A contrastive analysis of commands in english and vietnamese=phân tích đối chiếu lời mệnh lệnh trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt đề trong các tin vắn trực tuyến tiếng anh về việt nam

VINH UNIVERSITY
FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT
**********

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƢƠNG THANH

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF COMMANDS
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
(PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU LỜI MỆNH LỆNH TRONG
TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

Graduation Thesis
Field: Linguistics

Vinh 2008


VINH UNIVERSITY
FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT
**********

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF COMMANDS
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
(PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU LỜI MỆNH LỆNH TRONG
TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

Graduation Thesis
Field: Linguistics

Student

: Nguyễn Thị Phương Thanh

Class

: 45B1 - English

Supervisor : Trần Thị Ngọc Yến, M.A

Vinh 2008


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my
supervisor, Ms. Tran Thi Ngoc Yen, M.A., whose advice, enthusiastic
instructions and useful materials much encouraged me to complete this
paper.
I am truly grateful to the Faculty of Foreign Languages for giving
me a chance to carry out this research, as well as for their cares about
students.
Also, my gratitudes are due to my family and friends who share with
me my worries and my joyfulness in the studying process.
My heartfelt thanks to you all!

Vinh, May 2008
Student

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thanh

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1:

The five general functions of speech acts

Table 2:

The research procedure

Table 3:

Statistic results of the survey of the funny stories

Table 4:

Comparison of the frequency of using commands in English
and Vietnamese

LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1: Comparison of commands in imperative form in English and
Vietnamese
Chart 2: Comparison of commands in interrogative form in English and
Vietnamese
Chart 3: Comparison of commands in declarative form in English and
Vietnamese
Chart 4: Comparison of direct command expression in English and
Vietnamese
Chart 5: Comparison of indirect command expression in English and
Vietnamese

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
LIST OF TABLES AND LIST OF CHARTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART A : INTRODUCTION
1.

Rationale of the study ....................................................... .......... 1

2.

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

3.

Scope of the study ............................................................. .......... 2

4.

Methods of the study ......................................................... .......... 2

5.

Design of the study ........................................................... .......... 3

PART B: CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Theoretical Background
1.1.

Contrastive analysis .......................................................... .......... 4

1.2.

Speech acts ........................................................................ .......... 5

1.2.1. Definition of speech act .................................................... .......... 5
1.2.2. Types of speech acts ......................................................... .......... 6
1.3.

The sentence ...................................................................... .......... 8

1.3.1. Different definitions of the sentence ................................. .......... 8
1.3.2. Classification of sentences ................................................ .......... 10
1.4.

Command .......................................................................... .......... 11

1.4.1. Definition of command ..................................................... .......... 11
1.4.2. The rules of command interpretation ................................ .......... 11
1.5.

Summary ............................................................................ .......... 13

Chapter 2: The study
2.1.

Research questions ............................................................ .......... 14

2.2.

Data collection .................................................................. .......... 14

2.2.1. Instrument ......................................................................... .......... 14
2.2.2. Data collection procedure ................................................. .......... 14


2.3.

Research procedure ........................................................... .......... 16

2.4.

Results ............................................................................... .......... 17

Chapter 3: A contrastive analysis of commands in English and
Vietnamese
3.1.

Forms of commands in English and Vietnamese ............. .......... 18

3.1.1. Commands in form of Imperative sentences .................... .......... 18
3.1.2. Commands in form of Elliptical imperative sentences ..... .......... 19
3.1.3. Commands in form of “Wh” questions ............................ .......... 21
3.1.4. Commands in form of “Yes/No” question ....................... .......... 22
3.1.5. Commands in form of declarative sentences .................... .......... 23
3.2.

Command expressions ...................................................... .......... 24

3.2.1. Directness .......................................................................... .......... 24
3.2.2. Indirectness ....................................................................... .......... 25
3.3.

Words used with commands ............................................. .......... 27

3.4.

Vocatives ........................................................................... .......... 31

3.4.1. Endearment ....................................................................... .......... 31
3.4.2. Nouns ................................................................................ .......... 32
3.4.3. Professional vocatives ...................................................... .......... 32
3.5.

Frequency of using commands in English and Vietnamese ......... 33

3.5.1. Requesting ......................................................................... .......... 33
3.5.1.1. Asking for help ............................................................... .......... 33
3.5.1.2. Asking for information ................................................... .......... 33
3.5.2. Apologizing ....................................................................... .......... 33
3.5.3. Instructing ......................................................................... .......... 34
3.5.4. Advising ............................................................................ .......... 34
3.5.5. Suggesting ......................................................................... .......... 34
3.5.6. Inviting .............................................................................. .......... 35
3.5.7. Permitting .......................................................................... .......... 35
3.5.8. Warning ............................................................................. .......... 35


3.5.9. Begging ............................................................................. .......... 35

3.5.10.Encouraging ..................................................................... .......... 36
3.5.11.Attracting attention ........................................................... .......... 36
3.5.12.Betting .............................................................................. .......... 36
3.5.13.Threatening ...................................................................... .......... 36
3.5.14.Borrowing ........................................................................ .......... 36
3.5.15.Offering ............................................................................ .......... 37
3.5.16.Informing .......................................................................... .......... 37
3.5.17.Making rules ..................................................................... .......... 37
3.5.18.Exchanging ....................................................................... .......... 37
3.5.19. Reminding ....................................................................... .......... 38
3.6.

Summary ........................................................................... .......... 39

PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Summary ................................................................................. .......... 40
2. Implications ............................................................................. .......... 40
3. Suggestions for further study .................................................. .......... 41
REFERENCES .......................................................................... .......... 42
APPENDIX ............................................................................................


PART A : INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
At secondary and high schools, while learning English, I was taught
to pay much attention to words, sentence patterns, grammatical rules, etc.
out of contexts, i.e. we only focused on the linguistic competence. To go
further, I had a chance of studying Pragmatics, Contrastive Analysis and
Discourse Analysis in which I was much interested, especially the notion of
Speech act which explains that “communication competence includes not

only knowledge of the linguistics forms of a language but also knowledge of
when, how and to whom it is appropriate to use these forms” (Hymes,
1976).
I thought that a research on speech acts will be helpful to my
communication competence in real contexts. In addition, speech acts are
also the concern of the whole community using the language. It can be said
that “how to do things with words” is an issue throughout the ages. Speech
acts help the language speakers mutually understand and communicate
effectively.
Among various kinds of speech acts such as apology, invitation,
offer, complaint, advice, promise, command, greeting, ect. the speech act of
command interests me most for its popularity and diversity. People widely
use it in daily conversation (e.g. Give her my thanks!/ Này, khẽ chứ!), in
instruction (e.g. Trước hết hãy lấy cái xoong sạch / Now you sit in my
chair, watch my way of doing it and take a lesson!), in advertising (e.g. Hãy
thưởng thức! Let‟s join!). Those who are close, as well as those who first
meet each other, also use it, regardless of their ages. Moreover, the research
on commands, as far as I am concerned, has not been carried out yet.
For the above things, I decided to choose the topic „Contrastive
analysis of commands in English and Vietnamese‟, the research on which


is very useful for Vietnamese learners of English and also for those who
care about the way English and Vietnamese speakers express commands.

2. The aims of the study
The study aims to:
 Investigate how the English speakers express commands in different
situations.
 Find out how commands are expressed differently by the Vietnamese

speakers.
 Help English or Vietnamese learners improve their sociocultural
competence in order to appropriately express commands in the second
language.
 Show the different forms of commands in English and Vietnamese and
some factors that have influences on them.
 Show the frequency of using commands in communication.

3. Scope of the study
The research is towards a contrastive analysis of commands in
English and Vietnamese. Within the scope of study, we mainly focus on the
forms which English and Vietnamese speakers use to give commands and
the ways of expression in order to achieve effectiveness in communication.
We also study some factors related to the speech act of command and
its frequency in a micro scope.

4. Research methods
Several methods are used in the study:
4.1. Descriptive method
This method is used for describing theoretical background, such as the
definition of CA, classification of speech acts, the rules of command
interpretation, ect.
4.2. Collective method


This method is used for collecting materials and funny stories from a
variety of sources.
4.3. Analysis method
This method is used for analysing the materials and the data before we
achieve results.

4.4. Contrastive and comparative method
This method is used for contrasting and comparing the way English and
Vietnamese speakers use to express commands.

5. Design of the study
The thesis comprises of three main parts: introduction, contents and
conclusion.
In part A, introduction, we introduce the rationale, the aims, the
scope, the methods and the design of study.
Part B, contents, is the most important one which consists of three
chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the theoretical background of
the research. Chapter 2 briefly presents the research questions, data
collection instruments and procedures used in the study. The results are
also outlined in the chapter. Chapter 3 gives a full presentation and
discussion for the contrastive analysis of commands in English and
Vietnamese.
Part C, conclusion, summarizes what we mention and discuss in the
previous part. Some suggestions for further studies are pointed out in this
part.
References are listed in the last page.


