VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOI UNTVERSITY LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PIIAM TIII KIM ANII A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOUN-VERB CONVERSION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (Phan tich déi chiêu chuyển loại đanh từ sang dộng từ trong tiếng Anh và tiếng ViệU MLA. Minor Programme ‘Uhesis Field: English Linguistics Cade: 60 22 15 HANOT- 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOI UNTVERSITY LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHAM THI KIM ANH A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOUN-VERB CONVERSION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (Phan tich déi chiéu chuyển luại danh tir sang ding tir trong tiếng Anh va tiéng Viét) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 6022 15 Supervisor: Dr. Tran Xuan Digp HANOI- 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION - - i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACFT m TABLE OF CONTENTS: iv ABBRLVIATION AND SYMBOL - - VL PART 1: INTRODUCTION.
1, Rationale of the study. The aims of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study.
Format of the study. CILAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. An overview of CA and CA guiding principles .2, Conversion— A word formation proccss. Definition and Terminology.
Verbs in English. Verbs in Vietnamese. CILAPTER 2: TILE CONFRASTIVE ANALYSES OF N-¥ CONVERSION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE. PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1, Rationale of the study “The topic is chosen due to the following reasons.
Among many different word formation processes to creale new lexicon, conversion is a new trend growing up in the productive field, According to Cannon, G (1985-415), conversion will be more active in the future, and so, it will create a great part of the new words appearingin the English language Nguyễn Kim Than (1977.9) states that the verb is one of the most complex pats of speech, which is widely used, and as a result, play a key role in any language system, Of all the conversion provss os Toprosunted in English, il is acknowledged, and shown by, for example, Biese (1941), Marchand (1969), Plag (2003) that creating verbs from nouns N-V conversion is the most produetive and by no means unexpected. It is due to the lack of derivaticnal means of forming verbs from nouns and adjectives in present-day English Vocabulary of both English and Victnamesc has a remarkable range of flexibility and adaptability. ‘Thus, this study is intended to make the contrast of N-V’ conversion between English and Vietnamese in lsrms of grammatical and semantic features One more reason is that, a pood understanding of English word formation processes is essential for the EFL teaching and leaning. ‘The study will be usefid| for the teachers and leamars with the expectation of building a clear picture of N-V conversion in English and Victnan 2.
Aims of the study. The aims of this study are » To describe grammatical and semantic features of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese > To work out as many as possible the similarities and differences in tarms of grammatical and semantic features between N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese > ‘To provide some implications for teaching/learning word formation in general, N-V conversion in particular To fully achieve these aims, the study should answer at least the following questions: 5. Format of the study. The study begins with “Declaration”, “Acknowledgement”, “Table of contents”, “Spmbols and Abbreviation".
‘Yhis study is completed on the basis of three separating parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusian. Pat A (Introduction) provides a brief account of relevant information about the rationale, aims, scope, methods, and format of the study. Parl B onfitled Development which plays the most crucial role in the whoks study. Il is considered as the backbone of the study.
This part consists of two chapters. © Chapler 1: This chaptcr is abouf theoretical notions necessary for the study covering the coneepts ranging from CA and guiding principles for CA, N-V conversion, and word meaning, It also provides an overview of verbs in English and Viemamese. * Chapter 2: ‘This chapter offers a detailed contrastive analysis of N-V conversion in English and Viotnamesc, Firstly, N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese will be described and analyzed in terms of grammatical and semantic features. Then, considering these features, the similarities and ditferences between two languages will be worked out.
Finally, some implications of the study for EPL teaching and learning will be mentioned, The last part is "Conclusion", which includes the recapitulation of what have been done in the study, the timitations of the study, and the recommendations for the further rescarch. The study ends with "References", What are the grammatical and semantic features of N-V conversion in Linglish and MU = What are the similarities and differences in grammatical and semantic features between. English and Vietnamese N-V conversion? To whal extenl ae word formation processes in general, and NeV conversion in particular, considered in EFL teaching and learning? Scope of the study. Y Many fields relating to N-V conversion need to be explored, However, due to the limited time and available facilities, the thesis is to be focused on the description and conirastive analysis of N-V conversion in English and Vietmarsose with respoct to grammatical and semantic features at word level.
4, Methods of the study. The intended method employed in this study is CA. It has bon acknowledged that with this method, the similarities and differences between languages can be worked out effectively. The pracetinrey of the study are in the order as [ullows: * Collection of relevant documents * Critical reading of theoretical background related to the study * Gensrativalion and classificalion of relevant literature >_ Formation of ideas related to the study, = Comprehensive description of grammatical and semantic features of N-V conversionin English and Vietnamese.
