Colloquial language used in speaking classes by the English major sudents of Foreign Language Faculty - Thai Nguyen University= Ngôn ngữ thông tục được sử dụng

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES **************** NGUYỄN DƯƠNG HÀ COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE USED IN SP

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

****************

NGUYỄN DƯƠNG HÀ

COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE USED IN SPEAKING CLASSES

BY THE ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY – THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

(Ngôn ngữ thông tục được sử dụng trong các tiết học nói của sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh Khoa Ngoại Ngữ - Đại học Thái Nguyên)

M.A Minor Thesis

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

(Ngôn ngữ thông tục được sử dụng trong các tiết học nói của

sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh Khoa Ngoại Ngữ

- Đại học Thái Nguyên)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

MA course: 18 Supervisor: Nguyễn Hương Giang, M.A

Hanoi - 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS vi

PART I – INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Significance of the study 2

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Method of the study 3

7 Design of the study 3

PART II – DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.1 Stylistic varieties of English language 5

1.2 Colloquial English speech 7

1.2.1 Key terms: Colloquial/ informal/ casual/ conversational English 7

1.2.2 General characteristics of colloquial English speech 8

1.2.3 Main features of colloquial English speech 9

1.2.3.1 Phonetic and phonological features 9

1.2.3.2 Morphological features 10

1.2.3.3 Syntactical features 10

1.2.3.4 Lexical features 11

1.2.4 Significance of colloquial English speech 14

1.3 Colloquial English speech used by the native 15

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 16

2.1 Data collection 16

2.1.1 Participants 16

2.1.2 Instrument 17

2.1.3 Data collection procedures 17

2.2 Data analysis and discussion 18

2.2.1 Analysis of the questionnaire for students 18

2.2.1.1 Students‟ language background 19

2.2.1.2 The students‟ perceptions of colloquial English speech 20

2.2.1.3 The attitudes of students to the use of colloquial English in speaking classes 26

2.2.1.4 Analysis of colloquial English used in FLF English major students‟ speech 29

2.2.2 Analysis of teachers‟ interview responses 35

2.2.2.1 Teachers‟ definitions of colloquial English speech 35

2.2.2.2 Teacher‟s opinions of the importance of colloquial English speech teaching 36

2.2.2.3 The teaching of colloquial English speech in Foreign Language Faculty 36

2.2.2.4 Teachers‟ assessment of their students‟ competence of speaking colloquial English in the classroom 37

2.2.2.5 Teachers‟ list of possible factors influencing students‟ colloquial English speech use in the classroom 38

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS 41

3.1 Findings 41

3.1.1 The frequency of using colloquial English speech in the classroom 41

3.1.2 Students‟ competence of using colloquial English speech 42

3.1.3 Factors influencing the students‟ competence of using colloquial English speech 42

3.2 Implications 44

PART III – CONCLUSION 47

1 Conclusions 47

2 Limitations and recommendations for further research 47

REFERENCES 48 APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 VII

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

A1: American teacher 1

A2: American teacher

EOA: English oral proficiency at the advanced level

ESL/EFL: English as a Foreign Language/ English as a Second Language FLF: Foreign Language Faculty

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Chart 1: The distribution of students‟ high interest in four language skills

Chart 2: Students‟ self-assessment of their competence of speaking colloquial English Chart 3: Teachers‟ assessment of their students‟ competence of using colloquial English Table 1: Participants‟ personal information

Table 2: Participants‟ perceptions of the context where colloquial English speech is used Table 3: Participants‟ perceptions of the role of colloquial English speech

Table 4: Participants‟ perceptions of the specific features of colloquial English speech Table 5: Students‟ attitudes to the use of classroom colloquial English speech

Table 6: Analysis of phonetics features used in students‟ speaking classes

Table 7: Analysis of morphological features used in students‟ speaking classes

Table 8: Analysis of syntactic features used in students‟ speaking classes

Table 9: Analysis of lexical features used in students‟ speaking classes

Table 10: Teacher‟s opinions of the importance of colloquial English speech teaching

PART I – INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

English nowadays is not the language of each separate country but has become an international language This language is considered as a tool to help people all over the world communicate and understand one another However, people who use English as a foreign language (EFL) often find it difficult to communicate effectively with the native and their communication, in most cases, is assessed to be unnatural, „bookish‟ and even inappropriate with the speaking setting For example, when best friends or classmates talk to each other in informal settings, they often use such overly formal words and expressions as „Sir‟, „May I‟ or

„Would you like‟, etc Even though most native speakers accept such errors in the speech of non-native speakers, they may feel uncomfortable because of the non-native‟s overly formal language It is said that, sometimes, register errors can be as serious as social gaffes if the language is not appropriately used in a specific speaking context

Moreover, when listening to daily conversations on the tape and in the real life, the researcher realised that colloquial language is much used by the native speaker This realisation has been consolidated by the exploration of the other researchers that in the native‟s speech, actually, „real people don‟t talk like books‟ but use mostly „the language of the streets‟ that consists of various colloquial or informal expressions (Engkent, 1986: 225) and it is the non-standard or colloquial expressions that are the uniqueness of everyday English used by the native (Suksriroj, 2009: 12) However, when listening to these conversations, many students including English majors at Foreign Language Faculty (FLF) find it hard to get the ideas although there are not many new words on the listening script Obviously, most of them have quite good command of English grammar, speak English accurately and are able to understand speech which is deliberately addressed to a foreign student but have much difficulty in following speech which is primarily addressed to native speakers as well as in communicating effectively with them

