ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and formost, I would like to thank all the teachers of Foreign Languages Department at Hai Phong University for their support in the whole four years that I have studied here In addition, I am honored to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Nguyen Thi Thuy Giang for her constant support and all-round supervision Not only knowledge but also encouragement from her made me inspired and motivated to overcome difficulties Without her, the thesis could not be completed With no less sincerity, my friends in class English Major B academic year 13 brought me a strong motivation to complete the paper Last but not least, all my heart is delighted to my family, especially my parents because of their emotional and technical supports They are always beside me and inspire me to try my best i SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS S V O C P.P C-V E.g Subject Verb Object Complement Past Participle Subject - Predicate Example ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study According to Asher R.E (1994:4938), “Linguists use the term voice in a number of senses” and “the broadest definition of voice encompassing a wide range of grammatical constructions that are commonly thought to be quite distinct from those related by the active- passive alternation” In this view, the term voices in general and passive voice in particular exist in all languages In Vietnamese, the debates around the passive voice have lasted for several stages In the early days of Vietnamese research, the concept of passive construction was accepted The rules applied here, however, were rigidly transformed from European languages The inappropriate features of these artificial sentences lead to the refusal of passive constructions in the next stage of Vietnamese research While the concept of voice in general and passive voice in particular is familiar to the English, it is an abstract concept to have to deal with the passive constructions There have been several studies of the passive voice in English and the passive contrast between English and Vietnamese These researchers, however, neither confirm the existence of the passive in Vietnamese nor point out the difference in decisive factors to passive usage in two languages Passive voice is one of the most difficult grammar points that make students confused so much about both its function and its equivalent meaning when they translate a passive sentence into an active one in Vietnamese For example: “I was born in Ho Chi Minh city” (Passive) and “Tôi sinh thành phố Hồ Chí Minh” (Active) As we can see, the English sentence above is written in passive form while the Vietnamese one is in active but they have the same meaning It is not always that a passive sentence in English will be translated into a passive one in Vietnamese The reseachers are sure that many students who learn English as a second language can hardly know when to use a passive form correctly Or “The two houses are built near one another” and “Hai nhà xây gần nhau” From the point of view of English grammar, one might ask: How can a house be built by itself? There must be someone to build the house But in Vietnamese, they are complete sentences There is no difference in meaning between the two sentences although the word orders between the two are different One reason is that the object of the verb can be tropicalized, often resulting in a sentence translated with an English passive In this study, the researcher will discuss the similarities and differences of passive sentences in English and Vietnamese The similarities between the two languages are that passive voice is used to emphasize the action, not the causes of the action However, in English, we tend to use more passive sentences while people prefer to use more active form in Vietnamese To help Vietnamese students study Passive voice in English more easily, this essay will make a contrastive analysis on passive voice in English and Vietnamese Having better awareness of the importance of English grammar, the researcher decided to clarify the study of her graduation paper However, due to the limitation of time and knowledge, the researcher will just spend time concentrating on the study of “A contrastive analysis on passive voice in English and Vietnamese” The researcher hope that it will become useful for those who study English Grammar in general and the passive voice in particular 1.2 Research questions This paper is aimed at answering these main questions:  What is passive voice in English and Vietnamese?  Is there passive voice in Vietnamese?  What are the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese passive voice? 