Contrastive analysis of nominal substitution english and vietnamese discourse

Luận văn, khóa luận, đề tài

Firstly, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor- doctor Le Cong Thin for his consultant encouragement valuable advice and support throughout this study.

I would also like to thank doctor Phan Mau Canh – teacher of Vinh University, M.A Ho Ngoc Trung and Duong Van Loc – teachers of Ha Noi open University for rich material resources and good advice to my thesis

I am very grateful to all teachers of foreign language department who helped me a lot to finish my thesis.

Finally, I want to express my special thanks to my relatives and friends without whose support and encouragement, this paper would not be finished

Table of contents

Acknoledgement 1

Part I introduction 1.1 Justification of the thesis 3

1.2 Aims of the thesis 4

1.3Methods of the thesis 4

1.4 Scope and limitation 4

1.5 Design of the thesis 5

Part II content Chapter I In general 6

1.1What is substitution and types of substitution 6

1.2 Differences and similarities between substitution and reference 7

1.3 Differences and similarities between substitution and ellipsis 7

1.4 Nominal substitution 8

1.5 General features of English and Vietnamese nominal structure 9

Chapter II 2.1 Personal pronouns 14

2.1.1 Subjective personal pronouns and objective personal pronouns 14

2.1.2 Possessive pronouns 21

2.2 One 24

2.2.1 One as a substitute for a nominal group head/the substitute one 25

2.2.2 Indefinite one 28

2.3 The same 32

2.1.1 Say the same 34

2.3.1 Do the same 37

2.3.2 Linking verbs with the same 38

Part III Conclusion 41

Reference 42

Part I

introduction

1.1 Justification of the thesis.

In the heyday of structural linguistics and the partern practice language,which derived insights and justification from such an approach tomethodology linguistic description, nothing seemed of greater potentialvalue to language teachers and learners than a comparative and contrastivedescription of the mother tongue and the target language If one couldjuxtapose the structures of the mother tongue against those of the targetlanguage Course designers (teachers and learners) would be better able toplan their learning and teaching: better able to foresee the difficulty andconsequently better to husband resources and direct learning and teachingeffort It was such on a basic that the 1960's saw a range of contrastiveanalyses published (typically between English and other world languages)and a host of language teaching courses make available

Yet, in the 1970's the bubble seemed to bust Contrastive analysis nolonger claimed as much pedagogic attention, although, significantly thedecade saw the establishment of major contrastive linguistic project

In English, cohesion plays an important role in building discourse

In fact, cohesion is a means of linking sentences so we can not dealwith the problem of discourse without having a look at the factors thatcreate texture within discourse segment Furthermore, cohesive relationcan be maintained through the use of grammatical means

According to Halliday and Hassan, there are four grammatical

devices: reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction Most of themhave been carefully studied However, one minor type of substitution hasnot been paid attention to That is why, my concern is drawn to thiscohesive device in English and Vietnamese discourse.

Vietnamese learners of English often make mistakes when havingsentences like:

When being asked, "How many pencils would you like?" Instead ofsaying" I need one" They tend to answer "I need a pencil"

That is why, this study is carefully carried out in the hope that it willhelp Vietnamese learners of English know how to use nominal substitution

in discourse

1.2 Aims of the study.

-This thesis is created with the following purposes

-To present and describe the nominal structure in Vietnamese andEnglish

-To make a comparison between two languages in order to find outthe similarities and differences between them

1.3 Scope and limitation.

Substitution in this study is considered as a cohesive device indiscourse Within the sentence nominal substitution does not function as acohesive device That is why, in this thesis I do not deal with sentencessuch as:

This route is two miles longer than that one or his salary is severaltimes as big as mine However, such sentences below will be dealt with:Ours houses are on the same hill Mine is above yours Or

Did a letter come for me?

Yes one came for you this morning.

1.4 Methods of the thesis.

-Descriptive method

-Comparative and contrastive method

-Analysis and synthetic method

-Translation method

1.5 Design of the thesis.

The design of the thesis is represented as follow

Part I: Introduction

1.1 Justification of study

1.2 Aims of the study

1.3 Scope of the study

1.4 Methods of the thesis

1.5 Design of the thesis

Part II: Content

Part II

Content

Chapter One: In general

1.1 What is substitution and types of substitution.

Much has been said about substitution Firstly, It was considered aformal feature with its sentence Then substitution has been seen ascohesive device or grammatical device across sentence This idea has beenshared by many well-known linguists such as Halliday and Hassan,Michael Mc Marthy, Carl James, Brown and Yule etc Those influentiallinguists have their own definitions about substitution

- Substitution is a device for abbreviating and for avoidingrepetition Most of the substitutes of pro-forms within sentences are usedacross sentence They are normally stressed

(A university Grammar of English: Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum: P194).

- Substitution is a process in which we replace items which are toolong or to be well-known

- Substitution is similar to ellipsis in that, in English it operates atnominal, verbal or clausal level

(Discourse Analysis for language teachers: P45: Michael Mc Carthy).

Substitution is a relation within the text on the lexical - grammaticallevel A substitute is a sort of counter which is used in place of repetition

of a particular item

In sum, I can say that substitution is an effective way of avoidingrepetition.

There are four types of substitution which are nominal, verbal,adverbial, and clausal In this thesis, nominal substitution will becarefully carried out

1.2 Differences and similarities between substitution and reference.

Reference is often thought to be the relationship that holds between

a lexical item with a real identity in the world For example, the referent of

"tiger" is a set of objects in the real world that satisfy all the characteristic

of what is so called "tiger" (tiger is a kind of animal, feathered, men-eaten etc).

So the difference between substitution and reference is clear:substitution is a relation between linguistic items in the sentence ordiscourse Meanwhile reference is a relation between lexical items and thereal word

However, It is difficult for us to distinguish between substitutionand reference when reference including the relationship of co-referencebetween expressions in different parts of discourse To distinguish them,Halliday and Hassan claim that substitution is a relation between linguisticitems on the lexico-grammatical level, but reference is a relation betweenmeaning on the semantic level

1.3 Differences and similarities between substitution and ellipsis.

We are easily confused between substitution and ellipsis as they have

so many things in common Ellipsis is the omission of unnecessary words

on phrases form sentences because they have already mentioned orreferred to Ellipsis is the omission of elements normally required by the

grammar which the speaker /writer assumes are obvious from the contextand therefore need not to be raised The omitted part is usually present inthe previous sentences, so the successful interpretation of the sentence inwhich ellipsis occurs is, like substitution, dependent on what has gonebefore.

In addition, ellipsis is similar to substitution in that it is an effectivemeans of creating cohesion The fact that the addressee needs to look back

at the previous utterances for what is presupposed to have been known tohim sets a link between parts of the discourse and therefore, contributesvery much to cohesion of the discourse

Ellipsis and substitution are considered as alternative ways oftreating given information, if we want to avoid repetition of giveninformation, we can use some linguistic items which signal theinformation being dealt with or we can leave out that sort of information Both ellipsis and substitution operates either at nominal, verbal orclausal level

However, there still exists difference between them That is: ellipsis isthe way we omit unnecessary items whereas as for substitution we replaceitems which are too long and to be well known to be repeated In otherwords, in substitution the given information is replaced by some linguisticitems right in the slot, the slot is left empty in ellipsis

From what has been mentioned above, ellipsis and substitutionshould be seen as two different processes and be dealt with separately

1.4 Nominal substitution.

Nominal substitution takes place mainly in the environment of anominal group and in English the following items can occur as nominalsubstitutes

Personal pronoun

In this study, those mentioned above will be carefully examined and

at the same time Vietnamese equivalents are also provided

Before dealing with those items I would like to take a look at thenominal structure both in English and Vietnamese

1.5 General features of English and Vietnamese

nominal structure.

According Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum the structure ofthe nominal group in its full form consists of 3 components: Head,premodification and postmodification

Eg: The pretty/girl/in the corner.

The Head, around which the other components cluster and whichdistates concord and other kind of congruence with the rest of the sentenceoutside the noun phrase: eg: the pretty girl: some pretty college girls.

-The premodification, which comprises all the items placed beforethe head - notably adjective and noun: eg - the pretty girl.

- Some pretty college girls.

