english verbs say tell speak talk and their vietnamese equivalents = động từ say tell talk trong tiếng anh và những tương đương trong tiếng việt

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

E.g.
For example
i.e.
That is
NP
Noun phrase
O
Object
Od
Direct object
Oi
Indirect object
O
d
Cl
Direct Object Clause
Prep.
Preposition
p.
Page
Q
Quote
V
Verb
Op
Prepositional Object
Adv
Adverbial Modifier

S
PASS

Passive Subject
PPs
Prepositional phrases
=
Equal to / the same as
*
An asterisk signifies that what follows it is incorrect
sb
somebody
sth
something

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration p. i
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii
List of abbreviations iv
Table of contents vii
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims and Objectives of the study 1
3. Research Questions 2
4. Scope of the study 2
5. Significance of the study 2
6. Method of the study 2

7. Organization of the study 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4
Chapter 1: Theoretical Background 4
1.1. Semantics 4
1.2. Meaning 5
1.3.  7
1.4. Synonyms 8
1.5. Synonymic group 11
1.6. Componential analysis 11
Chapter 2: The Study 13

2.1. Research questions 13

2.2. Data collection 13
2.3. Analytical Framework 14

2.4. Data Analysis and Discussions 17
2.4.1. Syntactic features of the verbs under study 17
2.4.2. Semantic features of the verbs under study 22
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2.4.2.1. Meanings conveyed by Say 23
2.4.2.2. Meanings conveyed by Tell 24
2.4.2.3. Meanings conveyed by Speak 25
2.4.2.4. Meanings conveyed by Talk 26
2.4.3. The English verbs Say, Tell, Speak and Talk
and their Vietnamese Equivalents 28
2.4.3.1. Say and its Vietnamese equivalents 29
2.4.3.2. Tell and its Vietnamese equivalents 30
2.4.3.3. Speak and its Vietnamese equivalents 32
2.4.3.4. Talk and its Vietnamese equivalents 33

2.4.3.5. Findings and concluding marks 35
PART III: CONCLUSION 38
3.1. Conclusions 38
3.2. Pedagogical Implications 40
3.3. Limitations and Suggestions for further Research 40
REFERENCES 42

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PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Among verbs of English, we find that the verbs Say, Tell, Speak, Talk belong to
the most frequently used vocabulary. These verbs can occur in different syntactic
patterns that reflect various meanings in real-life communication. They can occur in the
same syntactic patterns, but may have different meanings depending on the situation in
which they are used.
As a teacher of English at an English teaching centre, I found that my learners
have faced many problems when they use this group of verbs. They often feel confused
to choose the right verb and make errors in using them. Therefore, I have carried out a
study to find out how to use these verbs accurately and correctly from the analysis of
their syntactic and semantic features with their references to their equivalents in
Vietnamese.
Also, with respect to interpretation and translation work, it is believed that the
decoding of a language form is equally important. A precise interpretation or translation
must be based on a specific context of communication. For instance, the meanings
      Sb/sth say + Direct Object   

interpretations in Vietnamese such as , , 

, 

 ect,. Translators, therefore,
have to define the context of situation in which the utterance occurs in order to choose
the right interpretations; otherwise, the translation will be meaningless.
All the aforementioned reasons have encouraged us to carry out a study entitled
Say, Tell, Speak, Talk . We do
this study with the hope that it will be a useful reference, to the extent possible, for
teaching and learning English and Vietnamese as foreign languages.
2. Aims and Objectives of the Study
The study aims at identifying differences of English verbs Say, Tell, Speak,
Talk in terms of syntactic and semantic features to provide Vietnamese leaners of
English with a practical insight into the uses of these English verbs. In particular, the
study attempts to uncover the Vietnamese equivalents of these English verbs in terms of
their marginal uses. As a result, we would like to help students with correct language
practicing and performance through contrastive analysis with Vietnamese.
The paper is intended to aim at the following objectives:
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+ To uncover the differences of Say, Tell, Speak and Talk in terms of syntactic and
semantic features.
+ To identify the Vietnamese equivalents of these English verbs where appropriate.
3. Research questions
In general, with the aims and the objectives above, the following research questions will
be addressed:
 How different are four English verbs Say, Tell, Speak and Talk in terms of
syntactic and semantic features?
 What are Vietnamese equivalents of these English verbs where
appropriate?

