Luận văn a contrastive analysis of nominal substitution in english and vietnamese conversation

Furthermore, in recent years, reference, ellipsis, and lexical have been closely studied in contrastive with Vietnamese, within the framework of minor thesis a careful and profound study

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNTYERSITY, ITANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUTIES:

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

‘TRAN TH] KHUONG LIEN

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOMINAL SUBSTITUTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

CONVERSATION

(Phân tích dỗi chiếu phép thế đanh tir trong ngôn bản hội thoại

tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt)

MINOR PROGRAXI THESIS

Kicld: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15

Hanoi, 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

ca Ox

TRAN TIT KITUONG LIEN

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOMINAL SUBSTITUTLON LN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

CONVERSATION

( Phân tích đối chiếu phép thể đanh từ trong ngôn bản hội thoại

tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt)

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION

1, Rationale of the study

2 Aims and objectives of the study

2.1 Aims

2.3 Research questions

3 Scope of the study

4 Methodology of the study

5 Organization of the study

Chapter 1 Theoretical BackgrouniL

LL The theories of discourse

LLL The concept of discourse

L.L.2 Discourse and Sentence

1.1.3 Discourse and T@XL ác nhi

1.1.4 Discourse analysis

L.L.S Spoken and Written Discourse

1.2 The theories of conversation

1.2.1 The concep! of conversation

1.2.2 Why is Conversation Analysis important

1.3 Cohesion

1.3.1 The concep† of cohesion aeeeneee

1.3.2 Coherence and cohesion

1.3.3 Cohesion within the sentence and discourse

1.4 Types of Cohesion

1.5 Substitution

1.5.1 The concept of substitution

1.8.2 Substitution Cohesionand Discourse

1.6.ConfrastiveAnalvsis

1.6.1 Definition

1.6.2 Why using CA in this thesis?

Chapter 2 A contrastive analysis of nominal substitution in Engtish and

Vietnamese conversation discourse

2.1 General features of English and Vietnamese nominal structure

3.2 The implication of the study for teachings and tearing of English,

3.3 Limitation of the study

3.4, Suggestions for further sludy

vil Symbols and Abbreviations

CA Cantrastive Analysis

Table 1.1: Type of Cohesion

Table 1.2: Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion

‘Table 2: Lnglish personal pronouns

Table 3: The English third person pronouns and their Vietnamese equivalent

‘Table 4: The English possessive pronouns and their Vietnamese equivalent

‘Vable 5: ‘The substitute one/ones and their Vieinamese equivalents

Table 6: The indefinite onc/some and ils Vienamesc oquivalenls,

‘Table 7: Do the same and the Vietnamese equivalent

Table &: linking verb plus the sane and their Vieinamese equivalents

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

The history of linguistics has seen the everlasting development of different approaches to linguistics and language teaching, each of which defines its own tasks, scopes and objectives Traditionally, linguists have been conecmed with the phonological, lexical and syntactical features and studied sentences which are preferably taken out of context, Resides, the focus of traditional practice of language leaching and learning has been on the analysis of single senlanees, normally al the levels of phonology, vocabulary and grammar,

Later, with the view that incomplete sentences can still make sense when occuring

in some particular context, according to (Cook 1989: ix) complete understanding of stretches

of language can only be cblained if they are considered “in their full textual, social and psychological context” linguists have shifted their attention from complete sentences to discourse

In common with coherences, echesion takes an active role in building up discoursc, in general, and of couse, conversation as @ genre of discourse, in particular Truly, Halliday and Hasan (1976) make a detailed classification of the cohesive devices in English These aulhors distinguish between grammatical and lexical cohesion According to them, grammatical cohesion embraces four different devices: reference, ellipsis, substitution and lexical In Vietnam, it seems that all the issues related fo substitution especially Nominal

substilution in conversation are still in fimited exploration Tt is casy to find thal substitution

in Vietnamese is still a concept which has bean needed receive much Vietnamese researchers” exploration, Searching for the study of substitution, we only can see in Tran

Ngoc Thern’s work (1985), more reeently, Diep Quang Ban's (1998) These authors’ effort

seems to be made to give a very general and basic concept of substitution as well as types of

it in Vietnamese Thus, we might wonder whether substitution, and within the minor thesis, nominal substitution actually works in Viemamese conversation Furthermore, in recent years, reference, ellipsis, and lexical have been closely studied in contrastive with Vietnamese, within the framework of minor thesis a careful and profound study of English and Vietnamese nominal substitution is, theoretically speaking, equally important and necessary,

