a contrastive analysis of nominal substitution in english and vietnamese conversation = phân tích đối chiếu phép thế danh từ trong ngôn bản hội thoại tiếng anh và tiếng việt

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUTIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
  

TRẦN THỊ KHƯƠNG LIÊN


A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOMINAL
SUBSTITUTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
CONVERSATION

(Phân tích đối chiếu phép thế danh từ trong ngôn bản hội thoại
tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt)


MINOR PROGRAM THESIS


Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15





Hanoi, 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
  


TRẦN THỊ KHƯƠNG LIÊN



A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOMINAL
SUBSTITUTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
CONVERSATION

( Phân tích đối chiếu phép thế danh từ trong ngôn bản hội thoại
tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt)

MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Nguyen Huyen Minh, M.A

Hanoi, 2011
iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION……………………………………………….
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………….
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………
TABLE OFCONTENTS………………………………………………………
ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………………
PART A. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………
1. Rationale of the study…………………………………………………………
2. Aims and objectives of the study…………………………………………………
2.1. Aims……………………………………………………………………
2.2.Objectives…………………………………………………………………
2.3. Research questions………………………………………………………
3. Scope of the study………………………………………………………………
4. Methodology of the study………………………………………………………
5. Organization of the study…………………………………………………………
PART B. DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………….
Chapter 1. Theoretical Background………………………………………………
1.1. The theories of discourse……………………………………………………….
1.1.1. The concept of discourse……………………………………………….
1.1.2. Discourse and Sentence………………………………………………
1.1.3. Discourse and Text……………………………………………………
1.1.4. Discourse analysis………………………………………………………
1.1.5. Spoken and Written Discourse………………………………………….
1.2. The theories of conversation……………………………………………………
1.2.1. The concept of conversation……………………………………………
1.2.2. Why is Conversation Analysis important………………………………

1.3. Cohesion………………………………………………………………………
1.3.1. The concept of cohesion………………………………………………
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1.3.2. Coherence and cohesion………………………………………………
1.3.3. Cohesion within the sentence and discourse……………………………
1.4. Types of Cohesion……………………………………………………………
1.5. Substitution……………………………………………………………………
1.5.1.The concept of substitution………………………………………………
1.5.2.Substitution,Cohesionand Discourse…………………………………….
1.6.ContrastiveAnalysis……………………………………………………………
1.6.1. Definition………………………………………………………………
1.6.2. Why using CA in this thesis?
1.7. Summary………………………………………………………………………
Chapter 2. A contrastive analysis of nominal substitution in English and
Vietnamese conversation discourse……………………………………………….
2.1. General features of English and Vietnamese nominal structure……………….
2.2. Person pronouns………………………………………………………………
2.2.1. Subjective and objective personal pronouns…………………….
2.2.2. Possessive pronouns……………………………………………
2.3. One……………………………………………………………………………
2.3.1. One as a substitute for a nominal group head/ substitute one …………
2.3.2. One as a substitute for an indefinite nominal group/ indefinite one …….
2.4. The same………………………………………………………………………
2.4.1. Say the same……………………………………………………………
2.4.2. Do the same………………………………………………………………
2.4.3. Be the same………………………………………………………………
PART C: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………
3.1. Concluding remarks…………………………………………………………….
3.2. The implication of the study for teaching and learning of English……………
3.3. Limitation of the study………………………………………………………….
3.4. Suggestions for further study…………………………………………………

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REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………
BOOKS FOR QUOTATIONS…………………………………………………….
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Symbols and Abbreviations

C.A. Contrastive Analysis
CA Conversation analysis
DA Discourse Analysis
Ns Nominal Substitution
O Object
P Predicate
S Subject
Ø Without Numeratives
~ Substitute for

Lists of tables
Table 1.1: Type of Cohesion
Table 1.2: Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion
Table 2: English personal pronouns
Table 3: The English third person pronouns and their Vietnamese equivalent
Table 4: The English possessive pronouns and their Vietnamese equivalent
Table 5: The substitute one/ones and their Vietnamese equivalents
Table 6: The indefinite one/some and its Vietnamese equivalents
Table 7: Do the same and the Vietnamese equivalent
Table 8: linking verb plus the same and their Vietnamese equivalents




