ENGLISH ADVERBS OF MANNER AND TYPICAL ERRORS MADE BY THE STUDENTS AT LE HONG PHONG SPECIALISED SECONDARY SCHOOL, NAM DINH CITY

thạc sỹ, luận văn, ngoại ngữ, tiếng anh, khóa luận, chuyên đề

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

PHẠM KIM ANH

ENGLISH ADVERBS OF MANNER AND TYPICAL ERRORS MADE BY THE STUDENTS AT LE HONG PHONG

SPECIALISED SECONDARY SCHOOL, NAM DINH CITY

(Trạng từ chỉ cách thức trong Tiếng Anh và những lỗi thường gặp của học sinh

trường Trung học phổ thông chuyên Lê Hồng Phong, Nam Định)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

PHẠM KIM ANH

ENGLISH ADVERBS OF MANNER AND TYPICAL ERRORS MADE BY THE STUDENTS AT LE HONG PHONG

SPECIALISED SECONDARY SCHOOL, NAM DINH CITY

(Trạng từ chỉ cách thức trong Tiếng Anh và những lỗi thường gặp của học sinh

trường Trung học phổ thông chuyên Lê Hồng Phong, Nam Định)

I hereby certify that this thesis is the result of my own study submitted in partialfulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts, and that the thesis inwhole or in part has not been submitted for a higher degree in any other tertiaryinstitution

My thanks go to all the teachers of the Post graduate course 14 at Vietnam NationalUniversity, College of Foreign Languages, Hanoi for their useful lectures.

Next, I also thank all the students at Le Hong Phong specialised secondary school, NamDinh city for their cooperation Without their help I could not collect the necessary andsufficient data for the study

Last, let me thank all the members of my family, especially my parents for their helpand encouragement throughout my research

This study aims at analyzing typical errors made by the students at Lê HồngPhong specialised secondary school, Nam Dinh city in using English adverbs of mannerwith the hope to improve teaching and learning this grammatical item at the school.Also, the author wished that it would encourage teachers and learners to pay moreattention to English grammar The study consists of three main parts The first partpresents the rationale, the aims, the scope, the methods and the organization of thestudy The second part with two chapters reviews the literature related to Englishadverbs of manner and analyze actual errors made by the subjects This part alsosuggests some solutions to the improvement of teaching this grammatical item Thethird part summarizes what has been done in the study and gives suggestions for furtherresearch

IV Methods of the study 2

I.1 An overview of adverbs of manner in English 4

I.1.1 What are adverbs of manner? 4I.1.2 Formation of adverbs of manner 5I.1.3 Position of adverbs of manner 11I.1.4 Classification of adverbs of manner 13I.1.5 The differing functions of adverbs of manner

and corresponding adjectives 14

I.1.6 English adverbs of manner compared with Vietnamese

adverbs of manner 15I.1.7 Adverbs of manner used in comparison 16I.2 Error and error analysis 19

I.2.1 Definition of error 19

I.2.3.1 Interference errors 21I.2.3.2 Intralingual errors 22I.2.3.3 Developmental errors 23

II.1.1 The methods used in the study 25II.1.2 The subjects of the study 25II.1.3 The instrument for collecting data 26II.1.4 Data collection and data analysis 27II.2 Findings and solutions 30

II.2.2 Probable causes of errors 32

II.2.2.1 Interlingual errors 33II.2.2.2 Intralingual errors 33II.2.2.3 Developmental errors 35II.2.3 Suggested solutions to teaching adverbs of manner effectively 36

II.2.3.1 For the presentation stage 36II.2.3.2 For the practice stage 37

PART III – CONCLUSION 41

III.2 Suggestions for further study 41

Appendix 2 v

List of tables, figure and chart

Table 1 Results of the students’ performance in doing the tasks

Table 2 Types of errors found in the study

Table 3 Probable causes of errors

Figure 1 Psycholinguistic sources of errors

Chart 1 Results of the subjects’ performance in doing the six tasks

C.A: Contrastive analysis

E.A: Error analysis

E.g: Example

Qty: Quantity

SLA: Second language acquisition

Part I – INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

Nowadays, English is becoming more and more important and necessary in allfields of social life Especially in the international integration trend, English has becomemore necessary for everybody than ever before At upper secondary schools in thewhole country, English is now a compulsory subject for all students Due to itsimportance, English has received a lot of attention from students Many students findEnglish very interesting while many others say that this subject is very difficult One ofthe most difficult things for them to master is English grammar English grammar isconsidered as a very important part in learning English because of some reasons First,grammar is a part included in each unit of the textbooks so students are required tomaster one or two grammar points after learning each unit If they are not good atgrammar, they will find it very difficult to do grammar exercises at the end of each unit