Because of the above mentioned reasons, my final thesis entitled: “Contrastive analysis of nominal substitution in English and Viemamese conversation” I do hope that this

study will be useftd for learners when invesligsting cơnversation in Inglish as well as in

‘Victnamse to support for successful communication:

2 Aims and abjective of the siuly

- providing teachers of inglish with useful materials abont the knowledge of Ns

2.2 Objectives

To achicve these aims, the rescarch tries to

- re- examine some aspects of English substitution and nominal substitution in detail so as

to establish the descuiptive framework for a contrastive analysis,

- investigate all the possible linguistics means of nominal substilulion in Vietnamese conversation discourse and at the same time find out possible similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese nominal substitution,

- give same suggestions lo apply to the leaching and leaming of English,

2 What are the eqnivalent linguistics means used for nominal substitution in

Vietnamese conversation in contrast with these in English conversation?

3 Scope of the study

Since this study examines nominal substitation as a cohesive device, only substitution across sentences is taken into account Because of the hited time and knowledge, this study is

only focused on some domains as follows:

- Orly nominal substitution in English and its cquivalent oxnassions in Vietnamese

conversation are investigated

~ I will take into consideration many cascs of nominal substitution so the data used for illustration exemplification are taken from various sources

- Tam going to deal with nominal substitution occured in the written transcription of this conversation, nol in a Lape —recarded conversation

4 Metharlology of the sludy

Since the main purpose of the study is lo contrast nominal substitution in English conversation and Vietnamese conversation, the result of which will be exploited for language leaming and teaching, CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS (C.A) is used as the major method of the study I will take English language as the base language and Vietnamese as the comparative language

Besides, systemization and generalization are also used as sub-methods to support C.A method Thus, in ths comparative analysis of examples in both English and Vietnamese, translation is the main technique given to highlight the similarities (or

of Thay arise cases where some nominal substilution occurs only in

differences) in the nominal substilution in the (wo languages During the proc

in English and Vietnamese

1

bal nol Teast, discnssions wilh my supervisor and colleagucs, parsonal teaching

experience are also the greal contribution to the sludy

5 Orgunizatian of the stuily

As for the design of the study, it is composed of three main parts as follows

Part A is Introduction, which presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, and the methods of the study as well as the organization of the study Part B is the DEVELOPMENT, which consists of two chapters Chapter 1 shows the theoretical background of basic and necessary

notions that are related ta nominal substitution and conversation discourse ‘These issues are

made clear on the basis of the generalization of different linguists’ viewpoints In Chapter 2 which is the focus of my study | conduct my contrastive analysis of nominal substitution in English and Vietnanese conversation in order lo provide learners with the competence iu understanding and using effectively the language of conversation Part C the Conclusion represents the review of the study with concluding remarks and suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.4 The theories of discourse

1.1.1 The concept of discourse

IL dogs nol sccm rational to use the Isrrt “serdeneo' in comnmumicalion ‘The analysis

on senlenee had beon focused until the beginning of 1950s by linguistics But in 1952, a famous linguist Zellig Ilarris, one of the earliest discourse analysts, published an arhcle entilled “Discourse Analysis” in Language Magacine He stated a new opinion exp ng thal tie most complete unit of language is đỉscoursc, nol a senlence Obviously, it is

impossible to make the language in use exist in isolation from its users and the context in which it is being used if you want to achieve successful communication Therefore, the

conccpt of discowse has becn paid considerable attention to by several linguists since 1952

‘The most straightforward definition of discourse is the one often found in textbooks for

siudents of tinguistics: “Language alove the senlence” (Carneron 2001: 10)

According to Cook (1989: 6) discourse is “stretches of language perceived lo be meaungfid,

unified and purposeful" in his point of view, the kind of language, language has been used 1o communicate somelhing and is fell lo be coherent (and may, or may nol, happen Lo correspond fo a coreel sentence or @ series of correel, sentences) — language in use, for

communication is called discourse Discourse can be anything from a conversation to a great novel or a lengthy legal case Cook (198910) also argues that “What matters is not its

conformity to rules, but the fact that ut communicaies and is recognized hy tts receivers as

coherent" Discourse is supposed to be meaningful and thus to be used to communicate with

one person in a way that another person does not have the necessary knowledge to make

sense of The study of discourscis often referred to as discourse analysis

1.1.2 Discourse and Sentence

It is obvious that we have two different kinds of language as potential objects for study Th

mules of language work according to Cook (1989) Sharing the same idea with Cook, Brown

enlance is abstricled in order to teach a Tangunga or litcracy, or lo study how the