1


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale

The history of linguistics has seen the everlasting development of different
approaches to linguistics and language teaching, each of which defines its own tasks, scopes
and objectives. Traditionally, linguists have been concerned with the phonological, lexical
and syntactical features and studied sentences which are preferably taken out of context.
Besides, the focus of traditional practice of language teaching and learning has been on the
analysis of single sentences, normally at the levels of phonology, vocabulary and grammar.
Later, with the view that incomplete sentences can still make sense when occurring
in some particular context, according to (Cook 1989: ix) complete understanding of stretches
of language can only be obtained if they are considered “in their full textual, social and
psychological context” linguists have shifted their attention from complete sentences to
discourse.
In common with coherence, cohesion takes an active role in building up discourse, in
general, and of course, conversation as a genre of discourse, in particular. Truly, Halliday
and Hasan (1976) make a detailed classification of the cohesive devices in English. These
authors distinguish between grammatical and lexical cohesion. According to them,
grammatical cohesion embraces four different devices: reference, ellipsis, substitution and
lexical. In Vietnam, it seems that all the issues related to substitution especially Nominal
substitution in conversation are still in limited exploration. It is easy to find that substitution
in Vietnamese is still a concept which has been needed receive much Vietnamese
researchers‟ exploration. Searching for the study of substitution, we only can see in Tran
Ngoc Them‟s work (1985), more recently, Diep Quang Ban‟s (1998). These authors‟ effort
seems to be made to give a very general and basic concept of substitution as well as types of
it in Vietnamese. Thus, we might wonder whether substitution, and within the minor thesis,
nominal substitution actually works in Vietnamese conversation. Furthermore, in recent
years, reference, ellipsis, and lexical have been closely studied in contrastive with
Vietnamese, within the framework of minor thesis a careful and profound study of English
and Vietnamese nominal substitution is, theoretically speaking, equally important and
necessary.
Because of the above mentioned reasons, my final thesis entitled: “Contrastive
analysis of nominal substitution in English and Vietnamese conversation”. I do hope that this

2


study will be useful for learners when investigating conversation in English as well as in
Vietnamese to support for successful communication.
2. Aims and objective of the study
2.1. Aims
As a cohesive device, substitution plays an important role in the making of discourse,
especially in conversational discourse. Within the framework of an MA thesis the study aims
at:
- raising Vietnamese learner‟s awareness of how to realize linguistics means of Ns in
Vietnamese as well as in English conversation and use them appropriately in order to
achieve communicative purposes.
- providing teachers of English with useful materials about the knowledge of Ns.
2.2. Objectives
To achieve these aims, the research tries to:
- re- examine some aspects of English substitution and nominal substitution in detail so as
to establish the descriptive framework for a contrastive analysis.
- investigate all the possible linguistics means of nominal substitution in Vietnamese
conversation discourse and at the same time find out possible similarities and differences
between English and Vietnamese nominal substitution.
- give some suggestions to apply to the teaching and learning of English.
2.3. Research questions
In carrying out the study this way, the following research questions are raised for
exploration:
1. What are the linguistics means used for nominal substitution in English
conversation?
2. What are the equivalent linguistics means used for nominal substitution in
Vietnamese conversation in contrast with those in English conversation?
3. Scope of the study

Since this study examines nominal substitution as a cohesive device, only substitution across
sentences is taken into account. Because of the limited time and knowledge, this study is
only focused on some domains as follows:
- Only nominal substitution in English and its equivalent expressions in Vietnamese
conversation are investigated.
- I will take into consideration many cases of nominal substitution so the data used for
illustration exemplification are taken from various sources.
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- I am going to deal with nominal substitution occured in the written transcription of this
conversation, not in a tape – recorded conversation.
4. Methodology of the study
Since the main purpose of the study is to contrast nominal substitution in English
conversation and Vietnamese conversation, the result of which will be exploited for
language learning and teaching, CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS (C.A.) is used as the major
method of the study. I will take English language as the base language and Vietnamese as
the comparative language.
Besides, systemization and generalization are also used as sub-methods to support
C.A. method. Thus, in the comparative analysis of examples in both English and
Vietnamese, translation is the main technique given to highlight the similarities (or
differences) in the nominal substitution in the two languages. During the process of
comparison, there may arise cases where some nominal substitution occurs only in
Vietnamese, but can hardly be found in English discourse. To deal with these cases, I shall
give out literal translation of the examples for the sake of highlighting the similarities (or
differences) in the nominal substitution in the two languages. For C.A. to be effective and
persuasive, I mainly take notice of two levels of translation: semantic and pragmatic.
The illustrating material in the thesis is authentic examples. They are taken from a
wide variety of sources in English and Vietnamese: modern novels, modern short stories as
well as data sources from ebook and so on. Some examples are drawn from grammar books

in English and Vietnamese.
Last but not least, discussions with my supervisor and colleagues, personal teaching
experience are also the great contribution to the study.
5. Organization of the study
As for the design of the study, it is composed of three main parts as follows:
Part A is Introduction, which presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, and the methods of
the study as well as the organization of the study. Part B is the DEVELOPMENT, which
consists of two chapters. Chapter 1 shows the theoretical background of basic and necessary
notions that are related to nominal substitution and conversation discourse. These issues are
made clear on the basis of the generalization of different linguists' viewpoints. In Chapter 2
which is the focus of my study I conduct my contrastive analysis of nominal substitution in
English and Vietnamese conversation in order to provide learners with the competence in
understanding and using effectively the language of conversation. Part C the Conclusion
represents the review of the study with concluding remarks and suggestions for further
study.
4



PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1. The theories of discourse
1.1.1. The concept of discourse
It does not seem rational to use the term „sentence‟ in communication. The analysis
on sentence had been focused until the beginning of 1950s by linguistics. But in 1952, a
famous linguist Zellig Harris, one of the earliest discourse analysts, published an article
entitled “Discourse Analysis” in Language Magazine. He stated a new opinion expressing
that the most complete unit of language is discourse, not a sentence. Obviously, it is
impossible to make the language in use exist in isolation from its users and the context in

which it is being used if you want to achieve successful communication. Therefore, the
concept of discourse has been paid considerable attention to by several linguists since 1952.
The most straightforward definition of discourse is the one often found in textbooks for
students of linguistics: “Language above the sentence” (Cameron 2001: 10).
According to Cook (1989: 6) discourse is “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful,
unified and purposeful". In his point of view, the kind of language, language has been used
to communicate something and is felt to be coherent (and may, or may not, happen to
correspond to a correct sentence or a series of correct sentences) – language in use, for
communication is called discourse. Discourse can be anything from a conversation to a great
novel or a lengthy legal case. Cook (1989:10) also argues that “What matters is not its
conformity to rules, but the fact that it communicates and is recognized by its receivers as
coherent". Discourse is supposed to be meaningful and thus to be used to communicate with
one person in a way that another person does not have the necessary knowledge to make
sense of. The study of discourseis often referred to as discourse analysis.
1.1.2. Discourse and Sentence
It is obvious that we have two different kinds of language as potential objects for
study. The sentence is abstracted in order to teach a language or literacy, or to study how the
rules of language work according to Cook (1989). Sharing the same idea with Cook, Brown
& Yule (1983) state that the sentence is just a grammatical unit and it is quite abstract
because it has no producers and no receivers – that is to say, it can exist independently of
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any speaker of that language. It is most often used in the teaching and learning of a language
and also in explaining how the rules of a language work.
Discourse, on the contrary, is the language in use, for communication. In addition, it
has been used to communicate something and felt to be coherent and cohesive. Conversely,
though sentence and discourse are different, they are not mutually exclusive. Discourse may
be composed of one or more well-formed grammatical sentences. But of course, it may also
be composed of incomplete sentences. That is the language we often find in notices, signs,

notes etc. Over the years, linguists have continuously discussed to find out what the largest
unit is. Today, it has been largely agreed that in terms of size discourse is the largest unit in
communication and that the sentence is only part of it. In grammar, the internal construction
of the sentence, according to Carthy (1993), has always been the central point, but in
discourse the sentence plays the role of a constructor. This is because the sentence grammar
means a lot to discourse, especially to word order, cohesion, and tense and aspect. Thus in
this study, for the purpose of my discussions of nominal substitution in conversation, the
sentence will be seen as a grammatical unit which can be exploited for illustration.
1.1.3. Discourse and Text
So far there have been many ways of viewing the language beyond the limit of the
sentence. Regardless of the agreement on the concept of discourse, linguists hold different
views about the distinction between two most notable terms Discourse and Text. For some
linguists, the term discourse has been tried to set apart from the term text. They argue that
discourse is language in action, while a text is the written record of that interaction. Crystal
(1992), for instance, maintains that text should be reserved only for writing and discourse for
speech. He also proposes that discourse is “a continuous stretch of (especially spoken)
language larger than a sentence", whereas a text is “a piece of naturally occurring spoken,
written or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis". Brown and Yule (1983:3),
cited in Nunan (1993: 6), also argue that text is “the representation of discourse and the
verbal record of a communicative act".
Whereas, for some linguists these two terms seem to be used almost interchangeably.
That is to say when we use discourse we refer to both discourse and text and vice versa. Text
or discourse is an instance of language in use, this means that no text occurs without a
context. Halliday and Hasans (1976), for example, use “text” to refer to “discourse”, they
regarded text as a semantic unit characterized by cohesion.
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Briefly, discourse is a general term to refer to all acts of verbal communication,
whereas a text is simply a verbal record of the whole communicative process (that is

discourse) in which many situational factors are involved; it can be both written and spoken,
and there will be no limit on the size of a text. Thus, text is a purely linguistic, formal object,
while discourse has both linguistic and non-linguistic properties.
1.1.4. Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language
and the contexts in which it is used. To be more specific, it examined how stretches of
language, considered in their full textual, social and psychological context, become
meaningful and unified for their users. It is a rapidly expanding field, providing insights into
problems of processes of language use and language learning, and is therefore of great
importance to language teachers.
Zellig Harris, an American linguist, was the first person who recognized discourse as
one main object of study in linguistics. Harris (1952) was interested in the distribution of
linguistic elements and the links between the text and its social situation. This idea was then
developed by Dell Hymes (1964), who provided a sociological perspective with the study of
speech in social setting. The linguistic philosophers such as Austin (1962), Searle (1969) and
Grice (1975) also made great impact in the study of language and social action, which is
reflected in speech act theory and the formulation of conversational maxims and the
appearance of pragmatics. It was in 1973 that discourse analysis was dealt with perfectly and
concretely in M.A.K Halliday‟s functional approach to language. Halliday's linguistic model
emphasizes the social function of language and the thematic and informational structure of
speech and writing. His approach is completely influential in British discourse analysis, of
which some famous linguists are Sinclair and Coulhard (1975).
Traditionally, language teaching has concentrated on pronunciation, grammar and
vocabulary, and while these remain the basis of foreign language knowledge, discourse
analysis can draw attention to the skills needed to put this knowledge into action and to
achieve successful communication.
1.1.5. Spoken and Written Discourse
Discourse can be classified into two kinds, namely: Oral Discourse or Spoken
Discourse and Written Discourse. The terms spoken discourse has been used to refer to the
spoken text such as conversations, interview, lessons, lectures and so on. The problems

involved with the notion of spoken discourse as the “verbal record” of a communicative act
7