That fact urged the researcher to explore the use of colloquial language by English major students at the place where the researcher is working and the study on colloquial English in the speaking classes has been carried out

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at assessing FLF English major students‟ frequency and competence of using colloquial English in their speaking classes Then, the study focuses on investigating the factors influencing the use of colloquial English in the classroom setting so that teachers can find out effective ways to make this style more accessible to students The further purpose of this study is to help non-native students minimize the register errors and be as likely to speak English as the native

4 Significance of the study

Using colloquial language in the appropriate context will be the key to communication success Thus, the study on colloquial English used in the non-native‟s speaking classes can partly contribute to the improvement of learners‟ communicative competence with the native

in the real social setting More importantly, this may be useful for students to improve their comprehension skills such as listening and reading in real contexts because colloquialisms are frequently used in speeches and texts produced by the native Thanks to that, students will gain their self-confidence when communicating with native people

It is hoped that this study will open a new way to make communicative language teaching method more accessible to students If this study is done, teachers and textbook writers may have a new look at the status of English speaking teaching in classroom, so they may pay more attention to the register errors in students‟ use of English in the class

5 Scope of the study

There are many important perspectives of language use, but this study just focuses on the conversational register with the use of colloquial style In this study, colloquial speech will be defined only as informal/ everyday conversational speech The study will be based on the main features of colloquial English speech to find out the frequency of informal language produced by English major students in their speaking classes The participants are all fourth-year students majoring on English in Foreign Language Faculty – Thai Nguyen University

These students are selected because they have gained basic knowledge and sufficient techniques in speaking They are considered to be at the advanced level and know a lot of English At this level, we need to show students what still has to be done and provide them clear evidence of progress We can do this through a concentration not so much on grammatical accuracy, but on style and perceptions of appropriacy, connotation and inference,

helping students to use language with more subtlety (Jeremy Harmer, p 13)

6 Method of the study

With the aim of seeking the answer to the issue raised above, survey research was used

in this study with the instruments such as questionnaires, interview transcripts and field notes Aiming at exploring the frequency of students‟ colloquial English use in their speaking classes to assess students‟ competence of using colloquial language and finding out the factors influencing the students‟ competence of colloquial English, questionnaires with closed-ended questions and Likert-type scales were delivered to the fourth-year students

Besides, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with both native and native teachers with the help of the audio recorder and field notes to find out the factors

non-affecting the use of colloquial English in students‟ conversational classes

7 Design of the study

The study includes three main parts as following:

The first part – Introduction – provides the motivation for the research, identifies the aims, research questions, significance, scope, methods and design of the study

The second part – Development – consists of three chapters

Chapter 1- Theoretical background - provides an overview of theories for the study Chapter 2 – Contents of the study – investigates the issue of using colloquial English

in the classroom with the help of questionnaires and interviews through data analysis, and discussion

Chapter 3 – Findings and implications – summarizes the main results and provides suggestions to the teaching and learning of colloquial English speech in the classroom

The last part - the Conclusion – focuses on the study summary, limitations and

recommendations for further research

PART II – DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Stylistic varieties of the English language

The authors of handbooks on German, English and Russian stylistics propose analogous systems of styles based on a broad subdivision of all styles into two classes: literary and colloquial and their varieties These generally include from three to five functional styles Functional styles (FS) are the subsystems of language, each subsystem having its own peculiar features in what concern vocabulary means, syntactical constructions, and even phonetics Since FS will be further specially discussed in the study, three popular viewpoints

in English language style classifications will be limited

In 1960, the book „Stylistics of the English Language‟ written by M D Kuznetz and Y M Skrebnev appeared The book introduced a brief outline of stylistic categorization The styles and their varieties distinguished by these authors included:

1 Literary/ Bookish Style:

a publicist style;

b scientific (technological) style;

c official documents

2 Free/ Colloquial Style

a literary colloquial style;

b familiar colloquial style

Kuznetz and Skrebnev in this book stated the definitions of bookish and colloquial styles The bookish style is a style of a highly polished nature that reflects the norm of the national literary language The bookish style may be used not only in the written speech but in oral, official talk

Colloquial style, on the other hand, is the type of speech which is used in situation that allows certain deviations from the rigid pattern of literary speech used not only in a private conversation, but also in private correspondence So the style is applicable both to the written and oral varieties, and the terms "colloquial" and "bookish" do not exactly correspond to the oral and written forms of speech However, Maltsev (1973) suggests two terms "formal" and

"informal" and states that colloquial style is the part of informal variety of English which is used orally in conversation

Next comes the well-known work by I V Arnold „Stylistics of Modern English‟ (decoding stylistics) published in 1973 and revised in 1981 Speaking of functional styles, Arnold starts with a kind of abstract notion termed neutral style It has no distinctive features and its function is to provide a standard background for the other styles The other real styles can be broadly divided into two groups according to the scholar‟s approach: different varieties

of colloquial styles and several types of literary bookish styles If neutral style serves any situation of communication, colloquial style serves situations of spontaneous everyday communication (casual, non-formal) Bookish style corresponds to public speech (non-casual, formal)

One of the relatively recent books on stylistics is the handbook by A N Morokhovsky and his co-authors O P Vorobyova „Stylistics of the English language‟ published in Kiev in

1984 In the final chapter of the book „Stylistic Differentiation of Modern English‟ a concise but exhaustive review of factors that should be taken ito account in treating the problem of functional styles is presented The book suggests the following style classes:

1 Official business style

2 Scientific-professional style

3 Publicist style

4 Literary colloquial style

5 Familiar colloquial style

Each style, according to Morokhovsky has a combination of distinctive features Among them we find oppositions like „artistic – non-artistic‟, „presence of personality – absence of personality‟, „formal – informal situation‟, „equal – unequal social status‟, „written form– oral form‟ Morokhovsky emphasizes that these five classes of what he calls „speech activity‟ are abstractions rather than realities, they can seldom be observed in their pure forms: mixing styles is the common practice

1.2 Colloquial English speech

1.2.1 Key terms: Colloquial/ informal/ casual/ conversational English

The Concise Oxford Dictionary (Fowler and Fowler, 1995) defines „colloquial‟ as

„belonging to or proper to ordinary or familiar conversations, not formal or literary‟ Colloquial is a familiar style used in speaking and writing Similarly, informal speech means without formality and without strict attention to set forms Likewise, conversational refers to a style used in the oral exchange of ideas, opinions, etc A colloquialism is an informal expression, that is, an expression not used in formal speech or writing

(http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/colloquial.html)

In another book, The Five Clock (1967) written by Martin Joos, the colloquial in his definition comprises both the consultative and the casual style (Joos, 1967: 29) The casual style is used for friends and acquaintances, and is marked by frequent ellipsis and slang Therefore, in regard to the meaning, the term „colloquial‟, „informal‟, „casual‟ and

„conversational‟ are exchangeably used with the same meaning and „colloquial‟ can be replaced by „informal‟ or „casual‟ or „conversational‟ because all of them refer to the same

speech style or to usages not on a formal level

In terms of the using context, colloquial language is informal language that is not rude, but would not be used in formal situations It is the language of private conversation, of personal letters, etc It is the first form of language that a native speaking child becomes familiar with Because it is generally easier to understand than formal English, it is often used nowadays in public communication of a popular kind; for example, advertisements and popular newspapers mainly employ colloquial or informal style (Leech and Svartvik, 1975)

In works written in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, it is possible

to find references to the colloquial form of language, sometimes contrasted on the one hand with „formal‟ or „literary‟ or „bookish‟ language, and on the other hand with „vulgar‟ or

„illiterate‟

1.2.2 General characteristics of colloquial English speech

According to Václav Řeřicha (2000), colloquial English speech contains the following

characteristics: informal, familiar, conversational, paralinguistic context, nonverbal communication, and constantly changing

Colloquial English speech carries the general feature of a(n) hearer-oriented/ interactional speech Gillian Brown (1981, p.4) distinguishes between hearer-oriented/ interactional speech and message-oriented/ transactional speech as follows: „ Primarily hearer-oriented/ interactive speech is found in all cultures, literate and non-literate, and among all ages of speaking humans It differs from primarily message-oriented/ transactional speech, very often, in being less clearly articulated, less clearly expressed, often containing a lot of vagueness and modality ” , as the tables below show:

Some conversational interchanges, such as small talks, fit this description of hearer-oriented/ interactional speech In conversation, native speakers may start with a ritualistic speech pattern and then move into the intended message

1.2.3 Main features of colloquial English speech

1.2.3.1 Phonetic and phonological features

Václav Řeřicha (2000) points out some phonetic and phonological features of colloquial English as follows:

- careless pronunciation /„feller‟ for „fellow‟; „dunno‟ for „don‟t know‟, „attaboy‟ for

„that‟s a boy‟/

Primarily interactional speech

- loosely organized syntax and less specific vocabulary

Primarily transactional speech

- complex syntax and precise

vocabulary

- long turns

- subordination

- marking out done by lexical

phrases (e.g firstly, moreover, to

sum up)

- information packed densely

- competence

- reduction, elision: „An elision is the omission of a sound for phonological reasons, e.g

'cause (also spelled 'cos, cos, coz) from because; fo'c'sle from forecastle; or ice tea from iced tea (in which –ed is pronounced /t/ but omitted because of the

immediately following /t/).‟

- faster speech pace

- various noises (cough, rasp, chuck)

Engkent L.P (1986, p.228) realizes that „informal English is sloppy and a victim of “lazy tongues” Spoken English of all registers is characterized by reductions of sounds and ellipses

„Reduction of sounds is characteristic of informal spoken English Vowels drop or reduce to schwa, and other sounds change or blur; for example, „can‟ /kæn/ has the vowel dropped to /kən/, „how about‟ is reduced to „how‟bout‟, „madam‟ to „ma‟m‟, „and‟ to „‟n‟, „every‟ to

„ev‟ry‟, etc We do not pronounce words letter by letter with the written form “Gotta”,

“gonna”, and “wanna” look strange to students when they are printed in a dialogue, yet the students hear these forms all the time Referring to Weinstein‟s listings on reduced forms in her book “Whaddaya say” (2001, p.45), approximately 95 percent of the reduced forms are function words

More notably, contractions are used most of the time except emphatic intention For example, we‟ll = we will, I‟ve = I have, you‟d = you had/ you would, etc

