CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “A STUDY OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF THE ENGLISH REPORTING VERBS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language. Except where the reference is indicated, no other persons‟ works have been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Hanoi, 2015 Bui Thi Tuyet Nhung Approved by SUPERVISOR Dang Ngoc Huong Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis has been completed thanks to the assistance and guidance of my teachers, friends, colleagues and relatives. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Dang Ngoc Huong, 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.
In addition, a special word of thanks goes to all my teachers of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, Hanoi Open University for their very useful and interesting lectures which have laid the foundation for my thesis. In my study, it is inevitable that the ideas of many other writers in this field are reflected and developed. Their ideas have stimulated my thinking on doing this research. My debt to the authors listed in the references is equally great.
To all these scholars, I offer my sincere thanks. I am greatly indebted to my loving parents, my parents in law, my husband, my daughter and my brother for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfilment of this academic work. Finally, although great efforts have been made to complete the thesis, I am aware that this study is far from perfect. Therefore, any comments or suggestions for the thesis would be welcome and appreciated.
ii ABSTRACT Reported speech has attracted the attention of scholars in different fields such as linguistics, poetry, logic, and the philosophy of language. Reported speech is used to make the same information sound less repetitive and more precise, without having to make the voices and faces of all the people involved. “A study of syntactic and semantic features of the English reporting verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents” is an attempt to find out some basic semantic and syntactic features of reporting verbs in English with their Vietnamese equivalents through the theoretical framework of componential analysis. To gain the above purpose, the researcher has used two main methods: Descriptive and Contrastive Analysis methods.
Moreover, the data were taken from different sources such as dictionaries, books, internet, novels in English and Vietnamese. The data were collected by the activities of reading the materials, identifying, classifying and synthesizing them. The findings show that the reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order can occur in the same syntactic patterns, but may have different meanings depending on the situation in which they are used and they can occur in different syntactic patterns that reflect various meanings in daily communication. A pedagogical implication resulting from the findings included in this research could be useful for teachers and learners who would like to broaden their knowledge concerning the six reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order.
iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS Adv : Adverbial Modifier E. : That is LDOCE Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English NP : Noun phrase O : Object OALDCE : Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary of Current English OD : Direct object OI : Indirect object Prep : Preposition RV : Reporting verb Sb : Somebody St : Something V : Verb iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 2.2: The chief semantic functions for each clause type .1: The sentence patterns of the six reporting verbs. Different structures of the reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order .3: Sentence patterns of the reporting verbs studied in English and Vietnamese. Different meanings of Say and their Vietnamese Equivalents.
Different meanings of Speak and their Vietnamese Equivalents. Different meanings of Tell and their Vietnamese Equivalents. Different meanings of Talk and their Vietnamese Equivalents. Different meanings of Inform and theirVietnamese Equivalents.
Different meanings of Order and their Vietnamese Equivalents .53 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality. iii List of abbreviations and symbols. iv List of tables and figures. v Table of contents.
vi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION. Rationale for the research. Aims of the research. Objectives of the research.
Scope of the research. Significance of the research. Design of the study.3 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Review of previous studies.
Review of theoretical background. Syntactic features of speech act verbs. Semantic features of speech act verbs. Classification of sentences in terms of sentence elements and verb complementation.
Syntactic features of sentence elements. Semantic features of sentence elements. Research- governing orientations. Principles for intended data collection and data analysis.
Major methods vs. Data collection instruments. Data analysis techniques .26 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Syntactic and semantic features of the reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform, Order in English.
Syntactic features of the reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform, Order in English. Semantic features of the reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order in English. The reporting verbs: say, speak, tell, talk, inform and order in English and their Vietnamese equivalents. In terms of their syntactics.
In terms of their semantics. Some suggestions for teaching and learning the six reporting verbs in English and Vietnamese. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further studies .62 vii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale for the research The verb is considered to be the king of all parts of speech. At the heart of every sentence is a verb, an action word that is generally indicated what someone or something is doing or perhaps merely indicates being. Verbs referring to speech constitute one of the most important areas of the vocabulary of any language. This is particularly true, however, of English, and of the other languages which function as vehicles of life in complex modern societies.
