Linguistic features of preposition ‘BY’ in english and their vietnamese equivalents

The results of the study help to contribute suggestions to approaching the teaching and learning English preposition terms based on linguistic and features.. Predictions of errors made b

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PREPOSITON 'BY' IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA GIỚI TỪ 'BY' TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

PHAM THI THUY

Field: English Language

Hanoi, 2017

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PREPOSITON 'BY' IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA GIỚI TỪ 'BY' TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

PHAM THI THUY

Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2017

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project entitled

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PREPOSITON 'BY' IN ENGLISH AND

THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ của giới từ ‘by’ trong Tiếng Anh và những tương đương

trong Tiếng việt) Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master

in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s

work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2017

Pham Thi Thuy

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, Ph.D

(Signature and full name)

Date: ………

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, Ph.D who gave me valuable suggestions, useful comments, experience and support during the time of completing the graduation thesis

I also would like to pay my homage to all my lecturers at the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Hanoi Open University (HOU) for their useful lectures, supports, encouragement and for inspiring me in teaching English as a Foreign Language teaching and doing scientific research

I highly appreciate the helpful advice, assistance and participation from my colleagues and friends at HOU

I express my affectionate and thank the teachers and students at Thai Nguyen Medical College, who supplied me with a great deal of practical figures

Finally, I’m grateful to my family and friends who encourage and help me with valuable materials, gave me energy and advice during the time I implemented this study

Hanoi, 2017

Pham Thi Thuy

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ABSTRACT

This study looks at preposition ‘by’ in English and their equivalents in

Vietnamese The study concentrates on the analysis of the common errors made by Vietnamese learners and actual errors made by Thai Nguyen Medical College students in particular The aim of doing this is to find out the ways to help the teachers and students to use English prepositions effectively in teaching and learning The writer of the study figures out the features of English preposition in terms of linguistic After data are collected from chosen materials, the writer uses descriptive method to describe and analyze the data before classifying them into groups of features The writer also conducts qualitative and quantitative research

as a description of the data from source The data are collected by generalizing, analyzing and classifying Linguistic features are presented through ways of creating terms and types of English preposition terms The study will be conducted through three steps: first, data are collected from two main chosen materials and the other references; then, the data are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to figure out the linguistic features of English preposition Finally, the results are classified and presented in forms of tables

The results of the study help to contribute suggestions to approaching the teaching and learning English preposition terms based on linguistic and features Probable errors were pointed out, with a view to helping the teachers and students

to avoid them Basing on research findings and the researcher’s teaching experience, suggestions and exercises are given with the hope that the study may possibly to some extent improve current situation in teaching and learning English prepositions at TNMC

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Prep P Preposition Phrases

HOU Hanoi Open University

TNMC Thai Nguyen Medical College

* An asterisk signifies that what follows it is incorrect

[ ] Reference Number

[: ] Reference Number and page are separated by ‘:’

For example: [8:32] the reference number is 8 and the page in the reference is 32

( : ) Illustration examples reference resources (reference number : page number)

^ An omission signifies that where are needed in the sentence

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 4.1: Information of the research participants 47 Table 4.2: Error’s made by students at TNMC when using English

prepositions 50 Table 4.3: Common errors made by students when translating from

Vietnamese into English 52 Figures 1: Total errors in each sentence 50

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT .iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.2.1 Aim of the study 2

1.2.2 Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies 5

2.2 Overview of syntax and semantics 6

2.2.1 Syntax 7

2.2.2 Semantics 7

2.3 An overview of the prepositions 8

2.3.1 English prepositions 8

2.3.2 Vietnamese prepositions 16

2.4 Errors analysis 21

2.4.1 Errors analysis beginning from linguistic difficulties in teaching and learning English of Vietnamese learners 21

2.4.2 Factors affecting learners’ acquisition of a foreign language 24

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2.4.3 Predictions of errors made by Vietnamese learners using English preposition

‘by’ 28

2.5 Summary 29

CHAPTER 3 FEATURES OF PREPOSITION ‘BY’ IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 3.1 Syntactic features of ‘by’ preposition 31

3.2 Semantics features of ‘by’ preposition 33

3.2.1 Preposition ‘by’ denoting time 33

3.2.2 Preposition ‘by’ denoting place or direction 33

3.2.3 Preposition ‘by’ denoting means or agents 33

3.2.4 Preposition ‘by’ denoting manner 34

3.2.5 Preposition ‘by’ denoting motion 34

3.2.6 Preposition ‘by’ denoting stiffness or without help 34

3.2.7 Preposition ‘by’ denoting means of transport 35

3.2.8 Preposition ‘by’ denoting method 35

3.3 Preposition ‘by’ in English and their Vietnamese equivalents 36

3.3.1 'By' in English corresponds to 'gần, bên cạnh, kề bên, dọc theo' in Vietnamese 36

3.3.2 ‘By’ in English corresponds to ‘bằng’ in Vietnamese 37

3.3.3 ‘By’ in English corresponds to ‘do, vì, bởi’ (theo sau ‘by’ không có mạo từ ‘the’) in Vietnamese 38

3.3.4 ‘By’ in English corresponds to ‘qua’ in Vietnamese 39

3.3.5 ‘By’ in English corresponds to 'càng …càng, dần…dần, từng …một' in Vietnamese 39

3.3.6 ‘By’ in English corresponds to ‘đối với, theo’ in Vietnamese 40

3.3.7 ‘By’ in English corresponds to ‘được, do, bởi’ in Vietnamese 40

3.3.8 ‘By’ in English corresponds to 'chỉ bộ phận nào đó trên thân thể hay quần áo' in Vietnamese 41

3.3.9 ‘By’ in English corresponds to ‘vào lúc, vào khoảng, vào quãng (chỉ thời gian)’ in Vietnamese 41

3.4 Similarities and differences between ‘by’ preposition in English and the Vietnamese equivalents 42

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3.4.1 Similarities 42

3.4.2 Differences 43

3.5 Summary 43

CHAPTER 4 COMMON ERRORS MADE BY STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN MEDICAL COLLEGE WHEN TRANSLATING ‘BY’ PREPOSITION IN ENGLISH 4.1 The setting 44

4.2 The subjects 46

4.3 The survey questionnaire 47

4.4 Research procedure 48

4.5 Data analysis 49

4.5.1 Common errors made by students at TNMC when translating preposition ‘by’ in English 53

4.5.2 Reasons for committing errors made by Vietnamese learners when learning English preposition ‘by’ 56

4.6 Suggestions for overcoming errors made by students 58

4.6.1 Some suggestions for teaching English preposition ‘by’ 58

4.6.2 Some suggestions for learning English preposition ‘by’ 61

4.7 Summary 62

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 5.1 Concluding remarks 63

5.2 Limitations of the study 64

5.3 Suggestions for further study 64 REFERENCES

APPENDICES

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

There is a well-established fact that English prepositions pose a big challenge for the acquisition of second language Learners of English as a foreign language often face with huge difficulties in actively mastering the language Generally, they seemingly hold the view that English notional categories, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are crucial, hence striving to learn as many of them

as possible and functional categories as prepositions are of minor significance because they are limited in number and their meanings are not important to the meaning of the whole sentence

In terms of syntactic function, prepositions and prepositional phrases are words used to connect nouns or noun phrases to other phrases in a sentence They exist in both English and Vietnamese language systems, in which their characteristics and usages, however, are quite different Mastering prepositions and prepositional phrases cause a great deal of troubles for Vietnamese native-speaker learners when learning English

In the process of teaching English, great attention has been paid while

dealing with ‘by’ preposition It is due to their syntactic and semantic

features, as well as stylistic peculiarities Therefore, an effective way of

mastering preposition ‘by’ should be found to help learners overcome their

difficulties in acquiring English

The study of general English in general as well as the improvement of the quality of study in English for special purposes is of special importance to TNMC students while accessing medical equipment, medicines as well as preparing students to meet the demand for nursing staff increasingly needs of many developed countries with old aged populations such as in Japan, Korea, Taiwan For all mentioned above reasons, the topic linguistic features of preposition

‘by’ in English and their Vietnamese equivalents has been chosen for my

graduation thesis

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1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aim of the study

This study is conducted to find out the typical semantic and syntactic

features of prepositions, especially investigating ‘by’ preposition in English and

the Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features, thus helping Vietnamese learners of English to have better understanding prepositions

in general and ‘by’ preposition in particular, and be able to use them correctly in

daily communication

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

The three main objectives of this study are:

(1) Identifying the linguistic features of ‘by’ preposition in English

(2) Find out the similarities and differences between ‘by’ preposition in

English and Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features

(3) Proposing some implications for teaching and learning ‘by’ preposition in

English at TNMC in an effective way

1.3 Research questions

The study is carried out to find out the answers to the following questions:

(1) What are the syntactic and semantic features of ‘by’ preposition in

English?

(2) What are the similarities and differences between ‘by’ preposition in

English and Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features (3) What are common mistakes made by students at TNMC when translating

‘by’ preposition in English? What are suggestions made by the author for learners?

1.4 Methods of the study

In order to deal with the research subject effectively, a flexible combination

of methods is employed This thesis is basically carried out with the descriptive and comparative analysis methods

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First, the descriptive method is utilized to give a deep and detailed

description of the preposition ‘by’ and their Vietnamese equivalents Then

examples for illustrating the description will be taken from the grammar and reference books written by contemporary influential linguists in English as well as from translated publications available in Vietnam, which comprises various genres such as short stories

Second, the comparative analysis method is used to analyze the preposition

‘by’ and their Vietnamese equivalents, hence suggesting some implications for mastering these particular phrases Last but not least, other supporting method such as statistic technique is also used for the data collection and analysis process

1.5 Scope of the study

This study focuses mainly on analyzing the syntactic and semantic features

of preposition ‘by’ and investigating the equivalents of ‘by’ when translated into Vietnamese Its linguistic features are studied carefully in the famous story ‘The Call of the Wild’ by Jack London and its translation ‘Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã’ by Nguyễn Công Ái and Vũ Tuấn Phương The implications of the study are to help Vietnamese learners of English in general and the students at TNMC in particular master preposition ‘by’ effectively

1.6 Significance of the study

The research is conducted to contribute to theoretical founding of preposition, in preposition of systemizing general theories as well as theory of

linguistic features of preposition ‘by’ in English and their Vietnamese equivalents

In practice, the finding can be used as a referential material in teaching and learning English prepositions at Thai Nguyen Medical College Compilers also find this paper useful when they design material related to English prepositions

In broad terms, the research topic contributes to:

(1) Enriching Vietnamese - a beautiful language in the contemporary linguistic world with nearly 100 million Vietnamese people in use;

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(2) Contributing to the implementation of the National Plan for the Promotion of English as a Second Language; The National Foreign Language Project 2020 aims to connect professionals, teachers and teachers in the field of language teaching Here is at all levels, from elementary school to university in Vietnam and internationally, with the following specific objectives:

(3) Strengthening English language research and teaching capacity in Vietnam; experts, lecturers, teachers of English teaching exchange of professional experience and development of ideas on teaching methodology innovation English

