Vietnam National University of Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences & Humanities _____________________ EMPOWERING ENGLISH-MAJORED FRESHMEN WITH THE ABILITY TO EMPLOY ENGLISH SUBJECT-VERB INVERSION IN ACADEMIC WRITING: A Case Study at Marketing University A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) Submitted by Chu Quang Phê Under the supervision of TÔ MINH THANH, Ph. Ho Chi Minh City, October 2010 i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis entitled “EMPOWERING ENGLISH-MAJORED FRESHMEN WITH THE ABILITY TO EMPLOY ENGLISH SUBJECT- VERB INVERSION IN ACADEMIC WRITING: A case study at Marketing University” is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution. Ho Chi Minh City, October 15 th, 2010 Chu Quang Phê ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Chu Quang Phê, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL), accept the requirements of the university relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the University Library.
I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the University Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan and reproduction for theses. Ho Chi Minh City, October 15 th, 2010 Chu Quang Phê iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and above all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Tô Minh Thanh, Ph.— formerly my senior lecturer of Linguistics PG in the program of Master of Art in TESOL at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City. Had there not been her insightful discussions, constructive criticisms, valuable comments, great encouragement and careful proof-reading on my writing pieces, this M. thesis would have been far from being accomplished.
My thanks also go to all my teachers in the TESOL program and the authors whose ideas are included in the thesis. Also, I am grateful to 12 teachers of English and 102 English-majored freshmen in the academic year of 2009-2010 at the University of Marketing who seriously took part in the study so that the thesis could be completed. Further, I would like to send my special thanks to Nguyễn Hoàng Quế, Ph., Dean of the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Marketing for permitting me to conduct the study at this institution. Last but not least, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my entire family for their care and support.
Ho Chi Minh City, October 15 th, 2010 iv ABSTRACT English subject and verb inversion appears here and there in business documents; the English-majored students at the University of Marketing whose English is business- oriented definitely miss being exposed to the very structure. What this means is that they fail to deal with English subject and verb inversion during their school time and even more seriously in their work later. Therefore, the study done for this M. thesis aims at empowering English-majored freshmen at the University of Marketing with the ability to employ English subject and verb inversion in academic writing.
To accomplish this, the researcher is carrying the study with recourse to a combination of three different research designs called descriptive research, experimental research and comparative research with the involvement of 102 English-majored freshmen and 12 teachers of English at the University of Marketing in the academic year of 2009-2010. The study’s major findings then reveal that the student subjects are beneficial from their repeated exposure to English subject and verb inversion in Writing and more interestingly they can use and are getting aware of the structure in their writing pieces. v SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS [] Source Quoted {} Test Codes Quoted # Impossible SVI Use / Or ~ Equivalent Form S Subject Vl Linking Verb Vi Intransitive Verb Vmono- Mono-transitive Verb Vcomplex- Complex-transitive Verb Vdi- Di-transitive Verb Od Direct Object Oi Indirect Object A Adverbial Cs Subject Complement Co Object Complement SVI Subject and Verb Inversion FI Full Inversion PI Partial Inversion I Item Q Question UM The University of Marketing vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of authorship .i Retention and use of the thesis. iv Symbols and abbreviations.
v Table of contents. vi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.2 Descriptions of the five consecutive courses on “Writing” at UM .1 Writing 1: English Sentence Structures.2 Writing 2: Paragraph Writing .3 Writing 3: Essay Writing .4 Writing 4 and 5: Business Writing .3 Rationale for teaching SVI in Writing 1 .4 Statement of the purpose .5 Limitation and delimitation .6 Significance of the research. 8 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Linguistic notions on English clauses .1 Approaches to grammar.1 Descriptive approach to grammar .1 Clause structures in the light of descriptive grammar .2 Seven basic clause patterns .2 Functional approach to grammar .1 Clause structures in the light of functional grammar .2 Combination of the three structures .2 SVI in English .1 SVI in the light of functional and descriptive grammar .1 From the perspective of descriptive grammar .2 From the perspective of functional grammar .2 Internal structures of SVI .1 From the perspective of descriptive grammar .2 From the perspective of functional grammar .3 Functions of SVI .1 From the perspective of descriptive grammar .2 From the perspective of functional grammar .4 The question of internalization .5 Language teaching methods.3 Methods of teaching English Sentence Structures at UM. 30 Chapter 3: POTENTIAL USES OF SVI IN ENGLISH 3.2 Yes/ No questions.4 Echo tag questions .2 Wish sentences beginning with the subjunctive may .3 Conditional sentences without if .4 Declaratives beginning with a negative adverbial .5 Declaratives beginning with the intensifying so or such .6 Declaratives containing the pro-form so, neither or nor .3 Declaratives beginning with an adverbial .4 Declaratives beginning with a participle .5 Existential sentences with there .6 Declarative sentences with the anticipatory it .8 Declaratives beginning with a predicative adjective.1 Content analysis for secondary data .2 Getting to know about the student subjects .3 Approaching the teacher subjects.4 Conducting the experimental teaching .5 Evaluating the students’ achievements.6 Implementing the questionnaire surveys .7 Identifying SVI in the students’ pieces of writing.
