QUANG NAM UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION PAPER Title: A COMPARATIVE AND CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NOUN PHRASES By NGUYEN TH] THANH THUY Student Code: 2111010853 MAJOR: ENGLISH ACADEMIC COURSE: 2011-2015 Supervisor: NGUYEN TH] TO NGA, M.A TRƯỜNG DAI HOC QUANG NAM TRUNG TAM HOC LIEU VA CONG NGHE THONG TIN Quang Nam, May 2015 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the attached document is my original work. Except where references are made in the text, this paper contain no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole, or in part from a thesis by which | have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the paper. This paper has not submitted for awarded of any degree or diploma in any situation.
Tam Ky, May 2015 Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My graduation paper would not have completed without the assistance of a number people in and out the institution. Above all, I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to all those who helped me in completing my research. 1 firstly express my deep gratitude to my beloved supervisor, Ms. Nguyen Thi To Nga for her continual assistance and support, valuable advice, whole- hearted guidance, correction as well as encouragement during the development of this research paper.
Tam also deeply indebted to Ms. Nguyen Thi Trung and Ms. Bui Thi Huy Huyen for their valuable suggestions and advice. I wish to express my thanks to all the teachers of the Foreign Languages Department for having devotedly taught me during 4 ycars at the university.
Last but not least, | especially wish to thank my family and friends for their never-ending encouragement, understanding and support needed for my study during the process of doing this paper. Thank you very much! Student Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy ABSTRACT This study aims to discuss the syntactic features of English and Vietnamese Noun Phrases. Then the comparative and contrastive analysis is made to find out the similarities as well as the differences between Noun Phrases of two languages. Finally, | present some implications for better learning and teaching.
I do hope that my document will benefit readers for understanding the Noun Phrases in English and Vietnamese so that they can use them correctly and avoid some certain mistakes. LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Some kinds of determiners. Table 2: Structure of NP in English. Table 3: Structure of NP in Vietnamese.
Table 4: Similarities of NP in English and Vietnamese Table 5: Differences in English and Vietnamese word form. Table 6: Differences in position of modification with head noun. Table 7: Differences of NP in English and Vietnamese. Figure 1 : English Noun Classification TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP.
ABSTRACT LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION.2 Aims and objectives of the study. Objectives of the study. Scope of the study.5 Organization: 3 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.1 Definitions of terms ° 2.4 Determiner in English.
Classifier and measure words in Vietnamese.6 Focus maker “cai” in Vietnames 2.7 Non-finite clause.2 Noun phrase structure.ò„ 10 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY. we 4 CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS .1 Syntactic features of English and Vietnamese NP.1 Structure of NP in English and Vietnamese lS 4.1 Head Noun sald 4.2 Pre-head ofa NP.3 Post head ofa NP 35 4.2 The variation in structure of NP in English.1 Pre-head and post head modifiers interchanged.2 Relative clause and other constructions interchanged in post-head position ofa NP .3 Functions of NP in English and Vietnamese.1 The function of NP as componential element of a clause 42 4.2 Noun phrase as componential elements of another phrase.3 Noun phrase as an addressing term.2 Comparison of English NP and Vietnamese NP.1 Similarities of NP in English and Victnamesc.1 Similarities in general structure ofa noun phrase .2 Similarities in componential elements of a NP.3 Similatrities in the relative positions between componential elements to the head and among themselves 4.1 4Similarity in function.2 Syntactic differences of NP in English and Vietnamese.1 Differences in componential elements of English and Vietnamese NPs.2 Differences in relative position of elements and their positions to the head in English and Vietnamese NPs. ngô CHAPTER FIVE. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS.2 Implications in learning English NP.1 For learning and teaching .2 For translating NP between English and Vietnamese.3 Suggestion for further study.
02 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In the continuous developed society, it can be said that language is a powerful means of communication of human being. Language is an extremely important way of interacting with the people around us. It is essential to every aspect in our daily life.
We communicate effectively with our words, gestures, and tone of voice in a multitude of situation. We use language to let others know how we feel, what we desire, and to ask questions. Furthermore, language contributes to the identity ofa people, regardless of ethnic group among nationalities. Wilhelm von Humboldt stated that language is the spiritual expression of a nation, language reflects the thinking of one use it.
We can also sce the peculiarities of culture and way of thinking of the people through language. However, language is a complicated category. There are more than two hundred languages all over the world and each language has its own feature. Learning a language involves many things such as grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary.
In terms of grammar, noun phrase proves to be an interesting case that needs more attention because of its high frequency of appearance in an English clause and its possibility to be responsible for four out of five clause elements. If five clause elements are subject, verbs, object, complement, and adverbial, any of the five elements except the verb can be taken over by the noun phrase. Noun phrase is a complex system requires learners of a solid understanding so that they can use language accurately and easily. It plays an important role in mastering any language.