PART B: CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background of
the reseach and consists of four main sections: Contrastive analysis, speech
acts, the sentence and commands.

1.1. Contrastive analysis (CA)
When people attempt to study a pair of languages with a view to

identifying the structural differences and similarities, they are doing CA.
Carl James, in his book published in 1980, states that CA is a
linguistics enterprise aimed at producing inverted (i.e contrastive, not
comparative) two-valued typologies and founded on the assumption that
languages can be compared. In other words, CA is viewed as an
interlinguistic, bidirectional phenomenon which is concerned with both
form and function of languages. As such, CA must view languages
psycholinguistically and sociolinguistically as a system to be both
described and acquired.
CA is also presented as a useful contributor to studies in
interlanguage and error prediction and diagnosis. Combined with error
analysis, CA is a useful tool for educators interested in adjusting their
teaching to their students‟ knowledge.
Whatever kind of CA somebody is doing, he/she needs to find out
the differences and similarities between the two languages although CA
focuses on differences.
Another item which should be reviewed is “pure” and “applied” CA.
First, we give a thought to “pure” and “applied” linguistics. “Pure”
linguistics is the theoretical studies, and “applied” linguistics, as Corder
suggests, is not a science in its own right, but merely a technology based on
“pure” linguistics.


Corder (1973:10) states that “the application of linguistics knowledge
to some object – or applied linguistics, as its name implies – is an activity.
It is not a theoretical study. It makes use of theoretical studies. The applied
linguist is a consumer, or user, not a producer, of theories.”
The answer to the question “Is CA a form of “pure” or “applied”
linguistics?” is – of both. It has been assumed that a procedure whereby
each of the two language involved in the CA has been analysed

independently beforehand, after which the two resulting analyses are
juxtaposed for purposes of comparison. The CA would seem therefore to
involved to phases, the first being that of independent description (pure
linguistics) and the second that of comparison (applied linguistics)
Within the scope of study, we do an applied CA, a branch of
“applied” linguistics.

1.2. Speech acts
1.2.1. Definition of speech act
Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but
there are all sorts of other things we can do with words. Yule, G. (1996: 47)
states that “in attempting to express themselves, people do not only produce
utterances containing grammatical structures and words, they perform
actions via those utterances... Actions performed via utterances are
generally called speech acts”. Thereby speech acts can be defined as
utterances

that

serve

functions

in

communication,

or

acts

of

communication.
We perform speech acts when we offer an apology, greeting, request,
complaint, invitation, compliment, refusal and so on. A speech act might
contain just one word, as in “sorry!” to perform an apology, or several
words or sentences like: “I‟m sorry I forgot your birthday. I just let it slip
my mind.”


Speech acts include real-life interations and require not only
knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within
a given context and culture. The same utterance can be interpreted as
different kinds of speech acts in different contexts and cultures. For
example, the utterance “Where are you going?” is likely to be interpreted
as a greeting in Vietnamese culture but a question in Western countries.
1.2.2. Types of speech acts
Austin divides the action performed by producing an utterance into
three related acts. First, there is a locutionary act, “the act of saying
something”. Second, there is an illocutionary act, the idea of which can be
captured by emphasising that “by saying something, we do something”.
Third, there is a perlocutionary act, depending on which the addressee
does something.
In other words, a locutionary act is the basis act of utterance. It
produces a meaningful utterance. An illocutionary act has force, it performs
a function via utterance. A perlocutionary act has an effect upon the
addressee. However, these three acts are not altogether separable. For
instance, by describing an imminently dangerous situation (locutionary act)
in a tone that is designed to have the force of warning (illocutionary act) the

speaker may actually frighten the hearer into moving (perlocutionary act).
According to Yule, G (1996 : 49), of these three dimensions the most
discussed is the illocutionary act. Indeed, the term “speech act” is often
meant to refer just to the same thing as the term “illocutionary act”, which
Austin originally introduces in How to do Things with words (1962). Thus,
greeting in saying “Hi, John!”, apologizing in saying “Sorry for that!”,
describing in saying “It‟s snowing”, making a promise in saying “I promise
I‟ll give it back” are all speech acts or illocutionary acts.
An interesting type of illocutionary act is the one performed in the
utterance of what Austin calls “explicit performative utterances”, in


which one uses sentences like “I nominate John to be president”, “I
sentence you to ten year‟s imprisonment”, or “I promise to pay you back...”
to perform acts of the very sorts named by the verb, such as nominating,
sentencing, promising.
Searle (1975) sets up the following classification of speech acts or
illocutionary acts:
Representatives are speech acts that state what the speaker believes
to be the case or not, e.g. assertions, conclusions and descriptions
Directives are speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a
particular action, e.g. requests, commands and advice
Commissives are speech acts that commit a speaker to some future
action, e.g. promises and oaths
Expressives are speech acts that expresses on the speaker's attitudes
and emotions towards the proposition, e.g. congratulations, excuses and
thanks
Declaratives are speech acts that change the reality in accord with
the proposition of the declaration, e.g. baptisms, pronouncing someone
guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife

These five general functions of speech acts with their features are
summarized in the following table:
Speech act

Direction of fit

type
Declaratives

S = Speaker
X = Situation

words change the world

S causes X

Representatives make words fit the world

S believes X

Expressives

make words fit the world

S feels X

Directives

make the world fit words

S wants X

Commissives

make the world fit words

S intends X

Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts - adapted from Yule, G
(1996 : 55)


Another approach to distinguishing types of speech acts is based on
the relationship between structures and functions.
Yule, G (1996 : 54) states that “ there is an easily recognised
relationship between the three structural forms (declarative, interrogative,
imperative) and the three general communicative functions (statement,
question, command/request)”
E.g. Declarative: the class finishes at 6p.m (statement)
Interrogative: Does the class finish at 6p.m? (question)
Imperative: Finish the class at 6p.m! (command)
Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a
function, we have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect
relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech
act. Thus, a declarative used to make a statement is a direct speech act, but
a declarative used to make a request is an indirect speech act.
E.g. “The bar will be closed in ten minutes”, says a bartender.
There is a direct relationship between the words uttered and the act
of informing the partrons that the bar will close in ten minutes. Less direct
is the connection between the utterance and the act of urging the partrons to

order one last drink. Clearly there is no linguistic connection here, for the
words make no mention of drinks or ordering. The indirect connection is
inferential. Therefore, a speech act succeeds if the addressee‟s
interpretation concides with the speaker‟s intention in a specific context.
Within the scope of study, we only study the direct and indirect
speech acts of commands.

1.3. The sentence
1.3.1. Different definitions of the sentence
The question “what is a sentence?” is probably more difficult than it
might appear. C.Fries, an American linguist, counts more than two hundred


definitions of the sentence. In defining a sentence, it is important to
remember that written prose and informal spoken language are different.
In traditional school grammar, a sentence is said to contain a subject
and a predicate (the predicate is all the rest of the sentence after the
subject).
E.g.
Subject

Predicate

The cat

Smiled

The cat

smiled enigmatically at Alice

An online dictionary at />also defines sentence as “a grammatical unit that is syntactically
independent and has a subject that is expressed or, as in imperative
sentences, understood and a predicate that contains at least one finite
verb”
Leonard Bloomfield (1926), an American linguist, defines that “each
sentence is an independent linguistic form, not included by virtue of any
grammatical construction in any larger linguistic form”. In other words, a
sentence is capable of standing alone.
According to Vinogradov, a Russian grammar professor, “a sentence
is a complete unit of the utterance grammatically constituted with rules of a
certain language, being the most important device to denote and to convey
thoughts. In sentences, there exists not only the description of reality but
also the relationship between the speaker and the reality”. (quoted by Đỗ
Thị Kim Liên, 1998:100)
Nguyễn Lân, a Vietnamese grammarian, has also given out a full
definition of the sentence saying that “Many words combined to show a
clear sense about actions, states or characteristics of things are called a
sentence” (quoted by Đỗ Thị Kim Liên, 1998:100)