& Yule (1983) state that the sentence is just a grammatical unit and it is quite abstract

bacause it has no prodncers and no Tzccivers — that is lo say, it oan cxisl independently of

any speaker af that language Ttis most often used in the teaching and leaning of a language and also in explaining how the rules of a language work

Discourse, on the contrary, is the language in use, for communication In addition, it has been used fo communicate something and felt to be coherent and cohesive Conversely, thongh sontonee and discourse arc different, they are not mutunlly exclusive Discourse may

be composed of one or more well-formed grammatical sentences, But of course, it may also

be composed of incomplete sentences ‘That is the language we often find in notices, signs,

1.4.3, Discourse and Text

So far thors have boon many ways of viewing the language

yond the Himil of the sentence, Regardless of the agreement on the concept of discourse, linguists held different views about the distinction between two most notable tenms Discourse and Text, For some linguists, the term discourse has been tried to set apart from the term text They argue that discourse is language in action, while a text is the written record of that interaction Crystal (1992), for instance, maintains that rex¢ should be reserved only for writing and discourse for speech, He alsa proposes that discourse is “a continous stretch af (especially spokeni language larger than œ sentence", whereas a text is “a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis" Brown and Yule (1983:3), cited in Numan (1993: 6), also argue that lext is “the representation of discourse and the verhal record of a communicative act”

Whereas, for some linguists these two terms seem to be used almost interchangeably

“That is to say when we use discourse we refer to both discourse and text and vice versa, ‘Text

or discourse is an inslanes of language in usc, this mcans that no tex occurs without context, Halliday and Hasans (1976), for example, use “text” to refer to “discourse”, they regarded text as a semantic unit characterized by cohesion

Briefly, discourse is a general term to refer to all acts of verbal communication, whereas a text is simply a verbal record of the whole communicative process (that is discourse) in which many situational factors are involved, it can be both written and spoken, and there will be no limit on the size of a text ‘Thus, text is a purely linguistic, formal object,

importance to language teachers

Zellig Harris, an American linguist, was the first person who recognized discourse as one main object of study in Hnguistics Maris (1952) was interested in the distribution of linguistic elements and the links between the text and its social situation, This idea was then developed by Dell Hymes (1964), who provided a sociological perspective with the study of

such as Austin (1962), Scarls (1969) and

Grice (1975) also made great impact in the study of language and social action, which is

1 in social selling Ths Tinguistic philosopher

reflected in speech act theory and the formulation of conversational maxims and the appearance of pragmatics it was in 1973 that discourse analysis was dealt with perfectly and conerctcly in M.A.K Halliday’s functional approach to language, Halliday’s linguistic model emphasizes the social function of language and the thematic and informational structure of speech and writing His approach is completely influential in British discourse analysis, of which some famous linguists arc Sinclair and Coulhard (1975)

‘Traditionally, language teaching has concentrated on pronunciation, grammar and

involved with the notion of spoken discourse as the “verbal record” of a communicative act

-

(analysts tend to record it, and then turn it into written transcriptions) are rather complicated Those arc problems of how to represcat all the suprascamental featurcs (intonation and rhythm) and paralinguistic features By oral discourse, the speaker tends to seek for intonation and rhythm so as to convey some intended message to the hearer ‘Therefore, if those features are not represented in written transeriphons, the speaker's intention will not be obtained, In order to solve this problem, most analysts are likely to use the conventions of the wnitten language to present the written transcription of the spoken discourse lor instance, a question mark is uscd in representation of a question, Tl wauld be very simple lo treat a tape-recording as a representation of this act However, there are many other things that can hardly be regarded as pertaining to text such as noise, laughter

Written discourse, on the other hand, is formed by written lexl (wrillen language) conceming with stories, newspapers, articles, letters, and the like Spoken discourse and written discourse are two different notions as the first refers to spoken language and the Taller to written language Following Brown & Yule (1983), we will consider the difference between oral and written language in terms of manner of production They notice that the speaker has to control and process the production of commmnication under circumstances which, arc, probably, more demanding He has monitor what iL is thal he has just seid while

he is producing his utterance, and determining whether it matches what he wants to say and the responses he means to make With written language, the writer on the other hand, does not cope with the problems associated with spoken language The writer can look over what

he has alrcady written, Additionally, he may pause between cach word wherever he would like to and take his time in choosing a particular word or phrase to suit his needs,

