Features of english adjectives denoting characteristics and their vietnamese equivalents in the bilingual novel “david copperfield’ by charles dickens”

The study is carried out through a number of useful methods such as descriptive, quantitative, qualitative and contrastive analysis in order to find out the similarities and differences

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

FEATURES OF ENGLISH ADJECTIVES DENOTING CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN THE BILINGUAL NOVEL “DAVID COPPERFIELD” BY CHARLES DICKENS

(Đặc điểm của tính từ tiếng Anh chỉ tính cách

và những tương đương trong tác phẩm song

ngữ David Copperfield của tác giả

Charles Dickens)

NGUYỄN THỊ THU HƯỜNG Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

FEATURES OF ENGLISH ADJECTIVES DENOTING CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN THE BILINGUAL NOVEL “DAVID

COPPERFIELD” BY CHARLES DICKENS

(Đặc điểm của tính từ tiếng Anh chỉ tính cách và những tương đương trong tác phẩm song ngữ David

Copperfield của tác giả Charles Dickens)

NGUYỄN THỊ THU HƯỜNG Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Đăng Sửu

Hanoi-2020

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled FEATURES OF ENGLISH ADJECTIVES DENOTING CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN THE BILINGUAL NOVEL

“DAVID COPPERFIELD” BY CHARLES DICKENSsubmitted 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

Next,I would like to convey my thanks to all the lecturers and the staff of the Department of Foreign Languages of Ha Noi Open University Institute for granting me a permission to write this thesis as well as their valuable help and ideas Last but not least ,I would like to give my gratitude to my family and my friends ,who always support and encourage me throughout the process of researching and perfecting this thesis

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ABSTRACT

In every language,adjectives are important elements of sentences because they are the words used in many contexts to describe the quality of any person or object.However,students do not often pay much attention to the features of adjectives in terms of syntax and semantics,so they sometimes have difficulties in expressing their ideas and opinions correctly when using adjectives,especially when they want to use adjectives to describe a person’s characteristics in English without

misunderstanding The study focuses on the Features of English adjectives denoting characteristics and their Vietnamese equivalents in the bilingual novel “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens.” in the hope of contributing the necessary

background to assist Vietnamese learners of English with intensive knowledge of adjectives denoting “characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese as well as suggesting some possible implications for teaching and learning adjectives denoting

“characteristics’ and possible further research

In order to achieve the set goal, the data are collected from different sources such as grammar books, dictionaries, the bilingual novel ‘David Copperfield’ and reliable websites on the Internet The study is carried out through a number of useful methods such as descriptive, quantitative, qualitative and contrastive analysis

in order to find out the similarities and differences in terms of syntactic and semantic features between English adjectives denoting characteristics and their

Vietnamese equivalents in the bilingual novel “David Copperfield” The findings

give the answers to the research questions by the data collected and analyzed as examples for illustrations

Finally, it is hoped that the results of the study could equip students with both grammatical and lexical aspects of adjectives denoting characteristics in both languages and help them use adjectives denoting characteristics suitably and

accurately as well

A.D.C Adjective denoting characteristics

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Adjectives can be used dynamically 19 Table 2.2: Examples showing the contrast between inherent and non-inherent 20 Table 2.3: Semantic sub-classification of adjectives 21 Table 4.1: Syntactic features of adjectives denoting characteristics 33 Table 4.2: Semantic features of adjectives denoting characteristics 34 Table 4.3: ADC functioning as attributive adjectives and their Vietnamese

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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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION………

vi 1 1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aim and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Methods of the study 3

1.5 Scope of the study 4

1.6 Significance of the study 4

1.7 Structure of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Review of previous studies 6

2.2 An overview of adjectives 7

2.2.1 Definitions of adjectives 7

2.2.2 Kinds of adjectives…… 9

2.2.3 Features of adjectives 18

2.2.3.1 Semantic functions of English adjectives 18

2.2.3.2 Syntactic functions of English adjectives 21

2.2.3.3 Syntactic functions of Vietnamese adjectives 24

2.3 An overview of adjectives denoting characteristics in English 26

2.3.1 Definition 26

2.3.2 Features of adjectives denoting characteristics

2.3.3 Functions of adjectives denoting characteristic

27 27 2.4 Summary 27

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 28

3.1 Research approach

3.2 Research setting………

28 29 3.3 Research questions 29

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3.4 Methods of the study 30

3.5 Data collection and data analysis 31

3.5.1 Data collection 31

3.5.2 Data analysis 32

3.6 Summary 32

CHAPTER 4: ADJECTIVES DENOTING CHARACTERISTICS IN ENGLISH AND IN VIETMAMESE IN THE NOVEL ‘DAVID COPPERFIELD’ AND ITS VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSION 33 4.1 An overview of adjectives denoting characteristics extracted from the novel “David Copperfield’ and its Vietnamese translated version 33 4.2 Syntactic features of adjectives denoting characteristics in the novel “David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens and its Vietnamese translated version 34 4.2.1 Adjectives denoting characteristics functioning as attributive adjectives 35 4.2.2 Adjectives denoting characteristics functioning as subject complement 37 4.2.3 Adjectives denoting characteristics functioning as object complement 38 4.3 Semantic features of adjectives denoting characteristics in the novel “David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens and its Vietnamese translated version 40 4.3.1 Adjectives denoting positive characteristics 40

4.3.1.1 Adjectives denoting positive characteristics for teenagers 40

4.3.1.2 Adjectives denoting positive characteristics for adults 41

4.3.1.3 Adjectives denoting positive characteristics for the middle-aged and the aged 44 4.3.2 Adjectives denoting negative characteristics 45

4.3.2.1 Adjectives denoting negative characteristics for teenagers 45

4.3.2.2 Adjectives denoting negative characteristics for adults 46

4.3.2.3 Adjectives denoting negative characteristics for the middle-aged and the aged 47 4.4 The similarities and differences of adjectives denoting “characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese in the novel ‘David Copperfield’ and its Vietnamese translated version 4.4.1 Similarities