in their textbooks and those in reference books Consequently, it is hard for them to getgood marks for tests because questions on grammar are always found in tests Second,having good knowledge in grammar makes it easier for students to practise such skills

as listening, speaking, reading and writing Therefore, learning English grammar plays

a very important role in learning English at upper secondary schools

As we all know, English grammar consists of so many items, one of which isadverbs of manner, which often causes difficulties to students Adverbs of manner areused very often in discourse They are usually found in tests for students However, how

to use them correctly is not easy for many students It is confusing to distinguishbetween adjectives and adverbs Formation of adverbs from equivalent adjectiveconsists of so many exceptions Some uses of adverbs of manner are not familiar tostudents In my experience in teaching English at Lê Hồng Phong specialised secondaryschool in Namdinh city, students often make common errors in using these adverbs andcauses of these errors have not been found yet

The analysis of students’ errors is significant in English language teaching Ithelps teachers identify students’ strategies of language learning and their level ofproficiency so that teachers can find out suitable ways to improve current situations.For the reasons mentioned above, I have decided to carry out a small study onEnglish adverbs of manner and common errors made by the students at Lê Hồng Phongspecialised secondary school

II Aims of the study:

The study is aimed at:

- getting a full understanding of English adverbs of manner

- finding out typical errors made by students at Lê Hồng Phong specialisedsecondary school in using adverbs of manner

- finding out causes of the typical errors in using adverbs of manner

- finding out solutions to teaching students adverbs of manner effectively

III Scope of the study:

Adverbs of manner form one of the biggest areas in English adverbs It is to saythere are various adverbs of manner in English So it is too ambitious to cover so manyadverbs in the study Therefore the study will focus on only the adverbs which arecommonly used in students’ textbooks and reference books The study also concentrates

on formation and use of adverbs of manner Moreover, second language learners arevarious and different in the way of making errors However, because of limited size, thestudy will focus on a limited number of 50 students from class 10C, an English non-major class at Lê Hồng Phong specialised secondary school

The thesis focuses on getting a full view of English adverbs of manner andanalyzing typical errors made by students at Lê Hồng Phong specialised secondaryschool so four following questions are raised to be answered here

1 What are the formation and uses of English adverbs of manner?

2 What are the typical errors in using adverbs of manner made by students at LêHồng Phong specialised secondary school?

3 What are the causes of these errors?

4 What are the solutions to teaching English adverbs of manner effectively?

IV Methods of the study:

In order for the aims to be reached, the study use two methods:

- statistical method: to find out and classify the errors in the study

- error analysis: to analyze the errors collected and find out their causes

V Organization of the study:

The study consists of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

- Part I (Introduction) shows the rationale, the aims, the scope, the methods and the organization of the study

- Part II (Development) includes two chapters Chapter I reviews the literature related to English adverbs of manner and error analysis Chapter II is the

analysis of the errors made by the students at Lê Hồng Phong specialised

secondary school This chapter also discusses the causes of these errors Finally, this chapter presents some suggested solutions to teaching English adverbs of manner effectively

- Part III (Conclusion) summarizes the content of the research and gives some suggestions for further study

Part II – DEVELOPMENTCHAPTER I – LITERATURE REVIEW I.1 An overview of adverbs of manner in English.