In sum, these two types of discourse above can be distinguished according to the type

of situation Oral discomsc is conceming face-to-face situation while a recorded transmission situation involves in the written discourse As mentioned above, in this study spoken discourse (conversation) lakes the form of written transcription Written

1.2 The theories of conversation

1.2.1 The concept of conversation

So far in this study we have looked at discourse in general, Our attempt is mads to

look specifically at a typical kind of spoken Ianguage as conversation According to Cook

(1989), the term conversation is widely used, in a non-technical sense, and people seem capable of distinguishing it fiom other kinds of talk They mcan, broadly spcaking, that the talk is less formal Discourse analysts, indeed, are rather vague about what they mean by

“conversation” too, and some seem to use the term to describe any kind of oral interaction

We shall dofine the ton as follows A conversation is dafinad as “talk between two ar more people in which thoughts, feelings and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and information are exchanged” (Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 2000) Clearly, it is commmunication by two or more people, or by one’s sf and conversational comanmnication also the most basic and widespread means of conducting human affairs Conversation, as we have seen here, involves far more than knowiledge of the Tanguage system and the factors creating coherence in one-way discowse; it involves the gaining, holding, and yielding of tums, the negotiation of meaning and direction, the shifting

of topic, the signaling and identification of tum type, the use of vaice quality, face and body For a successful conversation, the partners must achieve a workable balance of contributions A successful conversation includes inutually interesting connections between the speakers or things that the speakers know For this to happen, those engaging in conversation rus! find a topic on which they both can ralale in some sonse

To sum up, conversation is notoriously difficult to understand and analyze and it can seem almost contradiction im terms However, with the focus of discourse analysis and especially in this study the focus of conversation, a typical form of spoken discourse, we will try to attempts to investigate the factors creating coherence as well as cohesive devices and nominal substitution in here In terms of conversational data, we use the transcript of (he conversation (a systematic way of coding the words) as our sources

1.2.2, Why is Conversation Analysis important?

Conversation analysis (commonly abbreviated as CA) is the study of talk in interaction (both verbal and non-verbal in situations of everyday life) CA which is

‘insen [983: 286) ciled m Cook

1990 The question Why is Conversation Analysis (CA) potentially very important when analyzing cohesive devices in conversation? ‘Ihe answer will be attempted to desoribe based

sometimes tagarded as dislinel from dis

on data from conversation Laken from variaus Tesources i

giving clear explanation the most grammatical function of substitute words within a nominal group, Regarding the way nominal substitution is expressed, it calls for more work to be done in terms of linking a

conversation analytic framework with issucs aud concerns in cohesion analysis.

1.3 Cohesion

1.3.1 The concept af cohesion

The concept of cohesion is closely conneeted with discourse, Cohesion, a property of any successful text, is also present in spoken language it is defined as the grammatical and lexical rdlationship between different clztmonls of a text, Lexical coheston is realized through lexical cohesive devices such as, reiteration, synonymy, antonym, ete and grammatical cohesion is realized through grammatical cohesive devices like reftrence, ellipsis and snbslilution (Halliday & Hassan, 1976), However, according to Quirk of al (1985) the grammatical cohesive devices are included two general categories of expansion (coordination and subordination) and reduction (ellipsis and pro-form substitution) Moreover, he makes a clear explanation of each calegory, following thal, Pro-form substitution is the substitution of certain items in a sentence for other items or constructions for the purpose of reduction and economy Besides, Ellipsis, semantically related fo snbstilution, but grammatically distinct, can be interpreted as substitution without a substitute or zero substitution (Halliday & Hassan, 1976:92) For example:

1) Do you have any matches? - I can give you one [Substitution]

1 the film? - Yes, T have [Ellipsis]

Halliday and Hasan (1976:4) also define cohesion in a similar way “The concept of

eslablished Cohesive ties then enter into cohesive chains, which run throughout a text,

rovodling how different parts ofa text are related to cach other

1.3.2 Coherence and coheston

In this scetion we shall treat cohssion and coherence as twa distinet coneopis In fact the use of term ‘cohesion’ may be preferable because both ‘echesion’ and ‘coherence’ have the function of binding the discourse/text together by creating sequences of meaning