1.7 Design of the study

The thesis starts out with Introduction chapter where rationale, aims and objectives, research questions, methods, scope, significance, and design of the study are presented The literature review chapter is the place to summarize the results of the researchers who worked on the problem, and give an overview on

preposition ‘by’ The Finding and Discussions chapter is the part analyzing data

and interpreting the results, as well as stating some pedagogical implications of the findings The Application of the research findings chapter is the part common

errors by learners of English when using preposition ‘by’ and solutions The last

chapter is Conclusion which summarizes the issue and results of the study, as well

as offers some recommendations for the further study

The table of main contents of the thesis are as follows:

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Literature review

Chapter 3 Features of preposition ‘by’ in English and their Vietnamese

equivalents

Chapter 4 Common errors made by students at Thai Nguyen Medical

College when translating ‘by’ preposition in English

Chapter 5 Conclusion

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous studies

According to the traditional view, the researchers consider that all the senses

of a preposition are highly arbitrary and are not related to one another Otto Jesperseen (1933), who is one of the prominent traditional linguists and grammarians, groups prepositions as a subclass of particles and defines them very briefly in “Essentials of English Grammar” as elements which signal different

types of relationship in the sentence as follows: at, in, on, for, under, over, etc

Quirk and Greenbaum (1985) concerns about the relational meanings the prepositions establish among the constituents of the sentence and the fact that prepositions meanings are difficult to describe systematically in “A concise Grammar of English”

Lawal (2004) show that prepositions indicate various relationships between words or phrases in sentence The relationship includes those of time, points, position, direction and various degrees of mental or emotional attitude

Concerning the usage of prepositions, Hayden, et.al (1996) mentions in his grammar textbook “Mastering American English” that: ‘a preposition shown a relationship between its object and other words in a sentence Some of the relationships that prepositions express are place or position, direction, time, manner and agent.’

Concerning about the implications for teaching prepositions, Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman show the nine most frequent prepositions (at, on, in, to, with, for, by) in “An English Grammar for Teachers of English as a Second Language” (1978) He recommends that the beginner of English should master at an early stage the primary meanings of the nine prepositions in his book

Prepositions have been deeply studied by Vietnamese linguists, such as Cao Xuan Hao, Nguyen Kim Than, Diep Quang Ban, Nguyen Tai Can, Bui Duc Tinh, Tran Ngoc Dung

Bui Duc Tinh (2003) mentions that preposition and preposition phrase are words used to show the meaning correlativeness of two words or two phrases Tran Ngoc Dung (2010) is as follows: Prepositions are acts that mark relations Subordinate and mark the meanings in the predicate argument structure

On the basis of the previous studies, it can be seen that the investigation of

prepositions in the formal documents particularly in terms of preposition ‘by’ and

their Vietnamese equivalents have not discussed so far in both languages, English

and Vietnamese A research problem relating to preposition ‘by’ and their

Vietnamese equivalents has been chosen for my graduation thesis

2.2 Overview of syntax and semantics

The basic syntactic properties and semantic functions differ in many languages In other languages, the prepositions occur after the complement (subject-object-verb) They arecalled post positions In English language, they are usually placed before a noun or a noun equivalent (subject-verb-object) Languages such as English, French, German, and numerous others are prepositional languages whereas Korean, Turkish, Finnish, and lots of others are postpositional languages (Endley, 2010) They often cause problems for second language learners as there are no one-to-one correspondences between English and the other languages Besides, many prepositions have metaphorical and abstract meanings that a language learner finds difficult to learn The task of choosing the right preposition is made even more difficult when the preposition is used together with a noun, a verb, or an adjective, especially since there are no general rules by which a preposition is assigned For instance, the author of the book – the prepositions on, to, and of are determined by rely, similar and author respectively While learning, the various meanings and meaning extensions of prepositions are perhaps the greatest

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challenge A pedagogical strategy is essential for students to pay attention to the co-occurrence, collocation, and discourse behaviour of prepositions

2.2.1 Syntax

The word “syntax” is derived from the Greek “syntaxis”, which means

“arrangement” Syntax in linguistics deal with the ways the elements of a sentence

or phrase can be arranged to express different meanings In the other, it is set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentence in a given language, specifically word order More simply, syntax can be defined as an arrangement of words in a sentence The term syntax is also used to mean the study of the syntactic properties of a language It dictates words from different parts of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought Perhaps the most important aspect of syntax is how the various parts of speech connect together Every language has rules that dictate types of words can be used in a sentence, and how to interpret the resulting sentence For this reason, discovering the syntactic rules common to all languages in the goal of many syntacticians Syntax is one of the major components of grammar Traditionally linguists have recognized a basic distinction between syntax and morphology which is primary concerned with the internal structures of words However, this distinction has been somewhat disrupted by recent research in lexicogrammar

Syntax allows speakers to communicate complicated thoughts by arranging small, simply units in meaningful ways For example, in English, a sentence can

be simple as a one-word interjection, or it can be a lengthy composition with multiple clauses strung together

Syntax plays important roles in language, it makes human language unlimited Humans can create news sentences or phrases to express different meanings with the rules of syntax

2.2.2 Semantics

The word semantics was first used by a French philologist, Michel Breal In international scientific vocabulary semantics is also called semasiology The simple definition of semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic

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expressions The formal study of semantics intersects with many other fields of inquiry including lexicology, syntax, pragmatics, etymology and others It contrasts with syntax, the study of the combination of units of a language without reference to their meaning, and pragmatics-the study of the relationships between the symbols of a language, their meaning, and the users of the language

