phân tích đối chiếu cấu trúc ngữ pháp dùng trong mô tả chiều hướng trong các bài báo thương mại tiếng anh và tiếng việt

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGUES
POSTGRADUATE DEPARTMENT

---------------------***----------------------

Phạm thị hà trang

A contrastive analysis of syntactic structures
employed in describing trends in English and
Vietnamese business articles
(phân tích đối chiếu cấu trúc ngữ pháp dùng trong mô tả chiều
h-ớng trong các bài báo th-ơng mại tiếng anh và tiếng việt)

MA Minor thesis
Major: Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15

Hµ néi - 2009


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGUES
POSTGRADUATE DEPARTMENT

---------------------***----------------------

Phạm thị hà trang

A contrastive analysis of syntactic structures
employed in describing trends in English and

Vietnamese business articles
(phân tích đối chiếu cấu trúc ngữ pháp dùng trong mô tả chiều
h-ớng trong các bài báo th-ơng mại tiếng anh và tiếng việt)

MA Minor thesis
Major: Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Đinh Hải Yến, M.A

Hà nội - 2009


vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PART I - INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study .........................................................................................

1

2. Aims of the study ...............................................................................................

2

3. Scope of the study ...............................................................................................

2

4. Methodology of the study ...................................................................................

3

5. Design of the study .............................................................................................

3

PART II - DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Literature Review
1.1. Contrastive Analysis and Transfer Theory ........................................................

5

1.1.1. Contrastive Analysis .....................................................................................

5

1.1.2. Language transfer and its influence on foreign language teaching and learning 6
1.2. Syntax and syntactic structures ........................................................................

7

1.2.1. Syntax...........................................................................................................

7

1.2.2. Syntactic structures ......................................................................................

9

1.2.2.1. Definition ..................................................................................................

9

1.2.2.2. Categories ..................................................................................................

10

1.3. Journalistic register .........................................................................................

15

1.4. Trend description in English and Vietnamese...................................................

17

Chapter 2: A contrastive analysis of syntactic structures used in describing trends in
English and Vietnamese business articles
2.1. An overview on the business and economic newspapers used in the contrastive
analysis...........................................................................................................

19

2.1.1. The English business newspapers ..................................................................

20

2.1.2. The Vietnamese business newspapers ...........................................................

21

2.2. A contrastive analysis of syntactic structures used in describing trends in
English and Vietnamese business articles........................................................

22

2.2.1. Clause structures ...........................................................................................

22

2.2.1.1. Clause structures in general trend description .............................................

22


vii

2.2.1.2. Clause structures in terms of movements ....................................................

29

2.2.1.3. Summary....................................................................................................

33

2.2.2. Phrase structures ...........................................................................................

33

2.2.2.1. Verb phrase................................................................................................

33

2.2.2.2. Noun phrase ...............................................................................................

35

2.2.2.3. Prepositional phrase ...................................................................................

36

2.2.2.4. Adjective phrase ........................................................................................

37

2.2.2.5. Adverb phrase ............................................................................................

38

2.2.2.6. Summary....................................................................................................

39

2.3. Conclusion.......................................................................................................

39

Chapter 3: Implications and recommendations
3.1. For translation: difficulties in translating syntactic structures used in describing
trends from English into Vietnamese and vice versa and some recommendations 40

3.2. For teaching students to describe charts and graphs in English .........................

41

3.2.1. Students’ difficulties in describing trends, the causes and recommendations
to improve the situations ..............................................................................

41

3.2.2. Suggested exercises for practising to describe charts and graphs ...................

43

PART III - CONCLUSION
1. Review of the study ...........................................................................................

45

2. Conclusion..........................................................................................................

45

3. Suggestions for further research ..........................................................................

46

References..............................................................................................................

47

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
1. A:

Adverbial

2. BW:

Business Week

3. C:

Complement

4. ĐT:

Đầu T-

5. FT:

Financial Times

6. O:

Object

7. S:

Subject

8. SGĐTTC:

Sài Gòn Đầu T- Tài Chính

9. TBKTSG:

Thời Báo Kinh Tế Sài Gòn

10. TBKTVN:

Thời Báo Kinh Tế Việt Nam

11. TE:

The Economist

12. V:

Verb

13. WSJ:

Wall Street Journal


v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Tables
1. Table 1. Clause patterns used in describing trends in American and British
newspapers (p.26)
2. Table 2. Clause patterns used in describing trends in Northern and Southern
Vietnamese newspapers (p.26)
3. Table 3. Verb phrase patterns used in describing trends in English and Vietnamese
business articles (p.33)
4. Table 4. Noun phrase patterns used in describing trends in English and Vietnamese
business articles (p.35)
5. Table 5. English premodifiers and Vietnamese postmodifiers in comparison (p.35)
6. Table 6. Prepositional phrase patterns used in describing trends in English and
Vietnamese business articles (p.36)
7. Table 7. Adjective phrase patterns used in describing trends in English and
Vietnamese business articles (p.38)
8. Table 8. Adverb phrase patterns used in describing trends in English and
Vietnamese business articles (p.38)