4. Scope of the study
The study focuses on uncovering the differences among the four English verbs
under study in terms of syntactic and semantic features as well as their references in
Vietnamese. The core meanings of these verbs   
which also occur in the corpora are beyond the scope of the present research and
therefore they were excluded from the data.
Material containing examples with phrasal verbs and idioms was not included in the
paper for two reasons. Firstly, relevant examples did not modify the meaning of verbs
studied in any new way; thus, secondly, much needless labour would be put into deleting
the irrelevant examples. All the relevant examples were counted and carefully studied.
5. Significance of the study
Theoretical significance: This study contributes to verifying significance related
to semantic theory in componential analysis by working on a certain synonymic group of
verbs. It proves that lexical semantics is an important area in linguistics. Verbs, as the
core of lexicon, provide the key to exploring the interaction between syntax and
semantics as well as understand the nature of lexicon.
Practical significance: Findings of this study will provide information that can
help learners and translators gain an insight into how the speech act verbs with Say, Tell,
Speak, Talk can be employed in discourse in English by Vietnamese learners and
translators.
6. Method of the study
The methods used in this study include quantitative and qualitative. The
quantitative method is exploited to search for differences of the four English verbs under
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study in terms of syntactic and semantic features. Qualitative method is useful to uncover
the Vietnamese equivalents of these four English verbs with different senses. In
particular, the data were collected from different sources such as dictionaries, novels,
news, books.
The verbs are analyzed in detail beginning with Say followed by Tell, Speak, and
Talk. Each of these verbs is described in a separate section, and the analysis was

conducted with a view to discovering such aspects of each verb as its syntax, semantics
performed by each of these verbs. The analysis is believed to contribute to a deeper
understanding of the English verbs Say, Tell, Speak and Talk. The componential analysis
will be applied to analyze the data. The comparison will be made mainly by means of
translation, i.e. pairs of English and Vietnamese sentences which are supposed to have
the same meaning will be equate.
7. Organization of the study
This minor thesis consists of three main parts:
PART I: Introduction: This part introduces the rationale, the aims, the scope, the
method and the organization of the thesis.
PART II: Development: There are two chapters in this part:
Chapter 1 discusses the theoretical background for the research by discussing theory of
semantics, meaning, meanings of meaning, synonyms, synonymic group, componential
analysis.
Chapter 2 presents and discusses findings from collected data, focusing on the
differences in the verbs studied in terms of syntactic and semantic features. Besides, it
focuses on describing and analyzing their equivalents in Vietnamese.
PART III: Conclusion and implications: This part presents the major findings of the
study, the conclusion of the study, implications for English teaching and suggestions for
further study.








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PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The following issues are to be dealt with in this chapter: Theory of semantics, meaning,
the meanings of meaning, synonyms, synonymic group, componential analysis.
1.1. Semantics
Semantics is a branch of linguistics, which deals with meaning or the content of
communication. According to Hurford and Heasley (1983:1), semantics is the study of
meaning in language. Language is a means of communication, and people use language
to communicate with others by making conversations, giving information, and other
things to make social relationship. Jackson (1988:49) states that human beings have been
given the capacity to talk, to communicate with each other, to make meaningful
utterances, so that they are understood by other human beings. They communicate about
the world in which they live, about themselves, about their thought and feeling, about
what has happened, about what might happen or what they would like to happen, and a
lot more.
Hurford and Heasley (1983:5) state that the giving of information is itself an act
of courtesy, performed to strengthen social relationships. This is also part of
communication. There are some linguists that tried to define Semantics. Morris as quoted
by Lyons (1977) at first defines semantics as the study of the relations of signs to the
objects to which the signs are applicable. And then he revised his definition, saying that,
semantics is that portion of semiotic which deals with the signification of sign in all
modes of signifying.
Semantics is usually connected with pragmatics Carnap (cited in Lyons, 1977:
116) says that descriptive semantics (i.e. the investigation of the meaning of expressions
        as part of pragmatics. The
reason why descriptive semantics is part of pragmatics seems to have been that he
believed that difference in the use of particular expressions were not only inevitable in
language-behaviour, but must be taken account of in the description or context. Smith, as
quoted by Lyons (1977:116) states that semantics studies how these signs are related to
things. And pragmatics studies how they are related to people. According to Leech
(1983:5) in practice, the problem of distinguishing language and language use has

centred on a boundary dispute between semantics and pragmatics. Hurford and Heasley
(1983:14) further explain that the study of semantics is largely a matter of conceptually
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and exploring the nature of meaning in a careful and thoughtful way, using a wide range
of examples, many of which we can draw from our knowledge.
   
meaning is semantics. Semantics is usually concerned with the analysis of the meaning
of words, phrases, or sentences and sometimes with the meaning of utterances in

David Crystal (1992:347) defines that semantics is the study of meaning in
language. Structural semantics applies the principles of structural linguistics to the study
of meaning through the notion of semantic relations (also called sense relation), such as
synonymy and antonym. In generative grammar, the semantics component is a major
semantic representation to sentences, and
analyzing lexical terms of semantic features. The theory of semantic fields views
vocabulary as organized into areas, within which words (lexical items) interrelate and
define each other.
In order to make a thorough study of meaning, we have to understand other
concepts such as meaning and meanings of meaning and so on.
1.2. Meaning
Meaning plays a very important part in communication. What a word means
depends in part on its association with other words, the relational aspect. Lexemes do not

and what meanings they contribute depends on what other lexemes they are associated
with in these utterances. For example, the word "watch" could have different meanings
in the following sentences:
a) Watch your mouth (watch here means an advice of being careful with
something
b) When I came, they were watching the football march between Liverpool and
Manchester United.(watch here means to look at sb/sth for a time, paying

attention to what happens: look at closely).
c) When I arrived the cat was sitting on the wall, watching for birds (watch here
means to wait for sb/sth to appear or happen).
d) My watch has stopped (watch here means a small clock)
According to Lesley Jeffries (1983:3) meaning is a kind of invisible unclothed being
waiting for the clothes of language to allow it to be seen, which is why it is necessary to
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take off the clothes of language to understand the real meaning of words, phases and
sentences.
E.g. "tell on sb" means "to tell a person in authority about sth bad that sb has done".
Through this example, a conclusion ca be drawn as the meaning of the word is
not all the time decided by itself but by the relation with others, which is why John
Lyons (1996:4) states that the noun         
derived are used, like many other English words, in a wide range of contexts and in
several distinguishable senses.
According to David Crystal
2
(1992:102), meaning is studied by making detailed
analysis of the way words and sentences are used in a specific context. It is an approach
shared by several philosophers and psychologists.
And David Crystal
1
(1992: 247) also states that meaning is a basic notion used in
language study in two main ways. First, determining the signification of a message is the
chief end of linguistic enquiry. Above all, language is concerned with the
communication of meaning. Second, meaning is used as a way of analyzing the structure
of language, through such notions a contractiveness and distinctiveness.
           Heidi
Sense is the place which a word or phrase (a lexeme), holds in
the system of rel

         
           
senses by different people. He was a true friend, in every sense of the word (in every
possible way).
           
             
applied to different levels of language (e.g. the meaning of morphemes, meaning of

range of meanings of the word, i.e. all the possible meanings a word can take in different
             

word meaning consists of, the part of a word meaning 

15
               
example, he following definitions will be considered to be meanings of the verb to talk
(Dictionary.com):
1. to communicate or exchange ideas, information, etc., by speaking
2. to consult or confer
3. to spread a rumour or tell a confidence; gossip
1.3. The Meanings of meaning
Meaning refers to what a language expresses about the world we live in or any
possible or imaginary world. The theories of meaning and its types can be found in the
literature of Leech (1974), Lyon (1977), (1975), Palmer (1981), and Crystal (1995).
There are two types of meanings: Grammatical meaning and lexical meaning.
    he meaningful relationship between the constituent
parts of the g 57). This can be interpreted as the
meaningful relationship between words, phrases and sentences. The total meaning of a
phrase or sentence is not determined by a simple combination of the meanings of isolated
words; part of the total meaning is derived from the particular structure of the phrase or

sentence. For example, in the phrases such as old man, grey house, beautiful fur and tall
tree, it is the first component in each case which qualifies the second. Moreover, such

in fact, a kind of grammatical meaning. This can explain why the combination of words
in a language is meaningful and cannot be changed freely. For example, when we
,
we do not relate the to old, old to men, men to stared, etc., and do not reverse the
position of men stared as stared men.
According to Lyons (1995:52), a lexeme may have different word-form which
will generally differ in respect of their grammatical meaning. For example, the forms of
 an  in respect of their grammatical meaning.  is singular
form (of a noun of a p    is plural form (of a noun of a
particular class); the difference between singular forms and plural form is semantically
relevant: it affects sentence meaning. The meaning of a sentence is determined partly by
the meaning of the words of which it consists and partly by its grammatical meaning.
16
Baker (1992:12) stated that lexical meaning of a word may be viewed as the
specific value it has in a particular linguistic system. It is the most outstanding individual
property of words, and in contrast with grammatical meaning, it can stand on its own.
Different types of lexical meaning as recognised by Leed (1974) are:
(1) Conceptual meaning: Logical, cognitive, or denotative content.
(2) Associative meaning:
Connotative meaning: What is communicated in terms of what language refers to
Social meaning: What is communicated of the social circumstances of language use
Affetive meaning: What is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the
speaker/writer
Reflected meaning: What is communicated through association with another sense of the
same expression.
Collocative meaning: what is communicated through association with words which tend
to occur in the environment of another word.