In general, adverbs in English are numerous, various and they form a big area inEnglish grammar Adverbs belong to many kinds According to Sinclair, J et al(1990),there are following kinds of adverbs: adverbs of time, adverbs of frequency, adverbs ofduration, adverbs of place, adverbs of manner, adverbs of degree, linking adverbs, broadnegative adverbs and focusing adverbs It is helpful for learners to tell these kinds apartbecause sometimes the same adverb may belong to more than one group For example,

the adverb well may belong to both adverb of manner and adverb of degree In another

case, while most adverbs ending in -ly are adverbs of manner, (e.g carefully), somebelong to adverbs of degree (e.g terribly), some other adverbs are those of sentenceadverbs (e.g interestingly), etc Therefore, this part is going to make it clear whatadverbs of manner are, how they are recognized, where they are in a clause and howthey are used

I.1.1 What are adverbs of manner?

Seemingly, there have not been so-called definitions of adverbs of manner.Instead, we can recognise them by looking at what they function According to Sinclair,J(1990) , adverbs of manner are seen as follows: “Adverbs of manner give moreinformation about the way in which an event or an action takes place”

E.g He nodded and smiled warmly.

In the example above, the adverb of manner warmly lets us know the way in which the action smiled happened.

Alexander, L.G.(1990) states that an adverb adds to the meaning of a verb.Adverbs of manner tells us how something happens

E.g He swims well

She plays the flute beautifully.

In the first example, the adverb of manner well tells us about the manner of the action swim In the second one, we know how the action play the flute happens due to the adverb beautifully

Another way to recognise what adverbs of manner are is provided by the website

www.fortunecity.com/bally/durrus/153/gramch24.html: “Adverbs of manner answer the

question How”.

E.g How does John drive?

He drives carefully

In the example given, the adverb carefully is the answer to the question preceding

it which begins with the word How.

Similarly, another website, www.esl.about.com/cs/intermediate/f/f_adverbs.htm,gives a definition of adverbs of manner as follows: “ Adverbs of manner provideinformation on how someone does something”

E.g Jack drives very carefully.

In this example, due to the adverb carefully, we can know how Jack drives This

adverb provides us with the information about the way of Jack’s driving

In brief, all the above definitions show us what adverbs of manner do However,

of all the four definitions, I find the first one given by Sinclair, J et al (1990) the mostperfect

I.1.2 Formation of adverbs of manner.

I.1.2.1 Adverbs ending in -ly.

In English, most adverbs of manner are formed by adding ly to the corresponding adjectives However, the spelling rules for adding ly need to be taken into account because some ly adverbs have slightly different spellings from the adjectives they are

related to

* In most cases, -ly is simply added to the corresponding adjective For example, the adverb quietly and badly are formed by adding ly to the adjective quiet and bad E.g Sit there quietly, and listen to music.

( Sinclair, J et al,1990)Some other examples of adverbs of manner which are formed in this way are:

careful carefully

dangerous dangerously

quick quickly

* Adjectives ending in –ic: When the adjective ends in -ic, the syllable -al is

usually added before the -ly ending

dramatic dramatically

scientific scientifically

specific specifically

It should be noted here that the adjective “public” has the related adverb

“publicly”

* Adjectives ending in –le: When the adjective ends in -le preceded by a

consonant, the final -e is usually changed to -y to form the -ly ending For example:

favorable favorably

gentle gently

simple simply

When the adjective ends in -le preceded by a vowel, in most cases, -ly is simply

added to the corresponding adjective to form the adverb of manner For example:

* Adjectives ending in -ue: When the adjective ending in -ue, the final -e is

usually omitted before the ending -ly is added For example:

undue unduly

* Adjective ending in -y:When the adjective ending in y preceded by a consonant,

the -y is changed into -i before the ending -ly is added For example:

When the adjective ends in -y preceded by a vowel, in most cases, -ly is simply

added to the corresponding adjective For example:

It is not usual to add -ly to adjectives ending in ed to form adverbs However,

there are still some adverbs which are formed in this way For example:

Adjective Adverb of manner

adverbs of place The following are some examples of -ly adverbs which are not

- Adverb of frequency: frequently, rarely, usually, etc Adverbs of frequency are

used when we want to indicate approximately how many times something happens

E.g I rarely go to school on foot

- Adverb of degree: absolutely, greatly, reasonably, etc The adverbs of this type

are used to give more information about the extent of an action or the degree to which

an action is performed

E.g I admired him greatly

- Adverb of duration: briefly, permanently, etc These adverbs are used to express

how long something lasts or takes

E.g She glanced briefly at Lucas Simmonds.

