MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY M.A THESIS SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH NOUN PHRASES WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ TIẾNG ANH TRONG LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT) TRẦN THỊ MAI HƯƠNG Hanoi, 2016 ① Front hard cover Back hard cover TRẦN THỊ MAI HƯƠNG ENGLISH LANGUAGE (2014 – 2016) ② MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY M.A THESIS SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH NOUN PHRASES WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ TIẾNG ANH TRONG LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG DƯƠNG VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT) TRẦN THỊ MAI HƯƠNG Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Phan Văn Quế Hanoi, 2016 ③ CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitle “Syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents” (Đặc điểm cú pháp cụm danh từ Tiếng Anh liên hệ tương đương với Tiếng Việt) submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2016 Trần Thị Mai Hương Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc Prof Dr Phan Văn Quế Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Phan Van Que , my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher A special word of thanks goes to all my lecturers at the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Hanoi Open University for their useful lectures, supports, encouragement and for inspiring me the love for English teaching and doing scientific research Besides, the study could not have been prepared without the support of the lecturers and students of tourism and foreign language department of Sao Do university and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work ii ABSTRACT This study describes the syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to Vietnamese equivalents It aims to find out the similarities and differences between syntactic functions of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese and then analyzing noun phrases from some chapters of “Pride and prejudice” by Jane Austen and the equivalents in the translated version in Vietnamese The research also aims at giving some suggestions for translating and teaching noun phrases to Vietnamese learners iii LIST OF ABBREVIATION S: Subject O: Object Cs: Subject complement Co: Object complement Cprep: Prepositional complement Cadj: Adjectival complement App: Appositive A: Adverbial iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 3.1 Information of the research participants 14 Table 4.1: The learners’ acquisition levels on the use of article in 67 English noun phrases Table 4.2: The learners’ acquisition levels on syntactic function of English noun phrases 67 Table 4.3: The learners’ acquisition levels on the use of word 67 order in English noun phrases Table 4.4: The learners’ acquisition levels on the ability of 68 translating English noun phrases into Vietnamese v TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality I Acknowledgements Ii Abstract Iii List of abbreviations Iv List of tables and figures V Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research 1.2 Aims of the research 1.3 Objectives of the research 1.4 Scope of the research 1.5 Significance of the research 1.6 Structural organization of the thesis Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies 2.1.1 Previous studies oversea 2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam 2.2 Review of theoretical background 2.2.1 Noun phrases in English 2.2.2 Noun phrases in Vietnamese 10 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 13 3.1 Research-governing orientations 13 3.1.1 Research questions 13 3.1.2 Research setting 13 3.1.3 Research approaches 13 3.1.4 Principles for intended data collection and data analysis 14 3.2 15 Research methods 3.2.1 Major methods and supporting methods 15 vi 3.2.2 Data collection techniques 16 3.2.3 Data analysis technique 17 3.3 18 Summary Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 English noun phrases 19 19 4.1.1 Structure of English noun phrases 19 4.1.2 Syntactic functions of English noun phrases 28 4.2 30 Vietnamese noun phrases 4.2.1 Structure of Vietnamese noun phrases 30 4.2.2 Syntactic functions of Vietnamese noun phrases 41 4.3 43 The similarities and differences between syntactic features of English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases 4.3.1 In terms of structure 43 4.3.2 In terms of function 52 4.4 54 Implications in teaching and translating noun phrases 4.4.1 Noun phrases from some chapters of “Pride and Prejudice” 54 by Jane Austen and the translated version 4.4.2 Results of the survey 66 4.4.3 Mistakes of Vietnamese students when learning English 68 noun phrases 4.4.4 Suggestions for teaching and translating noun phrases 70 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 73 5.1 Recapitulation 73 5.2 Concluding remarks 73 5.3 Limitation of the research 74 5.4 Suggestions for further study 74 REFERENCES 75 APPENDICES 79 vii Vietnamese Most of the learners translated the noun phrase “a fat old man” into “một người đàn ông béo già” or the noun phrase “a beautiful young woman” into “một phụ nữ đẹp trẻ” It has shown that they have met difficulty in the use of word order of premodification especially when the premodification is adjective 4.4.3 Mistakes of