1.3 Aims of the study The study “A contrastive analysis on passive voice in English and Vietnamese” attempts to:  Introduce passive voice and some views about passive voice in English and Vietnamese  Give the list of their usage  Present and classify some verb forms and special forms of the passive voice in English and Vietnamese  Show the expressions of “bị” and “được” in Vietnamese  Find out the similarities and differences in construction of the passive voice in English and its Vietnamese equivalents  Give some implications for English teaching and learning of the passive voice 1.4 Scope of the study This study focuses on the contrastive analysis on passive voice in English and Vietnamese (the comparisons) In this thesis, the passive is viewed from different grammatical aspects based on the definitions, classifications, usage and structures in both English and Vietnamese will be taken as the basis for the comparison and contrast 1.5 Methods of the study The main purpose of this study is to find out the contrastivepassive voice in English and Vietnamese Therefore the researcher uses the documentary method included collecting, analyzing and giving examples to make language learning and teaching more effective Document analysis is used to find out all the passive voice from a variety of books and valuable resources such as internet, magazines, previous graduation papers, etc Besides, examples are used to illustrate given information which are extracted from a variety of textbooks and resources In addition, comparison is indispensable method to point out similarities and differences of passive voice in English and in Vietnamese 1.6 Organization of the study This graduation paper is divided into threeparts: The Introduction, the Development and the Conclusion The Introduction briefly introduces the thesis included: Rationale, Research questions, Aims of the study, Scope of the study, Methods of the study, Organization of the study In the Development, it contains four chapters: Chapter one and two will present all the theoretical background about English and Vietnamese passive voice Chapter threecontains all the analysis that the researcher obtains after researchingsome data and document about passive voice In chapter four, she gives some necessary implicatures for learners in teaching and learning Part three is the conclusion which summarizes the contents and results in the thesis PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH 1.1 Definition Passive voice is not a derivative of active voice, which is the outcome of people’s different meaning expression Passive voice describes the whole process of certain event from the patient’s point of view It is a marked form of voice There are three markers in passive voice: Be, -Ed and by which has its meaning and significance respectively Typical passives could be classified into two categories, passive with agent and passive without agent, or, agentive passive and non-agentive passive In the agentive passive, the agent will not appear but will be implicit in the context According to Homby (2005), voice, in term of grammar, is the form of a verb that shows whether the subject of a sentence performs an action (the active voice) or is affected by it (passive voice) Stillman (2010) said that voice refers to whether the subject of a sentence is on the giving or receiving end of the action” In another project, Farlex (Inc.,2010) also considered that more specifically, passive voice is the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb” In general, a passive sentence is one that reflects the above-mentioned feature of passive voice In this sentence “All the assignments were done by Kelvin”, the recipient “assignment” is denoted and emphasized by the verb “do”, not the agent “Kelvin”; therefore, this is a passive sentence A general rule is to use the passive voice only when the doer or the agent in your sentence (the person or thing acting) is unknown or is unimportant or when you want to connect the topics of the two clauses Ex: The pandas are rare Two of them will be returned to the wild He had a lot people working for him, maybe sixty, and almost of them liked him most of the time Three of the will be seriously considered for his job 1.2 Classification 1.2.1 Quirk’s view on classification of passive voice The passive construction has been classified in many different ways Summarizing the discussion of the passive scale in the “A grammar of contemporary English” (1972), Quirk set up the following subcategories 1.2.1.1 Agentive passives Agentive passive sentences are where the doer or the agent is explicitly expressed by the proposition “by” plus agent Sentence (1) The butler murdered the detective and (2) The detective was murdered by the butler have a direct passiveactive relation The difference between the next two is that the former has a personal, the latter a non-personal agent: (3) My father made this violin (4) The results hardly justify this