48 48 4.4.2 Differences 49

4.5 Summary 50

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 51

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5.1 Recapitulation 51

5.2 Concluding remarks 52

5.3 Limitation of the research 53

5.4 Recommendations for further research

5.4.1 For teaching adjectives denoting characteristics ………

5.4.2 For learning adjectives denoting characteristics………

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REFERENCES I

APPENDICES IV

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Language undoubtedly has a very important social purpose because it is mainly used for linguistic communication It's the method through which we share our ideas and thoughts with others Some people even say that language is what separates us from animals and makes us human One of the main goals of language

is to communicate with people and to understand them It is said that language is a passport to another world and a sign of respect and creates instant connections With a language you can get to know and get involved with the culture We use language with many different purposes for example, to inform others, to ask them to

do certain things and to express our feelings, moods, ideas, information, experiences

or to describe someone’s characteristics and so on It is difficult to envisage a society without language which is the basis of human progress Nowadays, English

is the mostpreferable language around the world which leads to the increasing number of English language learners seeking opportunities to work in international and multilingual settings and affirms its essential role in all exchange activities and international cooperation in all fields of business, commerce, science, politics, culture, education, medicine, social life and many other key areas of most countries and regions in the world There are more than 700 million English users in the world, which is a terrible number to prove the dominance of English To Vietnam,

we also recognize the importance of English to the development of the country as well as integration into the international and regional communities That’s the reason why English is taught at every educational level However, each language has its origin, characteristics and values, which is different from that in the learners’ native language As we know, English vocabulary is plentiful with thousands of words, phrases and idioms in which words denoting “characteristics” are commonly used in our daily lives Moreover, one English word conveys many meanings and many English words have the same meaning Thus, in communication, we often have difficulties in expressing our ideas, especially in transferring meanings of words, phrases from one language to another one, in our case from English to Vietnamese and vice versa on account of the differences between Vietnamese and English, and especially when we want to describe a person’s characteristics in English In grammar, adjective is one of the essential parts of speech to form a sentence Adjectives help to find distinctive features of a subject, to characterize a

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subject from the different sides, to give a figurative and bright description, to express the estimation and personal attitude English adjectives are diversified in many forms, meanings as well as usages Having a deep insight of such a various source of vocabulary is not an easy task for learners of a foreign language including English andVietnamese.It takes learners a long time to understand and use English accurately and effectively, especially adjectives denoting “characteristics”as if we misuse adjectives when describing someone’s characteristics we will make them feel sad or uncomfortable even angry After many years teaching at High school, I notice that students sometimes misuse and mistranslate adjectives denoting

“characteristics” from English to Vietnamese and vice versa even when they are good at vocabulary and grammar.Vietnamese educators and linguists have also written many books in which they provide many kinds of adjectives denoting

“characteristics” of human with both negative and positive meaning in English and

in Vietnamese.However, there is no profound research on adjectives denoting

“characteristics” in English and their Vietnamese equivalentsby any Vietnamese linguists Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the “Features of adjectives denoting “characteristics” in English and Vietnamese in the novel “David Copperfield ” by Charles Dickens and its Vietnamese translated version” , make a contrastive analysis between them in the hope of contributing the necessary background to the learning and teaching adjectives denoting “characteristics” to Vietnamese learners, especially giving learners a general view to achieve effective communication and translation and avoid the misuse of adjectives denoting

“characteristics” For all the above reasons, the author decides to choose the topic

“Features of English adjectives denoting characteristics and their Vietnamese equivalents in the bilingual novel ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens.”

1.2 Aim and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aim

The aim of this study is to assist Vietnamese learners and teachers of English with intensive knowledge of adjectives denoting “characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese and use them properly and accurately during their process of teaching and learning as well as communication in their daily lives

1.2.2 Objectives

In order to obtain the above aims, the study is expected to fulfill the following objectives:

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-Finding out the syntactic and semantic features of adjectives denoting

“characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese in the novel ‘David Copperfield’and

its Vietnamese translated version

-Investigating the similarities and differences of adjectives denoting

“characteristics”in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic

features in the novel ‘David Copperfield’and its Vietnamese translated version

-Suggesting some implications for teaching and learning English adjectives denoting “characteristics”

1.3 Research questions

In order to achieve the above aims and objectives, the following research questions are put forward:

-What are the syntactic and semantic features of adjectives denoting

“characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese in the novel ‘David Copperfield’and

its Vietnamese translated version?

-What are the similarities and differences of adjectives denoting characteristics in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic

features in the novel ‘David Copperfield’and its Vietnamese translated version?

- What are the possible implications of the study for teaching and learning English adjectives denoting “characteristics”?

1.4 Methods of the study

The study is mainly based on scientific theories about English and Vietnamese adjectives, the writer has to collect the most suitable materials to analyze and compare them In order to achieve the set goal, the study will be carried out by the combination of the following methods:

Firstly, quantitative method is used to gather adjectives denoting

“characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese in the novel ‘David Copperfield’by

Charles Dickens and its Vietnamese translated version

Secondly, descriptive method is used to describe and make a general overview of English and Vietnamese adjectives in terms of their syntactic and semantic features

Thirdly, qualitative method is used to emphasize on intensive knowledge, elaborate and make the concepts ,data collected as well as theory easily understood

Finally, contrastive analysis method is used to identify, analyze and compare the similarities and differences between English adjectives denoting characteristics

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and its Vietnamese equivalents in the bilingual novel ‘David Copperfield’ in terms

of their syntactic and semantic features

1.5 Scope of the study

The study only focuses on the features of English adjectives denoting

characteristics and their Vietnamese equivalents in the bilingual novel “David

Copperfield” in order to make fundamental contributions to the field of linguistics and improve knowledge of adjectives in general and adjectives denoting

characteristics in particular Hopefully, the findings would bring out suggestions for the teachers and researchers to conduct further studies related to adjectives in both languages and help learners comprehend more about the features of adjectives in terms of syntax and semantics English is considered the source language,

meanwhile Vietnamese the target language The data are collected mainly from some English and Vietnamese grammar books by some authors such as R Quirk et

al (1985), R Huddleston and G.K Pullum (2002), R Carter and M McCarthy (2006), R.M.W Dixon (2005) and Diep Quang Ban (2005) Features of adjectives denoting characteristics investigated are mainly based on R Quirk et al ‘s and Diep Quang Ban ‘s viewpoint The study describes and analyzes the features of English adjectives denoting “characteristics”and their Vietnamese equivalents in the novel

“David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens and its Vietnamese translated version by Phan Ngoc with the data of 76 out of 165 samples.“David Copperfield”,published

as a serial in 1849 and 1850 and as a book in 1850, also serves as Dickens' critique

of the bleak conditions for many children in Victorian England, including its

notorious boarding schools during the 19th century It is regarded by many readers and critics as the best novel of Charles Dickens

