Teaching english articles to vietnamese learners at secondary schools difficulties and implications

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES PHAM THI KIM YEN TEACHING ENGLISH ARTICLES TO VIETNAMESE

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

PHAM THI KIM YEN

TEACHING ENGLISH ARTICLES TO VIETNAMESE LEARNERS AT SECONDARY SCHOOLS: DIFFICULTIES AND IMPLICATIONS

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF TESOL

M.A THESIS IN TESOL

Ho Chi Minh City, November 2002

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

PHAM THI KIM YEN

TEACHING ENGLISH ARTICLES TO VIETNAMESE LEARNERS AT SECONDARY SCHOOLS: DIFFICULTIES AND IMPLICATIONS

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF TESOL

MA THESIS IN TESOL

Code number: 5 07 02

Supervisor: NGUYEN VIET THU, M.A

Ho Chi Minh City, November 2002

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

TEACHING ENGLISH ARTICLES TO VIETNAMESE LEARNERS AT SECONDARY SCHOOLS: DIFFICULTIES AND IMPLICATIONS

in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not

previously been submitted for a degree

Ho Chi Minh City December 2002

PHAM THI KIM YEN

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, PHAM THI KIM YEN, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’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 the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City December 2002

PHAM THI KIM YEN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The thesis could not have been done and completed without the help and operation of those who now deserve my heartfelt thanks

co-First I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor,

Ms Nguyen Viet Thu, M.A who has critically read the thesis and offered valuable comments at various points in its development in an attempt to ensure that I make sense most of the time Her intelligent questions led me to the present direction of the thesis

I am grateful to Dr Nguyen Luong Ngoc, Dean of English department of Ton Duc Thang University for his clues to my initial thoughts of the thesis His concerns about Vietnamese learners’ difficulties caused by negative transfers from their native language to English acquisition inspired me to the thesis I am grateful as well to Ms Pho Phuong Dung, M.A for her valuable information and comments on the format of the thesis

I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers of this master course and other staff members of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities – HCM, who were in charge of the course and granted me permission to conduct the thesis

I would like to thank all those who allowed themselves to be interviewed and polled for the interview sessions, the questionnaire responses and the test performance

Last but not least important, thanks must go to my husband for his support and encouragement while I was doing this thesis My affection must also go to my son

ABSTRACT

Vietnamese learners of English at the pre-intermediate level have difficulties with article use though they have made effort to learn it According to most of them, the article is used to indicate whether a noun is singular or plural, already mentioned or not They rarely choose articles with the treatment of the context

The thesis attempts to investigate the current condition of teaching and learning articles at secondary schools in HCMC and to explore difficulties with articles facing learners in order to diagnose these difficulties Accordingly, some solutions will be suggested to help them overcome their difficulties

Data were collected through an interview, a control test, a questionnaire and

a pilot test The interview was conducted with eight teachers of English at Nguyen Gia Thieu Secondary School (NGTSS) to discover how they taught English articles The control test and the questionnaire were designed to ask 160 randomly selected pupils at this school to investigate how they learnt the article and what difficulties with articles they faced The pilot test was administered to these learners in order to confirm whether they got progressed after they had participated in 30 class-hour experimental article learning

The study concludes that Vietnamese learners’ lack of competence in article rules and transfers from their L1 knowledge to English acquisition are the causes of their difficulties with articles Their use of articles out of the context is another cause of their difficulties though the semantic-syntactic context is the most important in article use to achieve communicative purposes since communicative tasks enable learners to apply article rules contextually

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 01

1.1 Theoretical Background 01

1.2 Background to the Study 03

1.3 The purposes of the Study 06

1.4 Overview of the Thesis Chapters 06

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 08

2.1 The English Article System 08

2.1.1 The Nature of Articles 08

2.1.2 The Kinds of Articles 09

2.1.3 The Functions of Articles 10

2.1.4 Number and Countability of Common Nouns 11

2.1.5 Semantic Functions of the Article in Expressing Specificity and Genericity of Nouns in Contexts 13

2.1.5.1 The Use of Articles in Relation to Nouns 13

2.1.5.2 The Influence of the Context on Article Choice 13

2.1.5.3 Genericity of Nouns 14

2.1.5.4 Specificity of Nouns 15

2.1.6 The Use of Articles before Proper Nouns 16

2.1.7 Syntactic Aspects in the Use of Articles 17

2.1.8 Teaching English Articles 18

2.1.9 Errors in English Articles Made by EFL Learners 20

2.2 The Vietnamese Classifier System 22

2.2.1 The Term “Classifier” in Vietnamese 22

2.2.2 The Nature of Classifiers 23

2.2.3 The Position of Classifiers 25

2.2.4 The Kinds of Classifiers 25

2.2.5 The Functions of Classifiers 26

2.2.6 Number and Countability of Nouns 27

2.2.7 Semantic Aspects of Classifiers (Genericity and Specificity) 27

2.2.7.1 The Use of Classifiers in Relation to Nouns 27

2.2.7.2 Specificity of Nouns 28

2.2.7.3 Genericity of Nouns 28

2.3 Similarities and Differences between the Use of Articles and Classifiers in Implying Specificity and Genericity of Nouns 29