- Adverb of place: locally, internationally, etc These adverbs indicate the area inwhich a situation exists

E.g Everything we used was bought locally

- Sentence adverb : apparently, luckily, etc These adverbs are used for the whole

sentence they are in Sometimes, they indicate the speaker’s reaction to, opinion of thefact or event he is taking about

E.g Luckily, I had seen the play before so I knew what it was about

- Focusing adverb: especially, particularly, etc These adverbs are used to indicate

the most relevant thing involved in what we are saying

E.g I’m particularly interested in classical music.

(Sinclair et al, 1990)

I.1.2.2 Adverbs of manner with other endings.

Some adverbs of manner are formed by adding a few other suffixes such as:

-fashion, style, -wards, -ways, -wise.

E.g Americanstyle backwards

Crossways clockwise

I.1.2.3 Adverbs of the same form as adjectives.

In English, some adverbs of manner have the same form as the correspondingadjectives The following are examples of such adverbs of manner

I.1.2.4 Adverbs with two forms from adjectives.

*Two forms used in the same ways: Some adjectives can form adverbs of manner in

two ways with the same usage and meaning In one way, adverbs of manner have the

same form as adjectives In the other way, adverbs are formed by adding -ly to the

corresponding adjectives Here are some examples:

E.g He stood up and spoke very loud/loudly.

*Two forms used in different ways: Some pairs of adverbs can be formed in two ways

like the ones above but with different meanings The following are some examples ofpairs of adverbs which are closely related, but have different meanings

well

wide opposite of narrow widely commonly

The meanings of these adverbs are illustrated in the examples below:

I worked hard.

I hardly have enough time to finish.

I opened the door wide.

That theory is widely believed.

I.1.2.5 Adverb of irregular form.

The adverb of manner well is not related to its corresponding adjective good in

often used as a predicative adjective

E.g I hope you are well (well used as an

adjective)

He did well on the examination (well used as an

adverb)

In the first example, well is a predicative adjective which modifies the pronoun

you In the second example, well is an adverb of manner, which modifies the verb did I.1.2.6 Adjectives ending in -ly and equivalent adverbial forms

In English, there are several adjectives ending in -ly which have no correspondingadverbs For example:

adverb phrase of manner may be used with a general noun such as way, manner or

fashion For example:

He greeted us in his usual friendly fashion

“Fishing?” she said in a silly way.

( Sinclair, J et al, 1990: 288)

In sum, adverbs of manner can be formed in different ways However, in mostcases, they are related to their corresponding adjectives

I.1.3 Position of adverbs of manner.

Grammatical roles have a crucial influence on the position of adverbs of manner

In the clause, adverbs of manner often take three positions: initial, medial and final position However, the overwhelming majority of adverbs occurs at final position

I.1.3.1 Final position.

Adverbs of manner most often occupy the end position of a clause, where theyfollow an intransitive verb, or the direct object of a transitive verb

E.g We waited patiently for the play to begin.

I sold the strawberries quickly.

In the first example, the adverb of manner patiently follows the intransitive verb

waited In the second example, the adverb of manner quickly follows the direct object the strawberries of the transitive verb sold It is noted that the adverb of manner

should not be put between the verb and the object

E.g He ate greedily the chocolate cake (incorrect)

He ate the chocolate cake greedily (correct)

If there is a preposition before the object; e.g at, towards, we can place theadverb either before the preposition or after the object

E.g The child ran happily towards his mother.

The child ran towards his mother happily.

I.1.3.2 Initial position.

An adverb of manner may be put at the beginning of a clause with a commafollowing it in order to emphasize the idea expressed by the adverb At this initialposition, the adverb of manner is placed immediately before the subject

E.g Patiently, we waited for the show to begin

Quickly, I sold the strawberries.

In these examples, the ideas expressed by patiently and quickly are emphasized.

