Nghiên cứu về cấu trúc và ngữ nghĩa của câu hỏi Wh trong tiếng Anh

Luận văn thạc sĩ nghiên cứu vnu ulis a study on structural and semantic patterns of wh questions in english m a thesis, khảo sát thực trạng, phân tích nguyên nhân, đề xuất giải

2011

55
0
0

Phí lưu trữ

30 Point

Mục lục chi tiết

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Part 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Aims of the study

1.2. Objectives of the study

1.3. Scope of the study

1.4. Methods of the study

1.5. Design of the study

2. Part 2: DEVELOPMENT

2. Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Definition of questions

2.2. Definition of Wh-questions in English

2.3. Wh-information questions

2.4. Wh-rhetorical questions

2.5. Wh-word functions

2.5.1. Wh-words as interrogative pronouns

3. Chapter 2: THE STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS

3.1. STRUCTURAL PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS

3.2. SEMANTIC PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS

4. Chapter 3: ERRORS MADE BY ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS IN USING WH-QUESTIONS

4.1. Setting of the study

4.2. Research instrument - Questionnaire

4.3. Objectives of the survey questionnaire

4.4. Wrong use of wh-word

4.5. Wrong use of operator

4.6. Non-inversion failure

4.7. The causes of Vietnamese students’ mistakes

4.8. Solutions to the problems

4.9. Summary of findings

4.10. Implications of the study for teaching English wh-questions

4.11. Limitations of the study

4.12. Suggestions for further research

LIST OF TABLES

Trích đoạn nội dung tài liệu

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN VĂN CƯƠNG A STUDY ON STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC PATTERNS OF WH-QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ MÔ HÌNH CẤU TRÚC VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÂU HỎI CÓ TỪ HỎI TRONG TIẾNG ANH M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 HANOI, 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN VĂN CƯƠNG A STUDY ON STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC PATTERNS OF WH-QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ MÔ HÌNH CẤU TRÚC VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÂU HỎI CÓ TỪ HỎI TRONG TIẾNG ANH M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Assoc. VÕ ĐẠI QUANG HANOI, 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iii ABSTRACT The thesis entitled “A Study on structural and semantic patterns of Wh- questions in English” is to analyze and illustrate the types of wh-questions and their semantic features. This one is also to investigate the students' categories of mistakes when using wh-questions, find out the causes, suggest some possible solutions to these matters, and propose several pedagogical implications for the teachers at the research site. This study is divided into three major sections. The first one sets out the rationale of the study as well as the aims, the methodology and the design of the study. The second section contains three chapters. Chapter 1 offers the most relevant factors involving a wh-question such as notions of wh-questions, wh-rhetorical questions, operators, wh-words and their semantic features relating information structure, presupposition and theme and rheme. Chapter 2 is to describe the types of wh-questions based on structures and discourse and the types of presuppositions in wh-questions. Chapter 3 is the study about the mistakes that the students in Kinh Mon high school often make in using a wh-question. The data were collected among 100 eleven grade students in Kinh Mon high school by means of questionnaires. The findings highlighted students’ categories of mistakes including wrong use of wh- words, wrong use of operators, non-inversion failure and some other subtypes. Through the findings, the author also assumes some causes of the mistakes and suggests some possible solutions in order to help students avoid committing these types of mistakes. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Retention . iii Table of contents . iv List of tables.vii Part 1: Introduction . Aims of the study. Objectives of the study . Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study.4 Chapter 1 : Literature review .1 Definition of question. Definition of Wh-questions in English.1 Wh-information question.2 Wh-rhetorical questions. Wh-word functions. Wh-words as interrogative pronouns.2 Wh-words as determiners . Wh-words as adverbs. Given - New Information Structure . Theme -Rheme Structure.13 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Theme- Rheme Structure in wh-questions.15 Chapter 2 : The structural and semantic patterns of English wh-questions . STRUCTURAL PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS . Wh-words as subjects of the wh-questions. Non-subject wh-questions. Verb-oriented questions . Wh-questions with prepositions. Emphatic wh-questions. Negative structures in Wh- questions. Short response questions. Wh-echo questions . Multiple wh-element Questions. Wh-rhetorical questions. Formulaic wh-questions. SEMANTIC PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WH-QUESTIONS.28 Chapter 3: Errors made by eleventh grade students in using wh-questions. Setting of the study. Research instrument - Questionnaire . Objectives of the survey questionaire. The Survey questionnaire. Wrong use of wh-word. Wrong use of operator.37 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Non-inversion failure . The causes of Vietnamese students’ mistakes. Solutions to the problems. Summary of findings. Implications of the study for teaching English wh-questions. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further research. I LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The number and percentage of each category of mistake Table 2: Number and percentage of mistakes concerning the use of wh-word Table 3: Number and percentage of misused operators Table 4: Number and percentage of inversion mistakes Table 5: Number and percentage of other types of mistakes LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 Part 1: Introduction 1. Rationale It is undeniable that English has been an essential means of communication and more and more 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 Kinh Mon 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 type 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 terms 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 contrasts English wh-questions and their equivalents in LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 Vietnamese in terms of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features. Especially there is also a Ph.D dissertation investigating English Wh-questions.D (2000) looks at contrative analysis of questions in English and Vietnamese in terms 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 the structural and semantic patterns of Wh- questions in English. Then he would like to investigate the kinds of mistakes in using wh- questions the students in Kinh Mon 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: - help raise the students' awareness of structural and semantic features of English wh-questions. - deepen the author's knowledge for the improvement of teaching English wh-questions to Vietnamese learners of English. Objectives of the study The objectives of the study are to : - examine the structural and semantic patterns of English Wh-questions. - identify some common errors and mistakes made by Vietnamese students and present some suggested solutions. The objectives of the study can be realized through the research questions: 1. What are the structural and semantic patterns of English wh-questions? LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. What categories of mistakes do the students in Kinh Mon High school often make in using English wh-questions? 3. What should be done to improve the students' skill in using English wh-questions? It is hoped that the findings from this study will be of some benefits to teachers and students at Kinh Mon high school. Scope of the study The study on structural and semantic patterns of Wh-questions in English focuses on English wh-questions from the perspectives of structural and semantic features. There are two types of wh-questions will be focused: wh-information questions and wh-rhetorical questions. The author also conducted a questionnaire to find out the mistakes made by Vietnamese students, and from these mistakes, some possible solutions to the problems identified. Methods of the study A combination of different methods of analysis will be used in this study. Firstly, the author applies the descriptive method to find out the structural and semantic patterns of the English wh-questions. The study is conducted by carefully collecting materials from various sources to have full-blown information of English wh-questions. Secondly, the author designs a questionaire in order to find out what categories of mistakes the studetnts often make when using wh-questions. The students' errors and mistakes will be analized. All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion are based on the data analysis. The sheets of questionaire will be collected randomly so that this research will help to gain reliable data and a close investigation into the problems that the students are encountering 6. Design of the study This study is divided into three main parts: - Part 1 is the Introduction of the study. It includes the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims, the objectives, the scope, the methods and design of the study. - Part 2 contains three chapters, in which Chapter 1 provides readers some theoretical background on English questions in general, wh-words and their functions and the LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 operators and their functions in English question in brief. Moreover, some basic terms ( such as given and new information, theme and rheme, and presuppositions ) are also discussed. Chapter 2 is also the main part of the study, provides the detailed analysis of English wh-questions in term of structural and semantic patterns of wh-questions in English. Chapter 3 presents a small research of the author to find out some common mistakes made by Vietnamese students in using English wh-questions and to suggest some possible solutions. - Part 3 is the conclusion of the study. It also gives some implication for teaching and learning wh-questions and some suggestions for further studies. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 Part 2: Development Chapter 1 : Literature review This chapter deals with the relevant matters in wh-questions to help language learners understand how to use English wh-questions effectively. The relevant matters are: - The operators and their functions - Question words and how they are used - Given and new information - Theme and rheme in wh-questions - Presuppositions 1.1 Definition of questions There exist a lot of definitions of a question. 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 illucutionary forces. Quirk et al ( 1970 and 1985) defines a question as a semantic class used to seek information on a specific subject.

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