(analysts tend to record it, and then turn it into written transcriptions) are rather complicated.
These are problems of how to represent all the suprasegmental features (intonation and
rhythm) and paralinguistic features. By oral discourse, the speaker tends to seek for
intonation and rhythm so as to convey some intended message to the hearer. Therefore, if
these features are not represented in written transcriptions, the speaker‟s intention will not be
obtained. In order to solve this problem, most analysts are likely to use the conventions of
the written language to present the written transcription of the spoken discourse. For
instance, a question mark is used in representation of a question. It would be very simple to
treat a tape-recording as a representation of this act. However, there are many other things
that can hardly be regarded as pertaining to text such as noise, laughter.
Written discourse, on the other hand, is formed by written text (written language)
concerning with stories, newspapers, articles, letters, and the like. Spoken discourse and
written discourse are two different notions as the first refers to spoken language and the
latter to written language. Following Brown & Yule (1983), we will consider the difference
between oral and written language in terms of manner of production. They notice that the
speaker has to control and process the production of communication under circumstances
which, are, probably, more demanding. He has monitor what it is that he has just said while
he is producing his utterance, and determining whether it matches what he wants to say and
the responses he means to make. With written language, the writer on the other hand, does
not cope with the problems associated with spoken language. The writer can look over what
he has already written. Additionally, he may pause between each word wherever he would
like to and take his time in choosing a particular word or phrase to suit his needs.
In sum, these two types of discourse above can be distinguished according to the type
of situation. Oral discourse is concerning face-to-face situation while a recorded
transmission situation involves in the written discourse. As mentioned above, in this study
spoken discourse (conversation) takes the form of written transcription. Written

transcriptions and written language are absolutely not like. In order to make the data used in
this thesis as close as possible to the original discourse, I seek to provide adequate
representations.
1.2. The theories of conversation
1.2.1 The concept of conversation
So far in this study we have looked at discourse in general. Our attempt is made to
look specifically at a typical kind of spoken language as conversation. According to Cook
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(1989), the term conversation is widely used, in a non-technical sense, and people seem
capable of distinguishing it from other kinds of talk. They mean, broadly speaking, that the
talk is less formal. Discourse analysts, indeed, are rather vague about what they mean by
“conversation” too, and some seem to use the term to describe any kind of oral interaction.
We shall define the term as follows. A conversation is defined as “talk between two or more
people in which thoughts, feelings and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and
answered, or news and information are exchanged” (Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary,
2000). Clearly, it is communication by two or more people, or by one's self and
conversational communication also the most basic and widespread means of conducting
human affairs. Conversation, as we have seen here, involves far more than knowledge of the
language system and the factors creating coherence in one-way discourse; it involves the
gaining, holding, and yielding of turns, the negotiation of meaning and direction, the shifting
of topic, the signaling and identification of turn type, the use of voice quality, face and body.
For a successful conversation, the partners must achieve a workable balance of
contributions. A successful conversation includes mutually interesting connections between
the speakers or things that the speakers know. For this to happen, those engaging in
conversation must find a topic on which they both can relate in some sense.
To sum up, conversation is notoriously difficult to understand and analyze and it can
seem almost contradiction in terms. However, with the focus of discourse analysis and
especially in this study the focus of conversation, a typical form of spoken discourse, we will

try to attempts to investigate the factors creating coherence as well as cohesive devices and
nominal substitution in here In terms of conversational data, we use the transcript of the
conversation (a systematic way of coding the words) as our sources.
1.2.2. Why is Conversation Analysis important?
Conversation analysis (commonly abbreviated as CA) is the study of talk in
interaction (both verbal and non-verbal in situations of everyday life). CA which is
sometimes regarded as distinct from discourse analysis (Levinson 1983: 286) cited in Cook
1990. The question Why is Conversation Analysis (CA) potentially very important when
analyzing cohesive devices in conversation? The answer will be attempted to describe based
on data from conversation taken from various resources in giving clear explanation the most
grammatical function of substitute words within a nominal group. Regarding the way
nominal substitution is expressed, it calls for more work to be done in terms of linking a
conversation analytic framework with issues and concerns in cohesion analysis.
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1.3. Cohesion
1.3.1 The concept of cohesion
The concept of cohesion is closely connected with discourse. Cohesion, a property of
any successful text, is also present in spoken language. It is defined as the grammatical and
lexical relationship between different elements of a text. Lexical cohesion is realized through
lexical cohesive devices such as, reiteration, synonymy, antonym, etc and grammatical
cohesion is realized through grammatical cohesive devices like reference, ellipsis and
substitution (Halliday & Hassan, 1976). However, according to Quirk et al (1985) the
grammatical cohesive devices are included two general categories of expansion
(coordination and subordination) and reduction (ellipsis and pro-form substitution).
Moreover, he makes a clear explanation of each category, following that, Pro-form
substitution is the substitution of certain items in a sentence for other items or constructions
for the purpose of reduction and economy. Besides, Ellipsis, semantically related to
substitution, but grammatically distinct, can be interpreted as substitution without a