With the aims at investigating the features of English adjectives denoting characteristics and their Vietnamese equivalents in the bilingual novel “David

Copperfield”, the novel “David Copperfield”by Charles Dickens and its Vietnamese translated version by Phan Ngoc are the most useful literary works to be chosen for the study The study will finally suggest some implications for teaching and

learning English adjectives denoting “characteristics” to Vietnamese learners

1.6 Significance of the study

In our time, English can be called the language of communication Most of all international conferences and competitions are held in English Knowing English and speaking it well will expand the horizon of your opportunities in life A good

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level of English is always necessary when you communicate with people of different nationalities And using the words precisely, especially using adjectives denoting “characteristics” when you would like to describe someone’s characteristics is very important because if you use the words wrongly, the listeners will feel annoyed and upset That is the reason why the thesis studies the similarities and differences between adjectives denoting “characteristics” in English in the novel “David Copperfield” and their Vietnamese equivalents as well as classifies the features of adjectives denoting “characteristics” in terms of syntax and semantics The research results have contributed to deepening polysemous feature

of adjectives denoting “characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese due to the culture of the two countries bringing about The research results of the thesis also help to analyze, comprehend the beauty of the means of expression of English and Vietnamese, help practically for teaching and learning English in schools in general,

as well as helpVietnamese learners use English adjectives denoting “characteristics” more accurately

1.7 Structure of Thesis

The study consists of five chapters, namely Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Finding and discussion and Conclusion as follows:

Chapter 1, Introduction, gives the rationale for the research, the aims and

objectives, the scope of the research, research questions and the structural

organization of the thesis

Chapter 2, Literature review, presents some previous studies at home and abroad

on adjectives in general and adjectives denoting “characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese in particular and the theoretical background of adjectives and adjectives denoting “characteristics”

Chapter 3, Methodology, describes issues of methodology, data collection

instruments, procedure of data collection and data analysis

Chapter 4, Finding and discussion, provides the features of English and

Vietnamese adjectives denoting “characteristics” in the novel ‘David Copperfield’and its Vietnamese translated version, finds out the similarities and

differences between them in terms of syntactic and semantic features

Chapter 5, Conclusion, makes conclusions on each of the research objectives,

implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research

“a word is considered as an adjective when it describes the person, thing, which a noun refers to or describes the ideas contained in the whole group of words”.Hatzivassiloglou& McKeown (1993) described a method for clustering adjectives semi-automatically according to their meaning in a parsed corpus as a first step towards the identification of adjectival scales Besides, adjectives and adjectival phrases are found in Basic English Grammar by Sargean, H (2007) An intensive research on every aspect of adjectives presented by Randond Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svartvik (1985) as well as A.J Thomson

&A.V Martinet (1999)

According to R Carter and M.Mc Carthy (2006), adjectives describe features and qualities of entities (people, animals and things) denoted by nouns or pronouns and they cannot be automatically identified by their form, but most typically by their functions in a sentence

In Viet Nam, there are also some researchers studying about the syntactic and semantic features of adjectives such as Diệp Quang Ban (2005) with the title

Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt According to him, adjectives make sense of the nature and

characteristics of colors, flavors, sounds, of objects and adjective is often used as a predicate in a sentence Nguyễn Văn Hiệp also research on the syntactic features of

adjectives through the book named Cú pháp Tiếng Việt.In addition, some theses in

HaNoi Open University also involve description adjectives and the adjectival phrases Among these theses are: “A study on syntactic and semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents ”by Nguyễn Minh Phương(2018) , “A study on the adjective group denoting the beauty in English with reference to Vietnamese based on the Bilingual

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novel ‘The thorn bird’ by Hoàng Thị Thanh Tâm (2018).“Syntactic and semantic features of English descriptive adjectives in some English works with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents”by Nguyễn Thi Thu Hà (2018).“A study on semantic features of English adjectives denoting “big”with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents” by Phùng Thị Thanh Thủy (2016).“Semantic and syntactic functions of English adjectives –A contrastive analysis with their Vietnamese equivalents” by Nguyễn Thị Nga(2008) “The syntactic functions of English adjectives in comparison with those of Vietnamese ones” by Mai Thị Trang (2013)

As having mentioned above, syntax and semantics nowadays, have become the objectives of linguistics and many researchers, yet the author hasn't found out any researches perfectly mentioned in the aspects as the paper is being studied.Thus the writer decides to research on the syntactic and semantic features of adjectives denoting “characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese in the novel “David Copperfield ” by Charles Dickens and its Vietnamese translated version in the hope that the writer’s graduation paper will contribute a small part to enriching the source

of materials, and help students be able to further understand about semantic and syntactic features of adjectives denoting characteristics as well as partly help them avoid making errors when using adjectives denoting characteristics in English as a foreign language

2.2 An overview of adjectives

2.2.1 Definitions of adjectives

As known, English adjectives as well as Vietnamese ones play an important role in daily life, especially in communication and translation Thus, adjective is defined in many various ways by many English and Vietnamese grammarians

In English, according to Quirk et al (1985, p.402): “We usually cannot tell whether a word is an adjective by looking at it in isolations, because the form of a word does not necessarily indicate its syntactic function [1] Some suffixes are indeed found only, or typically, with adjectives However, many common adjectives have no identifying form, eg: good, hot, little, young, fat Nor can we identify a word as an adjective merely from its potentialities for inflection, eg: great, greater, greatest.”

-able: comfortable -al: seasonal -ish: greyish

-ful: playful -ic: scientific -less: useless [1]

-ous: dangerous -y: dirty

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Another definition given by L.G.Alexander (1998,p.106): “A word is considered an adjective when it describes the person or thing which a noun refers to or describes the ideas contained in the whole group of words” We can also find out the

definition of the adjective from the website

https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/: “Adjectives are

words that describe or modify other words, making your writing and speaking much more specific, and a whole lot more interesting Words like small, blue,

and sharp are descriptive, and they are all examples of adjectives Because

adjectives are used to identify or quantify individual people and unique things, they are usually positioned before the noun or pronoun that they modify” Some

sentences contain multiple adjectives as the examples following:

They live in a big, beautiful house with their parents and grandparents

Since it’s a hot day, Lisa is wearing a nice white sleeveless T-shirt

On her birthday, Brenda received an antique vase filled with fragrant flowers

And from the website https://grammarist.com/grammar/adjectives/:Adjectives are

words that are used to describe or modify nouns or pronouns For

example, red, quick, happy, and obnoxious are adjectives because they can describe things, eg a red hat, the quick rabbit, a happy duck, an obnoxious person

Additionally,according to R.M.W Dixon(2005): “An adjective will typically modify the meaning of a noun, and can be used either as modifier within a Noun Phrase(that clever man is coming) or as copula complement (That man is clever)”

Adjective is also defined by R Carter and M McCarthy (2006) who have deeply

researched on syntactics and semantics of adjectives say that: “Adjectives describe the features of persons or things denoted by nouns or pronouns” such as the following examples below:

It’s a nice room

The service was awful

Her father is German

She is beautiful

And the –ing and –ed forms of verbs may also function as adjectives as the following examples:

Just add boiling water

They only want to travel to English-speaking countries

It’s not smoked salmon, it’s smoked trout

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Even supermarkets now sell home-made jams

According to the Oxford learner’s pocket dictionary by Victoria Bull: “Adjective is

a word that describes a noun,” eg, green in green grass

According to the Cambridge dictionary: “Adjective is a word that describes a noun

or a pronoun,” eg: big, boring, purple and obvious are all adjectives

According to Collins dictionary: “An adjective is a word such as big, dead or financial that describes a person or thing, or gives extra information about them Adjectives usually come before nouns or after link verbs”

In Vietnamese, like English, there are many different definitions on what is an adjective as linguists differ in their opinions and scope of the study

According to Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh (2001, p145): “Aword is considered as an adjective when it describes characteristics, feature, shape, color of something or somebody”

Another definition by DiệpQuang Ban (2005, p.80) is that: “Adjectives are words that indicate the state, characteristics, properties, used to describe things or another

property.”

To sum up,Adjectives in both languages are words that are used to describe

or modify the features of nouns or pronouns expressing quality,quantity,size,color ,characteristics,etc

2.2.2 Kinds of adjectives

In terms of semantics, R.M.W Dixon, (2005, p.83,84,85), adjectives are classified into 11 types as the following:

DIMENSION: big, great, short, thin, round, narrow, deep

PHYSICAL PROPERTY: hard, strong, clean, cool, heavy, sweet, fresh,cheap,quiet, Noisy; this includes a CORPOREAL subtype such as well, sick, ill, dead, absent, beautiful, ugly

SPEED: quick, fast, slow, rapid, sudden

AGE: new, old, young, modern

COLOUR: white, black, red, crimson, mottled, golden

VALUE: good, bad, lovely, atrocious, perfect, odd, strange, curious, necessary, crucial, important, lucky

DIFFICULTY: easy, difficulty, tough, hard, simple

VOLITION: deliberate, accidental, purposeful

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QUALIFICATION: with a number of subtypes as the following:

(a) Definite: a factual qualification regarding an event: definite, probable, true, obvious;

(b) Possible: expressing the speaker’s opinion about an event, which is often some potential happening such as possible, impossible;

(c) Usual: expressing the speaker’s opinion about how predictable some happening such as usual, normal, common;

(d) Likely: again an opinion, but tending to focus on the subject’s potentiality to engineer some happening such as likely, certain;

(e) Sure: as for (d) but with a stronger focus on the subject’s control: sure

(f) Correct: correct, right, wrong, appropriate, sensible

HUMAN PROPENSITY, again with a number of subtypes:

(a) Fond, with a similar meaning to Linking verbs: for example: fond

(b) Angry, describing an emotional reaction to some definite happening, e.g angry, jealous, mad, sad;

(c) Happy, an emotional response to some actual or potential happening, e.g anxious, keen, happy, thankful, careful, sorry, glad; proud, ashamed, afraid;

(d) Unsure, the speaker’s assessment about some potential event, e.g certain, sure, unsure, curious;

(e) Eager, with meanings similar to wanting verbs, e.g eager, ready, prepared, willing;

(f) Clever, referring to ability, or an attitude towards social relations with others, e.g clever, adept, stupid; lucky; kind, cruel; generous;

(g) Honest, judgement of some persons or statements as fair and just, e.g honest, frank;

(h) Busy, referring to involvement in activity, e.g busy occupied, preoccupied, lazy SIMILARITY, comparing two things, states or events, e.g like, unlike, (which are the only adjectives to be followed by an NP with no preposition); similar (to), different (from), equal (to/with), identical (to), analogous (to), separate (from), independent (of), consistent (with), which introduce the second role-obligatory for

an adjective from this type-with a preposition

Of all the above types of adjectives, the various subtypes of HUMAN

PROPENSITYare often used to describe human’s characteristics

Some adjectives denote relations between entities These are among the adjectives that require complements such as fond (of), similar (to), aware (of), keen (on/to), far (from)

Some adjectives describe entities in terms of their actions such as generous, cruel, talkative, polite, cooperative

Some adjectives classify entities into types such as wooden (spoon), Swedish (film), departmental(meeting), detached (house), organic (vegetables), impressionist (painter), wild (salmon)

Of all the above adjectives, adjectives describe entities in terms of their actions and adjectives denote characteristics or inherent properties and qualities are used to describe people’s characteristics

According to the website https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/english-adjectives/, there are 7 types of English adjectives:

Descriptive

A descriptive adjective is probably what you think of when you hear the word

“adjective.” Descriptive adjectives are used to describe nouns and pronouns

Words like beautiful, cute, silly, tall, annoying, loud and nice are all descriptive adjectives These adjectives add information and qualities to the words they’re modifying

Quantitative

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Quantitative adjectives describe the quantity of something

In other words, they answer the question “how much?” or “how many?” Numbers like one and thirty are this type of adjective So are more general words like many, half and a lot

Examples:

“How many children do you have?” “I only have one daughter.”

“Do you plan on having more kids?” “Oh yes, I want many children!”

“I can’t believe I ate that whole cake!”

Demonstrative

A demonstrative adjective describes “which” noun or pronoun you’re referring to These adjectives include the words:

This — Used to refer to a singular noun close to you

That — Used to refer to a singular noun far from you

These — Used to refer to a plural noun close to you

Those — Used to refer to a plural noun far from you

Demonstrative adjectives always come before the word they’re modifying

Sometimes, like when you’re responding to a question, you can leave off the noun being described and only use the adjective For example, if someone asks you how many cakes you want to buy you can respond: “I want to buy two cakes,” or you can just say: “I want to buy two.”