2.3.1 Similarities 29

2.3.2 Differences 30

2.4 Summary 32

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 33

3.1 The Purposes of the Thesis 33

3.2 The Research Question and Hypotheses 33

3.3 The Setting 34

3.4 The Subjects 34

3.5 The Data Collecting Instruments 35

3.5.1 The Interview 36

3.5.2 The Tests 36

3.5.3 The Questionnaire 37

3.6 Procedure 38

3.7 Assumptions 39

Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 40

4.1 The Interview 40

4.1.1 Teachers’ Remarks on the Article Teaching 40

4.1.2 Teachers’ Ways of Article Teaching 43

4.1.3 Summary and Comments on the Article Teaching 45

4.2 The Control Test 46

4.2.1 Completion 47

4.2.1.1 Sentence Gap-filling 47

4.2.1.2 Text Gap-filling 50

4.2.1.3 Number and Countability of Nouns 50

4.2.2 Vietnamese- English Translation 52

4.2.2.1 Sentence Level 52

4.2.2.2 Text Level 54

4.2.3 Summary and Comments on the CT Performance 55

4.2.3.1 Lack of Competence in Article Rules 55

4.2.3.2 Negative Transfers from L1 to L2 56

4.3 The questionnaire 56

4.3.1 Difficulties with Articles Compared with Other Grammatical Points 57 4.3.2 Learners’ Knowledge of the Article 58

4.3.3 Learning Articles 60

4.3.4 learners’ Use of Articles and Nouns 62

4.3.5 Similarities and Differences between the Use of Articles and Classifiers in

Implying Nouns 64

4.3.6 Summary and Comments on the Article Learning 66

4.4 The Pilot Test 67

4.4.1 Countability of Nouns 67

4.4.2 Article Usage 69

4.4.2.1 Identification of Article Use in Given Statements 69

4.4.2.2 Conversation Gap-filling 70

4.4.2.3 Vietnamese – English Translation 70

4.4.3 Summary and Comments on the PL Performance 72

Chapter 5: IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION 74

5.1 Implications 74

5.2 Conclusion 87

REFERENCES 89

Appendix A: INTERVIEW (English Version) 93

INTERVIEW (Vietnamese Version) 94

Appendix B: CONTROL TEST 95

Appendix C: RESULTS OF THE CONTROL TEST 98

Appendix D: QUESTIONNAIRE (English Version) 102

QUESTIONNAIRE (Vietnamese Version) 105

Appendix E: RESULTS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE 108

Appendix F: FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION 110

Appendix G: PILOT TEST 111

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Table 1.1 03

Table 4.1 72

Box 2.1 10

Box 2.2 12

Figure 4.1 57

Figure 4.2 59

Figure 4.3 61

Figure 4.4 63

Figure 4.5 65

Figure 5.1 75

Figure 5.2 76

Figure 5.3 77

Figure 5.4 78

Figure 5.5 79

Figure 5.6 80

Figure 5.7 81

Figure 5.8 82

Figure 5.9 84

Figure 5.10 85

Figure 5.11 86

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

1 EFL English as a Foreign Language

2 L1 First Language

3 L2 Second Language

4 NGTSS Nguyen Gia Thieu Secondary School

5 FGD Focus Group Discussion

“The” is the word that hammers importance onto rigid fact and fixes to it the burden of being absolute (Extracted from a poem by Roy Hink, 1979)

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

This study is to investigate the current condition of teaching and learning English articles at the pre-intermediate level1 in order to identify Vietnamese learners’ difficulties with articles at this level Accordingly, some solutions to these difficulties may be suggested

The Introduction chapter presents problems with articles of EFL learners in general and those of the majority of Vietnamese learners of English, whose representatives are 160 pupils in Nguyen Gia Thieu Secondary School (NGTSS) in particular The chapter also mentions the purposes and an overview of the study

1.1 Theoretical Background

The English article is one of the central determiners used to specify and define the reference of a noun Grammarians consider articles “noun markers” which denote a variety of qualities such as definiteness and indefiniteness while Lock [18] supposes that articles are considered function words, not content words that carry meaning Another perspective about the article:

1Vietnamese general education system contains three levels: the first primary level, ranging in age from 6 to 10; the secondary level aging from 11-14 and high school at the age of 15-18 Vietnamese secondary learners are assumed to reach the pre-intermediate level of proficiency in English; and high school learners are assumed to reach the intermediate level

Article use is less creative, less semantically motivated and more closely linked

with the syntactic structure of sentences and phrases than is generally supposed In

other words, much article use can be predicted from the context and is not based on

the speaker making any obvious semantic choice [Bygate et al., 5; 166]

However, an article is helpful to decoding the meaning of a statement The following piece of writing of an EFL learner reveals areas of difficulty with articles

as reference and cohesion: “The man she married is rich I think she did not love a

man; she loves the money And I was right She left a man and now she is going out

with the man.” The meaning in this paragraph was not conveyed effectively

because of the incorrect article choice The reader neither knows how many men are mentioned in the writing as pointed out by Parrott [21] that errors in articles inhabit learners’ effective communication since these errors make them unable to process information

For non-native English speakers, article choice can be an obstacle on the way

to their mastery of English In reality, learners whose L12 has no articles or the different systems of article choice find that these “little words” can create problems after every other aspect of English has been mastered Though we have learnt all article rules, we still find some situations where choosing the correct article proves chancy Bygate et al express their viewpoint of difficulties with article learning:

It is a paradox that these small words which occur so frequently, carry subtleties of

meaning, and are often barely audible in a stream of speech, nonetheless require

highly complex grammatical explanations to account for their use [5; 160]

2 Second language (L2) sometimes can be considered as foreign language (FL) English is considered as L2 to those whose native language is not English, e.g English is L2 in Singapore but

FL in Vietnam In the thesis, L1 refers to learners’ mother tongue and L2 refers to English

It has been argued that the acquisition of the English article system is delayed for most EFL learners until the final stages of learning The absence of an article system in L1 induces errors in which learners ungrammatically omit or add

an article They master the use of the definite article since they link it with “this” or

“that” However, indefinite articles and generic nouns are difficult for them

1.2 Background to the Study

The article causes Vietnamese learners of English at the pre-intermediate level to make the most errors in the determiner system in both oral and written products Data collected during tutorial sessions of writing English compositions and Vietnamese-English translations by 20 Vietnamese learners of English at this level showed that they paid little attention to article use compared with other grammatical points These learners illustrated the problems that existed in understanding the use

of articles They preferred to use it randomly, hoping it will be correct (Table 1.1)

Grammatical points No of learners

makes errors

Description of errors in grammar

Number (sing & pl) 13 a pens, two sheeps

Punctuation & capitalization 3 on sunday he came

Preposition 18 say with, in 3 o’clock

Table 1.1: Kinds of errors in grammar made by Vietnamese learners

When provided with some article tasks, many learners express surprise that they have to focus on article learning as much as verb tense or preposition since they think that it wastes their time in dealing with these seemingly “meaningless” words Though learners frequently have difficulties with article choice, they are not concerned about this, but ask their teacher to explain more about other grammatical points rather than the article

Number and countability in common nouns of English are also a challenge to Vietnamese learners when they deal with articles Number and countability are ambiguous in Vietnamese Therefore, it is hard for Vietnamese learners to distinguish whether a noun is count or non-count in English, for example, they produce *“I need a good advice.” In addition, plural nouns do not always end with

“s” Some nouns whose base forms look plural are syntactically singular, e.g

“Mumps is dangerous.” while some nouns whose base forms look like the singular form are syntactically plural, for example, “The police are seeking him.” The

category of number and countability are compulsory in English but optional in Vietnamese Learners’ L1 interferes in their count/non-count contrast in L2, e.g

“Cô ấy đang đọc sách” is often translated into English as *“She is reading book.”

The proper noun is another problem for Vietnamese learners when they deal with English articles They do not know whether to use or omit the definite article

“the” preceding some proper nouns In these cases, they habitually use “zero”

articles since they assume that proper nouns convey definite meaning However,

some nouns of place include the definite article “the” but others exclude it, for example, “Rome” but “the Vatican”

Learners have long got used to the arbitrary rule “first/second mention” of nouns or the definite/indefinite contrast These rules create a false aspect in article use They tend to use “the” to refer to the reference that is known to them and “a”

or “zero” to indicate the reference that is unknown to them Consequently, the deletion of the definite article “the” is found in Vietnamese learners’ English compositions, e.g *Dog barks or *She plays piano

An article is considered a sign to a noun, implying its specificity or genericity Vietnamese does not have article categories Therefore, the concept of articles is not easy for Vietnamese learners to understand To imply these qualities

of a noun in Vietnamese, classifiers such as “con” or “cái” are supposed to have

functions equivalent to English articles The matter is that learners tend to consider classifiers and articles the same in terms of their nature and functions Therefore, they express thoughts in their L1 and translate these thoughts inappropriately into English, e.g “viết thư” is translated into *“write letter"

Teachers provide learners with article rules and exercises to improve their article use However, they cannot apply articles contextually since these rules are complicated and quite different from their classifier system In addition, the context

is not considered in their article learning Therefore, learners seem to be lost in the

“jungle” of the article but teachers do not determine where and how to start helping them to map the whole article picture As a result of this, learners are now likely to become indifferent to these little yet bewildering words

A distinction between “a” and “one” is problematic for Vietnamese learners

of English since they tend to interpret these two as “một” in their L1 Learners do not seem to pay attention to the difference between them; making some errors:

Chỉ có một người bị thương

*Only a person was injured

Though “a” and “one” can substitute for each other in the case: “There is a/one book on the table”, “a” is used to indicate generic meaning whereas “one” refers to

“quantity”

To diagnose these difficulties, the article and classifier system will be contrasted in order to identify differences between them as pointed out by Nunan [20; 144], “Learners’ difficulties in learning a L2 can be predicted on the basis of a systematic comparison of the two languages.”