conclusion With expressed agents: (5) Coal has been replaced by oil This is a passive with two possible active transforms depending on the interpretation of the by-phrase (6) Oil has replaced coal (7) (People in many countries) have replaced coal by oil Sentence (6) is an active transform like (4) with a non-personal agent; (7) is inactive transform where the by-phrase has been given an instrumental interpretation (by=with) Consequently an active subject must be supplied Without expressed agents: (8) This difficulty can be avoided in several ways Sentence (8) exemplified the most common type of passive, which has no expressed agent, or agentless passives 1.2.1.2 Quasi-passives Quasi means seemingly or looking almost like That is, a verb is called quasi passive when its use almost looks like passive but actually it is active in syntactic and semantic structure Examples: Rice sells cheap, meaning rice is cheap when it is sold Honey tastes sweet, meaning honey is sweet when it is tasted Their surface structure operates on one level which is apparently passive, but their meaning emerges from the deep structure which is actually active in function (9) We are encouraged to go on with the project (10) John was interested in linguistics The passive sentences, (9) and (10) represent a “mixed” class whose members have both verbal and adjectival properties They are verbal in having active analogues: (11) (The results) encourage us to go on with the project (12) Linguistics interested John 1.2.1.3 Non-agentive passives/ intensive active complement construction The study in complement construction either non-agentive passives or intensive active shows us the sentence without the agent often expressed by the proposition “BY” in the passive voice and the complement in the active voice (13) The modern world becomes more highly industrialized and mechanized Sentence (13) has no active transform or possibility of agent addition, since no “performer” is conceived of The participles have adjectival values: compare industrialized-industrial and mechanized-mechanical Besides a number of such “resulting” verbs ending in –ize (organize, Americanized, etc.), this class includes “existing” constructions, as in (14) The house is already sold The corresponding active of which are not (15) but (16) (15) (The agent) already sells the house (16) (The agent) has already sold the house In this case, voice transformation involves aspectual shift from present to present perfect While it is clear that (13) and (14) are not “passive” in the sense of sentences, they still satisfy the formal passive requirement and, as in the case of (14), often have an “indirect” voice relationship We will therefore call this class “non-agentive passive/ intensive active complement constructions”, recognizing 3.1.2.3 Pragmatics The similarities between English passive structure and the Vietnamese equivalents can be in some areas in pragmatics Firstly, the information structure give information precedes new information Then most of sentences, they focus on the action or agent in peripheral role (in the non-agent passive expression) They also focus on the action or the agent with the late news (in the agent- including passive exprssion).The last similarity is the sentence focus which is on the actionnot on the doer (in case of non-agent sentence) or on the doer/agent (in case of agent- including sentence) 3.2 Differences 3.2.1 Passive structure 3.2.1.1 Syntactics The differences in structure are because of the different language families and language types: English belongs to Indo-European language family and Inflectional language type when Austro-Asiatic and non-Inflectional are the characteristics of Vietnamese Furthermore, the differences focus on the obligatory and compulsory parts in the passive constructions in two languages, the grammatical properties of passive constructions’ subjects and the noun phrase passivization 3.2.1.1.1 The obligatory and compulsory parts in Passive structure The typical passive constructions in two languages are: Structure English Be + Past Participle “Được” Get/ Become + Past Participle meanings “Bị” Vietnamese + Verb: Positive + Verb: Negative meanings No changes are made in the forms of both “được/ bị” and the Examples He was punished yesterday verbs Nó khen: Positive (be  was; punish punished) meaning (no changes) It will be sent to you soon Hoa bị la: Negative meaning 36 (be be; send sent) (nochanges) They are awarded a big trophy Tối qua nhà bị trộm: (be are; award awarded) Negative meaning (no changes) In English, all passive constructions are related to Past Participle and one verb among fixed verbs like be, get, have while the Vietnamese passive construction include the agent, the adjunct showing causes, reasons or circumstances even the subject modifiers E.g.: a Thuyền bị (họ) đẩy b Thuyền bị (bị) đẩy c Thuyền bị (họ) đẩy Among the Vietnamese passive sentences, the sentence a Thuyền bị (họ) đẩy sounds unnatural When this sentence is added with adverbs like đã, it turns out to be natural in use It can be said that the optional parts in English make the passive sentences natural in Vietnamese 3.2.1.1.2 Noun phrase passivization The formation of passive noun phrase in English is based on the movement of the by – phrase plus the insertion of possessive markers of and s’ Meanwhile, as the comparison partly points out, the related passive noun phrases in Vietnamese need such subordinators as việc, … E.g.:The monastery ‘s destruction by the Vikings Việc tu viện bị phá hủy người Viking gây 3.2.1.2 Semantics The differences between English passive structures and Vietnamese ones are analyzed in three areas: The Vietnamese passive functional words (bị, được), the passive subject and the verb The first difference is related to “bị”, “được” as passive functional words The difference is the subjectivity in Vietnamese passive sentences “Bị”, “được” expressions partly shows speakers’ attitude towards the event meanwhile the passive expressions in English focus on the event.However, in scientific document, the way of utilizing “được” does not always show speaker’s attitude 37 The second difference in terms of meaning is the decisive role of lexical meaning of the subject in Vietnamese With the same surface structure, the lexical meaning of subject will decide whether the sentence is active, neutral, or passive Whether the subject is serving or served person, adult or children, instrumental object or non- instrumental object decide the type of the sentence Vietnamese Active Vietnamese Active English Neutral Vietnamese Passive English Thematic Vietnamese English a.Thầy Phong chưa chấm The prof Phong hasn’t marked the exam paper yet b.Bài em Phong chưa Phong’s chấm not been marked yet c.Bài em Phong thầy About chưa chấm paper, the prof has not Passive English ActiveVietnamese Active English Phong’s exam marked it yet Active English Passive Vietnamese exam paper has d.Bài em Phong chưa Phong’s exam paper has chấm not been marked yet e.Thầy Phong chưa The prof Phong hasn’t chấm been allowed to mark the exam paper yet One English passive sentence is the equivalent to both of the Vietnamese passive sentence and the Vietnamese neutral sentence The Vietnamese neutral sentence stands in the middle between the active sentence and the thematic ones in terms of structure However, the Vietnamese neutral is similar to the passive sentence in the same way that the grammatical subject is affected by the agent Therefore, the Vietnamese active and thematic ones are translated into the active ones while both the Vietnamese neutral and passive equal with the English passive constructions All these sentences are somehow related to the others Whether the sentences have the passive meaning or not depends on the lexical meaning of the subjects 38 The third difference among Vietnamese and English passive structure is the decisive role of verbs’ lexical meaning to the type of sentence: passive constructions or active ones There are two ways of understanding from the same structure: Verb + Direct object + Indirect object E.g.: Bắt +tay + One understanding is the possession : Verb + (direct object + indirect object) E.g.: Bắt + tay ( + của) + The other way of understanding is based on the semantic role of the beneficiary: Verb + direct object + indirect object E.g.: Rửa + tay (+cho) + In most English cases of two objects, there are two passive constructions with the grammatical subjects being the direct and indirect object in the active sentence In Vietnamese, the two corresponding passive constructions are accepted in the case the indirect object is considered as the beneficiary If the indirect object is understood as it possesses the direct object, there is only one passive construction with the indirect object as the grammatical subject The forth difference is in the verb constraints In the group of transitive verb suggested by Quirk, R (1972), some English transitive verbs like have, lack, hold, become, fit, suit, resemble not occur in passive In Vietnamese, suggested by Qui, Nguyen Thi (2003), some transitive verbs rarely occur in passive These verbs often are spiritual verbs like dỗ, dỗ dành (comfort/soothe), an ủi (console/comfort), khuến khích, khích lệ (encourage) and others These verbs usually occur in neutral sentences only 39 3.2.1.3 Pragmatics The pragmatic effects of the passive voice in English are related to two aspects namely agent demotion (agent defocusing) and patient promotion (patient focusing) These aspects themselves unify passive structure with other structures in a different way in different languages In English, the two passive structures (agent including and non- agent