1.2.3.3 Syntactical features

Václav Řeřicha (2000) explores that when native people use colloquial language, they

tend to use active rather than passive structures For example, „I‟ll do this task‟ is much preferred rather than „this task will be done by me.‟

When native people talk to each other, ellipsis tends to be used all the time This language phenomenon refers to the omission from a clause of one or more words that would otherwise

be required by the remaining elements

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis_(linguistics)

 Examples:

- Wanna tea?/ Enjoy? (The pronominal subject is often dropped)

- Jessica had five dollars; Monica, three (The verb „had‟ is omitted at the comma)

- What if I miss the deadline? (The verb phrase „will happen‟ is omitted, as in „What will happen if I miss the deadline‟)

- Fire when ready (In the sentence, „you are‟ is understood as in „Fire when you are ready.‟)

However, sometimes, ellipsis results in surface ungrammaticality

 Examples:

- „We go out for a coffee‟ and „they get invited to a wine ‟n cheese‟ These forms can

prove puzzling to students who have been taught that non-count nouns do not take an indefinite article

- „Finished your work?‟ This expression is only used in informal setting while in formal one the full form of an auxiliary must be always used as following „Have you finished

your work?‟

The other most prominent syntactic features of colloquial English are active voice prevalence in the speech, coordination (parataxis) prevailing over subordination, incomplete structures, chunks of phrasal and clausal structural units In other words, loosely organized structures with conventions of “standard” language often being violated are much used and preferred by the speaker (Leech and Svartvik, 1975)

1.2.3.4 Lexical features

Colloquial language uses specific vocabulary, normally short and simple words of Germanic origin rather than of Latin origin Words with emotional meaning cannot be absent from this style, e.g vulgarisms, evaluating adjectives Interjections such as „oh‟, „yeah‟, „gee‟ are often much exploited In everyday language, the native tend to add discourse markers or fillers while they are speaking, for example „kind of‟, „sort of‟, „like‟, „you know‟, „well‟,

„actually‟ and parenthetical elements „indeed‟, „sure‟, „no doubt‟, „no way‟, „obviously‟,

„perhaps, „maybe‟ In most conversations, conjunction „and‟ is frequently used Hesitation markers are often used in colloquial English speech; for example: uhm, err, uh huh, etc Many

people think that hesitation markers show poor language skills, but they are actually the normal part of everyday conversation After all, hesitation markers serve an important function: they give a person time to think and hold the floor (Engkent L.P, 1986: 229) Conversational English speech is also marked by certain modifiers that are not found in other registers „Pretty‟ and „real‟ used as adverbs are two common examples Other modifiers, such

as „a lot‟ and „a bit‟ find their way into the speech of native speakers easily (Engkent L.P, 1986: 231)

In accordance with the already-mentioned division of language into literary and literary (colloquial), we may represent the whole of the word-stock of the English language as being divided into three main layers: literary, neutral and colloquial The literary and the colloquial layers contain a number of subgroups

non-The aspect of the literary layer is its markedly bookish character It is this aspect that makes this layer more or less stable The aspect of the colloquial layer is its lively spoken character It is this aspect that makes it unstable and fleeting The aspect of the neutral layer

is its universal character This layer is the most stable of all, because it is unrestricted in use,

it can be employed in all styles of language and in all spheres of human activity Both literary and colloquial words have a definite stylistic coloring The following synonyms illustrate the relations which exist between the three layers:

Colloquial words are always more emotionally colored than literary ones The neutral layer of words has no degree of emotiveness, nor have they any distinctions in the sphere of usage

Both literary and colloquial words have their upper and lower ranges The lower range

of literary words (common literary) approaches the neutral layer and has an obvious tendency

to pass into that layer The same may be said of the upper range of the colloquial layer (common colloquial) The blurred lines of demarcation show the process of interpenetration

of the stylistic layers Still the extremes remain antagonistic and therefore are very often used

to bring about a collision of manners of speech for special stylistic purposes

Example:

-"What the hell made you take on a job like that?"

-"A regrettable necessity for cash I can assure you it doesn't suit my temperament."

The colloquial vocabulary falls into the following groups:

1) common colloquial words;

2) slang (It is the most extended and vastly developed subgroup of non-standard colloquial layer of the vocabulary Besides separate words it includes also highly figurative phraseology Slang occurs mainly in dialogue and serves to create speech characteristics of personages.)

3) professional words and social jargons (They are used in emotive prose to depict the natural speech of a character within the framework of such device as speech-characterization They can show vocation, education, breeding, environment and even the psychology of a personage Slang, contrary to jargon, needs no translation, jargon is used to conceal or disguise something.)

4) dialectal words (They are introduced into the speech of personages to indicate their origin The number of dialectal words and their frequency also indicate the educational and cultural level of the speaker.)

5) vulgarisms (Vulgarisms are divided into expletives and swear-words used as general exclamations and obscene words They are emotionally strongly charged and can be used for speech-characterization.)

In terms of semantics, colloquial English vocabulary mostly carries figurative meaning

It is divided into some large subtypes as following idioms, multi-word verbs, and slang, which add to its variety

Idioms are phrases referring to metaphorical meaning – the meaning is not able to translate individually They are phrasal expressions which native speakers use all the time and are an integral part of conversational English but they are difficult to learn This means that communication with native speakers of English can be quite a confusing experience to non-

native speakers (Longman Dictionary of English Idioms, 1979) Some idioms can be grouped

together by theme or similar form Others can only be taught within context Teachers can always mention the idioms appropriate to a situation discussed in class We can introduce students to as many idioms as possible, but we should not require them to memorize long lists Students will remember idioms they find particularly useful or interesting For example,

be head over heels = to be in love with someone very much, behind the wheel = driving a vehicle, etc

In Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs, phrasal verbs are defined as „idiomatic

combinations of a verb and adverb or a verb and preposition‟ However, these combinations are considered multi-word verbs only when they behave as a single unit Multi-word verbs, including phrasal verbs, are very common, especially in spoken English because they tend to

be colloquial in tone and are a particular feature of informal spoken discourse (Anna Siyanova and Norbert Schmitt, 2007) Multi-word verbs are such verbs as „pick up‟, „turn on‟ or „get on with‟ For convenience, many people refer to all multi-word verbs as phrasal verbs These verbs consist of a basic verb + another word or words The other word(s) can be prepositions and/or adverbs The two or three words that make up multi-word verbs form a short „phrase‟ -

which is why these verbs are often all called „phrasal verbs‟ (Cambridge International

Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs) However, „the meaning of the combination manifestly can not

be predicted from the meanings of verb and particle in isolation‟ (Quirk, 1985)

As discussed in Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia, slang can be described as informal,

nonstandard words or phrases (lexical innovations) which tend to originate in subcultures within a society Slang often suggests that the person utilizing the words or phrases is familiar with the hearer's group or subgroup It can be considered a distinguishing factor of in-

group identity Microsoft Encarta states: „slang expressions often embody attitudes and

values of group members.‟ In order for an expression to become slang, it must be widely accepted and adopted by members of the subculture or group Slang has no societal boundaries or limitations as it can exist in all cultures and classes of society as well as in all languages For example, a blast, awesome, to die for, blockbuster, sellout, hangout, take a dip, what‟s up, pick up, cool, etc

According to Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Compass Dictionary (2007, p.10), „slang is very informal words and expressions that are more common in spoken language, especially used by a particular group of people Therefore, slang is impossible to teach systematically in the classroom By its very nature, it is transitory and linked to peer groups Probably the best way to deal with slang is simply to define and classify any terms that might come up in class from students‟ questions (Lucia P.E., 1986:231)

According to the Corpus Of Contemporary American English (COCA), the slang is often divided into subgroups based on the structure and the frequency of occurring in the native‟s speech, namely: high frequency lexical items (e.g cool - frequency: 4499, awesome - 960), low frequency lexical items (e.g bookworm - 18, hangout – 51), high frequency phrase (e.g what‟s up: 4458, pick up: 3750) and low frequency phrase (e.g take a dip: 5, get a load: 12)

1.2.4 Significance of colloquial English speech

If we adhere too closely to formal rules of grammar in an informal situation, we may come across as being stuffy and unnatural Because colloquial English is more emotionally colored than the other styles (Dickey, E & Chahoud, A., 2010), using colloquial language is one way

to help non-native speakers sound natural like the native speaker in informal settings Obviously, it is not necessary to learn all colloquial expressions, but learning some of these expressions and using them in your speech will make you sound more natural (Bradford B.P, 2010)

Moreover, teachers cannot assume that students will understand everyday speech without some explanation of its features, so teaching colloquial English is a decoding process, an explanation of the way the language works and what can be expected of it This instruction helps students improve comprehension of media (television, film, etc.) and increase their self-confidence when they engage in casual conversation with native speakers of the target language

Time after time, their use of language will become less formal in conversation and errors in registers can be minimized gradually (Engkent L.P., 1986: 233)

1.3 Colloquial English speech used by the native

In real everyday conversations, native speakers tend to use a huge variety of expressions which will not be found in standard grammar books For example, the expressions such as

„How‟s it going?‟, „How are things?‟, „What‟s up‟ and „How you doing?‟ which are frequently used in real talks all mean „How are you?‟ in standard grammar books For this fact, Chang H.W (2004, p.5) states that in speech “it is the non-standard or colloquial expressions that are more likely to be used by native speakers.”

Engkent L.P (1986, p.225) expresses the same idea in her study that „real people don‟t talk like books‟ but use mostly „the language of the streets‟ that consists of various colloquial

or informal expressions In fact, Amarapa Suksriroj (2009) explores that „informal sentence is the uniqueness of everyday English.‟

Moreover, according to Chang H.W (2004, p.5) in the native‟s speech, they do not follow the rules of grammar as carefully as they would in a formal address or a business letter Furthermore, „in native speakers‟ casual conversations, there are always some simplifications

in the speech, both in words and in sentences.‟

With regard to the context in the native country, colloquialisms are often used between friends, close colleagues and family members, but not in formal writing or speaking

Nowadays, colloquialisms appear frequently in native magazines and newspapers such as magazines with a teen audience or fashion magazines

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 2.1 Data collection

2.1.1 Participants

A random sample of 146 students (107 females and 39 males) majoring in English at Foreign Language Faculty – Thai Nguyen University participated in the study The participants are fourth-year students studying in five different classes of cohort 31 in the academic year 2010 – 2011 Their English is generally assessed to be at advanced level This general assessment is based on the requirements of their language skills in the fourth academic year when they have to achieve English oral/ written proficiency at advanced level (EOA/EWA) The assessment is also drawn through students‟ long duration of studying English Most of them have been exposed to English as a foreign language for more than 10 years on average According to the collected questionnaire, 15.8% of the students studied in Specialized High School and 84.2% studied in General High School

