become arguable by having its relevance to the

speech event specified in these temporal terms [Halliday, 1994:75]

7 “Modality is to be understood as a semantic category which covers such notions as

possibility, probability, necessity, volition, obligation and permission These are the basic modalities; recently the concept of modality has been extended to cover other notions such as doubt, with, regret and desire.” [Downing and Locke, 1992:382]

8 “The lexical verb refers to the primary reference of the verb phrase, relating to an

action, process or event in extra linguistic reality.” [Jackson, 1980:18 ]

According to Halliday [1994: 78-80], “The Residue consists of functional

elements of the three kinds: Predicator, Complement and Adjunct” The

Predicator is realised by the verbal group minus the Finite in the Mood element

The Complement is typically realised by a nominal group or an adjectival group

Downing and Locke [1992: 26-27] argues that the Complement is a nuclear

element in a clause If the Complement is omitted out of a clause, the clause is

not complete For example, in the clause Your idea sounds great if the word great

were removed from it, the clause would be incomplete *Your idea sounds

Therefore, in this case great is the Complement of this clause

In contrast with the Complement, the Adjunct is a non-nuclear element in a

clause That is, the Adjunct can be omitted from a clause without disturbing the

structural completeness of the clause For example, in the clause I study English

in this university the omission of the prepositional phrase in this university still

leaves other structurally complete clause I study English The Adjunct is typically

realised by adverbial groups, nominal groups and prepositional groups

In conclusion, the mood structure of the clause is diagrammed as follows:

MOOD RESIDUE Subject Finite

This boy will be there soon

They put the books in the box

3.1.2 Types of the mood structure in English clauses

The Subject and the Finite are crucial in realising the mood structure in English

clauses The absence or presence of the Subject determines whether an English

sentence belongs to the indicative mood or the imperative mood Sentences with a

indicative mood If they lack the Subject, they are in the imperative mood Furthermore, the relative position of the Subject and the Finite divides the indicative mood into two subclasses: the declarative mood with the Subject before the Finite, and the interrogative mood with the Subject after the Finite

The two subclasses of the indicative mood, namely the declarative and the interrogative, as well as the imperative mood can each be combined with

positive or negative polarity9 which also carries out the interpersonal meaning For negative polarity, the negative particle does not directly follow the Finite Below are the examples illustrating the three main kinds of the mood structure in English clauses, accompanied by their positive or negative polarity

Example: Mood element Mood element Residue Residue

Declarative He will come back

He won’t come back

Subject Finite

Interrogative Will he come back?

Won’t he come back?

Imperative Come back!

Don’t Come back!

9 Halliday [1994: 88] uses the term polarity to refer to the choice between positive and

negative, as in is / isn’t, do / don’t Typically, in English, polarity is expressed in the Finite element; each Finite verbal operator has two forms, one positive, is, was, has,

can, etc., the other negative, isn’t, wasn’t, hasn’t, can’t (or is not, cannot …), etc

message If the highlighted element is a Complement, an Object or an Adjunct, it

is brought forward to initial position.” [Downing and Locke, 1992: 200]

Example:

Declarative mood structure Highlighted element Exclamative structure

She is a fine singer

He talks a lot

My children can eat a lot

Subject complement Adjunct

Direct object

What a fine singer she is! How she talks!

What my children can eat!

The four mood structures namely declarative, interrogative, imperative and

exclamative are used in conversation with four directive illocutionary forces of

making a statement, asking a question, giving a directive and expressing an exclamation respectively

3.1.3 Syntactic forms of the English question

As mentioned above, English questions are often formed with the Finite before the Subject in the mood element According to their expected answers, English questions can be divided into the following subclasses:

3.1.3.1 Yes-no questions

Yes-no questions are characterized by (1) the rising tone and (2) the mood

structure which consists of Finite + Subject + Residue All the elements are taken

to be already specified, and the addressee is expected to supply truth value by answering yes or no

Example: A: Is it yours Violet?

Finite Subject Residue

B: No

3.1.3.2 Wh-questions

Wh-questions begin with an interrogative word like who , whom , whose , what , where , when , how , or why Unlike yes-no questions, wh-questions, which are