1.3 The Purposes of the Study

The purposes of the study are:

ƒ to investigate the present situation of teaching and learning English articles at the pre-intermediate level in HCMC;

ƒ to identify difficulties that Vietnamese learners of English at this level may have with learning articles and causes of these difficulties;

ƒ to provide some pedagogical implications for teaching articles at this

level

1.4 Overview of the Thesis Chapters

Chapter 1 mentions problems with articles of EFL learners and those of Vietnamese learners of English at the pre-intermediate level This chapter also provides the purposes of the study

Chapter 2 reviews the literature related to the following issues and also raises the research question and hypotheses:

ƒ The article system;

ƒ Teaching articles;

ƒ Errors in articles made by EFL learners;

ƒ The classifier system;

ƒ Similarities and differences between the uses of the article and the classifier in implying specificity and genericity of nouns

Chapter 3 describes the research methodology This chapter introduces data collecting techniques: an interview with teachers, a questionnaire, a control test and

a pilot test for learners and the way of collecting data used to investigate the issues

of the study mentioned in chapter 2

Chapter 4 presents and analyzes the findings of the interview, the questionnaire and the two tests to (1) explore the present condition of teaching and learning articles at the pre-intermediate level, (2) identify learners’ difficulties with articles and their causes in order to (3) suggest appropriate approaches to teaching articles

And finally chapter 5 introduces approaches to teaching articles to maximize learners’ competence in article usage This chapter further offers conclusions of the study, which may indicate either effective or ineffective aspects of the study

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, an investigation of the article and the classifier system will be done to identify similarities and differences between these two systems as the means of expressing number, countability, specificity and genericity of nouns in both English and Vietnamese In addition, errors in articles and approaches to teaching articles to EFL learners will be mentioned Therefore, the literature review covers the following main issues:

2.1 The English Article System

2.1.1 The Nature of Articles

Some grammarians state that the article is a kind of adjective In this viewpoint, an article precedes a noun to modify it However, an adjective indicates its own meaning; it is optionally employed in a noun phrase to enrich the meaning

of this noun while an article is compulsorily used in a noun phrase; it acts as a function word as pointed out by Lock [18], “The meaning is difficult to describe outside the context in which articles are used.” The following examples clarify the distinction between articles and adjectives:

(1) A girl does the housework

(2)* Beautiful girl does the housework

Though the absence of the adjective “beautiful” occurs in (1), the noun phrase “a girl” still indicates complete meaning However, when the absence of an article occurs in (2), the noun phrase “beautiful girl” just refers to the “beautiful girl-concept”, not a female person in the real world Master [19; 213] also agrees

with the viewpoint that articles quantify or define a noun whereas adjectives qualify this noun

2.1.2 The Kinds of Articles

Lester [17; 36] classifies English articles into two kinds in terms of the specificity and genericity of a noun He suggests the rule:

- The definite article “the” refers to the specified referent of a noun

- The indefinite article “a” refers to the unspecified referent of a noun

This viewpoint matches the traditional rule that “specified” is viewed as

“definite” and “unspecified” as “indefinite”; “a” and “the” differ in a dimension of definiteness/indefiniteness or specificity/ non-specificity In contrast, Whitman [25;

253] views this perspective as a misconception since “a” and “the” are unrelated to

each other, containing two independent constituents: quantifier and determiner Whitman suggests dividing articles into 4 types:

(i) Neither quantifier nor determiner: He loves money

(ii) Quantifier only: He has a book

(iii) Determiner only: The book over there is yellow

(iv) Both quantifier and determiner: One of the books is yellow

In contrast, Yule [28; 34] categorizes articles on the basis of the definiteness

of a noun, for example:

(3) She drives children to school every morning

(4) She drives the children to school every morning

The “zero” article used in (3) indicates that “children” refers to generic referents that are classified as members of young people while “the children” in (4) denotes

specific and definite referents that are identified as the young people known to the speaker and hearer

2.1.3 The Functions of Articles

According to Yule [28; 34] and Master [19; 215], the classifying function of articles refers to a thing as a member of a class while the identifying function refers

to a thing as distinct from other members of the same class, e.g

(5) I like dogs, but the dogs next door are too dangerous

È È

[Classified] [Identified]

The identifying function of the definite article is also found with plural

nouns When plural nouns are used with zero articles, a general classifying

function seems to be signaled, with ‘no differentiation’ required between

ny members of the category [Yule; 28; 33]

-A kind of thing - A specific thing

-Not yet identified - Already identified

-Unmodified - Post-modified

-Any member - The only member

-Labeling - Already labeled

-Class members - Shared knowledge

Box 2.1: Classification and Identification of Nouns

It is noted that the classifying function of the article is related to generic reference

while the identifying function is relevant to specific meaning

2.1.4 Number and Countability of Common Nouns

It is generally said that every noun can be counted if its referent is perceived via a counter Therefore, “book” and “water” can be counted with the aid of the article “a” or “the”, and a counter like “a glass of” Feigenbaum shows his view of the count/non-count contrast of a noun as follows:

Common nouns of English are divided into two quite distinct classes

according to their syntactic behavior Count nouns can always be made

plural by taking plural endings while non-count nouns refer to substance or

abstractions and can only be counted by adding counters cup, liter, pound or

indefinite quantifiers a little, a lot of [11; 43]

Whitman [25; 259] views non-count nouns as semantically plural but syntactically singular For example, the noun “water” refers to “all water” as a generic plural but it goes with a noun and a verb in the singular form Truly, number

is marked not only by inflection but also by concord between subject and verb Yule [28; 30] remarks that, “With respect to the apparently simple choice between singular and plural, there are potential problems” since there are nouns that look plural but can be treated as singular However, the nouns that look singular are treated as plural:

(6) The news is that measles is fun at all

(7) The police are marching now

Countability of nouns is closely related to number Discussing number in nouns, Nguyen Bich Hạnh [14] points out, “Common nouns are expected to take the appropriate number according to whether they are count or non-count.” She further says that the countability of a noun should be considered regarding to its level of countability rather than count/non-count contrast There are some cases in which a noun is both countable and uncountable, e.g “chicken” refers to a kind of meat as a mass noun and a large domestic bird as a count noun In addition, she [14; 10] mentions the case in which the nouns “knowledge” and “belief” are abstract but the former is non-count and the latter is count It is the context that determines the countability of these nouns “Belief” in (8) indicating trust is considered uncountable while “belief” in (9) referring to something accepted as true is countable, for example:

(8) The incident has shaken my belief in doctors

(9) It is my belief that she is guilty

Nguyễn Việt Thu, in her Master’s thesis “Countability of nouns in Vietnamese and English” [42; 51-55] remarks that English counters are divided into eight groups according to their meanings (Box 2.2)

-Natural divisions: a head of cattle

-Portions: a pinch of salt

-Containers: a cup of coffee, a crate of apples

-Measurements: a liter of milk, a kilo of apples

-Kinds: a type of snakes, a kind of furniture

-Collections: a crowd of students

- Form: a heap of stones, a jet of water,

-Deriving from verbs: a curl of hair

Box 2.2: Eight kinds of counters according to their meanings

2.1.5 Semantic Functions of the Article in Expressing Specificity and Genericity of Nouns in Contexts

2.1.5.1 The Use of Articles in Relation to Nouns

According to Whitman [25; 261], “The article serves to concrete the noun as well as to limit it Nouns without articles are abstractly understood If a noun refers

to a real thing, it must follow an article” In this viewpoint, “cat” is really concept” and “a cat” is something that you can hold Nouns follow articles and determine article use In contrast, articles without nouns indicate no meaning The meaning of articles can be considered in close relation to nouns in terms of genericity and specificity

“cat-2.1.5.2 The Influence of the Context on Article Choice

The context has an important influence on article choice Pica [22] states that,

“The context cannot be divorced from a discussion of article usage.” The following example will illustrate this viewpoint:

(10) It is not easy to get close to the German

This sentence-level statement extracted from its context creates the ambiguity indicating one particular German or Germans in general? (10) can refer to either German people in general or a German friend of the speaker in particular Another example:

(11) Open the window, please

The speaker and hearer share the experience to get success in communication According to the pragmatic theory [Grice; 12], felicity conditions for a request to be performed also mention this matter: the hearer must determine which window the speaker implies and that window is closed If not, the communicative purpose will become unattainable In brief, pragmatics is more significant than semantics in the article predictability of a statement Still another example: “I didn’t have to work on

Sundays; but I had to work on the other six days of the week” (Streamline English-

Departure) “The week” does not necessarily indicate a specific-definite referent It

is equal in meaning to “a week” in the clause “I had to work six days a week”

2.1.5.3 Genericity of Nouns

The genericity of a noun refers to a whole class; it is expressed by the use of both definite and indefinite articles Thus, it may be expressed by more than one form; the same form may be interpreted in one context as indefinite reference and

in another as generic; for example:

(12) Would you like chips with your drinks? (Indefinite reference)

(13) I hate chips (Generic reference)

In general statements, definite/indefinite and singular/plural contrasts of nouns may lose their importance The followings are a popular formulation of genericity:

Wine contains alcohol (Zero + non-count noun)

A dog is a faithful animal (A + singular count noun)

Dogs are faithful animals (Zero + plural noun)

The dog is a faithful animal (The + singular count noun)

Yule says that, “A generic interpretation comes from the whole context of a noun phrase and not from articles” [28; 45] And he wonders if these typical generic statements have the same meaning In reality, a slight difference is that “the dog” refers to a species as a whole while “a dog” refers to any member of a species

According to Master [19], generic statements are more likely to occur in simple tenses; and unless the subject is an agent of change, continuous tenses can

be used as shown in the following examples:

(14) The elephant eats (* is eating) leaves and tree bark (Definition)

(15) The elephant affects/ is affecting our life (Agent of change)

2.1.5.4 Specificity of nouns

Bygate et al [5] suppose that, “In contrast with the generic use of ‘the’, all

the uses may be called specific.” Dik introduces a specific/generic distinction:

The opposition between specific and generic is usually not coded in the form

of the terms in question It is not easy to find languages in which there are

special articles or affixes which unambiguously express the values specific

and generic [7; 144]

Genericity and specificity of nouns can be determined on the basis of the

context, not on “a” and “the”, for instance:

(16) Put away the sugar Sugar is bad for your teeth

(17) A dog barks (Generic)

(18) A dog barks there (Specific)

A noun is definite if it refers to something specific and known to both the speaker and the hearer Brown [4] suggests five principal ways in which a noun might be considered definite:

- The noun has been previously mentioned

-A superlative or ranking adjective makes the noun’s identity specific

-The noun describes a unique person, place and thing

-A modifying word, phrase or clause follows the noun and makes it clear -The context or situation makes the noun clear