Table 1: Participants’ personal information Total

number

M: male; F: female;

G: General high school; S: Specialized high school

Another sample consisted of 2 Vietnamese teachers and 3 American teachers All of the American teachers used English as their first or native language The other Vietnamese teachers used English as their foreign one They were currently teaching spoken English to the EOA classes in Foreign Language Faculty – Thai Nguyen University This sample was selected to attend some semi-interviews with the researcher 80% of the teachers held an M.A degree They had the experience of teaching English for 5 years at minimum and for 16 years

at maximum in Vietnam More importantly, these teachers were both the consultant and the judge who helped the researcher make sure that all the definitions were recognized by native

English speakers

2.1.2 Instruments

The first instrument used in this study was questionnaires (see Appendix 1) administered

to students to gather information of the participants‟ language background, their perceptions

of classroom colloquial English speech, their attitudes toward this style and their competence

of speaking colloquial English

The questionnaire was composed of four parts with 30 questions and statements

Part I (items 1-8) asked for students‟ personal information (items 1-2) and their language background (items 3-8)

Part II (items 9-18) raised statements pertaining to students‟ perceptions of colloquial English speech In more details, this part aimed to specify students‟ scales of agreement and disagreement with the given statements that focused on students‟ perceptions of the context where colloquial English was used (items 9-10), of its significance (items 11-12) and its features (items 13-18) These statements consisted of both correct and incorrect concepts of colloquial English speech All of them were recognized by the chosen consultant group Part III (items 19-25) consisted of some statements to explore students‟ attitudes toward colloquial English usage in their speaking classes Similarly, this part asked students to specify their agreement or disagreement on the given statements bounded in their likes and dislikes of using this style in the classroom as in the previous part

Part IV (items 26 – 30) was an assessment scale on students‟ frequency of using colloquial English speech in the classroom This part consisted of 5 items Items 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 respectively assessed the frequency of the phonetic, morphological, syntactic and lexical features used in students‟ conversations in the light of exploring colloquial English speech competence of the fourth-year students

Several semi-interviews with FLF students, FLF teachers (both native and non-native teachers) were also conducted to find out their opinions towards colloquial English speech, the students‟ existing competence and some possible factors affecting students‟ competence

of using colloquial speech in the classroom with the help of field notes

2.1.3 Data collection procedures

At the onset of the term, the survey questionnaire for students was used Before the questionnaire was administered to participants, it was piloted with the native consultant group, who checked and recognized all the concepts related to colloquial English speech in the questionnaire With a careful consideration of the researcher, a modified version of the popular Likert-typed questionnaire was used Many scholars used a five-point response scale;

however, the version used in this study solicited only four responses: strongly disagree, disagree, agree and strongly agree The reason for this was that there was a tendency for many responses to regress to the central point (#3 – no opinion) in a five-point scale Moreover, the four-point scale facilitated a straightforward descriptive analysis of positive and negative responses The fourth part is the assessment based on the frequency scale ranging from

„almost always‟ to „never‟ Because there were not any standard criteria for assessing the competence of using colloquial speech, the researcher asked the teachers for extra help with this assessment based on their close observation and their experience of teaching spoken language

All participants were then given instructions in Vietnamese and a brief explanation about the questionnaire and the overall research of the study Participants were advised that they could ask the researcher if they did not know the meaning of a particular word or understand a particular concept, etc After that the questionnaire was completed by every participant On average it took them 20 minutes to fill out all of the information in the questionnaire

Based on the results collected from the assessment, the researcher carried out some interviews with the native teachers and non-native teachers to know what affected the students‟ competence of using colloquial English speech in their classroom The interviews were conducted either after the speaking lessons or at the break time The interviews were then transcribed into texts

semi-2.2 Data analysis and discussion

Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were exploited to analyze the data

2.2.1 Analysis of the questionnaire for students

Answers about students‟ personal information and language background collected in the first part were classified and counted and then converted into percentage, which provided the researcher with an overview of students‟ personal information and their language background

so that the researcher could assess whether or not the language background was related to the students‟ attitudes towards colloquial English speech

In the second and third parts, the students‟ answers about their perceptions and attitudes were coded into numbers in the scale from strong disagreement (1) to strong agreement (4) These codes were counted from the collected questionnaires and then converted to percentages rounded to the nearest tenth of a percentile The interpretation and discussion were further made to find out students‟ perceptions and attitudes toward colloquial English

In the fourth part, the researcher counted the ticks put in each frequency column (Almost always, often, sometimes, seldom and never) and then converted the number to percentages Further discussions were made with both teachers and students to clarify the results

2.2.1.1 Students’ language background

Interest is closely related to motivation, and motivation is one of the learning factors that influences and stimulates students to learn (Bloom, 1976) As a result, motivation leads people to learn effectively and successfully Chart 1 helps to explore students‟ motivation through their interest admission

Chart 1: The distribution of students’ high interest in

four language skills

It shows that reading skill receives the highest interest from 34.2% of the students Speaking is ranked second in the distribution of interest with 28.8% of the students‟ choice Next, the lower percentage (19.9%) is for writing skill Finally, just 17.1% of the surveyed students are interested in listening That means listening skill receives the lowest interest from the students From this table, it can be said that most FLF English major students have adequate motivation for the learning of speaking However, listening skill is considered to have a close relationship with colloquial English speech because it provides authentic input materials for students If it does not receive sufficient attention from students, it may cause difficulty in students‟ colloquial English speaking