However, this position is not usual for adverbs of manner It is more associated withadverbs of other types such as sentence adverbs, adverbs of time, etc

I.1.3.3 Medial position

Sometimes, adverbs of manner are placed in the middle position of a clause,particularly when the clause contains no adverb of frequency At this position, theadverb of manner is put between subject and verb

E.g I slowly opened the door

But when the verb element is realized by a verb phrase involving an operator, theadverb of manner is put immediately after the subject and the operator

E.g I have carefully considered all of the possibilities.

Why are they seriously considering him for the post?

In the following example of an imperative sentence, the position of adverb ofmanner seems to be “initial”

Carefully remove the cover.

But the position must properly regarded as “medial” because the subject implied

here is you

*The “split infinitive”: In informal English, adverbs of manner are often placed

immediately after the word to of an infinitive In this case, the infinitive is referred to as

a split infinitive

E.g I wanted to carefully consider the situation

In brief, the position of adverb in a clause is flexible However, adverbs ofmanner should always come after intransitive verbs (verbs which have no object)

E.g He waited patiently.

The position of adverb is important when there is more than one verb in asentence If the adverb is placed after a clause, then it modifies the whole actiondescribed by the clause Therefore, the two pairs of sentences below show a difference

It should be noted that if there is more than one kind of adverb in a sentence( adverb of manner, adverb of place and adverb of time), adverb of manner precedesadverb of place and adverb of time So the order of these adverbs is as follows:

manner – place – time

(Nguyễn Trùng Khánh,1999)

E.g United played quite well at Villa park last week

I.1.4 Classification of adverbs of manner.

In terms of grammatical functions, adverbials in general are grouped into fourbroad categories: adjunct, subjunct, disjunct and conjunct by Quirk, Greenbaum, Leechand Svartvik (1985) Accordingly, adverb of manner can function as either an adjunct or

a subjunct in the clause

* Adverb of manner as an adjunct.

As an adjunct, the manner adverb can be integrated into the structure of a clause

So the manner adjunct is similar in the weight and balance of its sentence role to othersentence elements such as subject or verb

E.g She spoke to him coldly

They began arguing loudly.

Adjunct

(Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Startvik, 1985)Adverbs of manner can be in predication or sentences In the predication, they can

be obligatory or optional

E.g He swims well (opligatory)

They began arguing loudly. (optional)

* Adverb of manner as a subjunct.

As a subjunct, the adverb of manner has a subordinate role in comparison withother elements The adverb of manner serving as a subjunct can be of two types:courtesy subjuncts and subject-orientation subjuncts.As a subject –orientation subjunct,the adverb of manner has a special relation with the subject

E.g Casually, Leslie greeted the stranger

(Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Startvik, 1985)This sentence can be paraphrased by: “Leslie was casual, offhand when hegreeted the stranger”

These grammatical functions of manner adverbs are significant because they havecrucial roles on the position of the adverbs in a clause Therefore, the same adverb attwo different positions can function differently There is a big difference in the twoexamples below

Predication Sentence Predication Obligatory

Optional

E.g He kindly offered me a lift.

He offered me a lift kindly

In the first example, kindly is a subjunct and in the latter one, the same word serves as an adjunct

I.1.5 The differing functions of adverbs of manner and corresponding adjectives.

When an adverb of manner differs in form from a corresponding adjective, it isnecessary to distinguish between the function of adjectives and adverbs in order todetermine which form should be used in a given situation

Whereas adjectives modify nouns, pronouns and expressions which serve thesame grammatical functions as nouns; adverbs of manner modify verbs

I.1.5.1 Adjectives which modify nouns compared with adverbs of manner which modify verbs.

The following examples illustrate the distinction which must be made betweenadjectives which modify nouns and adverbs of manner which modify verbs

E.g It has been a quiet afternoon.

The afternoon passed quietly.

In the first sentence, the adjective quiet modifies the noun afternoon, whereas the adverb of manner quietly modifies the verb passed

I.1.5.2 Predicative adjectives modifying the subjects of verbs compared with adverbs modifying verbs.

As pointed out previously, certain verbs, called copular verbs, can be followed

by predicative adjectives A distinction must be made between predicative whichmodify the subjects of copular verbs, and adverbs which modify verbs

A few copular verbs, such as the verbs to be, can be modified by predicative

adjectives, but cannot be modified by adverbs of manner

He is happy.

