VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ LINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE USED ON FACEBOOK SOCIAL NETWORK BY VIETNAMESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NGÔN NGỮ ANH ĐƯỢC NGƯỜI HỌC TIẾNG ANH Ở VIỆT NAM SỬ DỤNG TRÊN MẠNG XÃ HỘI FACEBOOK) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.0201 HANOI – 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ LINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE USED ON FACEBOOK SOCIAL NETWORK BY VIETNAMESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NGÔN NGỮ ANH ĐƯỢC NGƯỜI HỌC TIẾNG ANH Ở VIỆT NAM SỬ DỤNG TRÊN MẠNG XÃ HỘI FACEBOOK) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.0201 Supervisor: Kiều Thị Thu Hương, PhD. HANOI – 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby, certify the thesis entitled “An investigation into the English language used on Facebook social network by Vietnamese learners of English” is the result of my own research for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
The thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions. I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and research. September, 2013 Nguyễn Thị Linh i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to show my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. I have sincere thanks to the Post-graduate Department of ULIS, VNUH for giving me permission to commence and go ahead with this M.
thesis and to use departmental data. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Kiều Thị Thu Hương, Vice-Dean of the English Faculty – Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, whose encouragement, guidance and support enabled me to develop an understanding of the subject and to accomplish the final version of the thesis as expected. This thesis would not be possible were it not for my lecturers in the M.
course, namely Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân, Assoc. Lê Hùng Tiến, Assoc. Võ Đại Quang, Dr.
Hà Cẩm Tâm, Dr. Nguyễn Huy Kỷ, Dr. Ngô Hữu Hoàng, Dr. Lê Văn Canh and Dr.
Huỳnh Anh Tuấn. I would like to thank them for their interesting lectures, devotion, assistance and valuable hints. Especially, I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents whose endless love and encouragement helped me finish this work. Lastly, I offer my regards and blessings to all of those who supported me in any respect during the completion of the study.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Languages in general and English in particular evolve and diversify over the time. Especially with the outburst of computer-mediated communication like the social network Facebook, English language incessantly gets its new look. The undertaken research examines the statuses and comments published on the Facebook sites of Vietnamese graduates of English to observe the trendy features of English language. The level of formality/informality of online written English is considered as well.
The study focuses on the main aspects of the language‟s grammar, namely morphology, syntax and punctuation. Thanks to the descriptive, analytic, comparative and contrastive methods, the results reveal the tendency of the participants‟ using abbreviated expressions on Facebook. This also proves their preference of maintaining informality on this social network. Nevertheless, most instances indicate the hesitation of Vietnamese graduates of English in creating brand-new English, which now becomes the trend of Facebook users.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES. vi ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS. vii PART I – INTRODUCTION.
Statement of the problem. Objectives of the study. Significance of the study. Scope of the study.
Design of the study. 5 PART II – DEVELOPMENT. 6 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW. Review of related studies.
19 CHAPTER II: THE STUDY. Data gathering instruments. Findings and discussion. 24 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
40 PART III – CONCLUSION. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study.V v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figures Figure 1 - The preference of each abbreviated form .25 Figure 2 - Proportion of phrase types on Facebook status .33 Figure 3 - Proportion of sentence types on Facebook status .37 Figure 4 - Proportion of sentence types on Facebook comment. 38 Tables Table 1 - Chart of English consonant phonemes .17 Table 2 - List of Sound-based Substitutes on Facebook .27 Table 3- List of Initialisms on Facebook .28 Table 4 - List of Clippings on Facebook .30 Table 5 - List of Sound Imitations on Facebook .31 Table 6 - List of Colloquialisms on Facebook .32 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS A Adverbial Adj Adjective AdjP Adjective Phrase Adv Adverb AdvP Adverb Phrase C Complement Comb Combination Exc Exclamation Int Interjection Mod Modal (verb) N Noun NP Noun Phrase O Object P Preposition PP Prepositional Phrase S Subject St Sentence SNS Social Networking Site ULIS University of Languages and International Studies VNUH Vietnam National University, Hanoi V Verb VP Verb Phrase & and i.
in other words e. no date vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART I – INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem Language is always a fertile field for linguistic researchers since it has incessantly been renewed by users to get what they want to express. It is beyond doubt that English has been used not only widely but also dissimilarly in different regions of the world.