His — Belonging to him

Her — Belonging to her

Their — Belonging to them

Your — Belonging to you

Our — Belonging to us

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All these adjectives, except the word his, can only be used before a noun You can’t just say “That’s my,” you have to say “That’s my pen.” When you want to leave off the noun or pronoun being modified, use these possessive adjectives instead:

Which — Asks to make a choice between options

What — Asks to make a choice (in general)

Whose — Asks who something belongs to

Other question words, like “who” or “how,” aren’t adjectives since they don’t modify nouns For example, you can say “whose coat is this?” but you can’t say

“Which song will you play on your wedding day?”

“What pet do you want to get?”

“Whose child is this?”

Distributive

Distributive adjectives describe specific members out of a group These adjectives are used to single out one or more individual items or people Some of the most common distributive adjectives include:

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Each — Every single one of a group (used to speak about group members individually)

Every — Every single one of a group (used to make generalization)

Either — One between a choice of two

Neither — Not one or the other between a choice of two

Any — One or some things out of any number of choices This is also used when the choice is irrelevant, like: “it doesn’t matter, I’ll take any of them.”

These adjectives are always followed by the noun or pronoun they’re modifying Examples:

“Every rose has its thorn.”

“Which of these two songs do you like?” “I don’t like either song.”

Articles

There are only three articles in the English language: a, an and the Articles can be difficult for English learners to use correctly because many languages don’t have them (or don’t use them in the same way)

Although articles are their own part of speech, they’re technically also adjectives! Articles are used to describe which noun you’re referring to Maybe thinking of them as adjectives will help you learn which one to use:

A — A singular, general item

An — A singular, general item Use this before words that start with a vowel

The — A singular or plural, specific item

Simply put, when you’re talking about something general, use a and an When you’re speaking about something specific, use the “A cat” can be used to refer to any cat in the world “The cat” is used to refer to the cat that just walked by

Examples:

“The elephants left huge footprints in the sand.”

“An elephant can weigh over 6,000 pounds!”

Of all the above types of adjectives, descriptive adjectives are used to describe someone’s characteristics with the function as as a predicate and an attribute as well

Additionally, there are 2 main types of English adjectives including descriptive adjectives and limiting ones divided into 11 subtypes according to the website https://7esl.com/types-of-adjectives/:

In fact, descriptive adjectives can be attributive adjectives or predicate adjectives

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Attributive Adjectives

Adjectives which appear directly beside the noun, most commonly before, are called attributive, because they attribute a quality to the noun they modify And, more than one adjective can modify the same noun

The pickles are salty (noun: pickle, linking verb: are, adjective: salty (describing

the noun” pickles”))

Tornadoes appear menacing (noun: tornadoes, linking verb: appear, adjective:

menacing (describing the noun “tornadoes”))

There are nine types of limiting adjectives as follows:

Definite & Indefinite Articles

There is only one definite article, the When used before a noun, it specifies a particular noun as opposed to any one

Examples:

The cat (a specific, identifiable cat)

The cottages (specific, identifiable cottages)

There are two indefinite articles, a and an These are used with a noun when a

specific noun is not being pointed at

Examples:

A lion (any lion)

An ant (any ant)

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What is your phone number?

The bookstore sold his favorite book

After many years, they returned to their homeland

We’ll make our decision and contact the people involved

The cat chased its ball down the stairs and into the backyard

Demonstrative Adjectives

The demonstrative adjectives “this,”“these,” “that,” “those,” and “what” are

identical to the demonstrative pronouns, but are used as adjectives to modify nouns

or noun phrases

Examples:

That dog is so adorable

He lives in this house

My friend preferred those plates

These books are too expensive

The relationship between a demonstrative adjective and a demonstrative pronoun is similar to the relationship between a possessive adjective and a possessive pronoun,

or to that between an interrogative adjective and an interrogative pronoun

Interrogative Adjectives

An interrogative adjective (“which” or “what”) is like an interrogative pronoun, except that it modifies a noun or noun phrase rather than standing on its own (see also demonstrative adjectives and possessive adjectives)

Examples:

Which method is likely to produce the best results?

What subject did you enjoy most?

Indefinite Adjectives

An indefinite adjective is similar to an indefinite pronoun, except that it modifies

a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase

Examples:

Many people continue to ignore warnings about the dangers of sunbathing

The examiners can pitch on any student to answer questions

There were a few people sitting at the back of the hall

All children should be taught to swim

Cardinal Adjectives

An ordinal adjective indicates the position of a noun in a series

Examples: The first date, Thethird month…

Proper Adjectives

Adjectives derived from proper names are called proper adjectives They are easily recognizable in that they are always capitalized

Examples: Japanese food, Russian opera…

Nouns Used as Adjectives

Sometimes nouns can be used as adjectives to define or describe another noun Examples:

The computer exhibition

A history teacher

From all the types of adjectives introduced above, we use predicative and attributive adjectives to describe someone’s characteristics in terms of syntactic function According to Diệp Quang Ban (2005, p.507-p.510) there are 4 kinds of adjectives in Vietnamese as the following:

Adjectives showing properties:consist of adjectives showing quality such as tốt

,xấu,đẹp,vụng,trơn,nhám,sạch,bẩn,trong,đục,tầm thường, quan trọng, đúng, sai,phải, trái and adjectives showing density,length,weight,shape,color,sound,taste such as nhiều, ít, đông, thưa, ngắn, dài, to, nhỏ, béo, gầy, cao, thấp, sâu, cạn, nhanh, chậm, nặng, nhẹ, ;méo, tròn, ngay, lẹch, thẳng, cong, nhọn, cùn, ;xanh, đỏ, vàng

, tím…; vang, dội, ồn, lặng, réo rắt, trầm bổng ; thơm, nồng, cay, ngọt…etc

Relational adjectives: can have roots as common nouns such as tác phong (rất)

công nhân, cung cách (rất) quý phái, giọng lưỡi (rất) côn đồ, thái độ (rất) cửa quyền and also have roots as nouns such as giọng (rất) Sài Gòn, cái nhìn (rất) Việt Nam, thái độ (rất) Chí Phèo