(3) Thematic meaning: what is communicated by the way in which the message
is organized in terms of order and emphasis.
Do Huu Chau (1999:111-130) 







  (denotational
meaning) 







  (connotational meaning) to generalize the meaning of
words in Vietnamese. According to him, entities and phenomenon in the objective world
are reflected in the mind as the concepts and reflected in the language as the denotational
meanings which lead to the relevant connotational meanings. Therefore, to some extent,
in terms of lexical meaning, verbs in English and in Vietnamese are similar. However,
they differ in respect of grammatical meaning. English verbs carry two kinds of
meanings; meanwhile, Vietnamese verbs themselves do not carry grammatical meaning
such as tense, aspect, ect.
1.3. Synonyms
Since there are four lexical items which are studied in the present paper, it is


defined in this connection. It is clear that a definition of synonyms simply as words
having the same or closely related meanings is too vague. Crystal (2003:450) specifies
the definition in the following way:
 
allow a choice to be made between them in some contexts, without there being any
17
difference for the 
very vague. For the present work a more detailed definition is needed.
According to Jack C.Richards et al (1992:368), synonym as a word which has
the same or nearly the same meaning as another word. It should be noted that two words
which are synonymous must belong to the same part of speech. Nguyen Hoa (2004: 72)
shares the same idea with Jack Croduction of English
 that synonyms are actually words of the same parts of speech which have
similar meaning, but not identical meaning. They may share a similar denotational or
connotational meaning. They can differ from each another in terms of denotation and
connotation. For example, father and dad differed in terms of connotation when
misfortune and accident differed in their denotation.
Nguyen Hoa (2004:76) in his studies divided synonyms into six groups:
(i) Semantic synonyms which differed in terms of their denotation (for example, look
and glance. 
r hand, apart
);
(ii) Stylistic synonyms which differed in terms of their connotation (father and dad),
(iii)Semantic – stylistic synonyms differing in both denotational and connotational
meaning i.e in shades of meaning connotation (sack-dismiss-fire);
(iv) Phraseological synonyms which were distinctive because of their collocations (do
and make);
(v) Territorial synonyms were those employed in different regions. 

used on the other side of the Atlantic;

(vi) Euphemism which li   . In using euphemisms, a less
            
       The synonyms of the
group of verbs in this paper could be considered semantic-stylistic synonyms.
Lyon (1995:60) divides synonyms into three kinds: absolute synonyms, near
synonyms and partial synonyms. However, some linguists such as Jack C.Richards et al
(1992:368), Palmer (1981:88) argue that no two words have exactly the same meaning
(denotational and connotational meanings). Absolute synonyms, according to Lyon
(1995:61), must satisfy three conditions:
18
 All their meanings are identical;
 They are synonyms in all contexts;
 They are semantically equivalent in all aspects of their meaning.
Another point of view on synonymy is discussed by Saeed (2003:65) who points out
three             
synonyms:
- styles of language (colloquial, formal, literary, etc.) (e.g. police officer vs. cop)
- positive or negative attitudes of the speaker (corpulent vs. obese)
- collocational restrictions (e.g. one can say a cop car or a police car but not a
guards car). For example, words such as healthy and well, sick and ill, quickly and
speedily, quickly and rapidly may be viewed as examples of synonymy, simply because
they share most of the characteristics with one another.
Some lexicographers claim that in English, no synonyms have exactly the same
meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography,
phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage make them unique. Different words that
are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long
and extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm
is not the same as an extended arm). However, absolute synonyms can be found in
sân bay and 


.
Synonyms may also differ in emotional coloring which may be present in one
element of the group and absent in all or some of the others. Lonely as compared with
alone is emotional as is easily seen from the following examples: a very lonely boy lost
between them and aware at ten that his mother had no interest in him, and that his father
was a stranger/ Shall be alday. Both words denote
being apart from others, but lonely besides the general meaning implies longing for
company, feeling sad because of the lack of sympathy and companionship. Alone does
not necessarily suggest any sadness at being by oneself.
Synonyms can therefore be defined in terms of linguistics as two or more words
of the same language, belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more
identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable, at least in some
contexts, without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning, but differing in
morphemic composition, phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotations, affective
value, style, valence and idiomatic use. Additional characteristics of style, emotional
19
coloring and valence peculiar to one of the elements in a synonymic group may be absent
in one or all of the others.
1.5. Synonymic group
According to Nguyen Hoa (2004:76), a synonymic group is a group of all
synonyms (for example, chief, principal, main, important). In synonymic group, we can
  , mostly general, neutral word, usually belong to the basic
stock of words.
An illustration will be supplied by a group of synonymous nouns: hope,
expectation, and anticipation. They are considered to be synonymous because they all
   They are, however,
much less interchangeable than the previous group because of more strongly pronounced
difference in shades of meaning. Expectation may be either of good or of evil.
Anticipation, as a rule, is a pleasurable expectation of something good. Hope is not only
a belief but a desire that some event would happen. The stylistic difference is also quite

marked. The Romance words anticipation and expectation are formal literary words used
only by educated speakers, whereas the native monosyllabic hope is stylistically neutral.
Moreover, they differ in idiomatic usage. Only hope is possible in such set expressions
as: to hope against, hope, to losth. Neither expectation nor
anticipation could be substituted into the following example: You do not know what hope
is until you have lost it.
Taking into consideration the corresponding series of synonymous verbs and
verbal set expressions: to hope, for anticipate, to expect, to look forward to, we shall see
that separate words may be compared to whole set expressions. To look forward also
worthy of note because it forms a definitely colloquial counterpart to the rest. It can
easily be shown, on the evidence of examples, that each synonymic group comprises a
dominant element. This synonymic dominant is the most general term of its kind
            
group, as, for instance, hope in the above.
1.6. Componential analysis
In teaching and learning vocabulary, sometimes teachers and students face with
an obstacle to get the exact meaning across. The more advanced the learners are, the
more diverse and subtle the language becomes. One way of looking at meaning is called
   t the subtle differences between similar
20
words. It is a chart that has the words that you are focusing on one axis and on the other
the different collocates or components that go to make up the meanings.
According to Ronald Carter (1994: p.16,17), componential analysis can be

word into irreducible features: those components which are absolutely minimal for its
references. The componential model of analysis is central to the conceptual area of
semantics; it claims are to the fuller analysis of that universal in that finite set of
components or semantic features in lexical items, which are ordering of meaning.
Componential or semantic feature analysis thus presupposes a stable, universal word of



component parts commonly referred to as semantic features or semantic properties or
jNguyen Hoa, 2004:123). The basic view of this approach is that the lexical
meaning of the word or lexeme can be decomposed into components or constituent parts
called semes. So it is also called the semantic decomposition of the word or lexeme. One
of the commonest examples used by linguists is the set of features which are said to
compose the lexemes woman, bachelor, spinster, and wife as follows:
Woman: <+female> <+adult> <+human>
Bachelor: <+ male> <+adult> <+human> <+unmarried>
Spinster: < + female> <+adult> <+human> <+unmarried>
Wife: < +female> <+adult> <+human> <+married>
Usually, componential analysis is applied to a group of related words, which may differ
from one another only by one or two components. This approach was developed in
anthropological linguistics for the study of kinship or other terms in various languages.
Componential analysis, also called feature analysis or contrast analysis, refers to the
description of the meaning of words through structured sets of semantic features, which

thus departs from the principle of compositionality. Componential analysis is a method
typical of structural semantics which analyzes the structure of a word's meaning. Thus, it
reveals the culturally important features by which speakers of the language distinguish
different words in the domain (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 20). This is a highly valuable
approach to learning another language and understanding a specific semantic domain of
an Ethnography.
21
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY
In this chapter, the research questions will be restated in 2.1, the data collection
will be described in 2.2 and the analytical framework of the study will be outlined in 2.3,
data analysis and discussions will be presented in 2.4. Particularly, in section 2.4 which
constitutes the central focus of the current study, syntactic and semantic features of the
verbs Say, Tell, Speak and Talk and their Vietnamese equivalents will be thoroughly

explored.
2.1. Research Questions
It is worth restating the two research questions that guideline the study:
 How different are four English verbs Say, Tell, Speak and Talk in terms of
syntactic and semantic features?
 What are Vietnamese equivalents of these English verbs Say, Tell, Speak
and Talk where appropriate?
2.2. Data collection
The data are collected from different sources such as dictionaries, namely, 




 -Anh-

(2008); 





 - 
of Cultural and Informatics, Oxford Adv); Dictionary
of Contemporary English (2003); some novels, namely, Fanity Fair by Thackeray, W.
M., God Bless You, Mr Rosewater or Pearls Before Swine by Vonnegut, J.K and some
grammar books such as English Grammar in Use by Murphy, R, A comprehensive
grammar of the English language by Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J.
(1985), the textbook for students Headway. Moreover, the data is also compiled from the
New York Times online. The reason for choosing those materials as the sources of the
data is that according to R.J Rees (1973: p.1-2): literature is divided into two sense,

broad sense and narrow sense. The former means anything that is written such as tables,
catalogues, text, books, brochures, etc. while the latter means a writing that expresses
and communicate thought, feelings, ideas, and attitudes, towards life in the serious fuller
and deeper sense of the words. Moreover, these sources are found to provide the most
fertile examples for the lexical items under study.
The bilingual dictionaries, the Vietnamese version of the novel Fanity Fair
translated by Tran Kiem are used for this study because they are well known and are
confirmed by reliable publishing houses such as Literature Publishing House, Publishing
House of Cultural and Informatics.
22
After identifying different senses of the four verbs in English together their
Vietnamese equivalents, these senses are brought into consideration. The following part
represents the analytical framework used to analyze the data.
2.3. Analytical Framework
The theoretical framework applied for this study is componential analysis.
According to theory about componential analysis, this method analyses the meaning of
related words, which provide that the relationships between terms are based upon certain
shared and contrastive features. In other words, the approach of componential analysis
functions as breaking down the meanings of terms into their respective constituents of
meaning, then comparing these semantic components in order to clarify the meanings of
terms.
By using componential analysis, it is possible for us to describe the words of a
language with respect to components of meaning contrastively. For this reason,
componential analysis has become an important methodological concept for semantically
differentiating the words in the field of meaning and for studying synonyms.
This method aims to bring into focus the features which distinguish. This
principle involved here may allow us to aim for a more precise definition of meaning.
However, the idea that a word can be subjected to this type of clinical, accurate analysis
is rather misleading. This approach is only concerned with conceptual meaning, not
associative mean.