substitute or zero substitution. (Halliday & Hassan, 1976:92) For example:
1) Do you have any matches? - I can give you one. [Substitution]
2) Have you seen the film? - Yes, I have. [Ellipsis]
Halliday and Hasan (1976:4) also define cohesion in a similar way: “The concept of
cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and
that define it as a text.” They also point out that cohesion often occurs where the
interpretation of some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another. To
summarize, cohesion refers to the linguistic elements that make a discourse semantically
coherent; or as Nguyen Hoa (2000: 23) indicated “cohesion refers to the formal relationship
that causes texts to cohere or stick together”. He holds the view that speakers relate their
utterances to previous ones through the use of cohesive relations; a cohesive tie is
established. Cohesive ties then enter into cohesive chains, which run throughout a text,
revealing how different parts of a text are related to each other.
1.3.2. Coherence and cohesion
In this section we shall treat cohesion and coherence as two distinct concepts. In fact
the use of term „cohesion‟ may be preferable because both „cohesion‟ and „coherence‟ have
the function of binding the discourse/text together by creating sequences of meaning.
Therefore an awareness of cohesion and coherence in all texts especially in conversation
10


discourse is a very important skill for learners to develop. Basically, cohesion refers to the
formal relationship that causes text to cohere or stick together (Nguyen Hoa: 2000). It is
indicated by grammatical, logical and lexical relationships found among or between the
sentences of a text. The problems can be treated comprehensively in the book by Halliday
and Hasan (1976) as: “A text has texture and this is what distinguishes it from something
that is not a text ………the texture is provided by cohesive relation”. Coherence, in contrast,
refers to the type of semantic or rhetorical relationships that underline texts. That is to say
coherence is concerned with the sequencing of the configuration of the concepts and relation
of the textual world which underlies and is realized by the surface text (cohesion). In other

word, coherence can obtain on the basis of relevance, the co-operative principle, the
common shared background between participants in a speech event, and how discourse is
structured in general, conversation in particular, as well.
However, what I have discussed so far should not distort the fact that coherence and
cohesion do have relation to each other to some extent. In this minor thesis, I do support the
view that cohesion is a guide to coherence and that is part of coherence in reading and
writing, and indeed in spoken language too. More in detail, cohesion is the realization of
coherence, and coherence is something created by the readers in the act of reading the text.
The two categories represent the interrelated aspects that make a text or discourse coherent
and different from random ones. In short, coherence is embodied by a system of cohesive
devices and cohesion is mainly used to ensure coherence.
1.3.3. Cohesion within the sentence and discourse
Halliday and Hasan (1976) stressed that since cohesive relations are not concerned
with structure, they may be found just as well within a sentence as between sentences. Let us
consider the following example:
Mary promised to send a picture of the children, but she hasn‟t done.
They make it clear that done in the second clause and send a picture of the children in the
first equals, and it is quite irrelevant to this whether the two are in the same sentence or not.
This reference relation occurs in the sentence just in the same way as it is often found in
discourse. It is the semantic relation between done and send a picture of children that
provides cohesion.
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But what can account for the fact that cohesion within the sentence attracts less
attention, as compared with that between sentences? According to Halliday & Hasan (1976),
this is because the cohesive strength of grammatical structure is so great that always make
the sentence hang together. The effect of cohesion in discourse is more outstanding and the
meaning is more obvious than that within the sentence. And also for these reasons, in my
study I deal only with nominal substitution as a cohesive device at the discourse level

(conversation).
1.4. Types of Cohesion
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the classification of cohesion is based on the
linguistic form. The type of cohesion depends either on semantic relation in the linguistic
system or on lexico-grammatical relations. In other words, the cohesive relation can be
interpreted as being either lexicogrammatical in nature or semantic. It can be made clearer in
the following description:
Nature of cohesive relation
Type of cohesion
Relatedness of form
Relatedness of reference
Semantic connection
Substitution and ellipsis; lexical collocation
Reference; lexical reiteration
Conjunction
Table 1.1: Type of Cohesion (Source: Haliday and Hasan, 1976:304)
Consequently, we can refer to grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion as follows:
Grammatical cohesion
Lexical cohesion
Reference
 Exophoric
 Endophoric
- personal
- demonstrative
- comparative
Substitution
 Norminal substitution
 Verbal substitution
 Clausal substitution
Conjunction

