HA NOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ THÚY WH – QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH: LINGUITIC FEATURES AND POSSIBLE ENGLISH TEACHING IMPLICATIONS.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2013 PART I : INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale It is undeniable that English has been an essential means of communication and more and Vietnamese students are aware of the importance of English to their study and their future. The ability to communicate clearly and efficiently in English contributes to the success of the learners at school and later in every phase of life. However, the sad fact is that students’ English proficiency especially their ability to communicate in English orally does not really meet employers’ demand.
At Dong Trieu high school, English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum and it is considered as a major subject for the high school examination. It is taught with the purpose that students have some basic knowledge of English in order to communicate and to use it as a key to science and technology. However, there still exist many difficulties facing the students. They often keep quiet during speaking lessons; they mind speaking English.
There are many students who have good knowledge of grammar, can do reading and writing exercises wonderfully but they cannot express themselves in English and find it hard to make questions to discuss during the speaking lessons. They often make mistakes in using the correct question words and in giving the right form of a wh-question. Besides making the discussion during a speaking lesson successful, questions also play an important role in our daily life. We are not able to keep communicating going on well without asking questions.
We ask in order to exchange information, ideas, feeling and knowledge. On the other hand, we sometimes ask questions not for the above purposes but for confirmation, refusal irony or reply avoidance. It is undeniable that questions can not be missed in communication. English wh-questions have long been the subject of the study of many researchers and linguists.
Each of them investigates some aspects of this types of questions. Their study on English wh-questions have provided a great help for Vietnamese learners of English. There are some MA thesis that pay attention to English Wh-questions.X (1996) studies English questions in term of S-P inversion. Meanwhile, Ms Nguyet D.M (1996) pays her attention to the aspect of English questions concerning teachers’ questions and politeness strategies.A (1996) contrasts 1 English wh-questions and their equivalents in Vietnamese in term of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features.
Especially there is also a Ph.D dissertation investigating English Wh-questions in English and Vietnamese in term of semantic and pragmatic features in his Ph. Generally, such researchers mentioned above studied English wh-questions from different angles and mostly either focus on syntactic and semantic features of English Wh-questions or provide a theoretically general picture of wh-questions between the two languages English and Vietnamese. However, besides such certain contributions, there still exist some gaps that need dealing with. There are a lot of aspects concerning English wh-questions, however, in this paper the author would like to devote all my interest in linguistic features and possible English teaching implications.
Then he would like to investigate the kinds of mistakes in using wh-questions the students in Dong Trieu high school often make. Basing on the findings, the author can make some suggestions in order to help the students to overcome these difficulties and make questions fluently. Aims of the study The aims of the study are to: (i) help students gain an insightful look into linguistic features of English WH-questions. (ii) deepen the author's knowledge related to the theme with a view to improving the teaching o f English WH-questions to Vietnamese learners of English.
Objectives of the study The objectives of the study are: (i) examining as closely as possible linguistic features of English WH- questions. (ii) identifying some common errors and mistakes made by Vietnamese students in using WH – questions. (iii) proposing some possible solutions to the problems identified. 2 The objectives of the study can be elaborated into these research questions: 1.
What are the linguistic features of English WH-questions? 2. What types of errors and mistakes do students at Dong Trieu High school often make in using English WH-questions? 3. What should be done to improve students' skills in using English WH- questions? 4. Scope of the study The study i s focused on structural, semantic and pragmatic features of WH- questions in English.
Two types of WH-questions will be focused on: information-seeking WH - questions and rhetorical W H - questions. Alongside with this focus, this thesis is also an attempt to identify common types of errors and mistakes committed by learners of English at Dong Trieu high school. Methods of the study A combination of different research methods will be used in this study. Firstly, the author applies the descriptive method to find out the linguistic features of the English WH-questions.
The study is to be conducted by carefully collecting materials from various sources. Secondly, a survey is to be carried out with a view to finding out what categories of mistakes Vietnamese students often make when using WH-questions. The students' errors and mistakes will be analyzed and some possible solutions to the problems will be offered. Design of the study This thesis consists of three main parts: Part 1 is the Introduction to the study.
It includes the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims, the objectives, the scope, the research methods, significance and design of the study. Part 2 consists of three chapters, in which chapter 1 provides readers with (i) previous works related to the thesis and (ii) some theoretical background on English questions in general, and WH - questions in particular. Chapter 2 provides a 3 detailed analysis of English WH-questions in terms of pr ag mat ic and semantic features. Chapter 3 presents a survey of common mistakes made by Vietnamese students in using English WH-questions.