64 ix Chapter 5: ANALYSES AND FINDINGS 5.1 Report on the student subjects’ diagnostic test results .2 Report on the student subjects’ achievement test results .3 Report on the student subjects’ responses to the questionnaire .4 Report on the teacher subjects’ responses to the questionnaire .5 Report on the class observations .1 Some advantages of instructing SVI to the student subjects .2 Some major problems facing the student subjects .1 Recommendations for the teacher .2 Recommendations for students .1 Answers to the research questions .2 An evaluation on the methodology .3 Conclusion on the complete research. x Appendix A: Lesson Plan (No1). xiv Appendix B: Lesson Plan (No2) .xviii Appendix C: The diagnostic test with the suggested answers .xxiii Appendix D: The achievement test with the suggested answers. xxvii Appendix E: The survey questionnaire to the teacher subjects.
xxxi Appendix F: The survey questionnaire to the student subjects. xxxv Appendix G: The handouts to the student subjects. xxxix Appendix H: The students’ sentences on the pictures in the diagnostic test .xliv Appendix I: The students’ sentences on the pictures in the achievement test.xlvi Appendix J: The students’ sentences identified in Writing 2. li Appendix K: The restructured syllabus suggested on Writing 1.lvi 1 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Most often used in English linguistics is the term word order which refers to the order of the elements in the clause or the sentence, elements which are often each fulfilled by phrases or clauses rather than just one word each such as the subject, the object, the verb, the complement and the adverbial.
Biber et al [1999] point out that the English word order has been described as fixed by many grammarians; the placement of the core elements of the clause is strictly regulated in the way that the subject of a statement comes before the verb which may precede the adverbial, the object or the complement. However, variation can occur in the order of the elements, as in: (1)a Dogs I love, but cats I can’t stand. [18:56] 1 b It was beautiful gray stone mellowed by the years. There was an arch way in the centre and at the end of the west wing WAS a tower with battlements and long narrow slits of windows which looked rather definitely out of place with the rest of the house which was clearly of a later period.
[5:899] Halliday [1994:38] adds that when a clause element in the sentence is fronted, the information structuring of that sentence is changed as well, as in: (2)a The duke has given my aunt that teapot. [32:38] b My aunt has been given that teapot by the duke. [32:38] c That teapot the duke has given to my aunt. [32:38] What’s more, “in statements, it is usual for the verb to follow the subject; nonetheless, this word order is, sometimes, reversed.
We can refer to this as INVERSION” [Hewings, 1999:238]. Such inversion occurs both in formal English and in everyday speech, as in: (3)a Further south FLOWS the life-blood of the region. [20:12] b Here ARE some of your replies. [58:16] 1 The convention refers to the author and his/her work in the bibliography.
For example, [18:56] refers to Eastwood, J. (who is numbered 18 in the list) and the quoted sentence is from Page 56 in his book. 2 Biber et al [1999] continue that “in order to study the discourse functions of word order and its variations, we need to understand the nature of the normal or unmarked order which may be altered to meet particular requirements of information flow or weight distribution, or to convey a special effect of emphasis” [Biber et al, 1999:899]. In this study, the researcher is intentionally concerned with the marked word order, where the two core clause elements, namely the subject and the verb, are placed in an unusual position to arrive at a desired effect.
This disordered language phenomenon is normally named subject and verb inversion (abbreviated to SVI). As being observed, SVI appears here and there in TOEIC2, TOEFL3 and IELT4 tests, especially in the structure and reading comprehension parts; nonetheless, Vietnamese students are with some difficulty in coping with it. Like many other Vietnamese learners of English, SVI is really challenging for English-majored students at the University of Marketing (abbreviated to UM) to acquire SVI perplex uses without any time, limited though it is, allocated for the uses in this institution’s official curriculum. Although it was introduced previously in various scattered points in high school, the English-majored students fail to study SVI systematically in a lesson unit and thus can hardly work well with SVI uses in academic writing, which are rather difficult but quite interesting for their intermediate level.
Therefore, efforts have been made to carry out this M. thesis entitled “Empowering English-majored freshmen with the ability to employ English SVI in academic writing: A case study at UM.2 Descriptions of the five consecutive courses on “Writing” at UM 1.1 Writing 1: English Sentence Structures English Sentence Structures is usually instructed as the first writing course; it is important as the starting point for the English majors at UM to study writing skills. Completing this course, the students are expected to know how different parts of speech are grouped together to make grammatically-perfect sentences. And below is the extract from the syllabus named Writing 1: 2 Test of English for International Communication 3 Test of English as a Foreign Language 4 International English Language Testing System 3 Week 1 Clauses and Clause elements: Subject, Verb, Object, Complement, Adverbial Types of Clauses: Independent Clauses vs.
Dependent Clauses, Clause Connectors Week 2 Types of Sentences: Simple Sentences, Compound Sentences, Complex Sentences, Compound-Complex Sentences, Coordination vs.