structures) have distinctive focus While the non- agent structures focus on the action rather on the doer, agent – including structures emphasize the doer That means the passive voice has two different emphasis in English: S + BE+ PAST PARTICIPLE : Agent demotion and patient promotion S + BE + PAST PARTICIPLE+BY PHRASE: Patient promotion and agent being the late news The author intends to firstly point out the difference in terms of structure in the two groups of Vietnamese equivalents Then the frequencies of these structures are listed Finally, some factors decisive to the usage of these structures are to be pointed out The investigation is the passive sentence –based only The types of constructions equivalent to the English passive consist of Active sentence, Neutral sentences, Passive sentences, Impersonal structures with “ Người ta,Ta”, Impersonal structures with verbs, modal verbs, Special structures with existential, original and possessive markers “có” “của” and Idiomatic, cultural expressions, proper name • Neutral sentences “This finding is based on a year of study of success and failure involving services in different countries.” Phát dựa nghiên cứu thành công thất bại liên quan đến dịch vụ vòng năm nhiều nước ( Special English no 53- Development report:17 ) • Passive sentences “Tom whistled twice more , these signals were answered in the same way.” (Mark Twain :139) 40 “Tom huýt sáo hai tiếng nữa, tín hiệu lại đáp lại hai lần trước.” (Nguyễn Mộng Huyền, Hoàng Phương:157 ) • Impersonal structures with verbs and modal verbs “ First the base is removed from the bottle, Then the bottle is turned upside down and the neck is attached to the base” “Trước hết cắt đáy chai Sau để úp ngược chai xuống cổ chai gắn với đáy chai » (Sunflower ,Feb 2005:37) • Idiomatic, cultural expressions, proper name “Tôi tự nhủ tránh giết người dao, mà quen tay rồi” (Bảo Ninh:25) “…to avoid stabbing with bayonets but I have got used to it” (Frank Palmos:17) • Impersonal structures with “Người ta,Ta” “They felt like heroes in an instant Here was a gorgeous triumph ; they were missed, they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account; tears were being shed; ” (Mark Twain:152) “Thế chúng cả, thấy trở thành nhân vật anh hùng Thật chiến thắng rực rỡ; chúng người ta nhớ tiếc; chúng người ta khóc thương; có trái tim thổn thức chúng; người ta nhỏ nước mắt” (Nguyễn Mộng Huyền & Hoàng Phương:137) • Special structures with existential, original and possessive markers “do”,“bởi” “của”: “These markers are found in the following extracts: “ that it was conjectured at first”—“ lúc đầu nhà đoán”; “then the small raft had been missed” – “sau có người bị bè;” (Nguyễn Mộng Huyền & Hoàng Phương:137) 41 “The bottle goes through seven machines, all designed and built by the company” “Các chai dược đưa qua bảy máy, tất máy công ty thiết kế xây dựng” (Sunflower ,Feb 2005:37) “Pierr de Coubertin got the idea for this phrase from a speech given by Bishop EtheletTablot at a service for Olympic champions during the 1908 Olympic Games.” “Pierr de Coubertin nghĩ câu nói từ diễn thuyết Giám mục EtheletTablot buổi Thánh lễ dành cho giải vô địch.” (Special English, August.2004) Among the 207 passive constructions, the non -agent sentences are 135 The neutral sentences, which are the passive constructions if added with bị and , stands at the second rank The English non – agent passive sentences S + BE+ PAST PARTICIPLE include the following equivalents: Active sentences; Neutral sentences; Passive dentences (non-agent sentences); Impersonal structures with “Người ta,Ta”; Impersonal structures with verbs; Modal verbs; Prepositions; Special structures with existential; Original and possessive markers “Có người” In the case of the English agent –including passive construction S + BE + PAST PARTICIPLE+BY PHRASE the features of patient promotion and agent being the late news are expressed in Vietnamese with the following structures: - Active sentence -Passive sentences (agent –including sentence): “do” “bởi” “của” The emphasis is expressed with some causative structures with do, ,bởi with the emphasis markers do, In fact, several transitive verbs in English have the Vietnamese intransitive equivalents like drown –chết đuối, demob – giải ngũ However, there are several verbs in English can be used as both transitive verbs and intransitive one These 42 verbs in the translated version can be used in non- passive structures The transitive verbs in English flood aretranslated as intransitive verb lụt in Vietnamese In addition, in Vietnamese, the sentence with clauses of different hidden subjects (in the parenthese) can be accepted, which is not accepted in English This allows the non agent passive in Vietnamese turns into the agent – including in English E.g.