Therefore an awarsness of cohesion and eohercnee in all texts especially in conversalion

10

discourse is a very important skill for leamers to develop Basically, cohesion refers to the

formal relationship that causes text to cohere or stick together (Nguycn Hoa: 2000) It is

indicated by grammatical, logical and lexical relationships found among or between the

sentences of a text ‘Ihe problems can be treated comprehensively in the boak by Halliday

ami] Hasan (1976) as: “A text has texture and this is what distinguishes it from something

that is not @ text .the texture is provided by cohesive relation” Coherence, in contrast,

refers to the type of semantic or rhetorical relationships that underline texts ‘hat is to say coherence is coneemed with the sequencing of Ihe configuration of the concepls and relation

of the textual world which underlies and is realized by the surface text (cohesion) In other

word, coherence can obtain on the basis of relevance, the co-operative principle, the common shared background Letween participants in a speech evenl, and how discourse is

structured in general, conversation in particular, as well

However, what I have discussed so tar should not distort the fact that coherence and cohesion do have relation to each other to some extent In this minor thesis, I do support the view that cohesion is a guide to coherence and that is part of coherence in reading and waiting, and indeed in spoken Janguage tov More in detail, cohesion is the reakizalion of coherence, and coherence is something created by the readers in the act of reading the text

Ths two categories represent the interrelated aspects that make a text or discourse coherent

and different fiom random ones In short, coherence is embodied by a system of cohesive

devices and cohesion is mainly used to ensure coherence

1.3.3 Cohesion within the sentence and discourse

Halliday and Hasan (1976) stressed that since cohesive relations are not concemed with structure, they may be found just as well within a sentence as between sentences Let us

consider Ihe follawing example

Many promised lo send a picture of the children, but she hast’ dane

They make it clear that done in the second clause and send a picture of the children in the fixst equals, and it is quite irrelevant to this whether the two are in the same sentence or not,

‘This reference relation occurs in the sentence just in the same way as it is often found in discourse His the semanhe telation between done and send a pichwe of children that provides eahesion,

11

But what can account for the fact that cohesion within the sentence attracts less attention, as compared with that between scntenees? According to Halliday & Hasan (1976), this is because the cohesive strength of grammatical structure is so great that always make the sentence hang together ‘The effect of cohesion in discourse is more outstanding and the

Tneaning is merc obvious than that within the sentence And also for these reasons, in my

study I deat only with nominal substitution as a cohesive device at the discourse level (conversation)

1.4 Types of Cohesion

According lo Taltiday and Uasan (1976), the classification af cohesion is based on the linguistic form, The type of cohesion depends either on semantic relation in the linguistic system or on lexico-grammatical relations In other words, the cohesive relation can be interpreted as boing cither lexicogrammatical in nature or semantic, Ft can be made clearer in the following description:

‘Nature of cohesive relation Type of cohesion

Relatedness of form Substitution and ellipsis; lexical collocation

Relatedness of reference Reference; lexical reiteration

Semantic connection: Conjunction

Table 1.1: Type of Cohesion (Source: Haliday and Hasan, 1976:300)

Consequently, we can refer lo grammatical echesion and lexical cohesion as follows

- demonstrative © Tamporal © Gancral words

Ellipsis © Nom Prepasition

* Nominal ellipsis © Adjective | reposition

© Clausal cipsi ø Verb+Prepositien

Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion

In short, grammatical cohesion, as defined by Carthy (1993: 34), is the surthee marking of semantic links between clauses and sentences in written discourse and betwsen uullcranees and lums in specch It is subdivided into the following types: reference, cllipsis, substitution and conjunction (Halliday & Hasan 1976), Whereas, lexical cohesion was first advanced in terms of collocation by Firth (1957) and later developed by Halliday (1961, 1966) Lexical cohesion occurs when two words in a discourse arc scmantically related in some way Halliday and Hasan (1976) classify lexical cohesion into two main categories reiteration and collocation Evidently, these two kinds of cohesion work together to contribute to the creation of discourse, Within the scope of minor thesis, this study is ony focused on the findings of linguistics means used for nominal substitution in English conversation and the equivatent Linguistics means used for nominal substitution in

s, substilulion sccrus ta bz optional,

and for stylistic reasons Within sentences, it is sometimes obligatory, Most of the substitutes

or PRO-FORMS within sentences are also used across sentences In the view of Halliday and Liasan (1976: 32), substitution is a relation within the fext on the lexico-grammatical level A subslilute is a sort of counter whichis used in place of the repetition of a particular

item.