For instance, the prepositional phrase „at the weekend‟, which is preferred by British, turns to „on the weekend‟ in American English; or when you hear an Australian say „sunnies‟, it means „sunglasses‟ in British and American English. As an aspect of culture, language is “the system of communication in speech and writing that is used by people of a particular country or area”1. In other words, language in general and English in particular has been exploited by a certain community that shares the same habits of using the linguistic patterns. Thus, when it comes to Facebook, one of the most popular social networks, which connects people all over the world, one issue raised is whether or not a new kind of English will be created by Facebook users.
It is the very founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg who declared that this social network was “helping to define a brand- new language for how people connect”2. He explained that vocabulary was really limited, so adding nouns and verbs could help to express a large number of things and connect to anything in any way we want. Therefore, Zuckerberg himself has called Facebook users to create a language with pleasure. Thanks to a wide coverage of Facebook, many Vietnamese learners of English consider it a good site to practice the language by communicating with English speakers.
There are more and more Vietnamese people sharing their status and language (n. In Oxford Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary (8th ed. Retrieved from 1 http://oald8.com/dictionary/language 2 Zimmer, B. “The rise of the Zuckerverb: The new language on Facebook”.
Retrieved from http://www.com/technology/archive/2011/09/the-rise-of-the-zuckerverb-the-new- language-of-facebook/245897/ 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com giving comments in English on Facebook. They are more likely to use English to make Facebook users understand their expressions. However, what kind of English do the Vietnamese utilize on Facebook? Do they prefer to use the Standard English learnt at school/university or the created one? Hardly have any answers to these questions been found in any research papers before. Thus, the present study has been carried out to investigate the trendy features of English used by Vietnamese learners of English on the social network Facebook.
Objectives of the study The statuses and comments posted on Facebook are characterized as asynchronous, that is, the mode of communication where the author and the reader are online at different times (Yus, 2011). In contrast to synchronous communication, asynchronicity allows selective message construction (Duthler, 2006), thus language users are able to plan, review and control their texts more than in synchronous media like chats. Consequently, asynchronous online communication would allow a more formal style. Following this premise, the objectives of the study will be twofold: 1) To examine online English writings on Facebook to find out the trendy features of this language when used by Vietnamese learners of English.
2) To investigate the degree of formality/ informality followed by Vietnamese learners of English on this social network site. Research questions The study aims at seeking answers to the following questions: 1) What are the trendy features of English language used on Facebook by Vietnamese learners of English? 2) What is the degree of formality/ informality of English followed by Vietnamese learners of English on Facebook? 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Significance of the study The paper is an attempt to look into an under-researched issue on Facebook and for the Vietnamese graduates of English. Thus, once completed, its outcome may offer benefits to entities involved, namely Vietnamese learners and teachers of English, and other Facebook users in the world.
First of all, it is Vietnamese learners of English that benefit the most from the results of this paper. This study partly helps them to differentiate Facebook English from academic and business English: when the former is rather informal, the latter seems to be more formal and standardized. As a result, they will be more aware of using suitable English for different purposes, especially for some formal documents like reports, business letters or researches. In addition, for some Vietnamese undergraduates who have not had stable basic background knowledge of English language yet, it is really risky if using Facebook English becomes their habit.
At that time, there is no doubt that they will unconsciously bring what they read and see on Facebook to school, which leads to their unavoidable mistakes in English. Thus, the findings of this study familiarize Vietnamese teachers of English with forms of the uncommon language that their students may use in class and that they consider errors or mistakes. Hence, teachers can understand causes of the problems and find out appropriate solutions. Furthermore, in regard to Facebook users in general, the research may provide them with deep and comprehensive insight into the current situation of English used by the Vietnamese.
Hopefully, all of Facebook users can understand what their Vietnamese interactants mean. This helps to connect more users on Facebook. Last but not least, researchers of the related fields can use the current paper for reference and carry out further and deeper investigation. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Scope of the study According to Vietnam‟s Youth Magazine (2012)3, the majority of Vietnamese accounts on Facebook are under the age of thirty-four. Besides, due to the fact that Vietnamese graduates of English are more likely to use English on Facebook, twenty-three- to thirty-three-year-old users have become the most suitable informants of the study. Additionally, there are several applications for Facebook users to communicate on this social network such as private and public message, status, comment, note, chat, voice and video call and so on, but some of them are hard to be observed and intervened to study on the used language. Therefore, only status and comment have been taken into consideration.
As a result, written English has become a variable of the study. However, despite numerous fields of English language, the research only focuses on the aspects of morphology and syntax, the two main components of a grammar (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, p. Also, punctuation is concerned as the study targets to written English.