In summary, it is quite problematic trying to draw a perfect
definition of the sentence, but many linguists have presented some
resonable ones satisfying the need of understanding about the sentence.
1.3.2. Classification of sentences
There are a few criteria to classify sentences, such as by structure, by
subject, by purpose, etc. However, this paper is concerned with the
classification by purposes which shows us the sentence forms and their
functions.
Linguists use the terms declarative, imperative, interrogative and

exclamative for the syntactic forms, and they use statement, command,
question and exclamation for the functions. Thus:
a) A declarative sentence commonly makes a statement with a period at the
end.
E.g. Ducks lay eggs in the spring.
b) An interrogative sentence is commonly used to ask questions or to
request information and a question is marked at the end of the sentence.
E.g. Is this a new shirt?
c) An exclamative sentence is generally a more emphatic form of
statement. It is also used to express strong feelings. It may begin with
“what” and “how” and uses an exclamation mark at the end.
E.g. What a beautiful place it is!
Wow, I‟m excited about this trip!
How well everyone played!
d) An imperative sentence is ordinarily used to make a demand, command
or request. The subject is usually omitted but it is understood as the person
pronouns “you” or “we”
E.g. Close the door.
Be quiet!
A gentler or more polite form of this kind begin with “Let‟s”


E.g. Let‟s have a drink.
Sometimes, a sentence of a given form has a different function from the
usual one.
E.g. Declarative sentences:
We will set off on Sunday (statement)
You must clean the floor right now (command)
I want to know your name (question)
In this paper, we are concerned with the sentences which have the

function of commanding.

1.4. Commands
1.4.1. Definition of command
According to the online dictionary />there are two senses being held in a command:
First, a command is an illocutionary act that has the directive
illocutionary point of getting another to do or not to do something
E.g. Turn off the radio, please.
Would you turn off the radio?
Second, a command is a syntactic sentence type in a language that is
used primarily to express such illocutionary acts and is described as
having imperative form.
Of these two senses, we in this paper focus on the former : command
as a kind of speech act.
1.4.2. The rule of command interpretation
Labov (1972:255) states “If A requests B to perform an action X at a
time T, A‟s utterance will be heard as a valid command only if the
following preconditions hold:
1) X needs to be done for purpose Y
2) B has the ability to do X
3) B has the obligation to do X


4) A has the right to tell B to do X
These preconditions appear in almost every rule of interpretation and
production which concerns making and responding to commands”.
James, C. (1980 : 124) argues that a number of points can be made
about these four conditions. The first is that they are almost certainly
universals, i.e. every speaker or hearer of every language refers to. The
second point relates these conditions to contexts and pragmatics, in that

speaker will select different realisations of the act in different settings. For
example, when a mother says to her child: “Your face is dirty”. The child
will infer from the conjuntion of contextual and verbal information that he
should go and wash. He will interpret the utterance as a command. In a
different setting, perhaps in the actor‟s dressing-room in a theatre, where
the actor has been blackening his face to play the role of an African man,
the make-up artist‟s “your face is dirty” will be received as a statement.
Widdowson (1975) exploits Labov‟s framework in two ways that are
extremely interesting to the contrastivist. He lists no more fewer than 17
ways in which commands are issued in English.
a) S can refer to any one of the four conditions directly by a declarative
sentence
1) These windows need cleaning.
2) You can clean windows, John.
3) You are in charge of windows.
4) It‟s my duty to make sure the windows get cleaned.
b) S can refer indirectly to the four conditions. He performs an “indirect
speech act”, which Searle (1975 : 60) defines as “cases in which one
illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another”.
Indirect acts of this sort are used for “hints, insinuations, irony and
metaphor”. Possible hints for getting B to clean the windows include:
5) I can‟t see through these windows.


6) I‟m too ill to clean these windows.
7) Somebody‟s forgotten to clean the windows.
8) I hate having to tell people to clean the windows.
c) S can draw H‟s attention to the four conditions by using an interrogative
that refers directly to each:
9) Are those windows clean?

10) Have you been to ill to clean windows?
11) Aren‟t you in charge of the window-cleaning?
12) Did I forget to tell you to clean the windows?
d) S refers indirectly to the conditions by means of interrogatives. None of
these makes explicit reference to the conditions. H has to do the work of
making the necessary connections:
13) Do you like living in a dark room?
14) Have you run out of “windowlene” then?
15) Have I met the new chap of in charge of window-cleaning?
16) Do you think I like going round giving people orders all day?
e) There is the imperative for issuing commands:
17) Clean those windows
1.5. Summary
In brief, in this chapter we have reviewed the major issues of the
theoretical background related to our investigation. Of all, the speech act of
command

is most concerned. In the following chapter, the research

questions, the procedures, the data collection as well as the results of the
investigation will be outlined.


CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

2.1. Research questions
This study addresses the three following questions:
1. How do the English speakers express the commands in different
situations?
2. How are commands expressed differently by the Vietnamese speakers?

3. How is the frequency of using commands in English and Vietnamese?
In order to answer the above questions, we choose the data collection
method which will be mentioned in the following section.