Figures
1. Figure 1. Clause patterns used in describing trends in English and Vietnamese
business newspapers (p. 23)
2. Figure 2. Clause patterns used in describing upward movement in English and
Vietnamese newspapers (p. 29)
3. Figure 3. Clause patterns used in describing downward movement in English and
Vietnamese business newspapers (p.30)
4. Figure 4. Clause patterns used in describing stability in English and Vietnamese
articles (p.32)


1

PART I - INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
As Heraclitus (540 BC – 480 BC), a Greek philosopher, once said ‘nothing endures but
change’, the world we live in today is the world of changes and development – the world of
trends. It is therefore necessary to keep pace with the flow of life everyday by gathering
changeable information about that world. Here comes the indispensable role of mass media in
general and newspapers in particular. As Tom E. Rolnicki, C. Dow Tate and Sherri Taylor
(2001) remark in their book Scholastic Journalism ‚Immediacy or timeliness is the most
essential element of most news‛ (p.8), thus we are updated, thanks to newspapers, with latest
news about stock markets, unemployment rate, trends of consumer spending or cases of
bankruptcy somewhere in the world etc.
Given that English is an international language, there are a vast number of newspapers printed
in English regardless of the countries of origin. Together with famous newspapers in America
or Britain like International Herald Tribute, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The Guardian etc.,
we also have Business Standard from India, China Daily from China, Vietnam News from
Vietnam, Business Day from South Africa and so on. The domination of English as a common
language of newspapers is greater and greater, which has gradually been eradicating our
knowledge barriers.
As a teacher of Business English, it is compulsory for me to read English newspapers,
magazines or journals regularly, especially business ones in order to keep me updated and help
me understand more about journalistic register. What is more, I can enrich my Business
English vocabulary and expressions as well as exploit a potential source of teaching materials.
Consequently, my lessons can be more informative and lively. In fact, one of my concerns
while meditating English business articles is the structures used in describing trends. The
upward and downward movements appear to be more and more interesting as I take further
steps into investigating them. The syntactic structures seem to be varied with a great deal of
significant organizations. The flexible semantic features in English trend descriptions are
worth being paid attention to as well. There is a variety of words and expressions to denote the
movements, which adds much color into a piece of news.

2

In addition, the syntactic structures used in describing trends play an integral part during the
course of my Business English teaching at Vietnam National University, College of
Economics. Course books like Business English, Market Leader or English for Business
Communication contains activities such as writing reports, making presentations or describing
charts or graphs, which requires my students a considerable knowledge in using such
structures to produce correct and appropriate texts or utterances. English business articles, to
my mind, can serve as a fertile land to be cultivated for the sake of describing trends. Teachers
can employ business articles to design a lot of activities and exercises relating to describing
changes for students as the way Peter Grundy (1993) does in his resource book Newspapers.
Finally, it is my curiosity to explore the differences and similarities between syntactic
structures used in describing trends in English and Vietnamese business articles. For one
thing, I could diagnose the difficulties my students may encounter when using such structures
due to language transference. Thus, remedies would be prescribed timely and properly. For the
other, I hope to apply some of the findings into improving the accuracy and appropriateness in
translation works.
2. Aims of the study
This research is directed to accomplish three goals:
- To investigate the syntactic structures used in describing trends in English and in Vietnamese
from the perspective of traditional grammar
- To make a contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese syntactic structures used in
describing trends in business articles to deduce their differences and similarities
- To propose some pedagogical implications for better teaching and learning of describing
charts or graphs and some recommendations for more effective translation works

3. Scope of the study
Due to the constraint of time and effort, the study only investigates the English and
Vietnamese syntactic structures on the levels of clauses and phrases.

3

Also, as suggested in the title of the thesis, the object of the research is narrowed down to
syntactic structures used in trend description in business news. The trends are either concerned
with specific statistics and figures or with general remarks about changes or tendency.
The resources of the analysis are English and Vietnamese business articles from business and
economic newspapers.

4. Methodology of the study
As the title of the thesis suggests, the study is aimed at comparing and contrasting the syntactic
structures used in describing trends in English and Vietnamese business articles; therefore,
three methods namely descriptive, comparative and contrastive are employed.
By descriptive method, a systemic list of structures used to describe trends in business articles
will be presented. Their syntactic features will be shown explicitly. Comparative and
contrastive methods enable the author to discover the similarities and differences between
structures used in describing trends in the two journalistic languages.
The basic process of the research is as follows. Firstly, four English and four Vietnamese
business and economics newspapers are chosen with two copies each. Three articles are taken
from each copy, so in total forty-eight articles are selected for the examination. Then the
samples are thoroughly analyzed, calculated in percentage and put into charts or tables in order
to find out the prominent syntactic structures frequently used in describing trends in the two
languages. Next, English and Vietnamese syntactic structures are contrasted to highlight the
similarities and differences between the two groups. The findings of this process are finally
applied into improving English-Vietnamese translation and teaching students how to describe
charts and graphs effectively.

5. Design of the study
The thesis is divided into three main parts namely Introduction, Development and

Conclusion.
In the first part of the study, the author introduces the reasons for choosing the topic, the
objectives to be obtained in conducting the research, the scope of the study, the methods
employed to facilitate the realization of the paper and the design of the study.


4

The second part, Development, is the focus of the thesis, to which most time and effort are
devoted. This part consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, Literature Review, the writer
presents the theoretical background knowledge about contrastive analysis, syntax and syntactic
structures, journalistic register and trend description in books and newspapers. These will serve
as a springboard for the writer to dash into the exploration of the topic. The next chapter, A
contrastive analysis of syntactic structures used in describing trends in English and
Vietnamese business articles, studies the syntactic structures i.e. clauses and phrases used to
describe changes in English and Vietnamese business articles. Similarities and differences are
accordingly presented with a view to the data shown in charts and tables. The last chapter,
Implications and recommendations is a practical application one because the outcome of the
contrastive analysis will be used to improve English Vietnamese translation of trend
description as well as helping students how enhance their skills of describing charts and graphs
in English.
Lastly, the Conclusion part includes a review of the study, some concluding remarks and
suggestions for further research.


5

PART II - DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, some basic theoretical issues related to contrastive analysis, syntactic

structures, news language and trend description will be reviewed to form a theoretical
framework for the next chapter.

First, the history of contrastive analysis and theory of

language transfer will be revisited. Then an overview on English and Vietnamese syntax and
syntactic structures in comparison will be provided. Also, journalistic register with its
particular characteristics and types will be briefly mentioned. Last is a description of the
language of trend and trend description in books and mass media of communication.

1.1. Contrastive analysis and transfer theory
1.1.1. Contrastive analysis
Contrastive analysis (CA), according to Richards (1992:83), is simply ‚the comparison of the
linguistic systems of two languages, for example the sound system or the grammatical
system.‛
Comparatively, the definition put forward by James seems to be more specific, ‚CA is a
linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted (i.e. contrastive, not comparative) two-valued
typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the
assumption that languages can be compared.‛ (1980:3)
Ellis points out that CA derived from the need to teach a L2 in the most effective way or in
other words, the origins of Contrastive Analysis ‚were pedagogic‛ (1985:23). Evidently, when
making a comparison between the foreign language and the native language of the students,
teachers can identify their actual difficulties in learning a new language and find out suitable
solutions to accommodate the teaching work, according to Lado (1957) as quoted in Ellis
(1985:23).
As far as the history of CA is concerned, an early example of CA was found by Di Pietro
(1971:9) in C. H. Grandgent’s book on the German and English sound systems, published in


6

1892 (James, 1980:8). James also cites another milestone document paving the way to modern
CA, which is Lado’s Linguistics across Cultures (1957).
Richards states that this branch of linguistics was developed and practiced in the 1950s and
1960s and is based on the following assumptions:
a. the main difficulties in learning a new language are caused by interference from the
first language
b. these difficulties can be predicted by contrastive analysis.
c. teaching materials can make use of contrastive analysis to reduce the effects of
interference. (1992:83)
Characteristically, James (1980) believes that ‚CA belongs to interlanguage study, and, since
‘emergence’ is an evolutionary concept, it follows that CA is to be viewed as diachronic rather
than synchronic in orientation.‛ (1980:3) Also, he points out the relation between CA and
language learning, especially foreign language learning, ‚CA is concerned with the way in
which native language affects foreign language learning in the individual...‛ (1980:9)
1.1.2. Language transfer and its influence on foreign language teaching and learning
The idea of language transfer started from the post war years and continued its influence into
the 1960s. It was defined by Ellis (1965) as ‚the hypothesis that the learning of task A will
affect the subsequent learning of task B‛. (Quoted in James, 1980:11) At that time, it was
strongly believed that ‘most of the difficulties facing the L2 learner were imposed by his or her
first language.‛ (Ellis, 1985:6) Specifically, where there were differences between the L1 and
L2, the learner’s L1 knowledge would interfere with the L2, and where the L1 and L2 were
similar, the L1 would actively aid L2 learning. (Ellis, 1985:7) Therefore, by identifying the
similarities and differences between L1 and L2, teachers might find the ways to make use of
the positive transfer and eliminate the negative transfer during students’ learning process.
Odlin presents similar ideas while claiming that "teaching may become more effective through
a consideration of differences between languages and between cultures." (2000:4) Also,
according to this author, research on language transfer may result in goals other than
pedagogical ones, for example, "For historical linguists, such knowledge can lead to insights
about the relation between language contact and language change." (2000:4)

7

Controversially, some inappropriateness and irrationality in language transfer theory has been
found up to now. The findings of some researchers such as Dulay and Burt (1973; 1974a)
question the role of negative transfer as a major factor in the process of second language
acquisition. A great number of grammatical errors could not be explained by L1 interference.
(Ellis, 1985:7) However, it is a matter of fact that language transfer inherently takes place in
various aspects of linguistics such as discourse, semantics, phonetics and phonology and
syntax. Studies in language transfer still play a crucial role in improving second language
teaching and learning. With a view to the thesis’s objectives, the author focuses on syntactic
transfer i.e. the transfer happening in studies of word order, relative clauses, and negation etc.
(Odlin, 2000:85).
Within the scope of the paper, the investigation will deem to cover the similarities and
differences between syntactic features of English and Vietnamese phrases and clauses in
business newspapers.

1.2. Syntax and syntactic structure
1.2.1. Syntax
As implied in the title of the thesis, a study on syntax and syntactic structures is one of the
research targets to be aimed at. Syntax together with lexicon, morphology, semantics,
phonetics and phonology compose of grammar of a language (Fromkin et al, 2000:7). In other
words, it is an integral part of grammar in particular and linguistics in general. As a result,
linguists and grammarians have put a lot of efforts and time into cultivating this appealing
field. In the early 1950s, ‘approaches to syntax subsequently formalized as phrase structure
grammar’. (Borsley, 1999:10) Modern syntax originates itself from Transformation Grammar
approach specified in the book Syntactic Structures written by Noam Chomsky (1957). Since
then, Chomsky has reinforced his dominance in syntax study by many other related theories
presented in books such as Aspect of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Lectures on Government

and Binding (1981) or A minimalist program for linguistic theory (1993). Together with the
founder of modern Syntactic Theory, Pollard and Sag were also great authors who put more
colors to the syntax mosaic with their so-called Phrase Structure Grammar in the books


8

Information-based Syntax and Semantics. Volume I: Fundamentals (1987) and Head-driven
phrase structure grammar (1994).
Evidently, syntax has quite a long history of independent development and has been an
indefinite source of inspiration for grammarians and linguists. A preliminary question is then
put forward, ‘what is syntax?’
To put it simply, according to Delahunty and Garvey (1994), ‚the word ‘syntax’, in its root
sense, means ‘arranging together’. The –tax root is the same one as in tactics. Syn means ‘with’
or ‘together’. Syntax concerns the combining of words into phrases and sentences.‛ (p.175)
Miller (2002) asserts that ‚syntax has to do with how words are put together to build phrases,
with how phrases are put together to build clauses or bigger phrases, and with how clauses are
put together to build sentences.‛ (p.xiii) He also emphasizes that words alone cannot help us
communicate easily and effectively. Syntax has an indispensable role to play ‚because without
syntax human beings would be unable to construct complex messages conveying information
about complex situations, proposals or ideas‛ (p.134).
In his book English Syntax, Jacob (1995) defines syntax as ‚the grammatical principles, units,
and relations involved in sentence structure.‛ (p.4) This body of rules and principles governs
the way people produce sentences grammatically and acceptably in their own language even if
they are aware of it or not.
Fromkin et al. (2000) confirms the above idea by defining syntax as a part of our linguistic
knowledge that decides what constitutes a well-formed string of words and how to put words
together to form phrases and sentences. The grammaticality and ungrammaticality can be
differentiated through the two following examples:
Lear had three daughters.

*Had three Lear daughters. (p.8)
Obviously, native speakers or learners of English will notice at once that the second is illformed and thus ungrammatical.
Though Universal Grammar approach suggests that there is a common set of grammar and
linguistic knowledge in human brain, syntax varies from one language to another. This
acceptable rule in this language is unacceptable in another language. Let us consider the
following English and Vietnamese examples:


9

The oil price has increased.
Giá dầu đà tăng lên.
The two given statements have the same message but the forms are slightly different. In
English, the order of compound nouns is opposite to that in Vietnamese. Thus, we can notice
in the former sentence, ‘oil’ stands before ‘price’ but in the latter, the order is reversed.
In summary, syntax is the arrangements of phrases, clauses or sentences to produce utterances
and text acceptably and grammatically basing on particular rules of a language. Beside the
shared components of universal grammar, different languages exhibit distinctive syntactic
characteristics. Therefore, contrastive analysis always has a role to play in this field.
1.2.2. Syntactic structures
1.2.2.1. Definition
According to Richards et al (1992), syntactic structures are defined as ‚the arrangement of
words and morphemes into larger units (phrases, clauses, and sentences). Languages may be
compared for differences in syntactic structures.‛ (p.369)
Fromkin et al (2000) believe that ‚...linguists posit the existence of rules of syntax in the
unconscious mental grammar, which specify how words may be combined with each other to
produce grammatical, well-formed sentences.‛ (p.90) She also points out that there exist two
fundamental properties governing the syntactic organization of natural languages namely
constituent structure and syntactic dependencies. The latter includes selection, case,
agreement, movement, negative polarity item licensing and antecedent/ reflexive relations. As

can be seen from the two definitions, both Richards and Fromkin pay attention to the
arrangement or combination of words to produce grammatical units. However, Richards
specifies further the components of a syntactic structure (words, morphemes, phrases, clauses
and sentences) whereas Fromkin only mentions words and sentences. It is also important to
know that Richards’s definition is an entry taken from his dictionary of language teaching and
applied linguistics while Fromkin’s idea is elaborated as part of a book about linguistics. Thus,
Fromkin provides a deeper understanding of syntactic structures and their characteristics.
Meanwhile, Jacob (1995) makes a specific investigation into English syntax through three


10

organizations, sentence structures, clause structures and phrase structures. He indicates three
basic properties of sentence structure namely linearity, hierarchy and categoriality.
To conclude, syntactic structures demonstrate a relationship between words and larger units
such as phrases, clauses and sentences. They also own fundamental properties like constituent
structure (or linearity and hierachy), selection (or categoriality), case etc.
1.2.2.2. Categories
Basically, there are three classes of syntactic structures including phrases, clauses and
sentences. However, within the scope of the thesis, only the first two types are going to be
examined.
a. Phrases
Richards (1992) states that a phrase ‚is a group of words which form a grammatical unit‛ and
‚does not contain a finite verb and does not have a subject-predicate structure.‛ (p.153)
Delahunty and Garvey (1994) show their disagreement with the traditional definition of a
phrase by suggesting arguments against the propositions that can cause misleading
interpretation. First, they argue that a phrase is not necessarily a group of words; it can be one
single word. For example, ‘birds’ and ‘most of the members of the genus avis’ in the two
sentences below have the same function:
‘Birds fly.’

‘Most of the members of the genus avis fly.’ (p.176)
They are both subjects of the sentences and can both be considered as noun phrases. Second,
when stating that a phrase does not contain a verb and a subject-predicate structure, we fall
into defining clauses and phrases in terms of each other. Consequently, they give their own
adjusted definition of a phrase as ‚a group of one or more words that combine to create a
unified grammatical structure, e.g. an NP, a VP, a PP, etc.‛ (1994: p. 255)
These two authors discuss five major types of phrases in English including Noun phrase, Verb
phrase, Adjective phrase, Adverb phrase and Prepositional phrase, among which Noun phrase
and Verb phrase are paid more attention to. (1994:175-204)


11

A noun phrase, according to Delahunty and Garvey (1994), ‘must contain a headword’ (which
is a noun) and may include a premodifier and a postmodifier (p.181). Its formula can be
realized in four following possibilities:


Head



Premodifier(s) + Head



Head + Postmodifier(s)



Premodifier(s) + Head + Postmodifier(s) (p.181)

A verb phrase, with a verb as its head, has five formula possibilities as follows:


Head



Auxiliary (ies) + Head



Head + Object(s)/Complement



Head + Modifier(s)



Combinations of the above

(p.191)

A prepositional phrase has a simple functional formula: Head + Object with a preposition as
the head and a noun phrase as the object. (p.177)
An adjective phrase with an adjective as the head belongs four formula possibilities below:


Head



Intensifier(s) + Head



Head + Complement



Intensifier(s) + Head + Complement (p.179)

The final category is adverb phrase which contain a head adverb and an optional intensifier. Its
formula possibilities are


Head



Intensifier + Head

(180)

As far as Vietnamese phrases are concerned, Diep Quang Ban (2007) shares some ideas with
Richards’s definition. He believes that phrases are constructions of two words or more
combined freely in accordance with particular grammatical relations and do not include
conjunctive words initially (p.6). Conjunctive words in Vietnamese belong to two groups, i.e.

12

main-subordinate (such as của, cho, bằng, do, vì, để, mà, ở, tại, với, về, trong, ngoài, trên d-ới,
nh-) and those that indicate equal relations (và, với, cùng, hay, thì, chứ etc.) (2007:132)
Also, Diep Quang Ban (2007) categorizes phrases into five types namely Noun phrase with a
noun as the head, Verb phrase with a verb as the head, Adjective phrase with an adjective as
the head, Numeral phrase with a numeral as the head and Pronoun phrase with a pronoun as
the head. (pp.15-16)Obviously, the first three types are similar with the English categorization
and the rest are different. From my personal viewpoint, it is better if numeral phrase and
pronoun phrase are included in noun phrase to avoid confusion.
Meanwhile, Doan Thien Thuat (2006) presents only three types of Vietnamese phrases namely
Noun phrase, Verb phrase and Adjective phrase. The first type is defined as ‚a free
combination of a noun nucleus and one or more subordinate elements which are of two types:
front elements and end elements.‛ (p.100) Let us take a look at the following examples:
Ba

ng-êi

nµy

(three

people

these)

TÊt cả những

sinh viên

n-ớc ngoài đó

(All of

students

foreign those)

Front element

Nucleus (Noun)

End element
(2006:100)

A verb phrase, according to Doan Thien Thuat, ‚is a group of words comprising a nucleus (a
verb) and several subordinate elements.‛ (2006:109) He also confirms the three parts in a verb
phrase i.e. the nucleus, the front and the end.
E.g.

(Tôi) đÃ

ăn

cơm rồi.

(I

had eaten

rice already)

(Anh Êy) rÊt

thÝch

hoa hång

(He really

likes

rose)

Nucleus (Verb)

End element

have

Front element

Similarly, adjective phrase shows the same combination of the front element, an adjective as
the nucleus and the end element.
Rất

giàu

tiềm năng


13

(Very

rich

in potential)

Sẽ

đẹp

hơn

(will be

beautiful

more)

Front element

Nucleus (Adjective)

End element

In short, there appear similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese phrase definition

and categorization. Therefore, to keep the research consistent and coherent, five types of
phrases in the English category (Noun phrase, Verb phrase, Adjective phrase, Adverb phrase
and Preposition phrase) will be used as criteria for the contrastive analysis.
b. Clauses
Jacob (1995) claims that ‚Clauses are constructions with one phrase constituent, typically a
noun phrase, that bears the subject relation and another constituent, the verb phrase, bearing
the predicate relation.‛ (p.49)
A clause, according to Richards (1992), is ‘a group of words which form a grammatical unit
and which contain a subject and a finite verb. A clause forms a sentence or part of a sentence
and often functions as a noun, adjective, or adverb.‛ (p.53) He also mentions two types of
clause namely dependent and independent clauses.
Delahunty and Garvey (1994) suggest that ‚Clauses are combinations of two phrases,
specifically an NP and a VP, that are grammatically and semantically related to each other.‛
(p.255) They put clause patterns into eight types in accordance with the type of the main verb
in verb phrases.
(1) Intransitive: Subject Verb Head
(2) Simple transitive: Subject Verb Head

Direct Object

(3) Subject complement: Subject Verb Head

Subject Complement

(4) Object complement: Subject Verb Head Direct Object Object Complement
(5) Indirect Object: Subject Verb Head Indirect Object Direct Object
(6) Recipient/benefactive: Subject Verb Head Direct Object Recipient
(7) Location: Subject Verb Head Direct Object Location
(8) Passive: Subject Be Verb Head Agentive phrase

(pp. 219-231)


14

Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) classify clauses into seven types with reference to the main
elements S, V, O, C, A as follows:
(1) SVA
(2) SVC
(3) SVO
(4) SVOA
(5) SVOC
(6) SVOO
(7) SV
(p.167)
Basically, Delahunty and Garvey’s classification is similar to Quirk and Greenbaum’s except
for the presence of passive structures. To some extent, passive clauses are the derivatives of
four structures SVO, SVOA, SVOC, and SVOO.
Regarding clauses in Vietnamese, in the book ‚Vietnamese Grammar – Volume 2‛, Diep
Quang Ban (2008) implies that considering a clause (Subject-Predicate composition) as the
basic syntactic structure of a sentence is not reasonable because it may exclude the ‘special
simple sentence’ (bearing no Subject-Predicate combination). Another reason is that using
‘clause’ concept may cause confusion while distinguishing simple, complex and compound
sentence. (2008:107) Thus, he takes two-component simple sentence as the syntactic unit. The
hierarchy of sentence construction includes sentence nucleus (subject + predicate), sentence
frame (nucleus + subordinate elements such as adverbials, thematic parts, particles etc.) and
other parts namely conjunctions and annotation. He suggests 12 types of sentence patterns as
follows:
(1) Noun + lµ (be) + Noun
(2) Noun + b»ng (in) + Noun (material)

(3) Noun + t¹i, do, bëi (due to/ because of) + Noun
(4) Noun + ®Ĩ (for) + Noun or Subject-Predicate
(5) Noun + cña (of) + Noun or Subject-Predicate
(6) Noun + Adjective (quality)


15

(7) Noun + Verb (relation)
(8) Noun + Verb (modality)
(9) Noun + Verb (intransitive)
(10) Noun + Verb (transitive)
(11) Noun + Verb or Adjective (result/ consequence)
(12) Noun + Verb (command)
(p.128)
In the book ‚English and Vietnamese syntax: A contrastive analysis‛, Tran Huu Manh
(2007:388) demonstrates numerous similarities and differences in the two syntactic systems
among which are the shared Vietnamese clause/sentence types with 7 patterns presented in A
University Grammar of English by Quirk and Greenbaum (1973). Apart from the similarities
in English and Vietnamese clause types, Tran Huu Manh also specifies some differences. For
instance, the Vietnamese pattern S + C (a noun phrase or an adjective phrase) is sometimes
equivalent to the English pattern S + V + C.
E.g. Anh ta ng-êi Thanh Hãa ®Êy. (He_ person Thanh Hoa)
S
~

C (Noun phrase)

He is a Thanh Hoa person.
S V

C

H«m nay trời đẹp lắm.
S
~

C (Adjective phrase)

Today it is very nice.
S V

C

Another situation happens with the English pattern SVOC and the Vietnamese pattern
SV+Clause (O).
E.g. Chúng tôi bầu ông ấy làm chủ tÞch ba khãa liỊn.
S1

V1

S2

V2

(We elect him be chairman three terms of office continual)
~

We elected him our chairman for three running terms of office.
S

V

O

C
(2007:390)


16

These typical constructions in Vietnamese clauses lead to the assertion by some experts such
as Nguyen Tai Can and N. Stankievich that the number of Vietnamese clause types can be up
to nine or ten (2007:391), not just seven patterns like in English.
In brief, there exist different viewpoints from linguists in researching English and Vietnamese
clause constructions. Nevertheless, in this thesis, only seven clause types will be referred to
while the contrastive analysis is carried out to avoid overlapping cases and confusion.

1.3. Journalistic register
As business articles in newspapers will be the main source to be analyzed in the thesis, it is
essential to obtain ultimate understanding about this type of register.
First of all, the concept of news should be specified clearly. Tom E. Rolnicki (2001) believes
that ‚News, by definition, isn’t an orderly, exact list of ‘it’s always this, but never that.’
Circumstances and nuances can change almost anything into news.‛ (p.3). Another way to
understand

news

concept

can

be

found

in

the

website

news is ‘the presentation of a report on recent or
new events in a newspaper or other periodicals or on radio or television.’ Also, in the book
Professional Journalist by John Hohenberb (1972), news is defined as ‘a recent happening or
idea that can relates to or affect the majority of a community and can be understood by them‛
(p.76) [Quoted in Nguyen Thi Thoa (2008:8)]. We can assume from these definitions that
news is recent, changeable, various and have some impact on a certain group of people.
As far as news language is concerned, Nguyen Thi Thoa (2008:35) proposes that ‚news
language includes a system of morphology, words, active and stative images, sound signals
etc. and the rules of combining them used by journalists as the means to express the contents,
topics and ideology of a journalistic product‛.
The author introduces three main characteristics of news language namely accuracy,
conciseness and emotiveness. Accuracy means that language must reflect the truth at certain
moments, in certain contexts. The second feature, conciseness, is guaranteed with careful word
choice as well as coherent expressions to meet the needs of busy readers. Emotiveness can be
interpreted as using language effectively to express of the writer’s opinions and feelings to a
certain event (2008: 36-37).

17

Rolniki (2001) shares the first two characteristics of journalistic style, i.e. accuracy and
conciseness with Nguyen Thi Thoa (2008). He put a special emphasis on the accuracy of news
‚News must be accurate. Factual accuracy means that every statement, name and date, age and
address, and quotation is a verifiable fact.‛ In order to obtain accuracy, news reporters must
‚check every note‛ and ‚learn to question sources carefully‛ (2001:6) Besides, news writing
should be concise and clear to reach the average audience although the news writer can still
make it lively and personally creative. (2007:7). However, this author shows a different point
of view from Nguyen Thi Thoa (2008) in that news must be ‚balanced‛; ‚Balance in a news
story is a matter of emphasis and completeness.‛ (2001:6) Rolniki also focuses on the
objectiveness of news writing though admits that this feature is often difficult to master as the
personal opinion can ‚easily interfere with factual presentation in stories about which strong
biases are held.‛ (2001:7) The last feature that Rolniki mentions is the intermediacy of news
‚timeliness is of great importance in this era of fast communication.‛ (2001:8)
In addition, Vu Quang Hao claims that news should be standardized but at the same time
personally creative to appeal to the audience and build up the distinctiveness in journalists’
writing styles. (2009:12)
Besides, news language is considered to be a product of culture. Reah (2002) confirms that
"Newspapers are cultural artifacts. The print media of different countries and different cultures
differ in a variety of ways." (p.54) The difference may lie in writers’ beliefs, thoughts, ways of
reasoning, style of writing, and, more importantly, language. Language, in Reah’s opinion, is a
channel of communication in which messages encoded with emotional and cultural values are
transmitted (2002:55). Consequently, when we study news language in a particular country, we
can feel the touch of its own culture. "Everything that is written in a newspaper has to be
transmitted through the medium of language. The transmission of a message through language
almost of necessity encodes values into the message. Language gathers its own emotional and
cultural 'loading'." (Reah, 2002: 55)
To sum up, journalistic register can be said to possess eight traits namely accuracy,
conciseness, balance, objectiveness, standardized, distinctiveness, immediacy and bearing

cultural aspects. These features should serve as the criteria for the process of evaluating the


18

language in general and the syntax of any business newspaper articles in particular. In fact,
syntax involves the combination or the relationship that exists among elements in a clause.
This, to some extent, enables journalists to use the medium of language to convey their opinion
or belief or create a remarkable impression on the audience about a certain event.
1.4. Trend description in English and Vietnamese
Up to now, there have not been any systematic studies about language of trend description in
English and Vietnamese in general as well as that in English and Vietnamese business
newspapers in particular. Accordingly, it is both a disadvantage and an advantage for the
investigator. The disadvantage lies in scarce and scattered reference resources, the lack of
evidence verification and the frequent disorientation during the research. However, the
advantage of novelty and magnetism of the topic becomes an obvious advantage for the writer
to be ready for a promising exploration.
In the first place, trend is understood as ‚the general way in which a particular situation is
changing or developing‛ (Longman Business English Dictionar, 2007: 560) or simply ‚general
tendency or direction‛ (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998: 970).
In fact, business trend and trend description are widely seen in mass media such as
newspapers, television, the internet etc. everyday. Trends are visualized in the form of charts,
graphs, or table i.e. the so-called non-textual means or visual aids so that complicated
information can be transferred to the audience more effectively and easily. Also, trend analysis
is available in business news or reports on the market condition, GDP indicators, or stock
indexes etc.
Besides, trend description appears as a requirement in course book or reference books such as
TOEFL, IELTS, TOEIC in the form of chart or graph description.
It is important to notice that effective trend description is concerned with the use of language
in general and the constructions of syntactic structures in particular. Therefore, the thesis will

approach the topic from syntactic perspective to find out the rules of structure building to
describe trends successfully.


19

In conclusion, the first chapter, Literature Review, has covered primary information about four
matters related to the research. To start with, the discussion on Contrastive Analysis and
Transfer Theory was given which serves as a manual script to orientate the flow of the
research. Next, efforts have been invested in reviewing English and Vietnamese Syntax and
Syntactic Structures so as to build the framework for the contrastive analysis later on. In
addition, since the research is concerned with newspapers, some brief information about
journalistic register was also included. Finally, the language of trend and trend description in
business articles was mentioned to position the thesis’s role.
CHAPTER 2: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES USED
IN

DESCRIBING

TRENDS

IN

ENGLISH

AND

VIETNAMESE

BUSINESS

ARTICLES
This chapter mainly discusses the similarities and differences between syntactic structures
used in describing trends in eight business newspapers among which four English newspapers
and four Vietnamese ones were analysed. In the first place, a brief introduction on the eight
papers is provided for general background. Then, the contrastive analysis is made with
reference to clause patterns and phrase patterns found in the English and Vietnamese articles.
2.1. An overview on the business newspapers used in contrastive analysis
Among a variety of business newspapers and magazines in English and Vietnamese, eight
were selected. English publications included two British English ones and two American
English ones namely The Economist, The Financial Times Asia, Business Week, and Wall
Street Journal Asia respectively. Vietnamese publications involved two Northern Vietnamese
ones and two Southern Vietnamese ones i.e. The Vietnam Economic Times, Investment, The
Saigon Times, and Saigon Financial Investment respectively.
The resource choices were made because of three reasons. First, these are the major business
newspapers in English and Vietnamese, so the business news language will be representative
for the mass. Second, it would be possible to find out the similarities and differences between
English and Vietnamese trend description as well as discover the distinctive features due to