In academic learning, a lot of mistakes are often made because of over-emphasizing the verbs and forgetting about the central importance of nouns and noun phrases. Verbs are certainly important, but we can't say much without nouns. In any sample of English spoken or written, one of the ten most common words is the. This suggests that there are a lot of nouns phrase because the just about always occurs with a noun.
Together with the mother tongue-Vietnamese, English has become a popular language in the country. Mastering English is prerequisite condition to integrate with many countries. English is considered as the passport to travel around the world. The studying of English nowadays has become an essential demand for almost everyone in the modern world.
However, beside some similaritics, English has certain characteristics different from those of Victnamese. Therefore, Vietnamese learners, when studying English, often make mistakes relating to the differences between the two languages. As a result, the comparison and contrast between two languages, especially in noun phrase, will be useful to support the studying and mastering of the language. For these reasons, I decided to make a study on Noun Phrase with topic: “A Comparative and Contrastive Analysis of English and Vietnamese Noun Phrases” in order to have a deep investigation into noun phrases of English as well as those of Vietnamese.
This study is intended to analyse noun phrase structure syntactically to find out the similarities and differences between them in two aspects: structure and function. I hope to make a contribution to help students avoid making mistakes in learning English, in their translation between these two languages, especially in learning noun phrases. Also, some implications for language teaching and language learning will be suggested.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1. Aims The study aims at comparing and contrasting the English and Vietnamese noun phrase in terms of syntactic feature (structure and function), from which proposing some strategies for a better understanding and learning of noun phrase for Vietnamese learners of English.
Objectives of the study. This study is designed to: ~ analyze English and Vietnamese Noun Phrases in terms of structure and function. - make a comparative and contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese noun phrases in term of structure and function. - suggest some implications for better learning and teaching English noun phrases.
What are the syntactic features of noun phrases in the English language in term of structure and function? 2. What are the syntactic features of noun phrases in the Vietnamese language in term of structure and function? 3. What are the syntactic similarities and differences of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese in term of structure and function? 1. Scope of the study Due to the time and resource constraints, this study is confined to the English and Vietnamese noun phrases from the syntactic aspect only, mainly focus on the syntactic structure and function, leaving the semantic and pragmatic aspects for other studies.5 Organization The paper is divided into 5 chapters: Chapter one is the introduction of the study which presents some reasons for choosing the topic, the aims and objectives of the study, research questions and the scope of the study.
Chapter two consists of literature review and theoretical background of the study. Chapter three comprises research methods, data collection and data analysis. Chapter four refers to the findings and discussions of the study. Chapter five deals with the conclusion and the implications of the study.
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Literature Review Noun phrase (NP) plays an important role in mastering any languages. Therefore, it has been found in different books with many aspects. The book “Oxford Guide to English Grammar” by John Eastwood mentioned NP and some elements determiners, quantifiers and modifiers as well as the basic structure of NP. In “Advanced Grammar In Use” book by Martin Hewings, he presented noun, noun compound, some elements of a NP: article, determiners, quantifiers.
However, they are in separated. The relation between noun and modifiers is not figured out. Besides, the function of NP as subject, object, complement of sentences, and as complement in prepositional phrases, the noun classes, determiners, modifiers, quantifiers, reference and the articles, number, pronouns. are also illustrated in the book “4 University Grammar Of English”, Longman.
Noun phrases have drawn much attention from many linguistics all over the world. Many studies on NP have been carried out. Dan Kurland in his study: “Complete reference: The Noun Phrase” [19] has analyzed the basic elements of NP (Noun, Pre- modifiers, Post- modifiers) and its importance in a sentence, a clause and paragraph. The study “A contrastive analysis of pre-modifiers in the English and Vietnamese Noun Phrase” by Lai Thi Phuong Thao [20] has figured out the semantic and syntactical similarities and differences between pre -modifiers of English noun phrases and those of Vietnamese.
Basic noun phrases consist of pronouns, numerals or nouns with articles (indefinite, definite or zero) or nouns with other closed-system items that occur before the noun head including pre-determiners, determiners and post- determiners are included in the study “ Structure of English Noun Phrases” by Nguyen Thi Van Lam, TIL, Yangon, Myanmar, May 2004 [22]. In the study naming “The structure of the Viemamese Noun Phrase” by Tuong Hung Nguyen [23], the features as well as structures of noun phrases were analyzed based on the existence of multiple functional projections that occur within the Vietnamese DP. A structure for a full-fledged noun phrase in Vietnamese is proposed and an explanation of how the overt nominal word order is derived is provided. Nguyen Kim Phung in “The structure of Noun Phrase in English and Vietnamese” [21] presented mainly the structure of Noun Phrases in English and Vietnamese.
According to the researcher, noun phrases consist of three parts: pre-modification, head, post-modification, However, these studies just discuss general terms and have not figured out clearly the structures as well as the contrast of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese.