A study on the linguistic features of the discourse marker but and their vietnamese translation equivalents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY LE DUY HANH A STUDY ON THE LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF THE DISCOURSE MARKER “BUT” AND THEIR VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION EQUIVALENTS NG

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LE DUY HANH

A STUDY ON THE LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF THE

DISCOURSE MARKER “BUT” AND THEIR

VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION EQUIVALENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA DẤU HIỆU DIỄN NGÔN “BUT” VÀ NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG DỊCH

THUẬT CỦA CHÚNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that no part of the enclosed Master Thesis has been copied

or reproduced by me from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the thesis is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor

I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks to my lecturers whose profundity has influenced my way of thinking about doing researches I also want to express my appreciation to my colleagues and friends, who were always ready to support me when I had difficulties during the time of studying I also want to send

my special thanks to the staffs of Faculty of Post-graduate for the enthusiastic assistance

Last but not least, I would like to express a word of appreciation to my wife and family for their support, care and encouragement during my course of study To all of them I dedicate this work

Prep P: Present participle Phrase

PP P: Past participle Phrase

Table 3.4: “BUT” used for emphasis 57

Table 3.5: “BUT” used to show feelings or attitudes 64 Table 3.6: “BUT” used to confirm 66 Table 3.7: “BUT” used to draw the hearer’s attention 67 Table 3.8: Pragmatic Features of “BUT” and its Vietnamese equivalents 68 Table 3.9: Syntactic Functions of “ BUT” and Its Vietnamese equivalents 71 Table 3.10: Description Similarities and Differencies 72

of the discourse marker “BUT” in English and its Vietnamese equivalents

TABLE OF CONTENT

Declaration i

Acknowledgement ii

List of abbreviations iii

List of tables iv

Table of content v

Part I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and Objectives 3

3 Research questions 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 4

6 Design of the study 4

Part II: DEVELOPMENT 5

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background 5 1.1 Literature Review 5

1.1.1 Review of Previous Studies Related to the Research Topic 13

1.1.2 Review of Previous Studies Related to the Research Topic in Viet Nam 13

1.2 Theoretical background 14

1.2.1 Syntactic Features 14

1.2.1.1 Word classes 14

1.2.1.2 The Properties of Sentence Structure 15

1.2.2 Semantic Features 15

1.2.2.1 Meaning 16

1.2.2.2 Word meaning 16

1.2.2.2.1 Grammatical meaning 17

1.2.2.2.2 Lexical meaning 17

1.2.2.3 Phrase and Sentence Meaning 17

1.2.3 Pragmatic Features 18

1.2.3.1 Speech Acts Theory 18

3.1.2.9 Pre-modifying an imperative Clause 39 3.1.2.10 Pre-modifying a declarative phrase 39 3.1.2.11 Pre-modifying an interogative Phrase 39 3.1.2.12 Pre-modifying a finite verb phrase 39 3.2 Semantics features of “BUT” and Its Vietnamese translation Equivalents 43 3.2.1 “BUT” used as a conjuction 43 3.2.1.1 “BUT” used as “On the contrary, Yet” 43 3.2.1.2 “BUT” used as “ Otherwise than” 44 3.2.1.3 “BUT” used as “Unless, If not” 45 3.2.1.4 “BUT” used as “However,Nethertheless” 45 3.2.1.5 “BUT” used as “Although, Though, Even Though” 46 3.2.1.6 “BUT” used as “So, Therefore” 47 3.2.1.7 “BUT” used as “Whether” 48 3.2.2 “BUT” used a preposition 48 3.2.2.1 “BUT” used as “Except, With the exception of” 48 3.2.3 “ BUT” used as an adverb 49

3.3 Pragmatic features of “BUT” and Its Vietnamese Equivalents 52 3.3.1 “BUT” used to emphasize 52 3.3.1.1 An Exception from the point of view of the speaker 52

3.3.3.1 To confirm the truth of a situation 63 3.3.3.2 To confirm an obvious reality 63 3.3.4 “BUT” used to draw the hear’s attention 64 3.4 Similarities and Differences between “BUT” in English and their 65 Vietnamese translation equivalents

3.4.1 Similarities and Differences in Syntactic Features of "BUT" in 65 English and Vietnamese

3.4.1.1.Similarities and differencies in the syntactic positions of “BUT” 65

in English and Vietnamese

3.4.1.2 Similarities and differencies in the syntactic functions of “BUT” 65

in English and Vietnamese

3.4.2 Similarities and Differences in Semantic Features of "BUT" 67

in English and Vietnamese

3.4.3 Similarities and Differences in Pragmatic Features of "BUT" 67

in English and Vietnamese

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

English has played a vital role in society and made considerable contribution to education, culture, science and technology The number of people learning English for various purposes (such as for job, business, traveling…) is continually on the increase everyday The development of new technology has rapidly leaded to the worldwide use of English and it seems that the future of English as an international language is undoubtedly evident and this is an irresistible trend In addition, as a result of rapid globalization and increasing international trade, much more demand has been made for people who can communicate orally in English Therefore, to understand any languages more deeply and clearly, language learners should know not only people, customs, cultures, but also the theory of its language to get a thorough insight into the language Especially, in the trend towards internationalization, English has had worldwide recognition for ages and become both the most popular language and an important tool in international communication and integration

Generally, translation is a process during which a message expressed in a particular source language is linguistically transformed into the target language Consequently translators may be seen as mediators responsible for the adequate rendering of the message In order to convey the intended meaning and associated implications translators must first of all correctly interpret the source text Discourse markers best testify that every little and seemingly insignificant detail must be given

an adequate treatment These innocent minor words familiar to everyone, but whose presence often remains imperceptible, turn out to be capable of expressing a variety of important conversational functions and guide the collocutor towards the intended interpretation of an utterance When employed in a literary work they acquire some additional functions, i.e they may serve as stylistic devices subtly alluding to the inner state of the characters, contributing to their more vivid portrayal or to the depiction of emotional nuances associated with a particular situation Discourse markers, in

Green’s words, “may speak volumes about the person who uses them” (Green, 1990)

Every language has developed distinctive conventions for using discourse markers Consequently, they are seldom susceptible to a straightforward translation The task of finding an appropriate equivalent equally subtly implying the shades of meaning encoded in the source text is always a delicate subject for the translator In translation of discourse markers the information on discourse function is the most significant determinant in choosing the proper treatment of the marker: either insertion

of a corresponding target language marker, modifying the syntactic structure of the target sentence or omission of the marker

It is frankly said that many learners have difficulties in understanding linguistic features as in term of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic, and translating discourse markers In English Language , “BUT” is considered as a discourse marker and

“BUT”- it seems to be appeared in various texts and discourses It has been evident that English learners have found difficulties in employing “BUT” correctly and properly because “BUT” expresses a variety of subtly different meanings and its use is subject to constraints which do not apply to other words with similar meaning I myself have difficulties in acquiring and translating discourse markers and I find it interesting to do research on this problem For these above reasons, the paper entitled

“A study on the linguistic features of the discourse marker “BUT” and their Vietnamese translation equivalents” is intended to help the learners of English overcome difficulties caused by discourse marker “BUT” when they translate it and also help them to use this word effectively in daily communication

2 Aims and Objectives of the study

2.1 Aims

The study aims at investigating the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features

of the discourse marker "BUT" and its Vietnamese translation equivalents in order to gain a better insight into this discourse marker in the two languages

2.2 Objectives

This study is intended to:

- Identify and describe syntactic, semantic, pragmatic features of the word

"BUT" in contextual situations;

- Discover some of its possible translation equivalents in Vietnamese;

- Point out the similarities and differences of "BUT" and its Vietnamese

equivalents in terms of syntax, semantics and pragmatics;

- Put forward some practical implications in the language classroom and in the area of translation

3 Research questions

To achieve the aims of the study, the thesis focuses on the following questions:

1 What are the syntactic features of "BUT" in English and its Vietnamese translation equivalents?

2 What are the semantic features of "BUT" in English and its Vietnamese translation equivalents?

3 What are the pragmatic features of "BUT" in English and its Vietnamese translation equivalents?

4 Scope of the study

This study is restricted to the syntactic, semantic, pragmatic features of the discourse marker "BUT" in discourse and in the interaction between this item and the surrounding elements The focus is on the discourse marker "BUT" in English with reference to its counterpart in the Vietnamese translations

5 Methods of the study

This is a comparative study of the discourse marker “BUT” in English and Vietnamese The contrastive analysis of the discourse maker "BUT" and the Vietnamese translation equivalents is based on the description of its meanings in terms

of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features

For this study, a parallel corpus is compiled, with original English texts and

their translations in Vietnamese Data analysis methods are qualitative and quantitative approaches to carry out an investigation into the discourse marker “ BUT ” : as seen in contemporary translated works from English into Vietnamese

6 Design of the study

The thesis is composed of three main parts as follows:

Part I: Introduction (Background of the research)

1 Rationale of the study

2 Aims and objectives of the study

3 Research questions

4 Scope of the study

5 Methods of the study

6 Design of the study

Part II: Development

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background

Chapter 2: Methodology

Chapter 3 : Findings and Discussions

Part III : Conclusion

1 Recapitulation

2 Limitations of the study

3 Suggestions for a further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

Discourse markers are mostly words with little or no lexical meaning that

appear on the periphery of clause structure “They can occur as lexical equivalents or complements of more elusive gestural or intonational cues that subtly guide and modulate the participant’s understanding, or they can saliently signal relations

markers are no longer seen as extra or accessory to the utterance; conversely, it is acknowledged that they perform a variety of functions, i.e contribute to the coherence

of an utterance, indicate pauses, transitions, topic shifts, etc.; they are used for gap filling, which in turn indicates the idea of uncertainty, unexpected or unpleasant response Discourse markers convey extra-linguistic information, i.e they signify about speaker’s beliefs, emotional state, and attitude towards the referenced information Although the status of these particles has significantly altered during those years, some of their former mysteriousness seems to remain as it is still disputable by what title they should be named and what linguistic units are attributable

to this group

1.1.1 Review of Previous Studies Related to the Research Topic in the world

Research on discourse markers has expanded continually throughout the 1980s and 1990s Within pragmatics and discourse analysis research two basic theoretical orientations within which discourse markers are analyzed stand out: discourse-coherence approach (Schiffrin 1987, Redeker 1990, 1991, 2005; Fraser 1993, 1996) and relevance-theory approach (Blakemore ,2002; Andersen, 2001)

The first and the most detailed effort regarding DMs is that reported in Schiffrin (1987), who is concerned with elements which mark "sequentially-dependent units of discourse" She labels them 'discourse markers' and analyzes in detail the expressions

and, because, but, I mean, now, oh, or, so, then, well, and you know as they occur in

unstructured interview conversations Examining only 11 expressions, she realized that her focus is somewhat narrow and suggests a number of other cases which bear

consideration as DMs: perception verbs such as see, look, and listen, deictic such as here and there, interjections such as gosh and boy, meta-talk such as this is the point and what I mean is, and quantifier phrases such as anyway, anyhow, and whatever

(Schiffrin,1987)

Another early reference to DMs as a linguistic entity was made by Labov and

Fanshel (1977) in discussing a question by Rhoda that began with well They wrote:

"As a discourse marker, well refers backwards to some topic that is already shared

knowledge among participants When well is the first element in a discourse or a topic, this reference is necessarily to an unstated topic of joint concern." Only a few other comments were mentioned in passing about the topic In his 1983 book entitled

although he did not give it a name He suggested that " there are many words and phrases in English, and no doubt most languages that indicate the relationship between

an utterance and the prior discourse Examples are utterance-initial usages of but, therefore, in conclusion, to the contrary, still, however, anyway, well, besides,

have at least a component of meaning that resists truth-conditional treatment what they seem to do is indicate, often in very complex ways, just how the utterance that contains them is a response to, or a continuation of, some portion of the prior discourse." (Levinson, 1983)

There are also four salient research efforts which, taken together, capture the issues surrounding DMs Each research effort started in the mid-1980s, and apparently each researcher was unaware of the other efforts, at least in the initial stages Redeker (1991, but see also 1990) provides a critique of Schiffrin (1987) and proposes several significant revisions She writes approvingly of the notion of core meaning for DMs

the marker's intrinsic contribution to the semantic representation that will constrain

the definition of DMs has not been adequately addressed and suggests that "what is needed is a clearer definition of the component of discourse coherence and a broader framework that embraces all connective expressions and is not restricted to an

operator is " a word or phrase that is uttered with the primary function of bringing

to the listener's attention a particular kind of linkage of the upcoming utterance with the immediate discourse context, An utterance in this definition is an intonationally

some examples of what are not DMs: clausal indicators of discourse structure (for example, let me tell you a story, as I said before, since this I so); deictic expressions as

far as they are not used anaphorically (for example, now, here, today); anaphoric

pronouns and noun phrases; and any expressions whose scope does not exhaust the utterance (Redeker ,1991)

The second approach is that of Fraster, who approached DMs from solely a grammatical-pragmatic perspective In Fraser (1987), he wrote about a group of

expressions which he called "pragmatic formatives" (now called "pragmatic markers"

- cf Fraser, 1996) These pragmatic markers, usually lexical expressions, do not contribute to the propositional content of the sentence but signal different types of messages His third type of pragmatic formative, described in the 1987 paper as

"commentary pragmatic markers", includes what he calls DMs In later works (Fraser,

1988, 1990, 1993) he focused on what DMs are and what their grammatical status is Specifically, he characterized a DM as a linguistic expression only (in contrast to Schiffrin, who permits non-verbal DMs) which: (i) has a core meaning which can be enriched by the context; and (ii) signals the relationship that the speaker intends between the utterance the DM introduces and the foregoing utterance (rather than only illuminating the relationship, as Schiffrin suggests)

The third theoretical perspective is provided by Blakemore (1987, 1992), who works within the Relevance Theory framework (cf Sperber and Wilson, 1986) She treats DMs as a type of Gricean conventional implicature, but rejects his analysis o a higher order speech act (Grice, 1989; Blakemore, 1992), and focuses on how DMs

(she calls them "discourse connectives") impose constraints on implicatures

Blakemore proposes that DMs do not have a representational meaning the way lexical expressions like boy and hypothesis do, but have only a procedural meaning which consists of instructions about how to manipulate the conceptual representation of the utterance (cf Blakemore, 1987, 1992) Blakemore maintains that DMs should be analyzed as linguistically specified constraints on contexts and suggests that there are

at least four ways in which information conveyed by an utterance can be relevant

(Blakemore ,1992): "It may allow the derivation of a contextual implication (e.g., so,

evidence for it (e.g after all, moreover, furthermore); It may contradict as existing assumption (e.g however, still nevertheless, but) It may specify the role of the utterance in the discourse (e.g., anyway, incidentally, by the way, finally)."

A fourth approach to the study of DMs is provided by researchers working in the field of discourse coherence Beginning with Rhetorical Structure Theory proposed

by Mann and Thompson (1987, 1988), and including work by Hobbs (1985), Sanders

et al (1992), Knott and Dale (1994), and Hovy (1994), among others, researchers have

addressed the nature of relations between the sentences of a text such that "the content

of one sentence might provide elaboration, circumstances, or explanation for the

resulted in various accounts of discourse coherence, where the discourse relations are sometimes made explicit by the use of discourse markers (they call them 'cue phrases') This approach of developing the relationship as a tool for text analysis is, in

a sense, opposite to the other three approaches, where a linguistic entity, discourse markers, was the primary unit of study, and their effect on the interpretation of

In the case of “BUT”, it would mean that the DM function would not bear any

necessary connection to the adversative meaning of the adverbial conjunct DMs orient listeners, but they do not create meaning; therefore, DMs can be deleted with no loss

of meaning, though the force of the utterance will be less clear In realizing sequentially determined functions obviously distinct from the meanings of their homophonous lexical counterparts, as traditionally described, narrative DMs provide particularly clear evidence of an independent DM function

The discourse marker BUT has been widely studied in the literature - Lakoff

(1971), Anscombre & Ducrot (1977), Horn (1989), Bell (1998), Blakemore (1987,

1989, 2002) and Iten (2005) These theorists argue that BUT encodes several meanings Lakoff (1971) and Blakemore (1987, 2002) claim that BUT encodes a

denial of- expectation meaning between the two conjuncts it links

Considering the following example:

(1) John is a Republican but he is honest

According to Lakoff, but in this example involves an implication relation

between two conjuncts based on the suggestion that Republicans are not normally

honest The idea is that the first conjunct (John is Republican) implies an assumption

which is contradicted by the second conjuncts (he is honest) In other words, on the basis of the first conjunct, the hearer might be lead to expect something which is then denied

Lakoff (1971) points out that there is another use of but where the relation

between the two conjuncts is not of a denial of expectation or implication but rather one of a simple contrast:

(2) Peter is rich but John is poor

As can be noticed, but in the above utterance simply encodes a contrastive

relationship between the states of affairs, represented in each clause

Anscombre & Ducrot (1977) claim that but can have a yet further meaning

which is different from the first two discussed above Consider the following scenario

where both A and B attending a Christmas party; A comments on the person who sees for the first time with B

(3) a Oh! Your brother looks exactly like you

The use of but in (3b) does not involve contradiction It is not the case that the

first conjunct (he is not my brother) implies the negation of the second conjunct or

vice versa This use of but is called the ‘correction’ use, where the clause introduced

by but provides a correct replacement for the assumption given in the first clause

There is a fourth use of but, which is called by Bell (1998: 527) the ‘discourse’

or ‘sequential’ but Usually, but in this case has an utterance-initial use Consider the

following example:

(4) a I am very happy; we’ve had a very nice dinner today

Bell claims that this use of but signals a return to the main topic of discourse

He describes the but-clause as a cancelling clause which cancels what comes before in

discourse

Since but has been seen as encoding a variety of meanings, some theorists

including Anscombre & Ducrot (1977), Abraham (1979) argue that it is linguistically

ambiguous, i.e there is more than one lexical but in English Horn (1989) supports this argument by referring to cross-linguistic data which show that but in English could be

translated to different lexical items in other languages

As a contrastive adverbial conjunct in the terminology of Quirk et al (1985) or

an ‘adversative conjunctive element’ in that of Halliday and Hasan (1976), but has a

range of meanings variously described as adversative or antithetic, as in (5),

(5) Judy expected to win gold, but got only silver

(6) She had little chance of winning, but it was worth a try

(7) Judy didn’t exactly fall down, but she tripped

In its clear DM functions, but signals contrast or a ‘denial of expectations’ (Foolen, 1991) The contrast may be lexically expressed, as in (9), or it may be inferred from the content of the preceding discourse, as in (10)

(9) Larry is big But his daughter is small

(10) Larry is big But he’s not good at basketball

Dascal and Katriel(1977) and Katriel and Dascal (1984) describe the function of

but as cancelling some level of meaning in the foregoing utterance As Bell (1998)

shows, the levels of meaning may be ideational, rhetorical or sequential; indeed, but

may cancel meaning in the previous utterance on more than one of these levels at once

Thus, the function of but in the passage below could arguably be both ideational and

rhetorical: ideational in shifting from Astrid to her husband Keith, and rhetorical in switching the topic of conversation from greeting Astrid to seeing Keith waiting tables

Brianne : Did Astrid say hi to you or anything like that?

Addie : No, I kind of avoided her and she didn’t see me But he was there, Keith was serving

Halliday and Hasan (1976) further identify an ‘internal’ adversative meaning

‘contrary to expectation’ directed at the ongoing communication process Similar is Schiffrin’s (1987) description of a ‘speaker-return’ from secondary to primary information, or alternatively to cancel the topic domain of the foregoing discourse in

favor of a new perspective Bell (1998) calls this function of but sequentially

contrastive, saying that it cancels expectations about what should come next in the

discourse In this sequential function, but marks off a digression or other subordinate

section of a discourse and signals a return to its main topic or point, as in the following example from Bell (1998)

Suddenly, his telephone is ringing with producers interested in his next project But

The function of but to signal a shift in voice here and to segue into a new perspective is similar to the particularly narrative functions I will identify for but

below In both cases, but as a DM is keyed to the organization of the ongoing

discourse

Now, certainly a formulation of the main point or summary of a foregoing narrative cannot express contrast or cancellation in any normal sense Halliday and Hasan (1976) could perhaps identify a meaning ‘contrary to expectation’ at the particular point reached in the text, though a coda is precisely what we should expect

according to Labov and Waletzky Schiffrin (1987) might argue that this use of but

presents a functional contrast and “creates an anaphoric tie” (Schiffrin ,1987) to an earlier point in the text Similarly, Bell (1998) might say, following Dascal and Katriel

(1977) and Katriel and Dascal (1984), that but picks out certain features of the

foregoing discourse for cancellation, perhaps the presupposition that the teller would prefer to detail the local effects rather than returning to the main point However, it seems again that the correct description must involve reference to the story-in-progress

and directedness toward its organization In particular, but marks the significance

statement which serves as the final step in the overall structure of the story If one felt the description should make reference to the notion of contrast, as above, one could

again appeal to the fact that the use of but in this way conveys the contrastive

information that the complicating action in the body of the narrative here gives way to the coda or final expression of the point of the story

1.1.2 Review of Previous Studies Related to the Research Topic in Viet Nam

In Viet Nam, a number of linguistics who make significant contributions to the study of discourse analysis include Diep Quang Ban (1998), Tran Ngoc Them (1999), Nguyen Thi Viet Thanh ( 1999), among many others The research area shared among these authors is the study of DMs as cohesive devices in texts and utterances in Vietnamese language

Approaching the same issue, Ngo Huu Hoang ( 2001,2002,2010) goes further

by conducting contrastive discourse analysis with clear evidence in both English and Vietnamese Particularly, in one of his articles, Ngo Huu Hoang (2001) classified DMs

Besides these authors, Vo Thi Thao Ly,in her thesis “ A Study on coordinators and, but, or as cohesive devices ”(Thao Ly, 1999) she focused on the implication of but as

“contrast”; “concession”; and “ condition” The discourse marker But has three

implications but their frequencies are different

I suggest that we need more research on the local determination of DM functions in different narrative genres in different linguistic communities We should expect to find not only sets of lexical items but also various other linguistic devices acting as DMs And we should bear in mind that DMs serve not only to signal tellers’ intentions about particular utterances and overall organization, but also as cues to audience expectations about the narrative in progress From the above review on the

studies of But, I suggested on the complementation of the dissertation tiltled “ A study

on the linguistic features of the discourse marker BUT and their Vietnamese translation equivalents”

1.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In the scope of this research, the discourse marker “BUT” will be controlled under studying in terms of linguistic characteristics, specifically in terms of Syntac, Semantics and Pragmatics For the reason, the theoretical background concerning the research will be put in consideration

1.2.1 Syntactic Features

According to To Minh Thanh( To Minh Thanh, 2005):

Syntax is “ a term used for the study of the rules governing the way words are

Syntax is “ The study of how word combined to form sentences and the rules which

As defined by Nguyen Hoa Lac: “ Syntax is a description of the ways words are put

Lac, 2004)

Syntax, as Geogre Yule stated “ is the study of the relationships between linguistic

( Geogre Yule, 1996)

Knowing a language also means being able to put words together to form phrases and sentences that express our express The part of grammar that concerns the structure of

phrases and sentences is called syntax Part of the meaning of a sentence meaning is

more than the sum of the meanings of words

Word classes are divided into board groups:

- Lexical Categories(Open classes) are : noun, verb, adjective, preposition,

which new words may be readily added

- Non- lexical Categories – Function Categories ( Close Classes) are:

meanings that they are harder to define and paraphrase than of lexical categories

1.2.1.2 The Properties of Sentence Structure

To understand the internal organization of sentences and the distribution of the units forming them, we must consider the three major properties sentence structure

- Linearity: Sentences are produced and received in a linear sequence On the other hand, words are spoken(or written) and heard (or read) in a time sequence from early to later A sequence of words of a sentence must be in a string to ensure meanings

- Hierarchy: Sentences are hierarchically structured, that is, they are not simply sequences of individual words but are made up of word groupings, which themselves

- Categoriality: Sentences are made up of parts which belong to a set of distinct categories, each with its special characteristics

1.2.2 Semantic Features

In fact, learning a language includes ‘agreed – upon’ meanings of certain strings of sounds and learning how to comnine these meaningful units into larger units that also convey meaning

The entire speaker share the basic vocabulary: the sounds and meanings of words All speakers know how to combine words to produce phrase and sentence meaning The

study of words, phrases, and sentences is called semantics

Roman Jakobson stated: "Language without meaning is meaningless"

(Jakobson, 1993)

Semantics as Geogre Yule “ is the study of the relationships between linguistic

As summarized by Geogre Yule (1996), there are seven kinds of maning:

- Conceptual meaning or sense: Logical, cognitive, or denotative content

- Connotative meaning: What is communicated by virtue of what language refers to?

- Stylistic meaning: What is communicated of the social circumstances of language use?

- Affective meaning : What is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speakers/writers”

- Reflected meaning: What is communicated of through association with another sense

of the same expression?

- Collocative meaning: What is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another of another word?

- Thematic meaning: What is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis

1.2.2.2 Word Meaning

1.2.2.2.1 Grammatical meaning

Lyons (1977)points out that “Different forms of the same lexeme will generally, though not necessarily, differ in meaning: they will differ in respect of their grammatical meaning.”

meaning

a Denotative meaning or Denotation

As defined in the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (2002), denotation is a part of the meaning of a word or phrase that relates

it to phenomena in the real world or in a fictional or possible world

b Connotative meaning or Connotation

Amvela and Jackson (2000) point out that “connotations constitute additional properties of lexemes, e.g poetic, slang, baby language, biblical, casual, formal, humorous, legal, literary, rhetorical.”

c Paraphrases

According to To Minh Thanh “ Sentences are paraphrases if they have the same meanings – except possibly for minor differences in emphases” ( To Minh Thanh,2007)

There are not only words that sound same but have the different meaning; there are also words that sound different but have the same or nearly the same meaning

Such words are called Synonyms It has been stated that there are no perfect

synonyms - That is, no words ever have exactly the same meaning

Often a word with several meanings , called a polysemous word, will share one

of its meanings with other words

1.2.2.3 Phrase and Sentence Meaning

Words and morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in language We communicate in phrases and sentences which also have meaning

- Sense and Reference

According to Fromkin, V and Rodman, R proposed that the meaning of an expression

be called sense, and if the expression refers to something, it has reference For

example The Pacific Ocean has the semantic properties of Ocean

- Semantic Relations

Have a look at two examples :

In (11) the girl is called agent of the action finding, the NP a red brick is the patient of the action In(12) the red brick is the patient and on the wall is the location The semantic relationship that we have called as above patient, agent and location are among the semantic relations of the verb Other semantic relations are goal, where the

action is directed, source, where the action originated, and instrument, an object used

to accomplish the action Compare (11) and (12), we show that the same noun takes different semantic role depending on the sentence

1.2.3 Pragmatic Features

Pragmatic has to do with people's use of language in contexts, so it is a part of

what we have been calling linguistic performance

A ccording to George Yule (1996), pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning, contextual meaning, how more gets communicated than is said, the expression of

relative distance In conclusion, pragmatics is the study of the relationship between linguistic forms and the users of those forms

1.2.3.1 Speech Acts Theory

According to Searle (1964), language is part of theory of action, and speech act are those verbal acts such as promising, threatening and requesting that one perform in speaking

George Yule (1996) defines that actions performed via utterance are generally speech acts and in English, are commonly given more specific labels such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise or request

Indeed, when expressing themselves, people do not only produce utterance containing grammatical structure and lexical factors but also perform actions through these utterances

On any occasion, according to Austin the action performed by producing an utterance will consists of three related acts: Locutionay act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act (Austin, 1962)

- Locutionary act is the physical act of producing a well - formed and meaningful utterance For example, if we make a simple sentence like “I want to have

a cup of coffee.” We are likely to produce a locutionary act

- Illocutionary act is the force or intention of the speaker or writer behind the words Take the pervious sentence as an example We do not only simply say that sentence but also intend to require the listener to bring us a cup of coffee The illocutionary act is performed via the communicative force of an utterance We might utter to make a statement, an offer and an explanations or for some other communicative purpose This is generally known as the illocutionary force

- Perlocutionary act is the effect of the illocution on the hearer or the reader It also includes the change to state of mind, knowledge or attitude of the hearer or the

reader For the sentence “I want to have a cup of tea” we wish the act of bringing a cup

of coffee to be done or the perlocutionay force is performed

In all language, there are many words and expressions whosw references rely entirely on the circumstances and can only be understood in light of these circumstances This aspect is called deixis They can be employed to indicate people via person deixis “ me, you, them” or location via spatial deixis “here, there”, or time via temporal deixis “now, then” (Yule.G, 1996)