In terms of their speaking capacity, the majority (76.7%) of them were confident to announce that their English speaking was good enough for the native to understand what they meant but just a few (2.7%) confirmed that their classroom speaking was as natural as the native‟s speech Surprisingly, only 7.5% of the students reported that they had heard of the

term “colloquial English” and no one said that they had been taught colloquial English when making conversations in the class

In can be concluded that colloquial English seems to be a new concept for many students Although students are rather interested in speaking and confident that they are quite good speakers, they still grasp their own doubt about the naturalness of their speech This may

be due to their lack of exposure to this style

2.2.1.2 The students’ perceptions of colloquial English speech

In the survey, there were two items (items 11-12) designed to find out the students‟ awareness of the context where colloquial English speech was used

Table 2: Participants’ perceptions of the context where colloquial English speech is used

11 Colloquial English speech is used only in casual

conversations and small talks

Similarly, the next statement given to check students‟ perceptions of the context where colloquial English was used did not reflect the truth Because it is the first form of language that a native child becomes familiar with, it is generally easier to understand than formal English (Leech and Svartvik, 1975) For this fact, it is the non-standard or colloquial expressions that are more likely to be used by native speakers With the same thought, the majority with 89.7% of FLF English major students rejected the statement that colloquial English speech was not much used by the native speaker Only 2.1% of the students strongly agreed and 8.2% agreed with the given statement, which was considered against the reality

In short, most of FLF English major students believed that colloquial English speech was used only in casual conversations and small talks produced massively by the native This perception was half-misleading

Table 3: Participants’ perceptions of the role of colloquial English speech

13 Colloquial English speech makes my English less

standard and therefore hardly helps me improve my

language skills

7.6% 25.3% 60.3% 6.8%

14 Colloquial English speech is likely to help me speak

For item 13, the role of the issue was strictly judged by 67.1% of the students who believed that their academic knowledge may be made less standard and that their language skills may

be reduced if they used colloquial English speech Only 7.6% - a small number of them strongly opposed to the testing idea and the rest 25.3% moderately disagreed with the idea that colloquial English speech may make their English less standard and therefore hardly helped them improve their language skill In fact, colloquial language is not necessarily regarded as non-standard language because it is publicly recognized and widely used Additionally, it is an important part that occurs regularly not only in everyday talks but also in different media such as television, newspapers and magazines Thus understanding colloquial English speech can totally help ESL/ EFL learners improve other language skills such as reading (newspapers, magazines ) or listening (film trailers, English songs ) Based on the above figures, it can be said that FLF students were taking misconception of the significance

of the issue

For what they perceived in item 14, 3.4% of the students strongly disagreed and 64.4% disagreed with the statement that colloquial English speech was likely to help them speak naturally like the native Contrastingly, just a small number of the surveyed students agreed and strongly agreed with that idea From these statistics, it can be said that English major students of FLF much doubted the role of speaking colloquial English Actually, the conception of “naturalness” was quite unfamiliar with these students because they just learnt how to gain fluency and accuracy in their speaking Thus the notion of natural speech with

colloquial English must be taken into account more to help students avoid the above misconception

Table 4: Participants’ perceptions of the specific features of colloquial English speech

15 The way to speak colloquial English is the same as to

16 In terms of phonetic and phonological features,

colloquial English speech is marked by careful

pronunciation without sound reduction and ellipses

54.1% 30.8% 9.6% 5.5%

17 In terms of morphological features, colloquial English

speech contains words spoken in their abbreviated

forms

0% 4.8% 74.7% 20.5%

18 Strictly organized syntax is the syntactic feature of

19 An important lexical feature of colloquial English

speech is a set of words with emotional meaning such

as interjections, vulgarism, evaluating adjectives

2.1% 67.8% 11.6% 18.5%

20 Speaking colloquial English means just using idioms,

When being asked to share their idea of the way to speak colloquial language in item 15, 100% of the students surveyed either fairly disagreed or strongly disagreed that colloquial English was spoken in the same way as to read out written English This thought was on the right track for the following reasons First, spoken and written English are of two kinds that carry different linguistic features Spoken English is transmitted by means of voice, sounds with stress, intonation, rhythm and hesitation or pauses while written English is transmitted

by graphic means – letters It is much governed by diction, grammar, structures, etc but not pronunciation Second, spoken language is a process in which speech is produced and received almost instantaneously (impromptu) and is an on-line process, the recipients can follow its production from the beginning to the end With written language more time is needed to produce a message It needs revising before being used in formal and official documents It's more standardized and more universal than spoken language For these main

reasons, the way to speak colloquial English must be different from the way to read out written English Luckily, no one had converse idea to this

In item 16, the given statement checked students‟ awareness of the phonetic and phonological feature of colloquial English speech Few students (15.1%) agreed and strongly agreed that the basic feature of colloquial English was marked by careful pronunciation without sound reduction and ellipses whereas the vast majority with 84.9% of the students showed a contrary idea This idea proved to be true when being referred to Lucia‟s realization

in her study (1986, p.228) that „informal English is sloppy and a victim of “lazy tongues”, so reduction of sounds and ellipsis are characteristic of informal spoken English Obviously, most of the students did not make the wrong choice of this common feature