Therefore, all verbs in English, in which, reporting verbs are also play an important role in the sentence. Verbs denoting reporting are one type of verbs with a variety of meanings. According to Anna Wierzbicka (1987: 288): “Reporting is related to staying in so far as both are concerned with facts, and to informing in so far as both are concerned with an addressee whom they are intended to cause to know something.” Reporting verbs are divided into many groups to express orders, suggestions, requests.However, in this paper, we only focus on six following verbs such as Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order. These verbs have wide occurrence in various types of contexts both in English and Vietnamese.
They can occur in different syntactic patterns that reflect various meanings in daily communication. They can also find in the same syntactic structures, but may have different meanings depending on the situation in which they are used. In fact, the same meaning that can be expressed by many words in English and Vietnamese often causes a big difficulty for English learners when expressing their ideas in communication, especially in transferring meanings of words from native language to another one, and vice verse. 1 As a teacher of English at a school, I found that my students have faced many problems when they use these verbs.
They cannot use them correctly and fluently in real- life communication, especially, they can also not use the right above reporting verbs in specific situations. Therefore, I have carried out a study to find out how to use these verbs accurately and correctly for the analysis of their syntactic and semantic features of the typical reporting verbs: Say, Speak, Tell, Talk, Inform and Order with their references to their equivalents in Vietnammese with the purpose of helping learners of English understand how to use these verbs correctly and to avoid making mistakes in using them. Aims of the research The research aims at finding out some basic semantic and syntactic features of the six reporting verbs in English and their Vietnamese equivalents. It is hoped that the results of the study can help Vietnamese learners of English to apply the right use of these verbs as well as give some implications for teaching the six reporting verbs in English and Vietnamese.
Objectives of the research In order to achieve the aim of the research, three following objectives will be carried out: - Describing the syntactic and semantic features of the six reporting verbs in English. - Pointing out the similarities and differences between English reporting verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features. - Suggesting some implications for teaching the six reporting verbs in English and Vietnamese. Scope of the research In this study, the major point is to focus on the six repoting verbs in terms of the syntactic and semantic features in English.
English is considered as source language, meanwhile Vietnamese is target language. So, the syntactic and 2 semantic features of the six repoting verbs in English are compared with their Vietnamese equivalents. On this basis, some suggestions for Vietnamese learners of English are proposed to make their learning the six repoting verbs more effective. Also, the study supplies the Vietnamese equivalents which hopefully help learners overcome difficulties when speaking and using the words.
Significance of the research - Theoretical significance: the study will provide a comprehensive and overal knowledge about the syntactic and semantic features of the six reporting verbs in English. Moreover, the similarities and differences between these verbs in English and in Vietnamese are very helpful in contrasting two languages. - Practical significance: Through the study, Vietnamese learners have a comprehensive understanding of the six reporting verbs in English. The study also helps them find out the differences between these verbs to choose suitable verbs in expressing different meaning in English and Vietnamese.
Besides, findings of the study will also provide useful information for learners and become one of the reference materials in teaching six reporting verbs at Dang Xa school. Design of the study The thesis begins with Declaration, Acknowledgements, Abstract, Contents, Symbols and Abbreviations. The thesis will be divided into five chapters: The first chapter, Introduction, gives a brief overview of the research with the rationale for choosing the topic of the research, aims, objectives, scope, significance and structural organization of the thesis. The second chapter, Literature Review, reviews the previous studies related to the research topic in English and Vietnamese and a review of theoretical background of that can be considered as a foundation for conducting the whole study.
3 The third chapter, Methodology, presents the research-governing orientations and the research methods used for implementing and developing the study. The fourth chapter, Findings and Discussions, gives a detail description and discussion on the syntactic and semantic fearures of the six reporting verbs in English in terms of their sentence patterns and sentence elements. Then the comparison with their Vietnamese equivalents is also given in accordance with some possible implications for teaching these verbs at Dang Xa school. The last chapter, Conclusion, summarizes major findings of the study, points out the limitations and proposes some suggestions for further research.
References come at the end of the study. 4 Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW The following issues are to be dealt with in this chapter: An overview of the six reporting verbs in English and Vietnamese; Theory of speech act verbs; Classsification of sentences and sentence elements. These theories are the basis of the study in chapter IV. Review of previous studies There have been a lot of researchers conducting investigations into speech act verbs in both English and Vietnamese.