“ Đi sơ tán hết -People have been evacuated ” Due to cultural or historical factors, there is a big group of synonyms, which has a limited equivalents in the target language Bỏ mình, hi sinh, nằm lại, nán lại, không trở are the Vietnamese words with the same equivalence of be killed in English An other reason can be the specific translation of idiomatic expression or proper name such as quen tay versus I have got used to it 3.2.2 Genre distinction Be passives are high frequency in abstract and technical genres, especially official documents and academic prose - typically used to impose an objective, formal style Written genres show low frequency of get passives, which are most likely to appear in spoken genres This suggests that get passives are more informal in style (Crystal : 2002) Vietnamese people not often use passive voice in their daily lives, but many writers and scientists use it in their works 3.2.3 Frequency of usage “The frequency of passive use in English is far higher, and many writers agree that English has a tendency to overuse passives, whereas Vietnamese people tend to avoid them.”(Crystal : 2002) As we have seen, using the passive is one way to have the theme argument in subject position at the front of its clause If the theme argument is also the sentence topic, then the subject slot is a good place for it In some situations the passive voice is used not because the agent is unimportant but the agent is the new information that readers would need or want to know Another good use of the passive voice, which is more often, found in the written language than in speech, is a device to save changing the subject of a 43 sentence, and using passive voice in some contexts may be stylistically superior to its active counterpart “In other words, the passive voice can be used whenever it seems undesirable or unnecessary to specify the agent This means that the occurrence of the passive is in part determined by the larger context in which it would be used.” (Jacob, 1995:170-171) 44 CHAPTER FOUR: IMPLICATION FOR ENGLISH TEACHING AND LEARNING OF PASSIVE VOICE Some analysis of and contrastive points between English and Vietnamese passive voice made above have set the stage for the next idea: some implications for English teaching and learning of the grammatical aspect mentioned Firstly, Vietnamese students have a habit of translating nearly word by word from English into Vietnamese and vice versa, which usually cause them to make a lot of mistakes.They often use "bị, được" when translating English- Vietnamese This can lead to the consequence that they seem to consider any sentences which contain “bị/ được” as passive For example: Xe bị hự - The car was broken down Tôi bị tiền - I was lost my money Therefore, this paper is written with the hope of helping them be aware of the differences between passive voice in English and Vietnamese so that they can use it correctly According to the inllustration, when they need to translate an English passive-meaning sentence into Vietnamese for their parents or friends, they need to make a natural and correct translation so that it does not sound strange and difficult to understand Secondly, teachers should also help students know that passive voice plays an important role in English, and sometimes in Vietnamese, and it is expressed in various forms This will help students recognize the passive voice more easily and have correct transference For instance, in the sentence “I get my car fixed”, though there is no normal structure of passive voice “be + past participle”, the sentence still has a passive meaning (passive causatives) Thirtly, learners should notice that most of passive verbs that can be used in the structure: S + Transitive verb 45 are not often in the passive form in Vietnamese Students should be aware that the object cannot perform the actions So it is better to translate them into English as passive to be sure that they will not violate its grammatical form For example: Goods are carried by truck.- Hàng chở tới xe tải My house has already been built - Nhà xây xong Moreover, I hope that this paper will help students develop their linguistic skills in both languages Learning theories is just a way for students to exercises well, but understanding about the contrastive points between English and Vietnamese passive voice will give them deeper and better knowledge Last but not least, this paper will be helpful for teachers and students who desire to become translators having a good understanding of contrast between the two languages.Natural and correct translations will bring about a successful job Furthermore, Vietnamese learners can find some helpful information about the passive voice in English and Vietnamese from this essay, or those who not speak English as mother tongue but are good at it can also get some good information about the passive voice in English and Vietnamese