The following table shows the different senses of the four groups under study.
These senses are considered as the main features and used as the basis for the analysis of
the semantic aspects of the four verbs in the following section.










23
Table 1: Componential analysis table of the four verbs studied

Features
Say
Tell
Speak
Talk
1
Showing thoughts/feelings




2
Produce sound, use voice/express in words





3
Make statement




4
Show ideas/ information neutrally/objectively




5
Repeat words




6
Suggest/Give an example or a possibility




7
Express opinion


8
Giving written information




9
Give instructions/ advice to sb




10
Recognize differences




11
Let sb know a secret




12
Make statements officially, publicly



13
Mention or describe sth /sb:




14
Be able to use a particular language:




15
Discuss sth, usually sth serious or important




16
Give information to sb, especially unwillingly:




17
Gossip


sth: something
sb: somebody
As can be seen from table 1 the main features of the four verbs will be outlined below:
Say (v) means to (1) pronounce words or sounds, (2) repeat words, phrases, (3) express
an opinion/ give an answer, (4) Suggest/Give an example or a possibility; (5) give
thoughts, feelings (6) Giving written information
For example:
(1) Be quiet, I have something to say (pronounce words)
(2) Try to say that line with more conviction. (Repeat words)
(3) Do you know what she said to him? (express an opinion)
(4) Say you lose your job: what would you do then? (Give an example)
(5) What did they say about the house? (give thoughts)
24
Tell (v) means (1) to give information to sb by speaking or writing, (2) to express
something in words, (3) to let somebody know a secret, (4) to order or advise somebody
to do something, (5) to recognize difference
For example:
(1) He told the news to everybody he saw (Give information)
 (Express something in words)
 (Let somebody know secret)
(4) He was told to sit down and wait (order somebody to do something)
(5) I can't tell the difference between margarine and butter (recognize difference)
Speak (v) has the following meanings: (1) to have a conversation with somebody, (2) to
use your voice to say something, (3) to be able to use a particular language, (4) to make a
speech to an audience, (5) to mention or describe sth/sb
For example: (1)  (have a conversation with sb)
(2) Please speak more slowly (use voice)

(3) Do you speak English? (Be able to use a particular language
(4)Professor Wilson was invited to speak about the results of his research
(make a speech to an audience)
           
about a poor girl whom George once loved (mention or describe sth/sb)
Talk (v) means (1) to say things; to speak in order to express feelings, ideas, etc. (2) to
discuss sth, usually sth serious or important, (3) to say words in a language, (4) Gossip
For example: (1) We talked on the phone for over an hour (say things)
(2) T (discuss sth)
(3) Are they talking Swedish or Danish? (Say words in a language)
- people will talk (Gossip)
All verbs have some common denotative meanings, for example, all verbs have
the  . They are the
markers that show the similarity in terms of meaning which is the basis for arranging
these verbs in the same synonymic group. However, these are also features that show one
or more specific meanings of a word which bring about its distinction in terms of
meaning compared with others in the same synonymic group. Those features are
distinguishes, which take an important role in the work of differentiating synonyms.
25
Consider the following examples which are extracted from Oxford Advanced 
Online Dictionary(2003) as illustration for the idea:
(1) 
(2) He told everybody he saw the news
(3) Please speak more slowly
(4) The baby is just starting to talk.
It can be seen that all the verbs do the same work of producing a sound to
communicate. In sentence (1), the speaker used words to tell you that he does not believe
you and the information is basically informedin a neutral way. In sentence (2), the
speaker wants to give information to somebody by speaking. In sentence (3) the listener
would like the Speaker to use his/her voice more slowly. In sentence (4) the baby is

starting using words to give information. Therefore, the meaning produce a sound to
give informationconvey ideas/thoughts/feelingscan be considered makers, which
bring about the similarity in terms of meaning in several cases of the verbs studied. This
means that sometimes we can replace a word in this group with another, it may change
  or  which can be generalize as emotional colouring of the
sentence but the information is still conveyed.
Besides conveying some common aspects of meaning, the synonyms under study
are in most cases distinguished and differently used. This study addresses itself to the
distinguishers. In the following sections, the detail of the analysis of each lexeme will be
represented to make clear the differences in terms of the syntactic features, semantic
features and the equivalents of specific senses of the verbs under discussion.
2.4. Data Analysis and Discussions
The verbs are analysed in detail beginning with Say followed by Tell, Speak and
Talk. Each of these verbs is described in a separate section, and the analysis will be
conducted with a view to discovering such aspects of each verb as its syntax, semantics
performed by each of these verbs.
In this section, section 2.4.1 discusses the differences of syntactic features of English
verbs Say, Tell, Speak and Talk. Section 2.4.2. provides different meanings derived from
each of the four verbs in turn; and the section 2.4.3 describes the Vietnamese equivalents
of these English verbs.
2.4.1. Syntactic features of English verbs Say, Tell, Speak and Talk
26
According to Quirk et al (1972, 1985), the four English verbs say and tell, speak
and talk are capable of taking three arguments: the addresser, the addressee and the
matter which addressed. The addresser is realized as an NP which, functions as the
subject of the verb; the addressee is realized as a prepositional phrase (to NP) which
functions as the indirect object of the verb; and the matter addressed is realized as a PP
(about NP) or as that-complement. The following table can account for their Syntactic
and Semantic Regularities:

Table 2: Syntactic and Semantic Regularities of English verbs Studied
Syntactic function / Semantic Role
SAY
TELL
SPEAK
TALK
SUBJECT
SPEAKER
ACTIVE
PASSIVE
+
+
+
+
+
(+)
+
+
INDIRECT
OBJECT
ADDRESSEE

- O
i
to-phrase
-
+

++
(+)
-
++
-
+
DIRECT
OBJECT
MESSAGE


DIRECT
SPEECH
NOMINAL O
d

PRONOMINAL
so
that- O
d
Cl
wh- O
d
Cl
if/whether O
d
Cl
to-Infinitive


++

+
+
+
++
+
+
(+)
(+)
(+)

+
+
+
++
+
+
+
+
-

+
+
+
-
-
-
-
+

-

(+)
-
-
-
-
-
-
+
PREPOSITIONAL
OBJECT
ADDRESSEE

TOPIC


CHANNEL
CODE
MEDIUM
BENEFICIARY


SOURCE


with-phrase
at-phrase
of
about

on
on
in
for
against
at
after
from


-
-
(+)
+
(+)
(+)
+
(+)
-
-
+
(+)


-
-
(+)
++
(+)
(+)

+
?
-
-
-
(+)


+
-
++
+
(+)
(+)
+
(+)
+
-
(+)
-


+
(+)
+
++
(+)
(+)
+
(+)

+
(+)
-
-
MANNER
ADVERBIAL

++
(+)
++
+
Symbols: ++ : frequent; (+) : possible but rare - not exist
+ : typical; ? : improbable
27
As we can see the table 2, the verbs Say, Tell, Speak and Talk have been analyzed
here in terms of their syntactic features, which are actualized by the nuclear syntactic
constituents, i.e. the Subject (S), the Direct Object (O
d
), the Indirect Object (Ø-O
i
) and
the nonnuclear constituents of the sentence, i.e. the Prepositional Object (O
p
), and
Adverbials (Adv). The four verbs studied from the point of view of the Speaker,
characterized as Source / Transmitter / Sender or Reporter, whose predominant role is
that of active Subject. All of them allow the Hearer / Listener / Receiver / Receptor as an
Addressee, expressed by a to- Indirect Object (O
i
) or, with speak and talk, as an

Interactor profiled by a with- Prepositional Object (O
p
). Tell, the most prone to selecting
the O
i
, is the only one that takes the object alternation, selecting both a zero Indirect
Object (Ø-O
i
) and a to-Indirect Object (to-O
i
). There are differences in focus which boil
down to transitivity - Say and Tell are Message-oriented (transitive) acts whereas Speak
and Talk are mainly Linguistic Action-oriented (intransitive) activities. Say and Tell
profile the O
d
as Message. Say can take any type of O
d

NP Object, when it is Message-oriented, and a that-/wh- clause if it is message-content
oriented. Only exceptionally will say select a to-O
i
, which is the rule with tell. In the
informative paradigm, Tell most often frames the MessageContent by a that- / wh / to-
clause and only accidentally will it be followed by Direct Speech. A rough normative
correlation between the act denoted by the projecting linguistic action verb and the
complement structure of the embedded clause indicates that- clauses to be associated
with assertions, with a transfer of information or of knowledge and to- non-finite clauses,
with directives.
Because they are Speaker -and Actionoriented, Speak and Talk very rarely
select condensed message forms. Talk makes the transition from linguistic action verbs