1.2.3.2 Discourse Markers

“Discourse markers” refer to minor words used by a speaker to comment upon

the discourse plan and goals “They can occur as lexical equivalents or complements of more elusive gestural or intonational cues that subtly guide and modulate the participant’s understanding, or they can saliently signal relations between utterances

lexical items, ranging from those widely accepted as discourse markers like the

coordinate conjunctions and, or, but to the less accepted interjections, well, oh, verbs,

Although discourse markers have been analyzed and broadly discussed by many linguists (Schiffrin 1987, Blakemore 2002, Redeker 1990, 1991, 2005, Fraser

1993, 1996, Knott 1996, Knott and Sanders 1998, Andersen 2001, etc.) and a number

of corpus-based studies have contributed to a better understanding of the phenomenon,

it is still disputable by what title they should be named and what linguistic units are attributable to this category Besides the term “discourse markers”, a variety of other expressions are used: discourse particles, discourse connectives, discourse operators, pragmatic markers, pragmatic particles, cue words/phrases and some other Along with the terms, there is a range of definitions and under each of them a different set of discourse markers is subsumed For the present, there is no complete consensus about the status of these linguistic units We will, therefore, review the basic theoretical orientations within which discourse markers are analyzed, i.e discourse-coherence approach and relevance-theory approach

So far I have reviewed the basic theoretical orientations within which discourse markers are analyzed The Relevance-theory framework provides a different

perspective on the presence of markers in discourse This framework approaches linguistic items under discussion as signals that facilitate the interpretation of a given message or sequence of utterances.Rather than attempting to identify coherence relations, hearers are seen as attempting to determine how an utterance achieves relevance This approach puts more weight on the cognitive aspect of discourse markers than the former one From above, I take relevance theoretic view of discourse markers and their functions and features as a basis of the research

1.2.3.3 Relevance - Theory Approach

Relevance Theory has originally been developed by Sperber & Wilson (1995) This account of communication starts from the assumption that every utterance has a number of different interpretations, each compatible with its linguistic form Hearers interpreting discourse are seen as trying to identify among the set of possible

interpretations the one that best satisfies a certain expectation of relevance Relevance

is defined as a balance between the cognitive gains obtained in processing an utterance and the effort invested in deriving those effects, i.e cognitive processes aim at achieving the greatest possible effects with the smallest processing effort Sperber & Wilson (1995) argue that each utterance comes backed by a guarantee of its own

a) it achieves sufficient cognitive effects to be worth the hearer’s processing efforts b) it is the most relevant one the speaker could have produced given his/her abilities and preferences

In this account of communication, interpretation of utterances is not merely a matter of linguistic decoding but relies heavily on inference Sperber & Wilson (1995) argue that “the linguistically encoded properties of utterances are never enough on their own for the identification of the speaker’s intended message There is inevitably a gap between what the grammar delivers – the linguistically determined semantic representation – and the interpretation intended And this gap is filled by pragmatically

processes: decoding and inference The decoding process gives the hearer an

incomplete conceptual representation, which the hearer must inferentially enrich The inferential process is the process of hypothesis formation and confirmation driven by

the communicative principle of relevance - “every act of ostensive communication

communicates a presumption of its optimal relevance” (Sperber & Wilson 1995,cited from Blakemore, 2002)

Finally, relevance theory makes an important distinction between two types of

encoded meaning, i.e concepts and procedures Concepts act as constituents of the

propositional meaning of the utterance Procedures encode interpretational procedures These forms do not contribute directly to the propositional meaning of an utterance, but provide constraints on the interpretation process

The conceptual/procedural distinction was originally proposed and developed

by Blakemore (1987) According to her, discourse markers, or connectives as she calls

them, do not contribute to the truth-conditional content of an utterance, but constrain the search for relevance by indicating the intended types of context and cognitive effects Blakemore (1992) classifies discourse markers following the three conditions under which a hearer interprets information conveyed by the utterance, i.e yields contextual effects: (1) derivations of contextual implications; (2) strengthening of an existing assumption; and (3) contradiction of an existing assumption ( Blakemore, 2002).Following this analysis, Blakemore (2002) concludes that the notion of procedural meaning based on the three cognitive effects of contextual implication is not broad enough to capture all the ways in which linguistic expressions and structures can encode information about the computations involved in the interpretation of the utterances that contain them

Andersen (2001) is another researcher who has analyzed discourse markers

within relevance-theory approach He refers to these linguistic units as pragmatic

have little lexical import but serve significant pragmatic functions in conversation” (Andersen, 2001) As Andersen notes, the view that utterance interpretation is

governed by the principle of relevance is fundamental to his account of discourse markers In agreement with Blakemore, he sees discourse markers as ‘helpers’ that tell the hearer how an utterance is to be understood and help him to arrive at the intended explicatures and implicatures of the utterance

The fact that some markers may encode concepts and thus contribute to the propositional meaning of an utterance can be explained, according to Andersen (2001),

by the process of grammaticalisation - “a subclass of linguistic developmental

processes whereby linguistic units are recruited into grammar” From the point of view of grammaticalisation, discourse markers are seen as expressions which, through repetitative use and routinisation, have developed non-propositional meanings of a more abstract nature than their original lexical meanings, i.e they follow a cline from propositional to textual and expressive meanings An important feature of grammaticalisation is the possibility for the original forms to coexist with the new ones Thus, linguistic items under discussion in some utterances may encode conceptual meaning, while in others - procedural meaning

Andersen (2001), in addition to the above presented statements, proposes a functionally based analytical model of discourse markers He attempts to subdivide the plethora of functions discourse markers may perform into three broad categories:

proposition/assumption), and interactional function (oriented towards the hearer and

may be used to engage, involve or elicit a response from him) He explores these three different functional domains in connection with the different cognitive effects that markers may have in utterance interpretation