- The post modification, comprising all the items placed after thehead-notably prepositional phrases, non-finite clauses, and relativeclauses

Eg: The girl in the corner.

The girl standing in the corner.

The girl who stood in the corner.

Like Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum, Halliday and Hassanalso introduce the same structrure of the nominal group in its full formconsists of 3 components:

Head, premodifier and postmodifier Premodifier optionally precedesthe Head and postmodifier optionally follows the Head

Eg: The two high stone/ walls/ along the roadside

Premodifier Head Postmodifier

Now, we can come to the conclusion that the standard structrure ofthe English nominal group has a maximum of three components: oneHead and two optional modifiers The Head what may be a common noun,

a pronoun or a proper noun that can be substituted or even omitted and thismatter is the purpose of my study

Beside logical structure, Halliday and Hassan give out theexperiential of the nominal group

There are six elements in this structure: the Deitic (usually a determiner expressing identity).

The Numerative (A numeral or other quantifier expressing quantity)

The Epithet (An adjective expressing a property)

The Classifier (A common or a proper noun expressing a subclass)

The Qualifier (A relative clause of prepositional phrase)

The relationship between logical and experiential structure can beillustrated as follow

Logical

structure

Deitic Numerat

ive

Epithet Classifier Thing Qualifier

The structure given by Halliday and Hassan is preferable to be used

in this study

As far as the Vietnamese nominal structure is concerned, the workdone by well-known linguists such as Diep Quang Ban, Nguyen Tai Canand Do Thi Kim Lien will be taken into consideration

According to Diep Quang Ban, the structure of the Vietnamesenominal group is composed of three components: the Head, thePremodifier and the Postmodifier The presence of the last two is optional(Ng÷ ph¸p tiÕng ViÖt: DiÖp Quang Ban).

Eg: TÊt c¶ nh÷ng c¸i/ con mÌo/ ®en Êy

Premodifier Head postmodifier

The Head is said to be either a noun or a noun phrase what normallyconsists of another noun, (con gµ, c©y cau, c©n g¹o, cuéc häp e.t.c) This

combination only expresses a single entity

The premodifier may functionally be divided in to three pasts:

Universal Qualifier (tõ chØ tæng lîng nh hÕt th¶y, c¶ th¶y, tÊt c¶ )

Numerative (sè tõ eg: nh÷ng, mét, hai )

And the indexical word "c¸i" (tõ chØ xuÊt c¸i) This structure can be

illustrated as below

Universal Numenative Indexical word

"c¸i"

Head TÊt c¶ nh÷ng c¸i con mÌo

What should be noted here is that in Vietnamese the elements of thepremodifier have a fixed order and they sometimes take the place of theHead when the later is absent.

The Postmodifier may consist of two elements: Qualifiers (định tố)

and demonstrative (từ chỉ định: này, nọ, kia, đây, đó )

Con mèo/ đen/ ấy

The functional view is also shared by Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (Ngữ pháptiếng Việt) However, he suggests that the two nouns, the classifier and theone following it, are equally important instead of considering the Head as

a combination of two nouns, of which the preceding one serves as aclassifier and is assumed to be secondary to the following one That is why

he points out the Head is a combination of Head I and Head II

He also suggests that Head may have three forms:

Head I + Head II: con/ chim/ này

Head I con/ (này)

Head II chim/ (naỳ)

Đỗ Thị Kim Liên (Tiếng Việt thực hành – 1999) totally agreeswith Nguyen Tai Can’ point of view.

Futhermore, she claims that if premodifier consists of the wordindexical "cái" Head must consist of classifier and noun So According to

her, nominal group has the following form

Phần đầu

Premodifier

Phần trung tâm nucleus

Phần cuối postmodifier

Từ chỉ xuất Indexical

Từ chỉ đơn

vị Classifier

Danh từ Noun

ba

cái cái

cái

con anh

cân

gà sinh viên thịt

mái lời biếng

thiu

ấy ấy

ấy

From what has been mentioned above, I would like to give out myown structure of nominal group with the reference of three abovelinguists'form

Premodifier

Phần đầu

Head Phần trung tâm

Postmodifier Phần cuối

"cái"

Head 1

TÊt c¶ nh÷ng c¸i con

viªnmÌo

role each personal form plays in the sentence: either as the subject or asthe object In addition, together with two categories of number: Singularand plural, personal pronouns are traditionally classified into threecategories of person, namely first person (I/me, singular and We/us plural), second person (You/you, the same form for both singular and plural), and third person (He/him, She/her, It/it singular and They/them plural).