Close [6; 133] expresses the same viewpoint but in a different way in which

“the” is a signal of identification that can be made by something already said (reference backwards), something about to be said (reference forwards) and the context He further considers the definiteness of a noun on the basis of syntactic features Both Brown [4] and Close emphasize the importance of the context in determining the definiteness of a noun A conversation, for example, occurs in HCMC where the speaker tells the hearer to wait for him at the airport; and the hearer certainly learns that “the airport” is Taân Sôn Nhaát since it is the unique

referent in the situation In brief, when the referent of a noun is definite, it certainly indicates a specific meaning

2.1.6 The Use of Articles before Proper Nouns

Most linguists claim that proper nouns are considered to have unique reference Proper nouns themselves imply their definite meaning But when they change into common nouns, “the” or “a” can be used, for example, “a Laura” refers to a female distinguished from others of the same name; likewise, as for

“Benz” in both English and Vietnamese, it is proper to say “a Benz” or “một chiếc Mercedes-Benz” In fact, when to use or omit these articles is

Mercedes-a serious problem for VietnMercedes-amese leMercedes-arners No explMercedes-anMercedes-ation hMercedes-as been given to the use of articles in the following noun phrases:

(19) Oxford University or The University of Oxford

(20) The Wall Street

(21) The Vatican

Street and geographical names generally occur with “zero” articles However,

“the” is still used to mention them as in (20) and (21) Similarly, names of states

often require the use of “zero” articles except those with an indication of republic,

kingdom or union like “the United kingdom” or “the Soviet Union” However, the

definite article “the” is included, for example:

(22) The Philippines

2.1.7 Syntactic Aspects in the Use of Articles

According to Bygate et al [5; 166], “Much article use can be predicted from the syntactic context and is not based on the speaker making any obvious semantic

choice.” They provide some grammatical structures that help much in determining whether to use “a”, “the” or “zero”

The indefinite article “a” is usually used in the object or complement position after the verbs “be”, “have” or “there is” Besides, “a” is also used in such expressions as “have a look”, “give a hand”, “a little” or “take a bath”

The definite article “the” occurs with ranking adjectives, post-modifying phrases or clauses or end-point of a scale “Syntactically, the context where ‘the’ occurred frequently was in the subject noun phrase and within prepositional phrases” [Bygate et al; 5; 167] An exception is that “the” can be employed in the structure “there is/are”, for instance:

(23) A: What needs to be done?

B: There is the car to wash, the lawn to mow and the cat to feed

The use of “zero” articles is often seen in idioms, instructions, recipes, with disease, time, meals and institutions, for example:

(24) Remove lid before placing container in microwave

(25) He was put in prison Or she went to work by train

The nouns that follow the “zero” articles in the cases mentioned above may occur with “a” and “the” in specific and definite cases and for other special purposes, for example:

(26) She works as a cook in the prison

(27) I saw him getting on a train to Ha Noi at three this afternoon

2.1.8 Teaching English Articles

Article teaching is related to the count/non-count distinction of a noun Whitman [25; 259] shows his objection to the traditional article teaching that, “The learner is exposed to count/mass noun contrasts through drills that make a heavy

play of the distinction between much and many.” He says that “much” and “many”

do not clarify the semantic/syntactic issue.” Therefore, he suggests using “a lot of” until the learner has mastered the count/non-count distinction since it is safe to use

“a lot of” for both count and non-count nouns However, such teaching does not help

learners to use articles correctly

A number of article tasks are designed by Yule [28; 49] who states that learners should be asked to study a picture of a house and then describe the inside

of the house so that they can identify the use of “a” or “the” with the first/subsequent mention of nouns Or one learner has a number of objects; another has a picture of the objects in an arrangement The one with the picture has to instruct the other with the objects how to put them together

Yule also focuses teachers on recognizing that some count nouns of English have translation equivalents that are treated as non-count in other languages In this viewpoint, teachers are required to make a comparison between nouns of the two languages that have the same reference while teaching articles He further asserts that it would seem to be “possible to make sense of the function of articles before a large number of vocabulary of different types of nouns is acquired” [28; 31]

Master shares Yule’s perspectives when he introduces the most simplified framework reducing article use to a meaning contrast between classification and identification, “The teacher can introduce the dichotomies of identification and classification, count and non-count, singularity and plurality of nouns before

offering the article system” [19; 215] These contrary pairs can only be considered

on the basis of nouns Bygate et al approve of making a contrast between the article systems of two languages in the area of article acquisition, “Some differences will

be observed between learners’ L1 that has a comparable article system and their L2 that does not have articles” [5; 173]

Pica [22; 223] emphasizes difficulties of the teacher when having to explain

to the learner concepts such as generic/specific, abstract/individual, definite /indefinite in relation to nouns To solve these problems, she suggests five rules:

-First and second mention

-Relationship between “the” and uniqueness

-The use of “a”for typicality or representatives

-The use of “the” with nouns preceded by superlatives or ordinals

-The use of “the” with a first mention that is familiar to the speaker and

hearer

Lock [18; 36] reports that, “attempts to teach reference through genericity and specificity out of the context are unlikely to be successful.” Therefore, the context plays an important role in article choice as pointed out by Bygate et al [5; 169] “Looking at the syntactic and general contextual reasons for choosing one or the other article rather than concentrating solely on semantic motivation was a new perspective for article studies.” They observed the children’s earliest uses of articles and state that children take longer to produce articles correctly and prove that children do not approach articles via a strategy of “core” meaning such as the simplified ‘unknown/known’ contrast They subsequently infer correct uses of “a”

and “the” from the language they hear around them From their research on

children’s use of articles, an approach to teaching articles to EFL learners in this

way is suggested

2.1.9 Errors in English Articles Made by EFL Learners

Errors are a main concern in teaching and learning articles This section focuses only on some typical kinds of errors in articles commonly made by EFL learners Lock remarks, “A mistake common to many learners with different

language backgrounds is the use of a singular count noun with a ‘zero’ article or the use of ‘the’ with a non-count noun where generic reference is intended” [18; 131] This case can be easily explained that the indefinite article “a” is not explicitly

written in learners’ L1 by their translation:

(28) * He is looking for pen (Nó đang kiếm cây viết.)