 Additive
 Adversative
 Causal
 Temporal
 Others
Reiteration
 Same word/repetition
 Synonym/near synonyms
 Superordinates
 General words
Collocation
 Noun + Noun
 Adjective + Noun
 Verb + Noun
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Ellipsis
 Norminal ellipsis
 Verbal ellipsis
 Clausal ellipsis
 Noun + Preposition
 Adjective + Preposition
 Adverb + Adjective
 Verb + Preposition
Table 1.2: Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion
In short, grammatical cohesion, as defined by Carthy (1993: 34), is the surface
marking of semantic links between clauses and sentences in written discourse, and between
utterances and turns in speech. It is subdivided into the following types: reference, ellipsis,
substitution and conjunction (Halliday & Hasan 1976). Whereas, lexical cohesion was first

advanced in terms of collocation by Firth (1957) and later developed by Halliday (1961,
1966). Lexical cohesion occurs when two words in a discourse are semantically related in
some way. Halliday and Hasan (1976) classify lexical cohesion into two main categories:
reiteration and collocation. Evidently, these two kinds of cohesion work together to
contribute to the creation of discourse. Within the scope of minor thesis, this study is only
focused on the findings of linguistics means used for nominal substitution in English
conversation and the equivalent linguistics means used for nominal substitution in
Vietnamese conversation.
1.5. Substitution
1.5.1 The concept of substitution
The notion of substitution has traditionally been considered as a formal feature
within the sentence. However then, since linguists have shifted their attention from complete
sentences to discourse, the notion of textuality has been seriously investigated, substitution
has been taken into consideration across sentences as a cohesive device. Those influential
linguists who take the above –sentence approach to substitution are Quirk et. al. (1972) and
Halliday & Hasan (1976). Substitution, the device as Quirk. et. al (1972) defines for
abbreviating and avoiding repetition. Across sentences, substitution seems to be optional,
and for stylistic reasons. Within sentences, it is sometimes obligatory. Most of the substitutes
or PRO-FORMS within sentences are also used across sentences. In the view of Halliday
and Hasan (1976: 32), substitution is a relation within the text on the lexico-grammatical
level. A substitute is a sort of counter which is used in place of the repetition of a particular
item.
13


Obviously, it is all agreed that substitution is a way of avoiding repetition. Within the
scope of my study the view of substitution as a grammatical relation in the work done by
Halliday & Hasan (1976) on substitution will be taken as the theoretical framework for the
contrastive analysis.
1.5.2 Substitution, Cohesion and Discourse

As previously mentioned, cohesion at the discourse level occurs when the
interpretation of some element is dependent on that of another. Truly, cohesion helps a
sequence of sentences hang together in the view of Halliday & Hasan (1976) creating a
surface and semantic relation between different parts of the discourse. It could be understood
that substitution across sentences does have a cohesive function and in so doing create
textuality since a substitute word almost cannot be interpreted when taken out of context. In
other word, the addressee needs to have recourse to the previous utterance with regard to
look for effective interpretation.
Together with cohesive devices such as ellipsis, reference, repetition etc., substitution
in general and nominal substitution in specific works to make discourse also conversation
discourse in this study rich in cohesive functions as well as cohesive devices.
1.6. Contrastive Analysis
1.6.1. Definition
Learning a second language or foreign one is different from acquiring the first
language. When studying a foreign language, learners often have a tendency of transferring
the formal features of their source language to their target language. That is why Robert Lado
in his book Linguistics across cultures in 1957 stated that “Individuals tend to transfer their
forms and meanings and their distribution of forms and meanings of their native language
and culture to the foreign language and culture‖. So far a lot of linguists have studied
contrastive analysis to give the brief description of what it is, which helps learners of foreign
languages find out the way to investigate the similarities as well as the differences between
two languages. We can understand that Contrastive Analysis means the comparison of two
languages by paying attention to differences and similarities between languages being
compared. To be more specific, we concern the definition by James (1980:3) “ C.A. is a
linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted (i.e. contrastive, not comparative) two-
valued typologies ( a C.A. is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the
assumption that languages can be compared‖ . Noticeably, contrastive analysis is not merely
related to not only foreign language teaching and learning but it can also make useful
14

contributions to translation theory, linguistics typology, the study of language universals and
the description of particular languages.
In fact, foreign language learners often have difficulties in studying language and
using it. They always get confused when they distinguish the differences as well as the
similarities between the source language (L1) and the target one (L2). Therefore, language
learners cannot use the language effectively. To sum up, contrastive analysis plays a vital
role in the development of teaching and learning foreign languages especially teaching and
learning conversation in the target language comparing with the source language.
1.6.2. Why use C.A. in this thesis?
As I have explained above, C.A. plays very key role in exploring similarities and
differences between the source language and the target language, which is very important in
learning languages, especially in learning a foreign language like English. As far as we have
seen, English and Vietnamese are different languages in terms of type and nature, so beside
similarities there are lots of differences between them in all aspects. It is C.A. that can help
learners find out those differences so that they can bridge the gap between Vietnamese and
English, leading to the successful process of mastering English. That is why C.A. is used as
the major study method in this study to analyze nominal substitution in English and its
equivalent expressions in Vietnamese conversation. And of course, the result of the
investigation is intended to be applied to the teaching and learning of English.
1.7. Summary
In conclusion, I have gone over all the fundamental notions of discourse, cohesion,
substitution as well as subtypes of substitution and nominal substitution as the core for
discussion. All theoretical background in this study has been drawn on the work by Halliday
& Hasan (1976), Halliday (1985), wherever suitable, Quirk et. al. (1972). Discourse is
viewed as the language above the sentence level – the language put to communication. It is
classified into spoken discourse and written discourse, both of which are taken consideration
in this study. The term discourse is distinguished clearly with the term sentence and text.
Apart from this, the notion and its role of discourse analysis also conversation analysis has
been paid carefully attention. All above, a close study of cohesion, some types of cohesion

and nominal substitution is provided with clearly explanation in this chapter. I do hope that
these preparations could make up a broad way to reach the objectives set in this thesis.


