Contrastive Analysis Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Vu
Demonstrative demonstrative
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4A06 Nguyen Kim Phung The Structure of N
| Demonstrative demonstrative
b/ The second romantic date in the cinema Buổi hẹn hò lãng mạn thứ hai ở rạp phim Ordinal number ordinal number c/ My little angel Thiên thần bé bỏng của tôi Possessive Possessive Thirdly and especially, most of adjectives precede the head noun of a noun phrase in English but in Vietnamese, the order is reversed, that is, qualitative adjectives come after the head noun in Vietnamese. For instances: a/ A noble deed Một hành động cao thượng Article adj head numeral head adj b/ Delicate little swallows Những cánh én bé nhỏ mỏng manh Adj head article head adj In reality, there are some situations in which adjectives come after the head noun in English, and I think it’s the reduction of a relative clause whose position is after the head noun. a/ Do you notice something strange today? (Do you notice something that is strange to day?) b/ I really admire women graceful and courage. (I really admire women who are graceful and courage). In addition, the order among adjective modifiers (epithet, size, shape, age, color, origin, substance, present participle) in English is rather fixed whereas adjective modifiers may be exchanged their positions for each other in Vietnamese, basing on what characteristics the speaker wants to emphasize first. For example, the structure of “a pretty blue skirt” is firm in English, but in Vietnamese, people can say “một chiếc váy màu xanh da trời xinh xắn” or “một chiếc váy xinh xắn màu xanh da trời”. Both ways of speaking are okay. The former has more focus on the color (blue) of the skirt while the latter stresses on the beauty (pretty) of it. This means in Vietnamese noun phrase, the more important characteristics will be placed closer the head noun on the right than other elements. Similarly, in English, noun modifiers come before the head noun, but in Vietnamese, they come after the head. a/ A tennis club Một câu lạc bộ quần vợt b/ A plastic bag Một cái cặp nhựa c/ A summer holiday Một kì nghỉ hè Nevertheless, in some cases in Vietnamese, noun modifiers precedes the head noun as in Sino-Vietnamese phrases. a/ A poet một thi nhân b/ A chess player một cờ thủ In sum, although the general structure of a noun phrase in both languages are the same (pre-modification-head-post modification), there are some differences in the order of factors in pre- and post-modifiers. Logical thought may account for these dissimilarities. What comes into people’s mind first is spoken first is the common rule of Vietnamese, which is also a natural order of people’s logical thinking (Dinh, n.d, p. 11). Take the noun phrase “an old Korean leather wallet” as an example; the first thing we realize is that it’s a wallet. So, “cái ví” comes first in Vietnamese noun phrase. Then, we may notice that wallet is old and made of leather. If we do pay attention to the “old” characteristic, we mention it first. Otherwise, “leather” characteristic is spoken first. Therefore, we have some variants such as “một cái ví Hàn Quốc bằng da cũ kỹ”, “một cái ví Hàn Quốc cũ kỹ bằng da” or “Một cái ví cũ kỹ bằng da của Hàn Quốc”. As a result, the order of Vietnamese noun phrase is quite flexible and depends on the intention of the speakers. In contrast, the English noun phrase isn’t as free and flexible as that in Vietnamese. The positions of pre-modifiers and post-modifiers are quite fixed and nearly unchangeable. Because of this rigid principle, what we think about later is spoken first and vice versa (Dinh, n.d, p. 12). Clearly, the noun phrase “cái ví Hàn Quốc bằng da cũ kỹ của anh ấy” has only one order, that is, “his old Korean leather wallet”. Implications in English teaching and learning When learning English, the order of adjectives in a noun phrase often causes a headache for Vietnamese learners. Which adjective comes first? Which one will come next? Where is the right position? In fact, it’s not easy for Vietnamese students to remember that order because Vietnamese get into the habit of placing the adjective after the head noun and using them flexibly. This big difference confuses L2 learners a lot, especially those who are at the elementary level. To solve this problem, Pham Phu Dung (2009), a Vietnamese high teacher shares a poem of his own, which he finds helpful for his students in remembering the order of the adjectives. Here is his secret: THỨ TỰ TÍNH TỪ Sở hữu, thứ tự, a, the