Vietnamese students when learning English noun phrases Everyone has its own way of thinking and habit of using words, his national customs and culture That is the reason why people make mistakes in the process of learning another language In the time of teaching English at Sao Do university, I find out that students often make mistakes in translating noun phrases Different ways of using noun phrases in English and Vietnamese lead to unavoidable mistakes In this part I am going to point out mistakes made by Vietnamese students when using English noun phrases Firstly, Vietnamese students sometimes spend a lot of time to find the English equivalents for the expressions of Vietnamese head such as “cái, con, chiếc, quyển,… ” This is due to the difference between the heads of the noun phrases of the two languages, in which Vietnamese head may consists of two head: head one and head two, whereas English head consists of only one word Therefore, it should be made clear to Vietnamese noun phrases have two parts, and in which cases head in Vietnamese noun phrases have two parts, and in which cases head consist of one It is worth being done of Vietnamese as well for any translator Secondly, the same difficulty can be expected when they encounter with the quantity words “những, cái….” The reason for this difficulty is that 69 English is an inflecting language that uses such grammatical means as inflectional and derivational suffixes In English the plurality of a count noun is usually marked a plural suffix attached to the singular noun as in the boy/ boys, cat/ cats and so on Meanwhile Vietnamese is uninflectional and isolating language that uses plural makers such as Thirdly, Vietnamese students may omit the articles “a/ an” or “the” in the English noun phrases, they might produce such errors as: Incorrect: He is not student He is teacher (Anh ý sinh viên Anh ý thầy giáo) Correct: He is not a student He is a teacher Errors of this type are very typical because in Vietnamese there are not article That’s why it is one of the focal points the teachers to take much concern in their teaching tasks so that the learners can be made free from any confusion of article in English noun phrases Moreover, they may produce sentences with wrong words order For example: Mai is a girl beautiful (incorrect) (Mai cô gái xinh đẹp) The correct sentence must be : Mai is a beautiful girl This may be caused by the interference between Vietnamese and English It is the fact that in a premodifier in English noun phrases adjectives mostly start right before the head, but the situation in Vietnamese noun is opposite where adjectives are situated right after the head The reason why students make this mistake is that they use grammar or vocabulary incorrectly Because of the negative transfer of their mother 70 tongue in the use of noun phrase, they translate word by word What’s more, they not master the orders of words to form noun phrases in English, so they have difficulty in using them and therefore they make mistakes in translating English noun phrases into Vietnamese and vice versa Lastly, Vietnamese students may omit relative pronoun in relative clause It may be one of the causes of interference that when a relative pronoun acts as subject it is not often used in the relative clauses as postmodifiers in Vietnamese noun phrases but in English noun phrases it must be used For example: Incorrect: That is the man told me the story (Đây người đàn ông kể cho nghe câu chuyện.) Correct: This is the man who told me the story 4.4.4 Suggestions for teaching and translating noun phrases It is obvious that the knowledge of English noun phrases is important and necessary in studying English, especially in terms of translation In order to help students overcome the possible mistakes when they learn English noun phrases and translate English noun phrases, the following suggestions should be made Apart from careful explanation on the structure, the word order and the syntactic function of English noun phrases, the similarities and differences between the syntactic features of English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases, the teacher may suggest some types of exercises with the hope that it will help students to practice using the English noun phrases and translating English noun phrases more effectively The teacher should suggest many exercises of translation in 71 order to help students practice translating noun phrases correctly and effectively The following types of exercises may be suggested: a Recognition exercises which are the easiest type of exercises for learners to perform They observe the grammar item in structures when hearing or reading Since learners only observe the new grammar items the situations should be natural and communicative Learners can be asked: - To listen to a sentence in which there is a noun phrase E.g A man in the corner is smoking a cigarette - To read sentence E.g - I saw her pretty daughter in the post-office It is desirable that sentences formed should relate to real situations and fact Recognition exercises are indispensable as learners retain the grammar material through auditory and visual perception Auditory and visual memory is at work b Drill exercises: These can be applied for various forms but in order to teach noun phrases that is very necessary In learning a foreign