As can be inferred from the result in item 17, nearly 100% also realized the commonly used forms of the colloquial English speech, namely abbreviated and contracted forms No one showed a strong opposition and only 4.8% disagreed with the given statement This perception is in accordance with what Weinstein (2001, p.15) says, „in speech, people take shortcuts which are shaped by the shortened and abbreviated words or phrases.‟ The main aim

of these forms is to take people less time to fully express their thoughts with the maintenance

of condensed information The fact showed that nearly all of the FLF students were aware of this feature

Next, item 18 checked how students perceived the syntactic feature of the colloquial English speech The survey result showed that half of the students recognized strictly organized syntax as the syntactic feature of colloquial English speech and the other half of them did not share the same idea In other words, the percentage of students who incorrectly perceived this feature was the same as the one who correctly perceived Actually, complex and strictly organized syntax is the main feature of formal written while the prominent feature

of colloquial English syntax is quite loosely organized Sometimes, it results in surface ungrammaticality in the language use but it is this grammatical incorrectness that is often made by many native speakers and that marks another feature of its syntax This feature can

be explained by the fact that native speakers tend to simplify the structures to make their speech easier for the hearer to get the information in a short time and it is in many cases used for ease of pronunciation However, many students have been strongly affected by the well-organized syntax of the academic language that they have been learning from the early age, so they tend to think that ungrammaticality can not be accepted Thus the feature of loosely organized syntax of colloquial English speech is not widely known by half of these students

Another important element of colloquial English speech that must be known by FLF English major students is lexical features checked in item 19 and 20 In item 19, 2.1% of the students strongly disagreed and 67.8% of the students moderately disagreed with the statement that a set of words with emotional meaning such as interjections, vulgarisms, evaluating adjectives is an important feature of colloquial English lexicology Only 11.6% of them agreed and 18.5% strongly agreed with that statement As a matter of fact, colloquial words are always more emotionally colored than literary ones (Dickey & Chahoud, 2010) The neutral layer of words has no degree of emotiveness, nor have they any distinctions in the sphere of usage like in the colloquial layer This is another misconception of most students when they think that colloquial English lexicology does not consist of emotional words, especially vulgarisms such as bitch or dam, etc because they are quite familiar with words containing neutral and literary meanings used in their textbooks but may be quite unfamiliar with the words with colloquial meaning and speakers‟ emotion Thus the majority of them did not gain the correct perception of this feature

The last item in the second part was to check how FLF students understood the way to speak colloquial language in terms of its vocabulary According to the figures collected from the questionnaire, just 4.1% and 5.5% of the students respectively strongly disagreed and moderately disagreed with the given idea Contrastingly, the vast number of students who accounted for 90.4% of the total number expressed their agreement that speaking colloquial English meant just using idioms, proverbs and slang However, they did not know that beside these main layers of its lexical system colloquial vocabulary consist of common colloquial words such as evaluating adjectives (fantastic, cool, etc) , interjections (oh, yeah, whoa, wow, etc), fillers (well, kind of, sort of, you know, etc), parenthetical elements (sure, bet, no doubt, etc.), jargonisms, dialects, and vulgarisms These types create the lexical variety and emotional shades to the colloquial language Yet, not many English major students of FLF have been informed of this feature As a result, most of them limited their knowledge boundary to such main layers as idioms, proverbs and slang This misconception may prevent students from wholly acquiring colloquial English speech in the classroom

In summary, in terms of students‟ perceptions of colloquial English speech elements, FLF English majors did not take misleading perceptions of its phonetic and morphological features However, it seemed that they were not fully aware of the syntactic and lexical feature of this style

Based on what revealed from the survey results, it can be concluded that English major students of FLF still had limited perceptions of colloquial English speech in terms of its using

contexts, roles and significance as well as its specific features of syntax and lexicology – two broad elements of colloquial English

2.2.1.3 The attitudes of students to the use of colloquial English in speaking classes

In part III, students were asked to specify their agreements and disagreements as in the previous part to help the researcher explore their attitudes to the use of classroom colloquial English with the help of the questionnaire and interview responses collected from the speaking classes Their attitudes were shown in the following table and were further discussed

in this part

Table 5: Students’ attitudes to the use of classroom colloquial English speech

21 I like this style of English, for it can help me

22 I want to learn this style of English in the class if

it helps me cope better with real life situations 0% 8.2% 6.8% 85%

23 I think it is necessary to learn colloquial English

speech so that non-native speakers can use it

appropriately in different speaking situations

10.3% 34.2% 52.7% 2.8%

24 It will be okay if colloquial English is taught in

the class but I don‟t think I will use it much in my

speaking lessons

7.5% 41.8% 2.7% 48%

25 It‟s no use learning colloquial English because I

don‟t have the intention of studying abroad 56.2% 32.9% 7.5% 3.4%

26 I am afraid that this style of English will affect my

27 I am not satisfied with the teaching in the

classroom It lacks much authenticity 0% 9.6% 46.6% 43.8%

As can be seen from the table above, more than half (58.2%) of the students said they liked colloquial English speech for the reason that they could be a good English speaker Another 14.1% firmly believed this was their main reason for their delighted attitude For them, becoming a good English speaker is a strong motivation to learn colloquial English