The wind is strong.

In these examples, the predicative adjectives happy and strong modify the

subjects he and the wind

However, there are several verbs which can be used either as copular verbsfollowed by predicative adjectives, or as non-copular verbs modified by adverbs of

manner The following examples illustrate the use of the verb to appear as a copular

verb and as a non-copular verb

E.g copular verb: His uncle appears kind.

ordinary verb: His uncle appeared punctually at ten o’clock.

In the first example, kind is a predicative adjective which modifies the noun his

uncle In the second one, punctually is an adverb of manner which modifies the verb appeared.

The verbs below can be used as either copular or non-copular verbs:

to appear to become to get

to feel to grow to keep

to look to remain to smell

to sound to stay to taste

to turn

If the subject of the verb is to be modified, a predicative is required after suchverbs; whereas if the verb is to be modified, an adverb is required In the pairs of

example below, the verbs to grow, and to keep are used first as copular verbs followed

by adjectives, and then as non-copular verbs modified by adverbs

E.g As he became old, he grew slow at remembering dates.

The tree grew slowly.

They kept quiet

They quietly kept the car in the garage.

I.1.6 English adverbs of manner compared with Vietnamese adverbs of manner.

*Similarities:

- In terms of meaning, English adverbs of manner as well as those in Vietnamese areused to give more information about the manner in which the action is done

- In both English and Vietnamese, adverbs of manner can function as adjuncts

E.g Bố tôi lái xe cẩn thận.

My father drives carefully

- In a clause, the position of English adverbs of manner is similar to that of manneradverbs in Vietnamese Most of the manner adverbs in the two languages occupy finalposition as in the above eaxmples When it is desired to put emphasis on the meaningexpressed by the adverbs, the adverbs in both English and Vietnamese can be put atinitial or medial position

E.g Chúng tôi đã nhanh chóng rời khỏi ngôi nhà.

We quickly left the house.

*Differences: Due to the fact that English is an inflectional language and Vietnamese is

a non-inflectional language, English and Vietnamese adverbs of manner have certaindifferences

- In Vietnamese, the same word can be used as both an adjective and an adverb So it isimpossible to tell them apart if we only look at it morphologically

E.g Con cá này nhanh lắm.

Con cá này bơi nhanh lắm.

(Trần Hữu Mạnh, 2007)

I.1.7 Adverbs of manner used in comparison.

a The formation of comparative and superlative forms of adverbs.

i Adverbs used with more and most: Most adverbs used in comparisons, including those formed from corresponding adjectives by adding the ending -ly, form the comparative with the word more, and the superlative with the word most Forexample:

carefully more carefully most carefully

easily more easily most easily

frequently more frequently most frequently

ii Adverbs used with the endings er and est.

Adverbs which have the same positive forms as corresponding adjectivesgenerally also have the same comparative and superlative forms as the correspondingadjectives For example:

early earlier earliest

fast faster fastest

hard harder hardest

iii Irregular adverbs:

The irregular adverbs have the same comparative and superlative forms as the corresponding irregular adjectives:

Far farther or further farthest or furthest

Little less least

b Positive forms of adverbs used in comparisons.

i The construction with as as:

When used in making comparisons, the positive form of an adverb is usually

preceded and followed by as This construction is summarized below, followed by

examples

As + positive form of adverb + as

I can run As Fast as you can

He moves As Slowly as a snail

If desired, an adverb may be placed before the first occurrence of as:

adverb + as + positive form of adverb

be used, or the verb may be omitted entirely

E.g I can run as fast as you can [run]

He moves as slowly as a snail [moves]

c Comparative forms of adverbs used in comparisons

i The construction with than:

When used in making comparisons, the comparative form of an adverb is

usually followed by than

Comparative form of adverb + than

He can

swim farther than I can.

She sings more beautifully than her sister does

ii Progressive comparisons

The comparative forms of adverbs can be used in progressive comparisons For

adverbs with the ending er, the following construction is used:

comparative form of adverb + and + comparative form of adverbThe plane flew higher and higher