(29)* The music usually helps me relax (Aâm nhạc giúp tôi thư giãn.)

Differences between learners’ L1 and L2 are also assumed to cause errors in article usage Whitman [25; 261] thinks that EFL learners tend to make errors when they produce a statement including the possessive adjective and the definite article:

(30) * My the book is over there

The possessive case “của tôi”, the demonstrative “này” and the classifier “cuốn”

coexist in one statement, e.g “Cuốn sách này của tôi” However, in English, the

possessive adjective and the article belong to the determiner They do not exist in

the same statement like *“This is my the book”

Turton [24] mentions some errors in articles that EFL learners usually make

He further suggests correction to these errors, which may not help learners use the article appropriately

Another error in articles is given by Pica [22], “One of the most common

mistakes that non-native speakers make with articles is the use of “a” with plural or non-count nouns, for example, * a students, * a research” She reasons that such

mistakes occur because the writer has used “a” for all nouns

Parrott [21; 47-54] supposes that errors in articles made by EFL learners inhabit their effective communication since the incorrect use of articles prevents them from processing information He provides a list of errors in articles commonly made by EFL learners, including errors mentioned above and their causes:

- Learners have not internalized rules or fixed expressions, but they transfer these rules in their own language inappropriately to English They miss out articles

in expressions in which articles are omitted in their native language, for example:

(31) *I’d like to buy new car

(32) *She is teacher

- Learners do not determine the countability of a noun, nor do they know relevant “sub-rules” They, therefore, treat a non-count noun like a singular count noun and place an article before it, for example:

(33) *She has a flu

(34) *She is doing a research

- Learners employ “one” instead of “a/an” In many languages, the equivalent of “one” can be used to express indefiniteness before a singular count noun and learners thus tend to transfer this to English, for example:

(35) *We went to one party last night

Vietnamese learners mistake classifiers for articles Accordingly, they usually make errors in articles owing to negative transfers from their L1 to L2 The following section presents Vietnamese classifiers in order to make a comparison between these two systems

2.2 The Vietnamese Classifier System

2.2.1 The Term “Classifier” in Vietnamese

The English term “article” is used to name a kind of determiner preceding nouns and has a limited number of forms such as “a” and “the” Nguyễn Kim Thản [39] states that Vietnamese has no article because there do not exist Vietnamese words that work as English articles Bùi Mạnh Hùng [33] also remarks that it is not accurate to consider the term “classifier” in Vietnamese equivalent to “article” in English Most Vietnamese linguists, however, admit that Vietnamese has “articles” because some unit nouns do the same function of an article and they are called

“classifiers” Emenéau [10] was the first linguist who used the term “classifier” to name these unit nouns In reality, a Vietnamese unit noun can do the function of an article in one case but it cannot in another Moreover, classifiers are named

differently They are named “danh từ đơn vị” by Cao Xuân Hạo [30], “loại từ” by

Trần Đại Nghĩa, Lưu Vân Lăng and Lý Toàn Thắng, and “quán từ” by Bùi Mạnh Hùng [33] The co-existence of such a variety of names reflects the inconsistent interpretation of the nature of classifiers in Vietnamese

2.2.2 The Nature of Classifiers

Classifiers and nouns can be considered either as one or two different parts

of speech According to Cao Xuân Hạo [30], classifiers belong to the unit noun that works as a noun He argues that classifiers are not a part of speech In this viewpoint, a classifier always indicates the characteristics of a noun (subject, complement, object and genitive on the basis of substitution of a noun) Similarly, Hồ Lê [36; 17] groups classifiers and nouns into one category, reasoning that a noun modifies a classifier; “cái” cannot indicate a complete meaning without the presence of “nón” following it, for example, “cái nón”

Quite differently, Lưu Vân Lăng suggests a clear distinction between classifiers and unit nouns:

If there exists a kind of form unit noun, it is certain that a classifier is

different from a unit noun A classifier, however, indicates its own meaning

When preceding another noun, a unit noun has its meaning reduced And this

unit noun then only serves to define the noun following and becomes a

classifier Therefore, a classifier is not a unit noun [35; 139]

In his view, the distinction between classifiers and unit nouns may clarify the characteristics of Vietnamese classifiers in the hope for teaching Vietnamese to native and non-native learners effectively As personal experience shown, many classifiers can work as either unit nouns or articles A classifier, not a “pure” noun, can make the reference of a noun specific, for example, the noun “chim” becomes concrete when it follows the classifier “con” or “đàn” Therefore, a classifier is not

a noun; it just functions as a unit noun in some cases

Phan Ngọc introduces another characteristic of classifiers, “Nouns always indicate objective meaning whereas classifiers indicate subjective evaluation” [37;