from this paper, and therefore can communicate with Vietnamese people better 46 PART THREE: CONCLUSION I Summaries By comparing and contrasting passive voice in English and Vietnamese, we can see that language is so complex and following the grammatical aspect, pasive voice is an important point At the beginning, we have an overview of the rationale, aims,and methods to perform this study After that, in the development part, the whole theory of passive voice including definitions, perspectives, classification, structure, usage in English and Vietnamese have been mentioned in detail in chapter one and two In chapter three, it is the key chapter of the study; the author clarifies the similarities and differences between passive voice in English and Vietnamese Similar and different spotsare mainly analyzedthrough the structural and the use of the passive voice The implication part isgiven in the chapter and some suggestions for teaching, learning and translating the passive voice II Limitation and suggestion for further studies With some description, contrast, analysis and implications for teaching and learning languages made above, the researcher hopes this paper will prove itself to be quite useful in teaching, learning and translating passive sentences Furthermore, it is said that language mastery requires not only the structural accuracy but also the appropriateness and naturalness in real-life communication As well as the writer hopes that it can give some precious information and good understanding for language learners as well as language teachers in the process of mastering English Knowing the contrastive points of passive voice between English and Vietnamese can not only help students develop their linguistic skills in both languages, but also have a deeper and better knowledge about English, the language they are learning to overcome the confusion and difficulty of the gap between English and Vietnamese Therefore, through the paper, the researcher wish to raise people’s awareness of combining structural and functional use of passive voice in both English and Vietnamese to enhance their language skills It is expected that this 47 paper will set the stage for further study of passive voice in both English and Vietnamese language However, her thesis is just a part of a large topic, and certainly, there are still a lot of opinions and extra reasons to widen the problem in my paper This paper may be considered my first step in language research, and due to the limitation of time and knowledge, mistakes and errors are unavoidable So the thesis has left much room for further discussion, criticism and improvement by those who concern All remarks, comments, suggestions and contribution are deeply welcome and highly appreciated 48 REFERENCES I.Books Bibliography (in English) Eastwood, J (1992) Oxford Practice Grammar Oxford: Oxford University Press Granger, S (1983) The be+Past Participle Construction in spoken English New york: Oxford Jacobs, Roderick A (1995) English Syntax Oxford University Press Jonh East Wood (1994) Oxford Guide to English Grammar Oxford University press Murphy, Raymond (2000) Grammar in Use Cambridge University Press Nguyen Dinh Hoa (1996) Pasivization in Vietnamese Southern Illinois University Quirk, R and GreenBaum S (1973) A university Grammar of English Hongkong: Longman Group Ltd Quirk, R and S.Greenbaum and Leech, G and Svartvik (1979) A grammar of contemporary English London, Longman group UK limited Quirk, R et al (1972) A comprehensive grammar of the English language England: Longman 10 Quirk, R et al (1973) A university grammar of English England: Longman 11 Rayevska, N.M (1976) Modern English Grammar Vysca Skola Publisher 12 Thomson L.C (1965) A Vietmese Grammar Eatle and London: University of Washington Press 13 Thomson, A.J &Martinet, A.V (1986) A practical English grammar Oxford: Oxford University Press 14 Twain, Mark The adventures of Tomsoyor Germany :Seven seas Publisher Bibliography (In Vietnamese) 15 Anh Nguyen Thi (2000) Tieng Viet Co Thai Bi Dong Khong?Languages magazine, No 5/2000 16 Ban Diep Quang (1998) Ngu Phap Tieng Viet Ha Noi: Education publisher 49 17 Ban Diep Quang and Thuan Nguyen Thi (2000) Lai Ban Ve Van De Cau Bi Dong Trong Tieng Viet Languages magazine, No 7/2000 18 Bien Le (1991) Tieng Viet: Tu Loai Tieng Viet Hien Dai.Ha Noi national university of education publisher 19 Hao Cao Xuan (2002) Tieng Viet So Thao Ngu Phap Chuc Nang, Volumn I Ho Chi Minh city: Social science publisher 20 Huyen Nguy Mong &Phuong Hoang (2003) Cuoc Phieu Luu Cua Tomsoyor Ha Noi: Literature publisher 21 Loc Nguyen Van (2000) Cac Mo Hinh Ket Tri Cua Dong Tu Tieng Viet Researcher paper 22 Phien Hoang Trong (1980) Ngu Phap Tieng Viet Languages,1,13-15 23 Thai Le Xuan (1989) Cau Bi Dong Trong Tieng Viet Languages, 3,13-15 24 Thai Le Xuan (1989) Cau