» Detection of similarities and differenees of'N-V conversion between two languages * Giving comments on these issues in ETL teaching & learning Saurces of examples: * Bilingual stories, works, magazines * Monolingual English and Vietnamese books * Mouolingual and Bilingual dictionaries = Research projects, linguistic joumals, articles into English and Vietnamese conversion. “ Gii) To arrive at the categories of a) similar features, b) partially similar features, c) dissimilar features for the target Ta Gv) To arrive at principles of text preparation, test framing and target language teaching in general. Conversion — A word formation process 2. Definition and Terminology.
Although conversion has been an important part of English word formation for centuries, linguists have argued over almost every facet relating to this process, even down to the term used to describe it. The terminology used for this process has not been completely established yct. Most current linguists usc ‘conversion’, but others refer to the process as ‘fimetional change’ or ‘fimctional shift’, and ‘zero-derivation’ or ‘zero- affixation'. Rach term is associated with a different comotation, theory, and slightly different mcaning, Functional change or shift is uscd, for oxample, ly Cannon (1987:67), “from a linguistic point of view, functional shift does not add a new form to the lexicon; but the inflectability or noninilectability of the new functionshift requires it to be classed as a new form elymologically” Zero-derivation or zero-affixation, if conversion is viewed as a word-tormation.
process, one theory is that it appears to run parallel to the derivational word-formation. Inflectional affixes arc said to be ‘class-maintaining’, whereas derivational affixes are ‘class-changing’; as the conversion process is ‘class-changing’, it is deemed to be derivation with a “zero-affix’ or ‘zero-morpheme’. ‘Ihis issue has caused debate amongst. linguists and divides then into two camps: hose who think (hal there is 4 vero element involved in the process, and those who reject that theory.
Prominent linguists who endonse the theory that conversion is a process involving the addition ofa derivational zero inchule Marchand (1969), Lyons (1977), and Allen (1978). According Marchand (1969:360), “it is because of the parallelism with overtly marked derivatives that we speak of zero-marked derivatives or zero-derivatives, not just because of the added element of content which characterizes the transposition of the adjective clean to the verb clean, etc”. Lyons (1977-512) defines that “zcro-derivation is derivation by means of the affixation of an identity element”, Allen (1978:273) also states, “It is clear that the zero element under PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1, Rationale of the study “The topic is chosen due to the following reasons. Among many different word formation processes to creale new lexicon, conversion is a new trend growing up in the productive field, According to Cannon, G (1985-415), conversion will be more active in the future, and so, it will create a great part of the new words appearingin the English language Nguyễn Kim Than (1977.9) states that the verb is one of the most complex pats of speech, which is widely used, and as a result, play a key role in any language system, Of all the conversion provss os Toprosunted in English, il is acknowledged, and shown by, for example, Biese (1941), Marchand (1969), Plag (2003) that creating verbs from nouns N-V conversion is the most produetive and by no means unexpected.
It is due to the lack of derivaticnal means of forming verbs from nouns and adjectives in present-day English Vocabulary of both English and Victnamesc has a remarkable range of flexibility and adaptability. ‘Thus, this study is intended to make the contrast of N-V’ conversion between English and Vietnamese in lsrms of grammatical and semantic features One more reason is that, a pood understanding of English word formation processes is essential for the EFL teaching and leaning. ‘The study will be usefid| for the teachers and leamars with the expectation of building a clear picture of N-V conversion in English and Victnan 2. Aims of the study.
The aims of this study are » To describe grammatical and semantic features of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese > To work out as many as possible the similarities and differences in tarms of grammatical and semantic features between N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese > ‘To provide some implications for teaching/learning word formation in general, N-V conversion in particular To fully achieve these aims, the study should answer at least the following questions: PART 2: DEVELOPVEMENT CILAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND In order to create the basis for carrying out the CA study in the main part, it is necessary (a have a comprehensive understanding of the relevant theoretical background. This chapter, therefore, is intended to give an overview of CA and CA guiding principles. The concept of conversion as a word formation process will be regarded ani revealed with the provision of definitions and types. Tn addition, word meaning, verbs in English and Vietnamese will be briefly reviewed.
An overview of CA and CA guiding principles. The term ‘Contrastive linguistics’ was suggested by Whorf, B.L (1941) for comparative study which is giving emphasis on linguistic differences and it has been redelined by Fisiak (1981:1) as “a subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the comparison of two or amore languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine both the differcnecs and similarities between them”. CA is used as an alternative for contrastive linguistics. CA is very broad field of tinguistics, since il embraces all iis major levels: phonology, semantics, syntax and pragmatic, the latter including text studies and some aspects of the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic perspective CA of two languages become useful when il adequately describing ¢ sound structure and grammatical structure of two languages, wilh comparalive slalzrncnts, giving due emphasis to the compatible items in the two systems, It is assumed that leaming of L2 is facilitated whenever there are similarities between L1 and L2.
Leaming may be interfered with when there are marked contrasts between 1. CA provides am objective and scientific base for L2 teaching.