Số lượng, chỉ định để đầu trước tiên Tốt xấu phải nhớ đi liền Tiếp thời to nhỏ rồi thì new, old Hình dạng nếu có nằm sau Kế đến màu sắc và rồi quốc gia Chất liệu, sắt thép… làm ra Để ngay phía trước danh ta muốn làm In reality, we hardly see possessive adjectives, cardinals, ordinals, demonstratives appear simultaneously. Therefore, this poem will help students perform well reordering jumbled words exercises as well as improve writing skill. As we know, Vietnamese people tend to tell first what come into their mind first and what comes later will be told later, which is a reverse order as compared with English. As a result, the head in Vietnamese comes first while that in English comes last. Understanding that style of mentality will help teachers figure out what obstacles the learners may encounter and guide them properly. In other words, learners should be facilitated with this difference from the beginning so that they can make the phrases or the sentences correctly and naturally. Moreover, they won’t misunderstand the meanings of tricky and confusing noun phrase. For example, when we say “ngựa đua”, “ngựa” is the main factor and comes first. If our learners just translate it directly in English, word-by- word, we will have “horse race”, which has a different meaning (the race of horses). In this case, “race horse” is the correct translation in spite of having a reverse order. Realizing this dissimilar feature, students may find it easier to study English and have an overview about the standard grammar from the beginning. The knowledge of word order is also useful for learners when they do exercises on mistake correction. Which of articles and ordinal number, ordinal number and cardinal, etc. comes first is also one of the common things students often see in their examination in high school as well as national examination. For example, let’s find one mistake in these following sentences and correct them: The three last days are the happiest days. A B C D b. The my lovely little black cat doesn’t know how to catch mice. A B C D c. This is a American terrific television comedy. A B C D d. Does that American handsome fat man see anything strange and unusual? A B C D Four examples above illustrate clearly how teachers may use word order in a noun phrase to check students’ knowledge. In sentence (a), B is the mistake and can be corrected as “last three”, not “three last” because ordinal numbers come before cardinal numbers. Like sentence (a), (b) has “the” as a redundant element because “the” and “my” (possessive adjective) don’t come together in the same context. Hence, we just omit “the” to have the correct answer. In addition, sentence (c) checks students’ knowledge of the order of adjective. Certainly, C is the mistake and we change it into “terrific American” instead of “American terrific”. However, sometimes students may be cheated when they catch sight of the adjectives that stand right after the head noun and believe confidently that is wrong as in (d). At first sight, students may choose D as their best answer because they are taught that adjectives stand in front of the noun and then have a wrong choice. In contrast, if they know the adjective may come after the noun as a result of relative clause reduction (anything that is strange and unusual), they won’t make that mistake. So, in (d), B is wrong and corrected as “handsome fat American man” instead of “American handsome fat man”. General speaking, teacher can base on the knowledge of word order to design tasks for students and students will have chances to consolidate and practice their knowledge of structure in phrases and sentences. One more benefit of the word order in noun phrase is found out in teaching reading skill, especially in TOEFL and IELTS. When facing a very long and incomprehensible noun phrase such as “the gorgeous giant spiral ancient reddish brick citadel named Co Loa”, learners are surely puzzled and dizzy. Consequently, they can’t understand what the reading text is about. In contrast, if teachers notice this and tell learners to leave out the sub-parts comes before (the gorgeous giant spiral ancient reddish brick) as well as after (named Co Loa), then focus mainly on the head “citadel”. By this way, the phrase will become simpler and students can understand what is mentioned in the reading text. It is significant; thus, for students to know where the head noun is and its modifiers in a noun phrase. tải về 149 Kb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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