13

Obviously, it is all agreed that substitution is a way of avoiding repetition Within the scope of my study the view of substitution as a grammatical relation in the work done by Halliday & Hasan (1976) on substitution will be taken as the theoretical framework for the

contrastive analysis

1.5.2 Substitution, Cohesion and Discourse

‘As previously mentioned, cohesion at the discourse level occws whan the interpretation of some element is dependent on that of another ‘Truly cohesion helps a soymsnee of sentences hang together in the view of Halliday & Hasan (1976) arcating a surface and semantic relation between different parts of the discourse It could be understood that substitution across sentences does have a cohesive function and in so doing create

textuahly since 4 snbstiiule word almost carmol be inlerpreted when taken oul of context Tn

other word, the addressee needs to have recourse to the previous utterance with repard to look for effective interpretation,

‘Together with cohesive devices such as ellipsis, references, repetition elc., substitution

in general and nominal substitution in specitic works to make discourse also conversation discourse in this study rich in cohesive functions as well as cohesive devices

1.6 Contrastive Analysis

1.6.1 Definition

Leaming a second language or foreign one is different from acquiring the first language When studying a foreign language, learners often have a tendency of tansferring the formal features of their source language to their target language That is why Robert Lado

in his book Linguistics across cultures in 1957 stated that “Individuals tend to transfer their forms and meanings and their distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and cultere to the foreign language and culture” So far a lot of linguists have studied contrastive analysis to give the brief description of what it is, which helps leamers of foreign Tanguages (nel ont the way ta investigate the similarities as well as the differences between

tava languages We can understand thal Contrastive Analysis ticans the comparison of two

languages by paying attention to differences and similarities between languages being compared ‘'o be more specific, we concern the definition by James (1980:3) “ CA is a

linguisite enterprise aimed at producing inverted (1 contrastive, not comparative) two-

valued ppologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the

assumption that languages can be compared” Noticeably contrastive analysis is not merely

related to not only forcign language teaching and lcaming but it can also make uscful

14 contributions to translation theory, linghi

1.6.2 Why use C.A in this thesis?

As [ have explained above, C.A plays very key role in exploring similarities and

differences between the source language and ihe fargel language, which is very important in leaming languapes, especially in learning a foreign language like English As far as we have seen, English and Vietnamese are different languages in terms of type and nature, so beside similarities there are lots of differences between thera in all aspects Tt is C.A that can help leamers find out those differences so that they can bridge the gap between Vietnamese and English, leading to the successful process of mastering English ‘That is why C.A is used as the major study inothod int this study lo anilyze nominal substitution in English and is equivalent expressions in Vietnamese conversation And of couse, the result of the investigation is intended to be applied to the teaching and leaming of English

1.7 Summary

In conclusion, I have gone over all the fundamental notions of discourse, cohesion, substitution as well as subtypes of substitution and nominal substitution as the core for discussion, All theoretical background in this study has been drawn on the work by ITaltiday

& Hasan (1976), Halliday (1985), wherever suitable, Quirk et af, (1972) Discourse is viewed as the language above the sentence level — the language put to communication It is classified into spoken discourse and written discourse, both of which are taken consideration

in this study The torm discourse is distinguished clearly with (he lenm sentence and text Apart ftom this, the notion and its role of discourse analysis also conversation analysis has been paid carefully attention All above, a close study of cohesion, some types of cohesion and norninal substitution is provided with clearly explanation in this chapler T do hope that these preparations could make up a broad way to reach the objectives set in this thesis

15

CHAPTER 2

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOMINAL SUBSTITUTION IN

ENGLISII AND VIETNAMESE CONVERSATION

In this chapter, 1 shall consider different forms of English nominal substitution, and at the same time their Vietnamese equivalents will be carefully studied and provided, The work done by Tlaltiday & Hasan (1976) will be adopted as the main theoretical (ramework, but that which is done by Quirk ef af, (1972) has been also shared whenever necessary The following items in English on the whole may occur as nominal substitutes:

* personal pronouns

“ one

= same

However, before investigating these items, we would like to re examine the English and