In linguistics, semantics the subfield that devoted to the study of meaning, as inherent at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, and larger units of discourse It

is also closely linked to the subjects of representation, reference and denotation In traditionally, semantics has included the study of sense and denotative reference, truth conditions, argument structure, thematic roles, discourse analysis, and the linkage of all these to syntax

According to Hurford and Heasley (1983) semantics is the study of meaning

in language Language is a mean of communication, and people use language to communicate with other by making conversations, giving information, and other things to make social relationship

Morries was quoted by Lyons (1977) at first defines semantics as the study of the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable And then he revised his definition, saying that, semantics is that portion of semiotic which deals with the signification of sign in all modes of signifying

The concepts as well as the studies of syntax and semantics are basic study to

investigate syntax and semantic features of preposition ‘by’ in English

2.3 An overview of the prepositions

Prepositions are words used to combine nouns and noun structures to other structures in a sentence However, they have different characteristics and usages in each language English prepositional usage may be treated in different ways depending on the starting point chosen and the aspects that are being emphasized

2.3.1 English prepositions

The important feature of preposition is that they cannot stand alone, regardless of how many words they combine with As prepositions are not independent element, they always combine other element such as noun, pronoun,

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verbs Thus, the study of preposition should be focus on finding characteristics of prepositional phrase than separating them from other elements

2.3.1.1 Definitions

The word preposition comes from Latin, a language in which such a word is

usually placed before its complement It is often used in English, both in spoken and written language According to Advanced Learner’s Dictionary says that a preposition “is a word or group of words, such as in, from, to, out of and on behalf

of, used before a noun or pronoun to show place, position, time or method” Prepositional phrase (= a preposition and the noun following it: for example, at

night or after breakfast) For instance, Agoi (2003) described preposition as a word

or group of words used with a noun or noun equivalents to show the link between that noun which it governs and another word Lawal (2004) indicates prepositions have various relationships between words or phrases in sentence The relationship includes those of time, points, position, direction and various degrees of mental or emotional attitude Wishon and Burds (1980) state “prepositions are always followed by noun or pronoun They are connective words that show the relationship between the nouns following them and one of the basic sentences elements: subject, verb, object, or complement” According to Downing and Locke (1992), prepositions function in forming a nominal group combining with other elements to realize a meaning in a sentence Thus, a study of English prepositions should focus on finding a role of the prepositional group rather than

separating them from a sentence

2.3.1.2 Classification of English prepositions

In terms of components, prepositions are divided into two main groups: simple prepositions and compound prepositions

Simple prepositions are words like ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘at’, ‘about’, ‘over’, ‘under’

‘off’, ‘of’, ‘for’, ‘to, ‘by’ etc Here are some examples of the uses of simple

prepositions Examples:

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On my last expedition I was in Hawaii (21:99)

From here to my school, it takes a half hour (12:30)

Would you like to sit down? (21:92)

Milk is very good for children and elderly people (12:32)

Compound prepositions include two sub-groups:

The first one includes prepositions with closely linked components, e.g.:

‘into’, ‘onto’, ‘underneath’, ‘until’ ‘within’, ‘without’, ‘upon’, ‘between’, etc

The following italicized and bold are examples of compound prepositions

Examples:

The chair moved out into the sunshine (21:64)

I lost my keys somewhere between the car and the house (36:149)

People looked up and screamed Luke was 20 meters

above the ground (21:64)

You must get the job done within the next year (21:35)

word Processors (21:45)

They climbed through the window (21:65)

He walked out of the park (21:65)

The second one includes prepositions with separate components such as:

- Adv + Prep.: out of away from, according to, thanks to, up to, next to

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Examples:

He walked up the hill (36:131) She is up to the top ten students in her class (21:35)

I can pass the exams thanks to her help (21:34)

Mr Green is out of town this week (21:31)

The police station is next to the shopping mail (21:32)

- Prep + N + Prep: in front of, on top of, at the back of; in spite of, on

account of, in accordance with, with the exception of etc

Examples:

There isn’t any plant in front of the desk (21:49)

Put this book on top of the others (36:1999)

His name is at the back of the cover’s story (21:34)

She is in accordance with her classmate in doing the assignment (21:78)

In terms of meanings, prepositions are divided into five groups: prepositions

of place, prepositions of time, prepositions of reason, prepositions of manner and

concession It should be noted that prepositions usually have more than one

meaning Therefore, they can be used to show several types of relations depending

on the context

(i) Preposition of place: at, on, in, up, down, off, etc … Examples:

She lives on a jet plane (12:41)

The bathroom is in the cockpit (12:131)

Turn off the lights before going out the room (21:67)

She gets up at 5 o ’clock every morning (21:56)

He lives down on Romary Avenue (21:45)

A Scotsman, John Logie Baird, transmitted the first

television picture on 25 th November 1905 (21:62)

She has lived here since she graduated this university (13:76)

My father has been working here for 12 years (12:43)

(iii) Preposition of reason: out of, because of, due to Examples:

He walked slowly because of his bag leg (36:133)

The team’s success was largely due to her efforts (36:549)

The motor is run out of petrol (13:56)

She has been promoted due to her work hard (13:46)

(iv) Preposition of manner: like, as Examples:

I respect him as writer and as a man (30:84)

As she goes to school the lesson has finished (9:63)

(v) Preposition of concession: in spite of, despite, in defiance of, etc …

Examples:

They had a wonderful holiday, despite the bad weather (36:475)

They went out in spite of the rain (36:1817)

2.3.1.3 Position of English preposition in sentences

The relative ordering of prepositions are important factors in sentence They

may appear in one of the following positions in the sentence

- In front of a noun, a pronoun, or a noun phrase Examples:

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Look at the time! We should have been at the theatre ten

She has a staff of 19 working under her (36:2056)

- At the last position of wh-questions Examples:

What do you look for? We look for improvement in your work (36:3056)

Where does she come from? She comes from London (36:332)

- Apart from that, prepositions can appear either before or after the relative

pronouns Examples:

The engineer about (whom) you are speaking is a good specialist (12:113)

Or they can appear at the end of the passive sentence Examples:

He is a man whose word can be relied on (12:34)

2.3.1.4 English prepositional phrases

English prepositional phrases also play an important role in sentence

structures According to Advanced Learner’s Dictionaries (2008), prepositional

phrase is defined that “a phrase with a preposition as its main word The

preposition comes at the beginning of the phrase and is followed by a noun”

Richard Norquist (2006) states that prepositional phrase adds meaning to the

nouns and verbs in sentences

An English prepositional phrase consists of a preposition, and an object of

preposition The prepositional phrases are used as adjectives or adverbs For

example, in the prepositional phrase ‘under the table’, the word ‘under’ acts as

preposition and ‘the table’ acts as the object of the preposition

In “Fundamentals of English traditional syntax”, Assoc Prof Tran Huu

Manh (2008) writes that according to the meanings of the prepositional phrase (or

meaning of preposition for short), we have preposition of place, time, reason,

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manner and concession Therefore, prepositional phrases are also divided into five

sub-groups, such as preposition phrases for place, prepositional phrases for time,

prepositional phrases for reason, prepositional phrases for manner, and

prepositional phrases for directions

Like prepositions, English prepositional phrase also perform seven primary

grammatical functions within sentences in the language They are preposition

head, noun phrase modifier, noun phrase complement, adjective phrase

complement, verb phrase complement, adjunctive adverbial and disjunctive

adverbial

The first primary grammatical function that prepositional phrase perform is

the preposition head A preposition consists of a preposition plus another phrase or

clause that functions as the prepositional complement

Examples:

I usually meet friends in restaurants and bars (12:32)

I’ll meet you in front of the stadium entrance (13:54)

There is a lot of friends out of the class (13:26)

I’ll visit Ho Chỉ Minh city by the end of this month (13:31)

There is an interesting talk at the beginning of the festival

In above examples, ‘in’, ‘after’, ‘in front of’, ‘out of’, ‘by the end’, ‘at the

beginning of’ prepositional phrases function as preposition heads

The second primary grammatical function that prepositional phrase perform

is the noun phrase modifier A noun phrase modifier is a word, phrase or clause

that modifies or describes a noun including a noun phrase

Examples:

The money is on the table with the shopping list (36:2172)

In above examples, ‘with the shopping list’ and ‘with your help’

prepositional phrases function as noun phrase modifiers

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The third primary grammatical function that prepositional phrase perform is

the noun phrase complement A noun phrase complement is a word, phrase or

clause that completes the meaning of a noun phrase

Examples:

He did not answer for fear of hunting her (36:704)

In above examples, ‘for reading’ and ‘of hunting’ prepositional phrases

function as noun phrase complements

The fourth primary grammatical function that prepositional phrase perform is

the adjective phrase complement An adjective phrase complement is a word,

phrase or clause that completes the meaning of an adjective phrase

Examples:

John’s extremely fond of pointing out other people’s mistakes (12:116)

The youth should be aware of danger of taking drugs (12:118)

In above examples, ‘of pointing out’ and ‘of danger’ prepositional phrases

function as adjective phrases

The fifth primary grammatical function that prepositional phrase perform is

the verb phrase complement A verb phrase complement is a word, phrase or

clause that completes the meaning of verb phrase

Examples:

You are not listening to what I’m saying (36:1057)

Nowadays we rely increasingly on computers to help us (36:1546)

Don’t depend on him too much, he is unbelievable (12:21)

In above examples, ‘to what I’m saying’ and ‘on computers’ prepositional

phrases function as verb phrase complements A verb with a verb phrase

complement is often referred to as a prepositional verb Prepositional verbs are a

common verb form in the English language that consists of a verb followed by a

preposition

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The sixth primary grammatical function that prepositional phrase perform is

the adjunct adverbial An adjunct adverbial is a word, phrase or clause that

modifies an entire clause by providing additional information about time, place,

manner, condition, purpose, reason, result and concession Examples:

The old man’s face was covered in lines and wrinkles (12:57)

In above examples, ‘in lines and wrinkles’ and ‘along the side of the wall’

preposition function as adjunctive adverbials

The seventh primary grammatical function that prepositional phrase perform

is the disjunctive adverbial A disjunctive adverbial provides additional

information to frame an entire clause Examples:

They are all volunteers, doing it just for the love of the thing (12:57)

In the above examples, the prepositional phrase ‘in my opinion’ and ‘for the

love of the thing’ function as disjunctive adverbials

2.3.2 Vietnamese prepositions

Like English preposition, although Vietnamese preposition is only small unit

in language, it is very important because its structure is used in everyday

conversations They link noun, pronouns and phrases to other words in sentence

The words or phrases that preposition introduces are called the object of the

preposition

2.3.2.1 Definitions

In Vietnamese, preposition is considered as an empty word called ‘hư từ’

There is a small amount of prepositions in Vietnamese, but they are used with high

frequency in language and play a special role in organizing sentences

In “Việt Nam văn phạm”, Nguyen Kim Than defines prepositions as a

category of word and that “prepositions, a kind of empty words, are used to

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connect to link the sub-word with the main word to show the relationship between the two words”