Subjective personalpronouns

Objective personalpronouns

Third person Singular

HeSheIt

HimHerIt

Of the mentioned above personal pronouns, the third personalpronouns require listeners or readers to look backwards in order to retrievewhat has gone before That is why, the third personal pronouns are seen asone of the main cohesive devices used for the creation of discourse

However, this does not mean that the third and second personalpronouns have no anaphoric relation There are some cases they functionexophorically

This thesis is dealt with substitute words as cohesive devices indiscourse, not personal pronouns I am going to work on the third personalpronouns

As far as the third person forms are concerned, “he/him, she/her” isused to substitute for persons while “it/it” for things or animals and events

“They/ them” replaces both persons and things Let us consider thefollowing examples

[2:1] Bill Clinton returned to Arkansas after completing law school Hesoon entered politics as a democrat, narrowly losing an election forcongress Later, Arkansas citizens elected him attorney general-the toplaw official for the state.(Special English: No 46: 2003).

Bill Clinton trở về Arkansas sau khi hoàn tất chơng trình học ở trờngluật Chẳng bao lâu ông đã bớc vào con đờng chính trị với t cách là một

đảng viên đảng dân chủ chỉ thua suýt soát trong cuộc bầu cử quốc hội Sau

đó các công dân Arkansas đã bầu ông giữ chức vụ chởng lý Quan chứccao cấp nhất của nghành luật trong bang

[2:2] Grandmother liked all sorts of people She was interested in people

no one esle loved

Bà ngoại tôi thích đủ mọi hạng ngời, bà quan tâm đến ngời không

đ-ợc ngời khác thơng yêu

(Twenty short stories, P6 - 1996).

[2:3] Sirima Bandaranaike will be the next Prime Minister of the country.She will probably take the oath with the Cabinet on the weekend.(Luyện

đọc báo chí Anh- Việt:Lê Hiếu ánh: P39)

Bà Sirima Bandaranaike sẽ là thủ tớng kế nhiệm của đất nớc Bà sẽlàm lễ tuyên thệ cùng với nội các cuối tuần

[2:4] It was our cat It was tearing the air with its open claws like anangry panther (Twenty short stories, P56 - 1996)

Đó là con mèo của chúng tôi Nó đang cào trong không khí vớinhững móng vuốt dơng ra nh một con báo đen đang giận dữ

[2:5] In May, the Mars Odysey surprised scientists by finding huge amounts

of ice water just under the surface It did this using several of specialinstruments on the spacecraft (Special English: No46: P19: 2003).

Vào tháng năm, tàu thám hiểm sao hoả đã làm các nhà khoa họcngạc nhiên vì đã phát hiện ra những lợng nớc khổng lồ ngay dới bề mặt

Nó đã phát hiện đợc điều này khi sử dụng những dụng cụ đặc biệt trên contàu không gian

[2:6] But what I remember was the torso in the square, the baby on itsmother'lap They had not been warned

Nhng điều tôi nhớ là cái xác cụt chân trên Quảng trờng và đứa bétrong lòng mẹ Họ hết "thảy" đều không đợc cảnh báo

(The Quiet Amrican: Graham Greene: P65.1955).

[2:7] At Yale, Bill fell in love with another Yale student Hillary Rodham

of Parkside, Ilinois shared his deep interest in politics and public survice.They were married in October of nineteen-seventy-five

ở Yale Bill đã yêu 1 cô sinh viên nghành luật Cô Hillary Rodham

đến từ Parkside bang Ilinois Họ đã chia sẽ với nhau những sở thíchchính trị và dịch vụ công cộng

In the mentioned above examples, it is easy for to find "he/him" in[2.1] substitutes for Bill Clinton "she" in [2.2] substitutes forGrandmother, "she" in [2.3] for Sirima Bandaranaike, "it" for our cat in[2:4] and the Mars Odysey in [2:5],"they" for the torso and the baby inexample [2:6], Bill and Hillary in [2:7] So there is no problem in the use

of English personal pronouns However, their Vietnamese equivalents aremuch more complicated

Their complexity is due to many restrictions imposed on their use,

in [2.1]the Vietnamese equivalent of "he" could be “ông ta” According toTruong Thi Diem there is a great number of third personal pronouns (Nó, chúng, y, thị, mụ, lão, ngài, ông ấy, anh ấy )

And their use depends on factors like age, social status, job, familyrelation e.t.c (Doctor thesis:Từ xng hô có nguồn gốc danh từ thân tộc trong tiếng Việt P48) In Vietnamese, the word "ông" is used to refer to a

person with respect If a person with high social position can be called

"ngài" as shown in the below example

[2.8] Mr Mendon sat alone at the table in the garden He ate a small piece ofmeat and drank some mineral water (Twenty short stories: P44 - 1996)

Ngài Mendon ngồi một mình nơi chiếc bàn đặt nơi góc vờn Ngài ănmột miếng thịt nhỏ và uống một ít nớc khoáng,

"Ngài" in this example substitutes for "ngài" Mendon, theVietnamese equivalents of he/ him may be "chàng" (for a loveable young man), "hắn ta" (for an adult without respectation), "anh ta" or "nó" (for a young male person or one who is close or not respected) (Doctor

Thesis:Từ xng hô có nguồn gốc danh từ thân tộc trong tiếng Việt: Trơng Thị Diễm: P 37)

[2:9] Rocky slowly got up from the mat, planning his escape He hesitated a moment and thought Things were not going well Whatbothered him most was being held (Discourse Analysis, Gillian Brown- George Yule P111).

Rocky từ từ đứng dậy khỏi chiếc chiếu, vạch kế hoạch chạy trốn,Anh ta ngập ngừng giây lát và suy nghĩ mọi việc không tiến triển thuậnlợi, điều làm anh ta bực mình nhất là việc bị giam cầm (Anh ta - Rocky).

As for “She/her”, their Vietnamese equivalent could be" Bà" in [2:2]due to the family relationship " Bà" can also be used to substitute for anelderly woman with respectation or for a woman with high social position.Besides, the Vietnamese equivalents of “She/her” could also be Chị(ta/ấy), Cô(ta/ấy) (for a young female person), Thị, ả, mụ (ta/ấy) (for a contemptible woman) and Nó (usually for a young people or one who is not respected).

[2:10] "Pyle" I said "for Chirst'sake, where is your legation pass? We havegot to get across, Phuong is in the milk-bar"

"How do you know? Where is your card"?

"I warned her not to go"

(The Quiet American: Graham Green: 1955)

"Pyle" tôi nói "thẻ đi lại của cậu đâu" chúng ta phải qua Quảng ờng Phơng ở trong Quán bán sữa

"Cô ấy không có đây Thomas?"

"Làm sao cậu biết, thế thẻ của cậu đâu? "

" Tôi đã cảnh báo cô ấy đừng đi "

(Cô ấy ~ cô Phơng)

Let us return to the case of “It/ it”, in most cases, Vietnamese takes

"nó" as its equivalent " It" mainly substitutes for things or animals.However, we can use “it” for a human baby of unknown sex Eg: Look atthis baby It has been sick (Oxford guide to English Grammar: P 236: John Eastwood) Haỹ nhìn đứa trẻ này Nó đang ốm (đứa trẻ ~ nó)

And now we come to the word "they/them" and Vietnameseequivalent In [2:6] and [2:7] “they/them” could be "họ" in other cases.They/them can be "chúng" or "chúng nó" According to Truong Thi Diem,

"chúng" or "chúng nó" substitutes for either contemptible people or things.Whereas " họ" can substitute for only humans

Let us compare "họ" in [2.6], [2.7] and the following example

[2.11] One last similarity was that both of these ships were considered

“unsinkable” People believed that they would never sink (Sunflower: No

71 :1999)

Một điểm giống nhau cuối cùng là cả hai con tàu này đều có thể coi

nh “không thể chìm đợc” Ngời ta tin tởng rằng chúng sẽ không bao giờchìm.( hai con tàu này ~ chúng)

It is necessary to note that sometimes “she/her” is used to substitutefor something or animal we love, not for singular female person

[2.12] Look at this cow! She is big, isn’t she? How often is she milkedeveryday? (Tiếng Anh 11: P128).

Hãy nhìn con bò này! Nó rất lớn phải không? Nó đợc vắt sữa mấylần trong một ngày? ( Nó ~con bò)

[2:13] This is my dog He is a lovely little dog

Đây là con chó của tôi Nó là một con chó nhỏ dễ thơng (nó ~ con chó)

In literature, this phenomenon refers to as personalization However,when translated, its counterpart is usually "nã" it means that it is treatedthe same way as the third personal pronoun "it".

It is noticeable that the third Vietnamese personal pronouns can beused in other persons such as the first and second person For example,

«ng, bµ, b¸c, c« etc besides, to substitute for the third person, we

sometime use such combination of words as «ng ta, «ng Êy, anh ta, h¾n ta

I would like to sum up this section by giving out some ideas aboutpersonal pronouns in English and Vietnamese discourse

- Vietnamese has more pronouns and pronominalized lexical items

to address the third person as compared with English, and as a result, theVietnamese equivalents have more restriction on their use

- The Vietnamese equivalents of the English third personal pronounsare governed by the so-called principle of formality in conversation Theyreflect not only the relationship between the addressor and the person he

or she is talking about, the education background of the addressor, or his/her feeling towards the persons or things talked about but also his/ hercharacter

- English has two separate forms for the objective and subjectivecase, but Vietnamese has only one form for both cases

The following table provides some common expressions of Englishand Vietnamese equivalent

English 3rd personal pronouns :

subjective and objective

Human Bà, nàng, cô, nó, thị, mụ, Non human personalization Nó

group The following examples are provided to illustrate the Englishpossessive pronouns at the same time Vietnamese equivalents are alsogiven

[2.14]. "How do you know he went to his bedroom?" interrupted MissWicks

"Because, having a headache, I followed him upstairs to go to minefor some aspirins, and my room is immediately opposite his" Penburyexplained (20 th century English short stories P3.1996)

"Làm sao anh biết ông ta về phòng ngủ?" cô Wicks cắt ngang

"Lý do là tôi bị nhức đầu, tôi theo ông ta lên lầu để lấy vài viênthuốc Aspirin, và phòng tôi đối diện với phòng ông ta" Penburry giảithích

[2.15] You must not play with daddy's toys unless he lets you, Larry" shesaid severely "daddy does not play with yours."

Larry này con không đợc chơi đồ chơi của bố trừ khi bố cho phép"cô ngiêm khắc nói "bố không chơi với đồ (chơi) của con.(Twenty timeless short stories:P 187: 1998).

[2:16] Just ask Janet how to polish the brassware Hers sparkle

(Cohesive in English Halliday and Hassan P157 1976).

Cứ hỏi Janet đánh bóng đồ đồng nh thế nào mà đồ (đồng) của cô ấysáng lắm

[2.17] The children next door stole a toy from my son Their mother told them to return the toy, but they said it was theirs (A university grammar of English: Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum: P294)

Lũ trẻ hàng xóm lấy cắp đồ chơi của con trai tôi, mẹ chúng bảochúng trả lại đồ chơi, nhng chúng nói rằng đó là đồ của chúng

In all those above - mentioned examples, we have to look backward

to understand the texts In [2.14] we have two possessive pronouns “mineand his” which substitute for my bedroom and his bedroom, “yours” in[2.15] substitutes for you and toys, “hers” in [2.16] for Janet andbrassware, and “theirs” in [2.17] for the children next door and toy

The problem is that there are no possessive pronouns in Vietnamese

so here arises a question what are the Vietnamese equivalents As can beseen above examples, to express the idea conveyed by the Englishpossessive pronouns, we use Head I to substitute for the wholecombination of Head I and Head II of the noun phrase which we do notwant to mention the second time We have to note that the idea ofpossessive in Vietnamese is realized by the fact that Head I is followed byqualifier which includes the optional "của" and corresponding obligatorypersonal pronouns or pronominalized lexical items For example phòng(của) ông ta, đồ (của) cô ấy