Vietnamese nominal structure

2.1 General Features of English and Vietnamese Nominal Structure

Since nominal substitution takes places mainly in the environment of a nominal group, it is essential to revise the English and Vietnamese nominal structure before considering nominal substilulion, With regards to the English structure of nominal groups, the reader is referred in particular to many well-known linguists such as Halliday & Hasan

(1978), Quirk et al (1972), Downing & Locke (1995) and Chalker (1984)

For Talliday & Tasan (1976), the logical structure of the nominal group in its full form consists of three components; the Head, the Premodifier which optionally precedes the Head and the Postmodifier which optionally follows the Head

Promodificr /Hoad/ postmodifisr: cg Those five heantifid shiny Jonathan’ apples / sitting on the chair

Similarly, Quik et ai, (1972) as well as Chalker (1984) use the terms Premodification, Ifead and Postmodification to refer to three parts of the structure

Premodification / Head / Postmodification: c.g The latest / problem / for the government

Downing & Tacke (1995) also stale that a noun group strucluse has Nhree parts; through the terms they use for these components are not quite the same as the ones

mentioned above:

or a proper noun can be substituted or even omitted It follows that the case where the Head

is substituted will be the subject of my study

Besides the logical siruetore, Halliday & Hasan (1976) also introduce the experienhal

structure of the nominal group They point out that the structure might functionally be composed of six elements: The Detetic (usually a determiner expressing identity), the Numeralive (a numeral or other quantifier expressing quantity), the Fpithet (an adjective expressing a property), the Classifier (@ common noun or a proper noun expressing a

subclass), the Qualifier (a relative clause or prepositional phrase) and what they call ‘hing,

‘The relationship between the logical and experiential structure can be iusirated as follows:

Promodificr / Had / Poshnodliier: s.g TẤT cả nhường cdi / clut tneang / chink wae dé

‘The head is said to be either a noun or a noun phrase which normally consists of a noun as a classifier combined with another noun, a verb or an adjective (e.g, cdé nha, edy

a, aon mèa, người thợ, riềm vai, cuậc hop, vé dep) Wis clear thal th

= combination always

expresses a single entity,

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The Premadifier may functionally be divided into three parts: Universal Qualifier (tir

chi ting lượng c.p tất cá, bế! thay, tat thay, cd thay ote.), Numerative (ty chi sé lugne or 36

tử), and Indexical Word CAI (tir chi sat CAD Its structure is realized diagrammatically as

follows:

Universal Qualifier Nưmerativc Indexical word Head

The Postmodificr may functionally consists of two clements: Qualiũzrs (định tổ) and

Demonstrative (tit chi dinh e.g nay, no, kia, dy, day, de):

Nguyen Tại Can (1996) also shared this fanctional view Ais holds the view that the two

nouns, the classifier and the one following it, are equally important, Therefore, he points out

that in this case the lead is a combination of Ifead | and Ilead 2:

Furthermore, Nguyen Tai Can points out that the combination of Head 1 and Head 2 might

give rise lo three variants:

Head! /Head2: — con/ chim (nay)

J Head 2° {chim (nay) (without Head 1)

Head i / con / (mày) (withoul Head 2)

‘The fact that Head 1 as a Classifier and take place of the whole Head is of great importance

as it lays the foundations of nominal substitution in Vietnamese ‘Thus, since it serves for my

purpose of sindy, Can’s view of the Head of tha nominal stmeturs will be adopted

Buedly, the struvture of the Vicinarnese nominal group laken in this study van be outlined as follows

Qualifier | Numerative | Indoxieal _ ee Quilificr Demonstrative

(tk chỉ tổng | GỖ) | wordcAr | "8 ` ạ | (đnhtổ — đừchi định)

Tắt cả những cái con méo den ấy

2.2, Personal Pronouns

2.2.1 Subjective Personal Pronouns and Objective Personal Pronauns:

For Quik ef, af, (1972) and also for other grammarians, personal pronouns of English are classified into two sets of forms: subjective personal pronouns and objective parsonal pronouns, This classification is basod on the role cach personal form plays in the sentence; either as the subject or as the object The former includes J, You, We, He, She, It They, and the latter consists of me, you, us, him, her, it them

In addition, together with two ealegorics of number: singular and plural, personal pronouns are traditionally further classified into three categories of person, namely first person (Le, singular and we/us, plural), second person (You you, the name form for both singular and plural), and third person (Te/She/It, singular and shey/thems, plural)