2.3.2.2 Classification of Vietnamese prepositions

In terms of composition, Vietnamese prepositions are classified into two main groups: simple prepositions and compound prepositions

The first group includes simple prepositions, such as: ‘bằng’ (by, of with, in),

‘bên’ (side), ‘bởi’ (because of), ‘cho’ (for), ‘của’ (of), ‘do (by, by means of),

‘dưới’ (under), 'đến’ (to), ‘giữa’ (between), ‘lên’ (up, on), ‘ngoài’ (outside) ‘ở’ (in), ‘suốt’ (during, all), ‘tại’ (in, at), ‘tới’ (to), ‘trên’ (on), ‘trong’ (in), ‘tùy’ (according to), ‘vào’ (at, in, on), ‘về’ (toward, about), ‘với’ (with) etc Here are

examples including some of the above prepositions:

Cái áo này may bằng lụa This dress is made of silk

Đơn này phải điền bằng bút mực This application must be filled out in

ink

Tôi đi làm bằng xe buýt I go to work by bus

container

Cô ấy ngồi giữa Peter và tôi She sits between Peter and me

Có một quả táo ở trên bàn There is an apple on the table

‘bên ngoài’ (‘outside’), ‘chính giữa’ (middle), ‘cho đến’ (until), ‘đến tận’ (till),

‘đối với’ (towards), ‘ở giữa’ (between), ‘kể cả’ (including), ‘khác hẳn’ (different

Đến ngã tư quẹo phải, tiệm ấy bên tay

phải luôn

Turn right at the next intersection, the

store is on the right

Anh ấy khác xa với bố của anh ấy He is different from his father very much

Ý kiến của anh ấy luôn đi ngược lại với ý

Prepositions of location like bên phải (on the right), bên trái (on the left), trên (on, above, over), trong (in, inside), etc

Prepositions of times: trước (before), sau (after), vào (in, at, on), etc

Miscellaneous prepositions conclude bởi (by), cho (for), về (about), cạnh (next to), nhờ (thank to), etc

Có một quả táo ở trên bàn There is an apple on the table

lạnh

It’s hot inside the house, but it’s cold

outside.

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Đến đây và ngồi cạnh tôi Come here and sit beside me

làm của tôi

assignment

(Trần Ngọc Dung, 2010)

2.3.2.3 Position of Vietnamese prepositions in sentences

In Vietnamese, prepositions have some positions in sentence

- In front of noun/ pronoun For examples:

Tôi ăn không cần dao I eat without a knife

Can you come with me? Bạn có thể đến với tôi không?

- They appear after verb For example:

Chúng tôi sống gần công viên We live near the park

- After an adjective For example:

Mẹ tôi cao hơn bố tôi My mother is taller than my father

2.3.2.4 Vietnamese prepositional phrases

According to Le Kha Ke (1997), Vietnamese prepositional phrases are defined as “a special part of speech comprised of a preposition and a noun or noun phrase” There are six types of Vietnamese prepositional phrases (PP): prepositional phrase for places, prepositional phrase for time, prepositional phrase

Chúng tôi ngồi bên song cửa

Bọn trẻ chơi trò chơi quanh nhà

Chúng tôi đi dọc theo bờ sông

We sit by the window

Children play games around the house

We go along the river bank

(Trần Ngọc Dung, 2010)

The second type is prepositional phrase for time, which normally begins with

‘lúc’ and ‘vào’ Here are the examples:

Tôi sẽ gặp anh ấy lúc 3 giờ chiều

Tôi tặng mẹ tôi quyển sách này vào dịp

The third, type is prepositional phrase for means, which use two common

prepositions ‘bằng’ and ‘với’ Examples:

Tôi thường đi làm bằng xe máy

Chúng tôi thỉnh thoảng đi vào thành

phố Hồ Chí Mình bằng máy bay

Cô ấy đi xem phim cùng với bạn bè cô

ấy

I usually go to work by motor

We sometimes travel to Ho Chi Minh

City by plane

She goes to the cinema with her friend

(Trần Ngọc Dung, 2010)

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The fourth type is prepositional phrase for manner, which mainly begin with

‘bằng’, ‘theo’ and ‘với’ Examples:

Cô ấy hát với tất cả tấm lòng

Theo lời nhà cầm quyền, khu vực nhà ở

đây sẽ được xây dựng lại trong thời

gian tới

She sang with all her heart

here are going to be rebuilt next time (Trần Ngọc Dung, 2010)

The fifth type is prepositional phrase for purpose, which normally begin

with: ‘đến’, ‘vào’ or ‘về’ Examples:

Anh ấy bàn đến chuyện làm ăn

Bọn nó nhằm vào túi tiền của bà ấy

He discussed about business

They aim at her purse

Those characteristics are:

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- English has a word stress and sentence stress

- Being an intonation language, the pitch depends on the communication function

of the sentence It is weak and strong in pronunciation of some words

- There is a sound in the speech

- There are pronunciations of the final consonant of a very specific word

The ultimate goal of learning a foreign language is to be able to communicate in that language The ability to communicate on two levels of reception and language production To receive accurate, we need to learn to listen and to read, to express ourselves we need to learn to speak and write Through this article, we want readers to notice the difference between English and Vietnamese pronunciation to be able to learn English more effectively

Stress, intonation

Vietnamese is a monosyllabic and tones language This feature of Vietnamese is a great obstacle to learning English, a multi-syllable language with complex intonation and intonation properties In English, two syllables or more have a pronounced syllable that is different from the other syllables in terms of length, height, height