24] A certain noun used with different classifiers produces different meanings according to the speaker’s attitudes:

(36) Ngôi chùa đằng sau núi

(37) Cái chùa đằng sau núi

The formality in (36) shows the speaker’s respect for the holiness in this pagoda rather than its physical presence as in (37)

Trần Đại Nghĩa also reports that any Vietnamese word that simultaneously carries the five following characteristics is seen as a classifier [38; 45]:

- Indicating substance

- Indicating one kind of substance

- Reflecting some properties of substance

- Always indicating unit

- Not naming substance

In his view, words such as người, ngọn, cây, tấn, sào, thước are not classifiers since they are used to name substance; bầy, đàn used to indicate collectives are not classifiers Only words such as giọt, cục, hòn and chiếc are classifiers since they

include five characteristics mentioned above Certainly, “đàn” is a form unit noun used to define the noun “chim”, and it is equivalent in meaning to the counter

“flock of” in English However, “đàn” in the noun phrase “đàn em” seems to be a classifier and equal to “younger people” which excludes counters Personally, there has been no principle for distinguishing between a unit noun and a classifier

2.2.3 The Position of Classifiers

A classifier precedes a noun to quantify and qualify it Typically, Nguyễn Tài Cẩn [29] says that a unit noun is located between a numeral and another noun He reports that the similarity in position between unit nouns and classifiers is that they are located between a numeral and another noun However, nouns sometimes precede numerals and classifiers to emphasize the things that the speaker lists:

(38) Hắn mua bò năm con, heo bốn con

(39) Oâng bà cho chúng tôi xin rượu một cặp, gà một cặp và cau một buồng

2.2.4 The Kinds of Classifiers

Lý Toàn Thắng [41; 3] divides classifiers into two categories:

- Indicating countability of units such as “con”, “cái” and “đứa”

- Describing spatial properties of objects such as “quả”, “thanh” and “lá”

On the contrary, Nguyễn Tài Cẩn [29] divides classifiers into three groups in terms of semantic aspects of nouns as follows:

-Human

-Thing

-Plant and animal

Nguyễn Tài Cẩn’s division may not cover all kinds of classifiers, for example, “vì”

in “vì sao” does not belong to any of these three groups Therefore, Lưu Vân Lăng

[35; 140] adds some to his list as follows:

- Thing

- Human

- Animal

- Plant

- Substance

- Natural phenomenon

- Abstract concepts

2.2.5 The Functions of Classifiers

The presence of a classifier reveals the sign of a noun, making the noun concrete Phan Ngọc [37] reports that classifiers contain three functions: replacing, demonstrating and word-forming He explains that a classifier can replace a noun because it is vacant in meaning However, Lưu Vân Lăng disapproves of Phan Ngoc’s view with the reason that the function of replacing and demonstrating may make no difference between unit nouns and classifiers [35; 132] Besides, according

to Lưu Vân Lăng, it is arbitrary to consider classifiers as demonstratives “này”,

“kia” or “ấy” Phan Ngọc probably mistakes “này”, “kia” in Vietnamese for “this” and “that” in English, for example:

(40) Give me this book = Give me the book (The replaces this)

(41) What is that? (“the” can’t replace “that” in this case.)

Both “the” and “that/this” belong to the determiner and indicate definite meaning

Nevertheless, the demonstrative “that” cannot be replaced by the definite article

“the” as in (41) A Vietnamese classifier cannot replace a demonstrative like “này”

or “kia” in the same way in which “this” and “that” sometimes substitute for the definite article “the” in English

The function of word-forming is developed by Phan Ngọc and Luu Vân Lăng who assert that the classifier “cái” is combined with an adjective or a verb to form compound nouns such as “cái đẹp” and “cái chết” Therefore, a classifier can either

work as a noun occurring separately, for example, “Cho tôi một cái” or form

compound nouns such as “cái ăn” or “cái tôi”

2.2.6 Number and Countability of Nouns

English is an inflectional language in which a word contains one or more morphemes The number and countability of a noun are, therefore, considered in the

word itself, e.g tables On the contrary, Vietnamese is an isolating language in

which each word has its own complete meaning; and number and countability of

nouns are syntactically considered, e.g mấy cái bàn Number and countability are

not compulsory in communication of Vietnamese speakers It does not sound natural

to say “Cô ấy đang viết một lá thư “ but “Cô ấy đang viết thư” The count/non-count distinction is discussed in connection with the use of classifiers The use of classifiers indicates definiteness in number and countability in (42) while the absence of classifiers refers to “abstract meaning” of the noun in (43), for example:

(42) Bán cho con cá

(43) Bán cá tươi

Nguyễn Thị Ly Kha [32; 37] provides two lists of nouns referring to human beings and animals, and then she remarks that most human nouns are countable while animal nouns are uncountable Human nouns optionally follow unit nouns, e.g

“ba công nhân”, “ba chị công nhân” except for *”ba nhân dân” or *“hai công an

while animal and inanimate nouns must follow immediately unit nouns, e.g “ba cuốn sách” or “hai con chó”, not *“hai chó”

2.2.7 Semantic Aspects of Classifiers (Specificity and Genericity of Nouns)