to manner of speaking verbs. It is also the most Topic-oriented of them, often taking an
O
d
as its MessageTopic. Speak seldom does so. Speak refers to the faculty of speech
and to speech production complemented by a pronounceable entity or code.
From the table above, it must be noticed that the four verbs studied, to
some extent, have the same syntactic structures. However, they are used different
constructions in some cases. To provide readers a critical view, the following analysis
will be presented.
SAY:
28
Basically, the verb Say is a transitive verb which always takes a direct object. The
direct object of Say may assume a number of forms, ranging from direct speech to
pronominal items. Say may also be used intransitively, i.e. without any nuclear
constituents functioning as its direct object. Here are some examples of the direct object
of Say:
(i) a direct speech
(1)"said
(ii) a that-clause (noun clause)
(2) In the letter she said that the party was wonderful,
(iii) a wh-noun clause (especially in negative and questions):
(3)say when she would return
The verb is never followed directly by an indirect object pronoun. This is perhaps
the most common difficulty students have with say. If there is an indirect object, it must
 said  to me * He said me 
Much more common than say, however, in this kind of utterance - when you want to
mention the person or persons you are addressing the words to - is the verb Tell.
(iv) Noun phrases as the object of Say
There is another set of NPs which may also be assigned to this category. These are NPs
involving the noun ('word' or 'words') and an adjective specifier, e.g. 'say bitter words' =

'lament'; 'say untruthful words' = 'lie'; and     praise'. They are
normally followed by a TOPIC PP headed by on.
Numerically, the major pattern

with say is Verb + that-/ wh- Direct Object Clause
(O
d
Cl).
TELL:
This verb almost always occurs with an indirect object:
tell you
(5) Please tell me the story of your life
The verb does, however, occur without an indirect object and with a limited number of
direct objects in expressions such as tell a lie, tell a story, tell the truth, tell secrets:
(6) We can write poetry, tell jokes, make promises, explain, persuade, tell the
truth, or tell lies.
(7) "Why, will the black footman tell tales?" cried Miss Rebecca
29
It must have an overt indirect object in all other contexts, that is, a word that refers to a
person and which comes directly after it:
(8) I want to tell YOU how much I appreciate your kindness.
(9) Please don't tell JOHNNY about this.
If the direct object is a that-noun clause, it must also have an indirect object:
tell him that myself when I see him tommorrow.
It may also occur with an animate direct object ("me" and "everyone" below) and a to-
infinitive complement ("to stay" and "to come" below); this construction has an
imperative meaning:
(11) The doctor told me to stay in bed for a few days
(12) Tell everyone to come to dinner right away.
This verb usually is followed by a Prepositional Object. In terms of frequency, the

preposition about ranks first, followed by other prepositions that can introduce the Topic
such as on, of
SPEAK
This verb can take a direct object, but it does so rarely. Again, it may be followed by a
limited number of nouns, including expressions such as speak the truth and speak kind
words, as well as speak (names of languages):
(13) speak his mind
(14) She never had the courage to speak a word on the subject to
Rebecca; The verb Speak is used with the names and numbers of languages:
(15
speak a little Italian.
(16)I also know a little Spanish, so I can speak four languages.
This verb takes a to/with- indirect object which means that the receiver of the
message is drawn into the linguistic scene. The former option is considerably more
popular than the latter.
(17spoken to the manager about it.
Speak is followed by an adverb, which is usually an adverb of manner, as illustrated
below:
(18) remained a very powerful figure because he was able to speak so well.
The usage of the circumstance adverbial informs the listener of the way the message is
conveyed. Though not very frequent, it is one of the syntactic possibilities of Speak
30
TALK:
Most often, Talk does not have a direct object. It does occur in certain
expressions with a direct object, but these are idiomatic such as talk shop, talk sense, talk
turkey, ect.
(19) Are you two going to talk shop all night?
(20) You're always talking nonsense and scandal
This verb can take a to/with-indirect object:
(21) talk to Julie. And she never talked to him

(22) He said he was ready to talk with Saudi Arabia and with the United States
and Bush Administration has begun to talk to Hanoi (The New York Times)
About
can be combined with a NP, a that-clause or a wh-clause.
(23) Today we're going to talk about how the environment affects the way fish
use energy.
(24) You have talked about reducing taxes
2.4.2. Semantic features of English verbs Say, Tell, Speak and Talk
In section 2.4.2, meanings conveyed by each verb will be concerned in turn. In
section 2.4.2.1, I will be concerned with four specific meanings conveyed by Say, in
section 2.4.2.2, I will discuss three meanings conveyed by the verb Tell, Section 2.4.2.3
will describes three specific meanings conveyed by Speak and three meanings conveyed
by the verb Talk will be analyzed in section 2.4.2.4.
2.4.2.1. Meanings conveyed by Say
The wide variety of Direct Objects that the verb can take instantiate different
senses, profiling Say as the most Message-prone of the four verbs under study. Out of the
         that-Object Clause are
predominant with say. They vary with context, being able to reflect a wide variety of
a            
intentions, such as stating, advising, asking, requesting, ordering. The four following
meaings of Say will be analyzed taken from Oxford Adv  
(2003); Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2003).
(i) Repeat words
(ii) Give an example or a possibility
(iii) Express opinion