Climate / 'klaimit /, event / i'vent /, expensive / ik'spensiv /

It is important to note that some words may have two major stresses, major and minor stresses

Exemplify / fuzz, fai /

Although there are some principles of stress in words, but English is a language with many exceptions, so it is best to study English learners should remember the word stress mechanically as well as memory the writing of the word Dictionary can help learners to know the correct word stress

Apart from the stress in the English word there is also the stress of the sentence This means that some words in the speech chain are pronounced more strongly than the rest The words that are emphasized in the speech sequence are usually words that describe the meaning independently: noun (shirt, flower, people ), main verb (do, eat, read, travel .), fluently, correct .), adjectives (lovely, nice, beautiful .), words to ask (what, why, who .) The words that are not

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spoken in the speech sequence are functional words such as adverbs (in, on, at ), articles (a, an, the ), must words (must, can, have ) pronouns (he, she, it ), connectors (and, but, or ), pronouns (which, what, when )

Intonation in English is not as complicated as stress This is a feature we cannot find in dictionaries but can be practiced when listening and practicing conversations When listening to many of the everyday life's speeches, English learners may find that

Speakers often tune in to the main accent of the sentence and down the end

of the sentence with statements, questions, or questions beginning with a word

We love children

Get out of my life!

What did you buy?

With verbal prompts, the speaker often voices at the end of the sentence This voice is also made when the speaker uses a narrative for the purpose of asking Can you swim?

With tail questions, it can be up or down at the end of the sentence, this up and down determines the meaning of the sentence

You broke the vase, did not you? (Down the end of the sentence when the speaker waits for the consent of the listener.)

You broke the vase, did not you? (Raises the voice at the end of the sentence when the speaker asks for information.)

How to match words in a speech string?

Consonant - vowel

In a sequence of words, when a word ends in a consonant followed by a word that begins with a vowel, the consonant of the preceding word is read along with the next word

Just a little on the top of it

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/ p / - / t / / p / - / s /

The / d /, / p / in the above examples will be swallowed (not pronounced)

Connect the same sounds

When the consonants at the front end are the consonants at the beginning of the word, we tend to pronounce these sounds into a sustained consonant

Top- position black- cat big-girl

(g) - (g) - (g)

The / p /, / k /, / g / sounds are pronounced only once but last longer

People learn English as a foreign language often used to speak rather than write Writing is a harder skill than any other skill As the reality of the problem, most native speakers when learning the language must have their efforts, to write accurately and effectively even on what they are well aware of Here are three reasons, in my opinion, to answer the question of why writing text is the most difficult skill

2.4.2 Factors affecting learners’ acquisition of a foreign language

The learner’s errors are indicative both of the state of the learner’s knowledge, and of ways in which a second language is learned Contrastive analysis subsequently arose a field of research To be sure, contrast between system was understood not to be the only factor involved in second language learning The major defect of contrastive analysis was deemed to be the attention paid to the analysis of two grammars Stevens (1969) hypothesized that errors should not be viewed as problems to be overcome, but rather as normal and inevitable features indicating the strategies that learners use He conjectured that if

a regular pattern of errors could be observed in the performance of all learners in given situation, and if a learner were seen to progress through this pattern, his errors could be taken as evidence not of failure but of success and achievement in learning The learner’s partial success, reflected those of the mother tongue or of the target language, is seen as representing the construction of evolving systems of grammatical and phonological rules

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According to Richard and Sampson (1984), the small amount of research and speculation about learners’ approximation system suggests that seven factors may influence and characterize these second language learner systems These factors are as follows:

Language transfer: The first factor is language transfer Sentences in the target language may exhibit interference from the mother tongue This of course was considered to be the major, but not the only, source of difficulty by linguists doing contrastive analysis Interference analysis tends to be from the deviants sentence back to the mother tongue Contrastive analysis works the other way, predicting errors by comparing the linguistic system of the mother tongue and target language Until the role of some of these other factors is more clearly understood, it is not possible to evaluate the amount of systemic interference due

to language transfer alone

Intralingual interference: The second factor refers to items produced by the learner which reflect not the structure of the mother tongue, but generalization based on partial exposure to the target language In an analysis of English errors produced by speakers of a multitude of unrelated representing several language families Richard (1970) noted subcategories of error types which seem to be common to speakers of diverse language as they develop hypotheses about the structure of English Many intralingual errors represent the learning difficulty of what are often low level rules in the target language, such as differences between

the verb inflection in I work, he works It may be inferred that once basic rules

such as those concerning subject-object relationship, prediction, negation, etc are acquired, a considerable amount of difficulty in second language learning is related to selectional restrictions and to surface structure and contextual rules of the language Both language transfer and intralingual errors confirm the traditional notion of transfer of training; that is, previous learning may influence later learning

Sociolinguistic Situation: Different settings for language use result in different degrees and types of language learning These may be distinguished in terms of the effects of the socio-cultural setting on the learner’s language and in terms of the relationship holding between the learner and the target language community and the respective linguistic markers of these relations and identities

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Included here are this the effects of the learner’s particular motivations for learning the second language as well as the socio-cultural setting Consideration of the sociolinguistic situation also leads to inclusion of the general motivational variables which influence language learning In both first and second language acquisition particular forms and patterns of language learning may be attributable

to social variables

The influence of the mother tongue on the learner’s language may also vary according to the sociolinguistic situation Mackey (1962) notes that in describing interference one must account for variation according to the medium, style, or written the register may be formal or informal, and the speaker may play any one

of a number of varied social roles Sampson (1971) suggests that varying situation evoke different kinds of errors in varying quantifies when children are trying to use the target language