As you can see, in the examples of adjectives mentioned above, we can replace

“rất” by “rặt” into the place of “rất” or after the adjectives under consideration, with the meaning of the high degree of nature

Gradable adjectives: can be combined with adverbs of degree such as rất, hơi, khí,

quá, cực kì forwards, or lắm, quá, cực kì backwards For instance; rất đẹp, rất rộng,

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rất vui, rất anh hùng, rất Việt Nam ; đẹp lắm, vui quá, anh dũng cực kì It can be

seen that the relational adjectives are difficult to combine with the factors showing degree that stand behind

Non-gradable adjectives: cannot be combined with adverbs of degree standing

before adjectives such as chính, công, chung, quốc doanh, riêng, tư in word

combinations such as vấn đề chính, quyền lợi chung, quỹ công, đời tư, hàng quốc doanh, gia đình riêng In terms of meaning, non-gradable adjectives can be

adjectvives of properties or relational adjectives

Eg: vấn đề chính= vấn đề có tính chất chính (tính chất)

hàng quốc doanh=hàng thuộc về khu vực quốc doanh (quan hề)

quyền lợi chung= quyền lợi nói chung, không cụ thể (tính chất)

quyền lợi thuộc về mọi người (quan hệ)

It is easily realized that Adjectives showing properties and gradable adjectives are used to describe human being’s characteristics in terms of semantic function

2.2.3 Features of adjectives

2.2.3.1 Semantic function of English adjectives

According to Quirk et al (1985, p.434-p.436), in termsof semantic function, adjectives consist of 3 types: stative/dynamic, gradable/non-gradable and inherent/ non-inherent:

Type 1: Stative and dynamic adjectives

Stative adjectives describe a state rather than an action and are not usually used in the progressive tenses (Oxford Learner’s dictionary), for example, a stative adjective such as “tall” cannot be used with the progressive aspect or with the imperative:

*He is being tall *Be tall

In contrast, dynamic adjectives denote qualities that are thought to be subject

to control by the possessors and hence can be restricted temporally For example;

"brave" is dynamic because a person is not always brave In short, dynamic adjectives often refer to actions and can be used in progressive

Types of adjectives such as Difficulty, Human propensity and Similarity can be used as dynamic adjectives because they are used in an imperative mood such as the following examples: Don’t be anxious!

Moreover, they are also used in the continuous tense as: She is being anxious again Adjectives that can be used dynamically include in the following table below:

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Table 2.1: Adjectives can be used dynamically

Type 2: Gradable and non-gradable adjectives

According to Quirk et al (1985, p.435), most adjectives are gradable

Gradation is manifested through comparison as the examples following:

tall -> taller -> tallest

beautiful -> more beautiful -> most beautiful

Gradation is also manifested through modification by intensifiers, which convey the degree of intensity of the adjective:

very tall so beautiful extremely useful

All dynamic and most stative adjectives (eg; tall, old) are gradable

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Non-gradable adjectives cannot be graded or in other words, principally denominal

adjectives like atomic, hydrochloric and adjectives denoting provenance such as British

Type 3: Inherent and non-inherent adjectives

Based on “A comprehensive grammar of the English language” of Quirk et

al (1985, p.435-436), adjectives are classified into inherent and non-inherent

Inherent adjectives characterize the referent of the noun directly For example; the

inherent adjective in a wooden cross applies to the referent of the object directly: a wooden cross is also a wooden object On the other hand, in a wooden actor the

adjective is non-inherent: a wooden actor is not (presumably) a wooden man

Here are other examples, showing the contrast between inherent and non-inherent Table 2.2: Examples showing the contrast between inherent and non-inherent

To sum up, modification of a noun by means of a non-inherent adjective can be

seen as an extension of the basic sense of the noun Thus, a firm friend is “a friend whose friendship is firm”, and a perfect stranger is “a stranger who is perfectly

strange.”

If the adjective is inherent, it is often possible to derive a noun from it such as her

soft touch and the softness of her touch However, with a non-inherent adjective no such derivation is possible such as a firm handshake and the firmness of the

handshake There are, however, exceptions to this generalization, since we find

instances like: a wooden actor and the woodenness of the actor

*Patterns of semantic subclassification

Gradable adjectives are either inherent, as in a black coat, or non-inherent, as

in anew friend Dynamic adjectives are generally inherent, though there are exceptions; for example, wooden in the actor is being wooden is both dynamic and

non-inherent

The table below illustrates the various possibilities with respect to the three semantic distinctions that we have been discussing

(dynamic use of central adjective)

(peripheral adjectives: non-inherent)

(dynamic use of stative adjective)

(peripheral adjective: gradable & inherent)

non-According to Alexander, L.G(1998), adjectives can change in meaning when used before a noun or after “be”:

- Before a noun: John is an old friend of mine (=I’ve known him for a long time) -After “be”: My friend, John, is very old (=old in years)

Some other common adjectives that can change meaning according to their position are: early, faint, fine, heavy, ill, late, sick

There are a few adjectives going before or after nouns can change in meaning due to their position as the following examples:

This elect body meets once a year (before the noun=specially chosen)

The president elect takes over in May (after the noun=who has been elected)

To sum up, in terms of semantic functions of English adjectives, adjectives denoting characteristics can be dynamic, inherent and gradable adjectives in general

2.2.3.2 Syntactic function of English adjectives

To convey meaning is one of the main functions of syntax According to L.G Alexander, (1998, p.82), English adjectives have two most popular positions in

a sentence The first position is before a noun when the adjectives modify the noun

coming after them functioning as attributes such as tall men or an old man

Adjectives have the same form whether they refer to people or things in the singular or plural:

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He's a tall man She's a tall woman It's a tall building

They're tall men They're tall women They're tall buildings

The other position is after linking verbs such as be, feel, taste, look, seem, appear, smell, get, sound, become, stay, turn, keep, grow, go, remain,…functioning

aspredicates, for example: The man is old

And adjectives can change in meaning before a noun or after 'be'

-Before a noun: John is an old friend of mine (= I've known him for a long time) -After be: My friend, John, is very old (= old in years)

Some other common adjectives that can change meaning according to their position are: early, faint, fine, heavy, ill, late, sick Note that sick can go before a noun or after be, but ill (like well) comes after be Sick means 'ill' and also means 'upset in the stomach'

Like L.G Alexander, as for Quirk et al (1985, p.416-418), the major syntactic functions of adjectives are attributive and predicative:

+) Adjectives are attributive when they pre-modify the head of a noun phrase such

as a small garden, popular ballads There are different kinds of attributive

adjectives such as the following:

-Observation adjectives such as real, perfect, best, interesting, beautiful or cheapest

can indicate value or talk about subjective measures

-Size and shape adjectives talk about measurable, objective qualities including

specific physical properties Some examples include small, large, square, round, poor, wealthy, slow and

-Age adjectives denote specific ages in numbers, as well as general ages Examples are old, young, new, five-year-old, and

-Color adjectives are exactly what they sound like – they’re adjectives that indicate

color Examples include pink, yellow, blue

-Origin adjectives indicate the source of the noun, whether it’s a person, place,

animal or thing Examples include American, Canadian, Mexican, French

-Material adjectives denote what something is made of Some examples

include cotton, gold, wool, and

-Qualifier adjectives are often regarded as part of a noun They make nouns more

specific; examples include log cabin, luxury car, and pillow cover

S + Verb (make/consider/find/think…) + Object + Adjs

Moreover, Adjectives are subject complement not only to noun phrases, but also to clauses, which may be finite clauses [1,2] or nonfinite clauses [3,4]:

That you need a car is obvious [1]

Whether he will resign is uncertain [2]

To drive a car is dangerous [3]

Playing chess is enjoyable [4]

-Adjectives can also be object complement to clauses:

I consider what he did foolish

playing so hard

Adjectives functioning as object complement often expresses the result of the process denoted by the verb [5,6,7] as well as by using the verb “be” [5a,6a,6b]

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He pulled his belt tight [5]

He pushed the window open [6]

He writes his letter large [7]

His belt is tight [5a]

The window is open [6a]

His letters are large [7a]

Adjectives can sometimes be postpositive They can immediately follow the nouns or pronouns to modify We may thus have three positions of adjectives:

PREDICATIVE: This information is useful

ATTRIBUTIVE: useful information

POSTPOSITIVE: something useful

A postpositive adjective can usually be regarded as a reduced relative clause

E.g; Something that is useful

Compound indefinite pronouns and adverbs ending in-body, -one, -thing, -where can be modified only postpositively:

Eg; Anyone (who is) intelligent can do it

I want to try on something (that is) larger

We’re not going anywhere very exciting

Postpositive adjectives can function as the following structure:

A NP+ adjs

In general, adjectives that are restricted to attributive position, or that occur predominantly in attributive position, do not characterize the referent of the noun directly For example, old can be either a central adjective or an adjective restricted

to attributive position In that old man, old is a central adjective, and can thus also

be predicative: That man is old On the other hand, in the usual sense of an old friend of mine, old is restricted to attributive position and cannot be related to My friend is old In this case, old is the opposite of new The person referred to is not being identified as old: it is his friendship that is old Besides, adjectives that are restricted, or virtually restricted, to predicative position are most like verbs and adverbs They tend to refer to a condition rather than to characterize, e.g He felt ill/poorly.However, many people use such adjectives as attributives too, for example; A well person need see a doctor only for a periodic checkup

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Some of the adjectives restricted to predicative position have homonyms that can occur both predicatively and attributively, eg; The conscious patient and the patient

is conscious

2.2.3.3 Syntactic functions of Vietnamese adjectives

According to Diep Quang Ban (2005, p.506), Adjectives make sense of the nature and characteristics of colors, flavors, sounds, of objects, most of them are combined forwards with words such as rất, cực kì, hơi, khí, quá or backwards with words such as lắm, quá, cực kì andcan function as an attribute and a predicate in a sentence

+) Attributive adjective is a word or a phrase that modifies the nouns to which it depends on.It makes easier to distinguish objects.Let’s research the following examples to prove:

As it can be seen, adjectives are attributes with or without a determiner which

post-modify the nouns and they can appear right after the nouns as the following

structure:

(Determiner)+ N +adj

+)Predicative adjective:Like English,Vietnamese adjectives can be also direct and indirect complementary for subjects or objects,but they often stand right after the subjects that they modify

Cái bút này là tốt đấy.(p.84)

-combine with some kinds of adverbs standing before them such as adverbs

of time ( sẽ,vừa,mới,đang,đã ,từng,vẫn,cứ ) for example;Cục sắt trong lò đã đỏ(p.79), Tôi đang vội (p.81)adverbs of identity and similarity (đều,cũng ),adverbs

of degree(rất,hơi, khí,qúa, ) for example; Chiếc cầu này hơi yếu(p.81) for example; Bột đặc quá(p.81), adverbs of polarity (có,không,chưa,chẳng ) adverbs of

usualness (thường,hay,năng,ít,chẳngmấy khi,chẳngbao giờ ) for example;Người buồn cảnh có vui đâu bao giờ(p.79)

-combine with adverb “rồi” standing behind them

-combine with adverbs of direction (ra, lên, đi, lại) standing behind them and choosing which word is depending on the suitable meaning such as đẹp ra, đẹp lên, bẩn đi, sạch lên, sạch ra, sạch đi, nhỏ lại, nhỏ đi, to ra, to lên We cannot say that đẹp đi, đẹp lại, sạch lại, bẩn lên, nhỏ ra, to đi, to lại

Adjectives of quantity such as nhiều, lắm, ít, đông, đầy, vắng, thưa can combine with nouns functioning as attributive

Ngoài đường đông người (p.514)

Hôm nay cửa hàng vắng khách (p.514)

Adjectives of measurement such as height, area, mass, heat can stand before

measure complement such as cao 1m60, dài 100km, rộng 100m2, nặng 50kg

In summary, both English and Vietnamese adjectives can function as

attributive and predicative in the sentence Though, there is a bit difference in the position of adjectives in the sentence between English and Vietnamese

2.3 An overview of adjectives denoting characteristics in English

The information about adjectives denoting characteristics in English can be found

on the website “http://partofspeech.org/types-of-adjectives-personality-adjectives/”

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focus on the physical appearance, but instead, on the personality traits of an individual such as the following adjectives:

2.3.2 Features of adjectives denoting characteristics

As stated in the definition provided above, a personality adjective indicates the characteristics of an individual Just to make sure that everyone’s on the same age, the word characteristics refers to the combination of various traits and qualities that form a person’s inner characteristics If you are having a hard time in identifying the personality adjective in a sentence, you can just ask the question,

“What is she/he like?” and the answers are as the following examples with the underlined adjectives denoting characteristics:

The people in our neighborhood are all friendly

As a child, she was very curious and observant

I was surprised to know that Carrie is actually a polite child

He was such an irresponsible student!