1.2.3.4 Politeness Theory

In general, politeness means showing consideration to others A polite person is purposed to make others feel good Being linguistically politeness requires people to speak appropriately according to the kind of relationship between them

The notion of politeness has been largely discussed Lakoff sees politeness as

“a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing

2001) This author connected politeness with Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP), which is based on the assumption that people are cooperative and aim to be as informative as possible in communication Yule specially lists the characteristics of

politeness, including “being tactful, generous, modest and sympathetic toward others”

(Grice’s Cooperative Principle (CP),1997)

Leech (1983) defines it as “strategic conflict avoidance, which can be measured

in terms of the degree of effort put into the avoidance of a conflict situation, the

(1987) emphasize politeness as strategies employed by a speaker to obtain a variety of objectives such as promoting or maintaining harmonious relations

Linguists have stated different ways of expressing politeness strategies Among them, the most influential theory of politeness is put forward by Brown & Levinson

According to Thomas the Brown and Levinson’s “has been extraordinarily influential

Positive politeness shows the closeness, intimacy and rapport between the

speaker and the hearer According to Brown and Levinson “positive politeness is redress directed to the addressee’s positive face, his perennial desire that his wants (or the action, acquisition, values resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable In positive politeness the sphere of redress is widened to the appreciation of other’s wants in general or to the expression of similarity between egos and other’s

Negative politeness in Brown & Levinson (1987) is “ redressive action addressed to the addressee’s negative face: his want to have his freedom of action

Brown & on definition of negative politeness, Nguyen Quang emphasizes, “Negative politeness is in any communicative act which is appropriately intended to show that

the speaker does not want to impinge on the addressee’s privacy, thus enhancing the

In short, “negative politeness” involves the speaker and hearer’s independence This is also known as the “formal politeness strategy” which creates the distance between the speaker and hearer

1.2.3.5 Utterance Meaning and Context

As Nguyen Hoa, an utterance expresses the feeling of the speaker rather than describing a state of affairs That depends on so much on the context of communication.( Nguyen Hoa,2001)

Utterances are considered to represent the speaker’s thoughts Its meaning is derived from how language is used either in a particular context or occasion Moreover, its meanings is what a speaker means when the speaker makes an utterance

in certain situation, that is, it is a sentence in context According to Austin, there are

two types of utterances : a constative and performative utterances: The former is a

statement –making utterance: to be used to represent a state of affair, or experience And it has a function to make an assertion in contract; the latter is to perform an act of doing something rather than stating ( Austin,1962)

In a certain situation, the meaning of utterance is more important than that of a sequence due to utterance in a particular context Meanings of utterance in the context can be determined in some following ways:

- Making clear what sentence is uttered

- Telling us what proposition has been expressed

- Showing what kind of illocutionary force has been assigned by the speaker to the proposition On the other hand, when a sentence is uttered, the speaker, in the situation, can not place it alone by itself That is, it is surrounded by other

sentences called co-text That helps us to recognize its meaning

1.2.4 Translation

1.2.4.1 What is translation?

The term of “Translation” has been defined by many linguists in different ways of understanding Here are some of them:

“ Translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way the author intended the text.” ( Newmark, 1988)

Bell, Roger Thomas defines translation as “ The expression in another language ( or target language) of what has been expressed in another source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalence” ( Bell-Roger Thomas, 1988)

These above definitions are different in using word to express but all of them have the similar content All of them state that translation is to transfer a text from one language

to another language based on the equivalence The transference here is shown not only in the conveyance of the form but the conveyance of meaning as well Therefore, when a text is translated, it will be considered in two properties: form and meaning in order to complete the work of translating perfectly and accurately

1.2.4.2 Translation Equivalence

As defined, translation is aimed at equivalence, so what is equivalence? Equivalence can be defined as the relationship between a ST and a TT that allows the TT to be a translation of the ST in the first place In all translation, translators always try their best to reach the highest level of equivalence because the so-called “absolute equivalence” in translation is non-existent

There are a lot of equivalence types categorized by different authors, namely, formal and dynamic equivalence by Nida, 1964; semantic and stylistic equivalence by Roger Bell, 1989 And in Koler’s classification, there are five types of equivalence:

a) Denotative equivalence: oriented towards the extra linguistic content transmitted by a text

E.g: How are you? → Sức khỏe bác thế nào?

b) Connotative equivalence: preserves the connotation in the SL text by means of the word choice In this kind of equivalence, SL and TL words should produce the same communicative values in the mind of native speakers of the two languages

E.g: death→ chết, từ trần, về nơi chin suối, thác, qua ñời, hay toi, tỏi

c) Text-normative equivalence: the SL and TL words use the same or similar text types in their respective languages,

E.g: Dear → Bố mẹ kính mến!

d) Pragmatic equivalence: the SL and the TL words have the same effect on the reader or mainly aiming at the receiver, to whom the translation is directed

E.g: How are you?→ Chào bác ( instead of “Sức khỏe bác thế nào?”)

e) Formal equivalence: the aim is to produce a relevant form of translation that can preserve formal-aesthetic features of the SL texts

E.g: In song translation, translators often focus much on the rhythm and the form instead of the content

Where do I begin to tell the story of how great a love can be?