Modality: The learner’s language may vary according to a fourth factor, the modality of exposure to the target language and the modality of production Production and perception may involve the acquisition of two partially overlapping system Vildomec (1963) observes that interference between the bilingual’s language is generally on the productive rather than receptive side People often report instances of intrusion of elements of their mother tongue in speech production but rarely in their understanding of another language Nemser’s research suggests that two different systems may be internalized in the target language depending on the modality He found that in the productive modality, phonological replacements differed depending on whether the learner was imitating utterance he heard or producing speech spontaneously (Nemser, 1971a)

An example of learning on the basic of auditory cues would be discrimination between initial /f/ or /θ/ on the one hand and /v/ and /ᵭ/ in English on the basic of formal transition

Age: The fifth factor which may affect the approximatively system of the second language learning in his age Some aspects of the child’s learning capacities change as he grows older and these may affect language learning The child’s memory span increases with age He acquires a greater number of abstract concept, and he uses these to interpret his experience Some of the characteristics

of child language have been attributed to the particular nature of his memory and

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processing strategies in childhood Brown and Bellugi (1964) relate utterances imposed by the child’s inability to plan ahead more than a few words Hence in some ways adults are better prepared for language learning than children Adults have better memories, a large store of abstract concepts that can be used in learning and greater ability to form a new concept Children however are better imitators of speech sounds Hence, see differences in results according to age as reflecting mainly motivational and situational differences The need to understand and speak are much more crucial problems for young children than for many adults learning a new language Kessler (1971) concludes that shares rules are actually the same rule, allowing for language-specific lexical insertions Children who are going through natural developmental stages in the acquisition similar to those they utilize in mother tongue acquisition Mother tongue acquisition is a long process which may last until age 10 or later (Chomskey, 1969)

Successions of Approximative systems: The six factor concerns the lack of stability of the learner’s approximative system Such systems are usually unstable

in given individual, since there is invariably continuing improvement in learning the target language Because the circumstances for individual language learning are never identical, the acquisition of new lexical, phonological and syntactical items varies from one individual to another Novel items of structures in the learner’s dialect do not occur regularly The existence is strong support for the autonomy of approximative systems as distinct from native and target systems This claim of autonomy for approximative systems does not, however, preclude their dependence upon either native or target system

Universal Hierarchy of Difficulty: This factor is concerned with the inherent difficulty for man of certain phonological, syntactic items and structures Some forms may be inherently difficulty to learn no matter what the background

of the learner For example, it is well known that the English pair /v/ - /ᵭ/ and /f/ - /θ/ are very hard to distinguish, not only for non - native speakers but for native speakers as well (Delattre, Liberman and Cooper, 1962) Therefore, if a hierarchy

of difficulty is postulated for learners of a given language background, it must include not only interlanguage difficulties but also take into account a possible universal hierarchy of difficulty The concept of difficulty may be presumed to affect the learner’s organization of what he produces (for which the term communication strategy may be used) Focusing on learning strategies directs

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attention to the cues which the learner uses to identify elements in the new language What the learner finds difficult will also depend on the degree and nature of what he has acquired of the second language His knowledge of the target language will form part of the data by which he infers the meaning of new elements At the level of pragmatic classroom experience, error analysis will continue to provide one means by which the teacher assesses learning and teaching and determines priorities for future effort

2.4.3 Predictions of errors made by Vietnamese learners using English preposition ‘by’

The result of the contrastive analysis in the previous parts makes it possible

to predict the following errors that Vietnamese students may commit when

learning preposition ‘by’:

• Type 1: Errors due to the wrong use of prepositions, i.e substitution of ‘by’

with other prepositions Learners are often confused or make mistake when using

other prepositions instead of ‘by’ Instead of using ‘by’, they use incorrect words

(Vào giờ này ngày mai anh phải hoàn thành báo cáo.)

*In this time tomorrow you have to finish the report

Correct: By this time tomorrow you have to finish the report

(Xin lỗi Tôi làm việc đó do nhầm lẫn.)

*Sorry I did it with mistake

Correct: Sorry I did it by mistake

• Type 2: Native English speakers rarely make mistakes with these very common prepositions However, non-native speakers frequently get them wrong,

often because they translate directly from their own language rather than listening

to native English speakers (and yes, you always listen to something or someone)

(Anh ta bị giết bằng một con dao.)

*He was killed by a knife

Correct: He was killed with a knife

(Anh ta đi ngang qua tôi.)

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*He went past me

Correct: He went by me

• Type 3: Errors in translate ‘word by word’ from Vietnamese many cases/

phrases that students supposed ‘by’ must be used In fact, not all

situations are correct

(Chiếc cặp này làm bằng da.)

*This bag was made by leather

Correct: This bag was made of leather

• Type 4: The omission of ‘by’ Also due to translating word-by-word

from Vietnamese into English, many Vietnamese learners have the habit of

omiting ‘by’ in some cases:

(Mẹ tôi hiếm khi đi xe khách.)

*My mother rarely goes coach

Correct: My mother rarely goes by coach

• Type 5: Errors in word collocation, perhaps in idiomatic expressions or when followed by a verb

(Chúng ta khởi động chiếc máy này bằng cách ấn nút màu đỏ.)

*We start this machine by press the red button

Correct: We start this machine by pressing the red button

2.5 Summary

In summary, we have examined types of English and Vietnamese prepositions and prepositional phrases, their characteristics and features A brief contrastive analysis of some basic structures between them was also given to point out the similarities and differences between the two languages which will be the basic for finding out the common errors made by learners of English Finally, some hypotheses of committing errors were reviewed They will be all the sources for the following sections