2.3.3 Functions of adjectives denoting characteristics

As the name suggests, the main function of this type of adjective is to describe or express the characteristics or personality of an individual Instead of focusing on the outward appearance (e.g., fat; slim; ugly; gorgeous; tall; petite; neat; dirty), personality adjectives are more concerned with describing the inner characteristic traits of a person It can be used to describe both the positive personality traits and negative personality traits of an individual Furthermore, since everyone has a different personality, the list of personality adjectives can seem endless

2.4 Summary

In this chapter, some previous studies at home and abroad on adjectives and adjectives denoting characteristics are clearly presented as well as the definition and features of adjectives in English and in Vietnamese Besides, adjectives denoting characteristics in English are generally introduced Especially, readers can find some more information in detail about classification of adjectives in terms of semantic features as well as syntactic features All the brief of this chapter will be

an effective source for the next chapters

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In order to fulfil the purpose of making an investigation into syntactic and semantic features of the adjectives denoting characteristics based on the bilingual novel “David Copperfield”by Charles Dickens and its Vietnamesetranslated

version, the researcher chooses the quantitative method, qualitative method,

contrastive analysis method as well as descriptive one.This study is planned to describe,compare and analyze some syntactic and semantic features of the

adjectives denoting characteristics in English and their Vietnamese equivalents to find out the answers to the research questions.Therefore, the adjectives denoting characteristics in the novel “David Copperfield”by Charles Dickens and its

Vietnamese translated version are the fundamental source for the research in the process of the study,so English is considered the source language and Vietnamese is the target one

3.1 Research approach

The thesis is mainly conducted by combining the quantitative, qualitative, contrastive and analytic approaches as well First of all, the information and data related to syntactic and semantic features of adjectives in English and Vietnamese books by some authors such as R Quirket al (1985), R Huddleston and G.K Pullum (2002), R Carter and M McCarthy (2006), R.M.W Dixon, (2005), Diep Quang Ban (2005) and variousreliable sources from printed publications, dictionaries and the Internet are collected Features of adjectives denoting characteristics investigated are mainly based on R Quirk et al ‘s and Diep Quang Ban ‘s viewpoint After having finished collecting , the author describes, analyzes and illustrates in detail adjectives and adjectives denoting characteristics in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features clearly and easily understood Next, the author used samples gathered from the novel “David Copperfield” to analyze by grouping in terms of syntactic and semantic categories

in order to make the study more systematic and logical with a view to giving the similarities and differences between adjectives denoting characteristics in English and in Vietnamese basing on the novel ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens and its Vietnamese translated version

In the conducting of the investigation, it is clearly supported that all the above methods will help the author to accomplish the aims of the research as well as

to find out a right direction for doing the research successfully

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3.2 Research setting

The research is conducted with references from diverse reliable sources such

as dictionaries, websites, some English and Vietnamese grammar books and mainly based on the bilingual novel ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens in which all syntactic and semantic features of adjectives denoting characteristics in English and

in Vietnamese are clearly pointed out

Based on 19 years of teaching English grammar and vocabulary to learners

of English, the author has found out that learners sometimes misuse the adjectives denoting characteristics in terms of the structural and semantic features to a certain extent In order to have better understanding of literary works as well as adjectives denoting characteristics, this thesis is hoped to help teachers and learners of English

in mastering adjectives denoting characteristics in terms of semantic and syntactic features and using them effectively

As the foundation for analysis,the novel ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens published by Oxford University Press and the translation version by Phan Ngoc published by Ho Chi Minh city Art Publishing House in 2000 is the author’s right choice.The study concentrates on syntactic and semantic features of adjectives denoting characteristics,so all the examples are extracted from the bilingual novel

‘David Copperfield’ to analyse.The story is set in the background in England during the first half of the 19th century "David Copperfield" is probably the most

autobiographical novel by Charles Dickens He uses many incidents of his

childhood and early life to create a considerable fictional achievement The story revolves around a boy orphaned at an early age who had to struggle and work hard

to make his way and find an identity in the world The novel deserves its sustained reputation into the 21st century

3.3 Research questions

With a view to investigating the semantic and syntactic features of adjectives

denoting “characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese in the novel ‘David Copperfield’and its Vietnamese translated version, the research questions will be

presented as follows:

(i) What are the syntactic and semantic features of adjectives denoting

“characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese in the novel ‘David Copperfield’and

its Vietnamese translated version?

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(ii) What are the similarities and differences of adjectives denoting characteristics in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features in the novel

‘David Copperfield’ and its Vietnamese translated version?

(iii) What are the possible implications of the study for learning and teaching English adjectives denoting “characteristics”?

3.4 Methods of the study

This study is conducted with four research methods such as quantitative, descriptive , contrastive analysis and qualitative method to investigate the semantic and syntactic features of adjectives denoting “characteristics” in English and in

Vietnamese in the novel ‘David Copperfield’and its Vietnamese translated version

In the first stage, quantitative method is applied to collect the syntactic and semantic features of adjectives in English and in Vietnamese from a variety of sources such as dictionaries, English and Vietnamese grammar books, e-books and some prestige websites on the Internet as well as gather adjectives denoting

“characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese in the bilingual novel ‘David

Copperfield’with various nuances of meanings, analytical component method also employed

In the second stage, descriptive method is used to give clear and intensive descriptions of both syntactic and semantic features of adjectives and adjectives

denoting “characteristics” in English and in Vietnamese

In the third stage, qualitative method is used to analyze the data collected by grouping them in terms of syntactic and semantic categories in order to make the study more systematic, intensive and logical

Finally,the contrastive analysis method is applied to make a clear comparison with the similarities and differences between English adjectives denoting

characteristics and their Vietnamese equivalents in the bilingual novel ‘David

Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens” on the basic of certain criteria in terms of

syntactic and semantic features

In summary, the contrastive analysis method is considered to be one of the chief methods of this study because of its emphasis on the similarities and differences between English adjectives denoting characteristics and their Vietnamese equivalents in the bilingual novel ‘David Copperfield’.Through this analysis,learners of English will be deeply understandable the syntactic and