15


CHAPTER 2
A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOMINAL SUBSTITUTION IN
ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CONVERSATION

In this chapter, I shall consider different forms of English nominal substitution, and at
the same time their Vietnamese equivalents will be carefully studied and provided. The work
done by Halliday & Hasan (1976) will be adopted as the main theoretical framework, but
that which is done by Quirk et. al. (1972) has been also shared whenever necessary. The
following items in English on the whole may occur as nominal substitutes:
 personal pronouns
 one
 same
However, before investigating these items, we would like to re –examine the English and
Vietnamese nominal structure.
2.1. General Features of English and Vietnamese Nominal Structure
Since nominal substitution takes places mainly in the environment of a nominal
group, it is essential to revise the English and Vietnamese nominal structure before
considering nominal substitution. With regards to the English structure of nominal groups,
the reader is referred in particular to many well-known linguists such as Halliday & Hasan
(1976), Quirk et. al. (1972), Downing & Locke (1995) and Chalker (1984).
For Halliday & Hasan (1976), the logical structure of the nominal group in its full
form consists of three components: the Head, the Premodifier which optionally precedes the
Head and the Postmodifier which optionally follows the Head:

Premodifier / Head / postmodifier: e.g. Those five beautiful shiny Jonathan / apples
/ sitting on the chair
Similarly, Quirk et. al. (1972) as well as Chalker (1984) use the terms
Premodification, Head and Postmodification to refer to three parts of the structure:
Premodification / Head / Postmodification: e.g. The latest / problem / for the
government
Downing & Locke (1995) also state that a noun group structure has three parts;
through the terms they use for these components are not quite the same as the ones
mentioned above:
16


Prehead / Head / Posthead: e.g. The / machine / which broken down is working
again now
Accordingly, we might reach to the conclusion that the standard structure of the
English nominal group has a maximum of three components: one Head and two optional
modifiers. Though central in the group, the Head which may be a common noun, a pronoun
or a proper noun can be substituted or even omitted. It follows that the case where the Head
is substituted will be the subject of my study.
Besides the logical structure, Halliday & Hasan (1976) also introduce the experiential
structure of the nominal group. They point out that the structure might functionally be
composed of six elements: The Deictic (usually a determiner expressing identity), the
Numerative (a numeral or other quantifier expressing quantity), the Epithet (an adjective
expressing a property), the Classifier (a common noun or a proper noun expressing a
subclass), the Qualifier (a relative clause or prepositional phrase) and what they call Thing.
The relationship between the logical and experiential structure can be illustrated as follows:

the
two
high

stone
walls
along the
roadside
Logical
structures

Premodifier

Head

Postmodifier
Experiential
structures


Deictic

Numerative
Epithet
Classifier
Thing
Qualifier
Classes
determiner
numeral
adjective
noun
noun
[prepositional

group]
With reference to the Vietnamese nominal structure, the two models of the structure
provided by two influential Vietnamese linguists, namely Diep Quang Ban (1996) and
Nguyen Tai Can (1996) have been looked at. Diep Quang Ban (1996) states that the
structure of the Vietnamese nominal group is composed of three components: the Head, the
Premodifier and the Postmodifier. The presence of the last two is optional:
Premodifier / Head / Postmodifier: e.g. Tất cả những cái / chủ trương / chính xác đó.
The head is said to be either a noun or a noun phrase which normally consists of a
noun as a classifier combined with another noun, a verb or an adjective ( e.g. cái nhà, cây
tre, con mèo, người thợ, niềm vui, cuộc họp, vẻ đẹp). It is clear that the combination always
expresses a single entity.
17


The Premodifier may functionally be divided into three parts: Universal Qualifier (từ
chỉ tổng lượng e.g. tất cả, hết thảy, tất thảy, cả thảy etc.), Numerative (từ chỉ số lượng or số
từ), and Indexical Word CÁI (từ chỉ xuất CÁI). Its structure is realized diagrammatically as
follows:
Universal Qualifier
Numerative
Indexical word
Head
Tất cả
những
cái
chủ trương
The Postmodifier may functionally consists of two elements: Qualifiers (định tố) and
Demonstrative (từ chỉ định e.g. này, nọ, kia, ấy, đấy, đó):
Head
Qualifier

Demonstrative
chủ trương
chính xác
đó
Nguyen Tai Can (1996) also shared this functional view. He holds the view that the two
nouns, the classifier and the one following it, are equally important. Therefore, he points out
that in this case the Head is a combination of Head 1 and Head 2:
Premodifier
Head
Postmodifier
Head 1
Head 2