Virst person singular Plural We 1 me ws

Table 2: English personal pronouns

As can be seen fiom mentioned-above personal pronouns, the third person pronouns obviously carry cohesive force as any use of them always requires the listener ot reader to look backwards (ie anaphoric) in order to reirieve what has gone before Thus, the third parson pronouns are seen as one of the main cohesive devices used for the creation of discourse Further more, my study centres around only common substitute words as cohesive dovives in conversation discourse and bocause it is nol a sludy of personat pronouns, T am going to work on ory on the third person ones

In the set of the third person forms, he/him and she/her are used to substitute for persons while it/it for things ‘Ihey/them replace both persons and things Let us consider the following examples:

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[2:1] The policeman netted his club and took a step ar two

"Tl be on my way Hope your friend comes arewid all right Going to call time on him

Viên cảnh sát quay bước về phía câu lạc bộ và buốc thêm một hai bước

ly vọng người ben của ông sẽ tới Ông cả nói thời gian cụ thé

với ông Ấy chưa?

- Tôi sẽ chờ ông ấy Ú nhất nữa già Nắn Jimmy con sng, dng Ấy sẽ

có mặt ở Âây không thế muộn hơn

[2:2] ‘Bat have you got the roÐbeF + description?’ asked Stuart

‘In the first place, he is no robber at all, ‘ retaned Ralph, positively

‘Whail a fellow who makes off with fifty-five thousand pounds, no robber?’

‘No.’

‘Perhaps he's a manufacurer, then."

‘The Daily Telegraph says that he is a gentteman,’ (CMM: 1996:125)

“Những mở anh có nhận dạng được tên trộm không?” Siuart hỏi

“Ban déiu bắn ta không hẳn là một tên trộm: Ralph dap lai voi thái độ tích cực

*Sao cơ? Mội kẻ chuẩn di với 5Š nghìn bằng Anh không phải là mội lên trộm sao?

[2:3] Girl: Is the book in this bag for Mum, then? I didn't think she was particadarly

ilerested in flowers

Father: 1 thought she'd like it — to give her some good ideas for the garden, And even if she

never reads if — it's got some lavely photos

Girl: 7 thought you were going to get thase gloves I showed you in that shop last

Saturday They match the scurf I've bought her (PET 3, 2003)

ô gái: Cuắm sách trong túi này có phải tăng mẹ không bẩ? Con không ngÌũ mẹ lại đặc biệt

thich hoa

Bo: Bồ lại nghĩ mẹ con s€ thich 16 oo cette ete „và thâm chỉ nêu như mẹ

không bao giờ đọc nó thì nỗ cũng có một số búc ảnh rất tuyệt

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Cô gát: Can lại nghĩ bố sẽ mua đôi găng tay (mồ) can đã chỉ cho bắ ở cũa hang a6 thi bay

trước cơ Chẳng rất hạp với chiếc khẩn quảng cỗ cơn đã mua lãng me

[2:4[ Woman: Have you seen my new passport photographs? I put them on (he bookshelf

Oh here they are, with your caffee cups Lhope they aren't dirty

Man: Oh sorry, I was showing them to Pat He says they make you laok like that newsreader on the television (PET 3, 2003: 126) (¢hey/ them ~ my new passport photographs)

Người phụ nữ: Anh có thầy mắy bức ảnh hộ chiếu mới chụp cầu em không? Em dã

đề chúng ở trên giá sách mà Ô chủng đây rồi, cạnh máy tách cà phê, Em ly vong chting khang lém sao

Người đền ông: Ôi anh xin lỗi, anh vừa cho Pai xem chúng Câu Ây nói trồng em cứ

nh phái thanh viên trên truyền hành,

In those above examples, it is not very difficult to take note of that Ae in [2:1] substitutes for your friend, he in [2:2] for the robber, itin [2:3] for the hook in this bag, they for diose gloves I showed you in thal shop and they tor my new passport photographs in [2:4] n most cases, we do not have any problems in the use of Hnglish personal pronouns

[2:5] “Poor Mfr Edward! Ie ejaculated, “I little thought ever to have s

2 it Some wey it

war just judgment on him for keeping his first marriage secret, and wanting to tuke another

wife while he had one living: but [pity him, for my part”

“Fou said he was alive?” lexclaimed

“Yes, yes: he is alive, but many think he had better he dead”

the man seemed resolved to protract tt

“He is sione-hlind,” he said at last “Yes—he is stone-hlind—is Mr Edward.”