language, drill exercises are indispensable The learners can not assimilate the material if they only hear and see it They must produce it both in reading and writing The more they say it, the better they assimilate the material E.g We order learners to practise reading these sentences in the correct word order: The church has (pictures/very/old/some/Spanish) I like (two/silk/those/dresses/blue) 72 He is (young/a/student/American) (first/names/daughter’s/her/two) are Mary Grant All types of exercises mentioned above are thought to be suitable for pupils and beginners But it is impossible to teach all the problems concerning the English noun phrases to them at a time So the materials should be carefully chosen We have shown common mistakes made by the Vietnamese students during studying English noun phrases and suggestions to the problem which may not enough However, it is hoped that this would help teachers and learners And to combine theory with practice is always the best way that the learners should keep in mind Generally, mistakes are unavoidable When learners make mistake, it is teacher, who has the duty to correct them by using most effective ways It also demands the teacher’s creation important character Chapter 73 CONCLUSION In this chapter, the result of the study will be reviewed, then some conclusions from the detailed analysis of the previous chapters and some limitations and suggestions for further research will be given 5.1 Recapitulation English and Vietnamese noun phrases are very important in sentences However, they often make learners or users to be troubled in using them, particularly in translating noun phrases This paper has implemented detailed description and analysis on the syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to Vietnamese equivalents My study has pointed out the similarities and differences between the syntactic features of English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases I also analyzed some noun phrases in chapter seven of the novel “Pride and prejudice” by Jane Austen and its translated version in Vietnamese as a suggestion for students in translating English noun phrases into Vietnamese I have conducted a survey with one hundred and twenty students of Tourism and foreign language department at Red Star university to find out their mistakes in using English noun phrases From that I have given some suggestion in translating and teaching English noun phrases 5.2 Concluding remarks Theoretically, the study provided a comprehensive and useful knowledge about the syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents Moreover, the similarities and differences between syntactic features of English and Vietnamese noun phrases are very helpful 74 Practically, the study has some useful suggestions in teaching and translating English noun phrases for teachers and students because there are some differences in the use of English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases 5.3 Limitations of the study Owing to the restriction of time and the shortage of reference materials related to the field under investigation as well as the constraints faced by the researcher, it goes without saying that there must exist mistakes in this thesis and it has not reached a satisfactory depth as it should Moreover, this is the first time I have done a research, the lack of experience and mistakes is inevitable; therefore, I would be glad to receive comments and suggestions 5.4 Suggestions for a further study My study only focus on the syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents Therefore, there will be some other topics related to this problem left for further research such as the semantic features of English noun phrases with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents REFERENCES REFERENCES IN ENGLISH 75 Betty Schrampfer Azar (2005) Understanding and using English grammar Longman Fromkin, V.et al (1990) An Introduction to Language nd edition London Halliday, M.A.K (2004) An introduction to Functional Grammar Oxford university press Jacobs, A Roderick (1995) English Syntax - A Grammar for English Language Professionals Oxford: Oxford University Press Jane, A (1990) Pride and Prejudice Oxford University Press Leech, G & Svartvik, J (1975) A communicative Grammar of English Singapore: Longman Nguyen Hoa Lac An Outline of Syntax - HCMC University of Education -English Noams Chomsky (1957) Syntactic Structures Mouton Publisher The Hague - Paris - New York Quirk, Greenbaum et al (1972) A comprehensive grammar of the English language Longman 10 Quirk, Randolph Et al (1980) A Grammar of Contemporary English ESSEX: Longman 11 Roberts, Paul (1964) English Syntax - A Book of Programmed Lessons Harcourt, Brace World Inc 12 Summers, Della (1992) Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture Longman 76 13 Tran Huu Manh (2008) Fundamentals of English traditional syntax Hanoi national university press REFERENCES IN VIETNAMESE 14 Bùi Minh Toán, Lê A, Đỗ Việt Hùng (2008) Tiếng Việt thực hành Nhà xuất Giáo dục 15 Diệp Minh Tâm (2003) Kiêu hãnh định kiến Nhà xuất hội nhà văn Việt Nam 16 Diệp Quang Ban, Hoàng Dân (2000) Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt Nhà xuất Giáo dục 17 Diệp Quang Ban, Hoàng Văn Thung (2009) Ngũ pháp Tiếng Việt (tập một) Nhà xuất Giáo dục 18 Diệp Quang Ban (2010) Ngũ pháp