Con
mèo
đen ấy
Một
đoàn
sinh viên
khoa văn
Một
cuốn
sách

Furthermore, Nguyen Tai Can points out that the combination of Head 1 and Head 2 might
give rise to three variants:
Head 1 / Head 2: con / chim (này)
/ Head 2: / chim (này) (without Head 1)
Head 1 / : con / (này) (without Head 2)
The fact that Head 1 as a Classifier and take place of the whole Head is of great importance

as it lays the foundations of nominal substitution in Vietnamese. Thus, since it serves for my
purpose of study, Can‟s view of the Head of the nominal structure will be adopted.
Briefly, the structure of the Vietnamese nominal group taken in this study can be outlined as follows:
Premodifier
( phần đầu)
Head
( phần trung tâm)
Postmodifier
( phần cuối)
Universal
Qualifier
(từ chỉ tổng
lượng)
Numerative
(số từ)
Indexical
word CÁI
Head 1
(trung
tâm 1)
Head 2
(trung
tâm 2)
Qualifier
(định tố)
Demonstrative
(từ chỉ định)
Tất cả
những
cái

con
mèo
đen
ấy
18


2.2. Personal Pronouns
2.2.1. Subjective Personal Pronouns and Objective Personal Pronouns
For Quirk et. al. (1972) and also for other grammarians, personal pronouns of
English are classified into two sets of forms: subjective personal pronouns and objective
personal pronouns. This classification is based on the role each personal form plays in the
sentence: either as the subject or as the object. The former includes I, You, We, He, She, It,
They, and the latter consists of me, you, us, him, her, it, them.
In addition, together with two categories of number: singular and plural, personal
pronouns are traditionally further classified into three categories of person, namely first
person (I/me, singular and we/us, plural), second person (You/ you, the name form for both
singular and plural), and third person (He/She/It, singular and they/them, plural)



Subjective personal
pronouns
Objective personal
pronouns
First person
singular
I
me
plural

We
us
Second person
singular & plural
You
you
Third person
singular
He
She
It
him
her
it
plural
They
them

Table 2: English personal pronouns
As can be seen from mentioned-above personal pronouns, the third person pronouns
obviously carry cohesive force as any use of them always requires the listener or reader to
look backwards (i.e. anaphoric) in order to retrieve what has gone before. Thus, the third
person pronouns are seen as one of the main cohesive devices used for the creation of
discourse. Further more, my study centres around only common substitute words as cohesive
devices in conversation discourse and because it is not a study of personal pronouns, I am
going to work on only on the third person ones.
In the set of the third person forms, he/him and she/her are used to substitute for
persons while it/it for things. They/them replace both persons and things. Let us consider the
following examples:

19


[2:1] The policeman twirled his club and took a step or two.
"I'll be on my way. Hope your friend comes around all right. Going to call time on him
sharp?
"I should say not!" said the other. "I'll give him half an hour at least. If Jimmy is alive on
earth he'll be here by that time. So long, officer."
"Good-night, sir," said the policeman, passing on along his beat, trying doors as he went.
(HEO, AFY, 1994:2)
Viên cảnh sát quay bước về phía câu lạc bộ và bước thêm một hai bước.
“ hy vọng người bạn của ông sẽ tới. Ông có nói thời gian cụ thể
với ông ấy chưa?
“ Tôi sẽ chờ ông ấy ít nhất nửa giờ. Nếu Jimmy còn sống, ông ấy sẽ
có mặt ở đây không thể muộn hơn.
[2:2] ‗But have you got the robber‘s description?‘ asked Stuart.
‗In the first place, he is no robber at all,‘ returned Ralph, positively.
‗What! a fellow who makes off with fifty-five thousand pounds, no robber?‘
‗No.‘
‗Perhaps he‘s a manufacturer, then.‘
‗The Daily Telegraph says that he is a gentleman.‘ (CMM: 1996:125)
“Nhưng mà anh có nhận dạng được tên trộm không?‖ Stuart hỏi
―Ban đầu hắn ta không hẳn là một tên trộm‘ Ralph đáp lại với thái độ tích cực
‗Sao cơ? Một kẻ chuồn đi với 55 nghìn bảng Anh không phải là một tên trộm sao?
„ ‘
[2:3] Girl: Is the book in this bag for Mum, then? I didn‘t think she was particularly
interested in flowers.
Father: I thought she‘d like it – to give her some good ideas for the garden. And even if she
never reads it – it‘s got some lovely photos.
Girl: I thought you were going to get those gloves I showed you in that shop last

Saturday. They match the scarf I‘ve bought her. (PET 3, 2003)
Cô gái: Cuốn sách trong túi này có phải tặng mẹ không bố? Con không nghĩ mẹ lại đặc biệt
thích hoa.
Bố: Bố lại nghĩ mẹ con sẽ thích nó ………………………………và thậm chí nếu như mẹ
không bao giờ đọc nó thì nó cũng có một số bức ảnh rất tuyệt.