Also, suggested solutions are offered. Part 3 is the conclusion of the study. It provides specific conclusions on each of the thesis objectives, in addition to a summary of the main points presented in the thesis and suggestions for future research. Significance of the study 7.1 Theoretical significance: The thesis can be employed as a reference that provides a systematic report on theoretical issues related to WH - questions in English.2 Practical significance: To some possible extent, this thesis would facilitate the teaching and learning of WH - questions in English via the obtainable information and research results provided in the thesis.
4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous works related to the theme of the thesis. So far there have been a lot of research works ranging from journal articles to MA theses, PhD dissertation to ministry - level research projects in and outside Vietnam. Understanding of English questions in general and WH - questions in particular can be obtained via the following MA theses: (i) Hoa N.X (1996) English questions in terms of S-P inversion, MA thesis.A (1996) English questions and politeness strategies, MA thesis. Prominent among research works on English questions are the projects by Suu, Nguyen Dang and Quang, Vo Dai.
In the unpublished Ph. dissertation entitled “English questions as contrasted with those in Vietnamese” (2001) Suu, Nguyen Dang has offered a clear insight into English questions non-proper. Insightful looks into English questions proper can be gained via a series of research works by Vo Dai Quang (2000). Một số đặc điểm ngữ nghĩa – ngữ dụng của các kiểu loại câu hỏi trong tiếng Anh ( liên hệ với tiếng Việt)- Phần câu hỏi lựa chọn.
LANGUAGE magazine – National Academy for Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi; No3 – 2000, pp59-66. Vo Dai Quang (2000). Một số đặc điểm ngữ nghĩa – ngữ dụng của các kiểu loại câu hỏi trong tiếng Anh (liên hệ với tiếng Việt) – Câu hỏi không lựa chọn. LANGUAGE magazine – National Academy for Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi; No4-2000, pp.
Vo Dai Quang (2006). Nghiên cứu một số phương tiện biểu đạt nghĩa liên nhân trong câu hỏi chính danh, câu tường thuật tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt. Ministry – level Vietnam National University research project, Hanoi. In his work, Quang, Vo Dai has made a close study of all aspects of English questions from the perspective of semantico - pragmatics.
These aspects include question patterns, supporting IFIDs, modality markers, etc. Taking advantage of the contributions made by the authors mentioned above, in this thesis, the author intends to conduct a research oriented towards applying the established research results into the field of teaching WH– questions to Vietnamese 5 learners of English.2 Review of relevant theoretical preliminaries employable as tools for the research.1 Definition of questions There exists a lot of definitions of questions. The most common one is that questions are sentences which seek information of some kind. They are followed by a question mark (?).
According to the Longman Dictionary of English language a question is a “command or an interrogative expression used to elicit information or a respond, or to test knowledge”. Lynch (1991) characterizes a question as an utterance with a particular illocutionary forces. Quirk et al (1970 and 1985) defines a question as a semantic class used to seek information on a specific subject. And another linguist, Givon (1990), observes that language employ at least three, non-exclusive, devices to signal a question: (i) intonation; (ii) the addition of morphology or independent lexical items (“Q- markers”); (iii) a different word-order.
Moreover, Quirk (1978) states that an utterance can be called a question if it fulfills one of the following criteria; the operator is placed in front of the subject, an interrogative or wh-element takes the initial position or intonation is raised at the end of the utterance.2 Definition and types of Wh-questions in English According to Quirk et al (1978), wh-questions are formed with the aid of one of the following interrogative words (or wh-words or sometimes called wh-elements). This types of question is known as a wh-question because such a question begins with one of a series of words beginning with wh-. These include who, whom, whose, which, where, when, why and how, although how does not begin with wh-. Unlike yes-no questions, wh-questions generally have falling intonation.
However, 6 they sometimes have rising tone, which concerns the interest in the answer. A wh-question is often formed according to the following rule. - The wh-element (ie the clause element containing the wh-word) come first in the sentence apart from some conjuncts such as on the other hand. - The wh-word itself takes first position in the wh-element.
However, in more formal style, the preposition precedes the complement. For questions that are seeking information, you place an interrogative-word before the inversion, such as: E. What are you studying? The answer here will be the “what”, and you should see that in the statement form (of a full answer), this information replaces the interrogative pronoun and becomes the object: I am studying English. Because all you are asking for the “what”, you an also give a very short answer.
What are you studying? English.1 Information- seeking Wh-questions A wh-question is an open question (i.e it can have any number of answers). In a wh-question, a search for a missing piece of information, the element that functions as theme called wh-element requests this information. This element expresses the nature of missing piece; “who, what, when, how, etc.” So in a wh- interrogative, the wh-element is put first no matter what functions it has in the mood structure of the clause like: subject, adjunct, conjunct or complement, etc. The meaning is I want to tell you the person, thing, time, manner,etc.
Unlike yes/no questions, wh-information questions always contain a presupposition. For instance, when we ask the question “What did John do?” we presume that John did in fact do something. 7 Questions Presumed information 2a.