Bi Dong Trong Tieng Viet: Cau Ha Noi national university of education publisher 25 Than Nguyen Kim (1999) Dong Tu Tieng Viet Social science publisher II Websites 26 http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Câu_chủ_động_và_câu_bị_động 27 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_passive_voice 28 http://www.kentlaw.edu/academics/lrw/grinker/LwtaPassive_Voice.htm 29 http://doc.edu.vn/tai-lieu/tieu-luan-cau-bi-dong-tieng-viet-56750/ 30 http://luanvan.net.vn/luan-van/dang-bi-dong-va-van-de-cau-bi-dong-trong-tiengviet-44756/ 31 http://www.jseals.org/ 32 http://tailieu.tv/tai-lieu/doi-chieu-cau-bi-dong-tieng-anh-va-tieng-viet-16321/ 33 http://www.docs.vn/vi/ngon-ngu-hoc-56/27548-cau-bi-dong-tieing-vieit.html 50 [...]... morphological criteria of passive voice as a grammatical category Not intending to contrast active voice and passive voice in Vietnamese, L.C Thompson (1965: 217) also considers that the constructions with “BỊ” or “ĐƯỢC”are just the translation equivalents of passive constructions in IndoEuropean languages He calls these logical passive expressions and does not consider them as real passive constructions... Vietnamese According to them, the markers of passive voice in Vietnamese are “BỊ” and “ĐƯỢC” (which have the same position and function to auxiliary verbs “to be” in English) And the manipulation of changing from active voice to passive voice is as follow: (1) Active voice: Passive voice: a Mẹ đánh Nam b Nam bị mẹ đánh c Nam bị đánh bởi mẹ (2) Active voice: Passive voice: a Hương giúp Nam b Nam được... the same as that in an English schoolbook Moreover, it states that “bị” and “được” are the two main tools to mark passive voice and to distinguish it from active voice The main problems the reseacher decide to solve are: - Do “BỊ” and “ĐƯỢC” always mark passive voice or passive meaning? - Do “BỊ” and “ĐƯỢC” ever lose their lexical meaning? Before answering the question one by one, let’s take a look at... absolutely obligatory morphological devices is found only in subject-prominent languages 23 Vietnamese is a topic-prominent language so its passive voice does not have such particular marking devices To prove that Vietnamese does not have passive voice as a grammatical category, the author has provided many examples showing that “BỊ” or “ĐƯỢC”are main verbs and are not function words marking “passiveness”... Nam được giúp (bởi Hương) 30 Actually, every language has its own ways to express passive meaning However, in a subject-prominent language, passive voice is grammaticized by a specific, strictly mandatory form while in Vietnamese, a topic-prominent language, passive meaning does not have such form of expression The authors who consider “bi” and “duoc” as means to translate passive voice structures in. .. languages, they usually carry a special meaning, like the adversity passive in Japanese 22 Based on this idea of Ch.N Li &S .A. Thompson, some researchers including Anh Nguyen Thi(2000) and Hao Cao Xuan(2001) also think that there is no passive voice and consequently no passive sentences in Vietnamese 2.2.1.3 Concept of “BỊ” and “ĐƯỢC” Those who support the view that there are no passive sentences in Vietnamese... identify an alternation of active -passive sentences in Vietnamese which correspond to the translated activepassive sentences in French and points to the formal relations among constituents of each type of sentences in common terms He also considers “BỊ” or “ĐƯỢC” or “DO” passive auxiliaries Phien Hoang Trong (1980) states that in Vietnamese the opposition between passive and active voices is not done through... between passive voice and “active voice , passive meaning” and “active meaning” as the ones which has both grammatical value and semantic value Therefore, students are forced to learn the rules, as in the exercises in Philology schoolbook grade 7 (part 2) being used in junior high school (2003, 57-58, 64-65), practicing changing active sentences into passive sentences and vice versa, which is totally...that The house is already sold It is related both to agentive passive The house has already been sold and to the intensive (active) complement construction (17) The house is already gone/ no longer available 1.2.2 Quirk’s another passive scale Quirk also gives more views on passive voice in English in A grammar of contemporary English[ Quirk, et al, 1972, 266-231] through his passive scale Quirk’s passive. .. Vietnamese has enough the characteristics of a “topic-prominent language” Also Li and Thompson stated that passive structure is one of the specific characteristics of “subject-prominent language”, but in “topic-prominent language”, passive voice is consider a exterior, limited phenomenon, rarely founded Meanwhile, most Vietnamese linguists think that there are passive sentence and passive voice in Vietnamese