Tiếng Việt (tập hai) Nhà xuất Giáo dục 19 Đỗ Hữu Châu (1999) Từ vựng ngữ nghĩa Tiếng Việt Nhà xuất Giáo dục 20 Đỗ Thị Kim Liên (2002) Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt Nhà xuất Giáo dục 21 Hoàng Trọng Phiến (2008) Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt Nhà xuất đại học quốc gia Hà Nội, Hà Nội 22 Lê Dũng, (2002) Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt nâng cao Nhà xuất giáo dục 23 Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu, Hồng Trọng Phiến (2006) Cơ sở ngơn ngữ học Tiếng Việt Nhà xuất giáo dục 77 24 Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (1975) Từ loại danh từ tiếng Việt đại Nhà xuất khoa học xã hội, Hà Nội 25 Nguyễn Kim Thân (2008) Cơ sở ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Nhà xuất khoa học xã hội, Hà Nội 26 Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2008) Từ vựng học Tiếng Việt Nhà xuất giáo dục 27 Nguyễn Anh Quế (1996) Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt (cấu trúc từ từ loại) Nhà xuất Giáo dục 28 Nguyen Thi Van Lam (2007) The structure of English noun phrase Scientific magazine A thesis 29 Nguyen Thi Hong Phuong (2013) Word order in English noun phrases in comparison with Vietnamese.A thesis 30 Nguyen Anh Thi (2007), Reflections on the application of noun phrases in English – Vietnamese translation A thesis 31 Phạm Công Sơn (2009) Non nước Việt Nam Nhà xuất văn hóa thơng tin 32 Trinh Thi Vinh (2009) A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese A thesis Websites: http://www.spnttw.edu.vn/Pages/ArticleDetail.aspx?siteid=1&sitepageid=17 1&articleid=219 http://vndoc.com/chuc-nang-cua-danh-tu-trong-tieng-anh/download 78 http://doc.edu.vn/tai-lieu/de-tai-dac-diem-ngu-phap-cua-danh-tu-don-vitieng-viet-so-voi-danh-tu-don-vi-tieng-anh-40315/ http://memoria.vn/tin-tuc/chuc-nang-cua-danh-tu-functions-of-nouns.htm http://oxford.edu.vn/goc-tieng-anh/hoc-tieng-anh-cung-oxford/danh-tutrong-tieng-anh-629.html APPENDICES APPENDIX FULL NAME: 79 CLASS: SCORE: TASK1: Fill in the blank a “a/an/the” or “ф” if no article is needed 1. _beef is a kind of meat _beef we had for dinner last night was excellent Jim is wearing _straw hat today Jim likes to wear _hats We need to get _new phone brown hat on that hook over there belongs to Mark My grandfather had long life Tommy wants to be _engineer when he grows up I wish we had _washing machine 10 jewelry Diana is wearing today is beautiful TASK 2: Join two sentences into one sentence using relative clause and indicate which sentence the relative pronoun can be omitted She lectured on a topic I know very little about it The students missed the assignment They were absent from class Yesterday I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen him for years The young women are all from Japan We met them at the meeting last night I am reading a book It was written by Jane Austen The man gave me good advice I spoke to him 80 I returned the money I had borrowed it from my roommate The dogcatcher caught the dog It had bitten my neighbor’s daughter I read about a man He keeps chickens in his apartment 10 The scientist is well known for her research We met her yesterday TASK 3: Order the words to make a sentence a/ developed/ America/ is/ industrial/ country a /new/ American / red/ car/ he/ has my / brother/ the/ boy/ me/ after/ is my / sister/ the/ girl/ beautiful / standing / by / the / window / is The /by/ yesterday/ car/ stolen/ is / owned / a/ worker/ at/ Toyota /company TASK 4: Translate these sentences into Vietnamese He is a fat old man I have a new red dress Hoa is a beautiful young woman The music which we listened to last night was good The book which is on the table is mine APPENDIX ANSWER: TASK 1: 81 1. _ ф beef is a kind of meat The _beef we had for dinner last night was excellent Jim is wearing _a straw hat today Jim likes to wear ф _hats We need to get _a new phone The brown hat on that hook over there belongs to Mark My grandfather had _a _long life Tommy wants to be an _engineer when he grows up I wish we had _a washing machine 10 The jewelry Diana is wearing today is beautiful TASK 2: She lectured on a topic (which) I know very little about The students who were absent from class missed the assignment Yesterday I ran into an old friend (whom) I hadn’t seen for years The young women (whom) we met at the meeting last night are all from Japan I am reading a book which was written by Jane Austen TASK 3: America is a developed industrial country He has a new red America car The boy after me is my brother 82 The beautiful girl standing by the window is my sister The stolen car yesterday is owned by a worker at Toyota company TASK 4: Ơng ta ơng già béo Tơi có váy đỏ Hoa phụ nữ trẻ đẹp Nhạc nghe tối qua hay Quyển sách bàn 83 ... 4.1 English noun phrases 19 19 4.1.1 Structure of English noun phrases 19 4.1.2 Syntactic functions of English noun phrases 28 4.2 30 Vietnamese noun phrases 4.2.1 Structure of Vietnamese noun phrases. .. the syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to Vietnamese equivalents It aims to find out the similarities and differences between syntactic functions of noun phrases in English. .. used to define elements to form an English noun phrase and Vietnamese noun phrase Moreover, this method also helps to analyze syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to 15 Vietnamese