→ Câu chuyện tình năm xưa, từ thời xa xưa nay ñã trở về trong tôi

Therefore, to create the success to the work of translation, equivalence must be searched and study carefully by the translators to expose clearly and perfectly the distinct points of the SL texts in the TL texts

Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 RESEARCH PROCEDURES

The following steps are involved:

- Collecting data : collecting utterances containing “BUT” in English and

utterances containing the actual translation equivalents in Vietnamese

- Classifying "BUT" and its patterns as discourse markers : classifying meanings

and functions of the word “BUT” in terms of syntactic forms, semantic and pragmatic features

- Describing "BUT" and its patterns in terms of syntactic positions, semantic and

semantic and pragmatic functions of the word “BUT” in English utterances in a

- Conducting an analysis on the discourse marker “ BUT” in term of syntactic

positions, semantic and pragmatic functions in comparison with the Vietnamese translation equivalents

- Discussing the findings in terms of relevance – theoretic view: basing on the similarities and differencies between English and Vietnamese in the ways of expressing the meanings to work out Vietnamese learners’problems when they deal with the word “BUT” and also in language transfer

2.2 SAMPLING AND POPULATION

452 English and 452 instances of sentence containing “BUT” are collected from

the English novel called Harry Potter Episode 7 – Harry Potter and the Deathly

Publishing House

2.3 DATA COLLECTION

Nowadays, there are a lot of sources for collecting data such as newspapers,

magazines, novels , internet I decide to choose the novel named “ Harry Potter”

Rowling The major publishers of the novels were Bloomsbury Publishing in the

United Kingdom and Scholastic Press in the United States The books have since been published by many publishers worldwide The Vietnamese versions is translated by Ly Lan, and published by Youth Publishing House In my research, I decided to carry out

a data extraction from Harry Potter Episode 7 – Harry Potter and the Deathly

Publishing House

2.4 DATA ANALYSIS

Mostly, I would like to analyze English and Vietnamese bilingual materials To identify problems of interferences of Vietnamese learners of English when dealing with the discourse marker”BUT”, I further explore some possible translation equivalents in the two languages

The data are analyzed in terms of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic categories The results of the data analysis are presented qualitatively The results from description and comparision of different meanings of “BUT” are summarized in words Percentage is used to justify the significance of the similarities and differencies between the actual performance of “BUT” in English and the equivalents in Vietnamese

Chapter 3 : FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF "BUT" IN ENGLISH AND ITS VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION EQUIVALENTS

3.1.1 Positions of “BUT” in the Sentence and its Vietnamese Equivalents

“ BUT” can be used as a conjunction – a coordinating conjunction A coordinating conjunction are never used at the end of a sentence The position of “ BUT” is flexible, conveying slightly different meanings due to where it occurs in a sentence There are two main positions for “ BUT” : initial and medial positions To the following, the positions of “ BUT” is clearly illustrated

3.1.1.1 Initial Position

The conjunction is in the initial position in the clauses with or without juncture, occurring before the subject or other obligatory elements of the clauses Consider the

(1) But I know better how

Nhưng giờ ta ñã khôn ra

“Nhưng ngươi ñâu có học ở lớp con mụ này”- Voldemort nói

Nhưng như tôi nói, bạn sẽ phải ñọc tới những chương 9 tới 12 ñể thấy rõ hơn

những chi tiết

When a sentence begins with “ BUT”, it tends to draw attention to itself and its transitional function Also, it rather connects to the previous sentences than takes its role in itself – sentences

It is impossible to put “ BUT” in other positions in above situations Moreover, from

my data, with the case of initial positions, “ BUT” is not only used as a conjunction but also an adverb Look at these examples:

3.1.1.2 Medial Position

It is clear that, within the scope of my data, I can find a great number of discourse marker ‘But’ which occur medially in the sentences both in English and the equivalents in Vietnamese Have a look at the following examples:

Yaxley ñợi, nhưng Voldemort không nói gì cả, nên hắn tiếp tục

Law Enforcement

Vâng-chủ nhân, ñiều ñó chính xác- nhưng ngài biết ñấy, với vai trò là Giám

ñốc sở thi hành luật pháp thuật

“ BUT” in this situation, is similarly used as a conjunction The medial position can

be easily identified at the beginning of the second clause with or without juncture before “BUT” ; before a noun or a noun phrase ; before a preposition or a preposition phrase; before an adjective or an adverb; before a present participle phrase or a past participle phrase Comparing with the Vietnamese equivalents, in this situation – the medial position, when “ BUT” is placed medially in English, it mainly shares the same position in Vietnamese equivalents but there are some that take the initial positions

Look at these examples:

Nhưng tôi vẫn ko hiểu tại sao hắn lại biến mất, ñiều gì ñã khiến hắn thay ñổi

mục tiêu vậy?

up and spent every school holiday

Tại vì Voldemort, nếu ko thì nó ñã lớn lên và nghỉ hè tại thung lũng Godric vào

mỗi năm

It is evident that “BUT” is frequently employed in the medial position See Appendix 2

3.1.1.3.Final Position

From the data relevant to the discourse marker ‘But’, I cannot find any cases that the syntactic position of ‘But’ is in final positions both in English and its Vietnamese equivalents

Table 3.1: Description of Positions of 'But' in the Sentence and its Vietnamese Equivalents

No Positions of 'But' in English Positions of 'But' in Vietnamese

1 Initial position Initial position

2 Medial position Medial position; Initial position

3 No Final position No Final position

3.1.2.Syntactic Functions of "BUT" in the Sentences and Its Vietnamese Equivalents

Basically, syntax studies the structure of well-formed phrases and sentences In

fact, it is important to note that ‘But’ can function differently in a sentence or

utterance

3.1.2.1 Pre-modifying a Noun Phrase

In the researcher’s corpus, there are many instances of “ BUT” assuming the position

of an approximation before a noun or a noun phrase Premodifying a noun or a noun phrase seems to be the considerably used function of “ BUT” Look at these examples:

company!

Harry ko thể chịu ñược cái việc cứ nằm ở ñây mà ko có ai làm bạn ngoài

những ý nghĩ ñắng cay chua xót

green eye looking back at him

Nó nhìn chăm chú vào mảnh gương vỡ lần nữa, nhưng nó không thấy gì ngoài

ñôi mắt xanh lá cây của mình nhìn lại

wizard