2.2. Data collection
2.2.1. Instrument
343 commands from 224 different funny stories in both languages
are collected. 152 of these commands are in English and the rest in
Vietnamese.
2.2.2. Data collection procedure
We read a large number of funny stories in both English and
Vietnamese and randomly collected 224 of those which contain expressions
of commands. In total, there were 152 commands in English and 191 in
Vietnamese.
The English ones were subdivided into three groups in terms of form,
namely imperative, declarative and interrogative commands. And in terms
of expressions they are subdivided into two groups, namely direct and
indirect commands. Those in Vietnamese are subdivided in the same way.
After that, we have the data for contrastive analysis.
E.g.
1) An English funny story contains commands in the form of imperative
sentence:
Nasreddin was sitting by a window in his house one day in the
middle of Winter, when he heard women outside crying. He put his head


out of the window, and saw a lot of people coming towards his house. They
were carrying a dead man, and the women were crying, „Oh, why are you
leaving us to go to place without light and without a fire and without food?
It will be dark there, and you will be cold and hungry. Nobody will look

after you there!‟
„My god!‟ said Nasreddin to his wife. „They are bringing the dead
man here. Quick, lock the door! Don‟t let him in!‟(12)
2) An English funny story contains commands in the form of declarative
sentence:
A man was sitting in a waiting hall of a station smoking when a
woman came in and, sitting down beside him, remarked:
„Sir, if you were a gentleman, you would not smoke here‟.
„Madam,‟ he said „if you were a lady, you would sit a little farther away‟.
Pretty soon, the woman burst out cruelty.
„If you were my husband, I should put poison in your coffee‟.
„Well, madam‟ returned the young man, as he puffed away at his pipe „If
you were truly my wife, I would rather drink it‟ (17)
3) An English funny story contains a command in the form of interrogative
sentence:
"An abstract noun," the teacher said, "is something you can think of,
but you can't touch it. Can you give me an example of one?"
"Sure," a teenage boy replied. "My father's new car." (44)
4) A Vietnamese funny story contains a command in the form of
interrogative sentence:
Vợ:
- Trước kia, mỗi ngày anh đều tặng em một bông hồng, sao bây giờ chẳng
thấy nữa?


Chồng:
- Anh hỏi em này: người đi câu được cá rồi thì có cần tiếp tục mớm mồi
cho nó nữa không? (9)
5) A Vietnamese funny story contains a command in the form of
declarative sentence:

Vợ than phiền với chồng:
- Suốt từ hồi cưới nhau đến giờ em chỉ mặc có mỗi bộ này thơi.
- Thì suốt từ hồi lấy nhau anh cũng chỉ đi chơi với mình em thơi. (15)
6) A Vietnamese funny story contains a command in the form of imperative
sentence:
Tên cướp lăm lăm khẩu súng chỉa vào chủ tiệm: "Nghe cho rõ: Vét hết tiền
trong két ra đây." Ông chủ sụt sùi: "Thật xui xẻo, hôm qua bọn trộm đã
khoắng sạch cả rồi!"
Tên cướp nổi giận: "Đồ ngốc, tại sao khơng đóng cửa cho cẩn thận?" (87)
Those underlined sentences are commands expressed either directly
or indirectly. They are listed in different groups for analysis.

2.3. Research procedure
The research procedure can be summarized in the following table:
Step
Procedure
1
Reviewing literature.
2
Collecting English and Vietnamese funny stories from books and
other sources.
3
Finding commands from those funny stories.
4
Subdividing the commands into groups in terms of forms and
expressions.
5
Analysing the data.
6
Doing CA of commands in English and Vietnamese.

7
Formulating the conclusion.
8
Suggesting some cultural implications.
Table 2: The research procedure


2.4. Results
The following table will show out the data of the survey of 224
funny stories.
D and I respectively means Directness and Indirectness
Imperative

Elliptical

form

imperative form

D
English
Vietnam
ese

51.32%

I

0% 1.32%

51.32%
69.63%

D

69.63%

I

D

I

0%

17.11%

6.56%

1.32%

0% 0.52%

Declarative form

0%

0.52%

Interrogative

form
D

19.74% 3.95%

23.67%
8.38%

5.76%

I

23.69%
8.38%

14.14%

7.32%

15.7%

Table 3: Statistic results of the survey of the funny stories
Some discussion of the results will be presented in the chapter 3: A
contrastive analysis of commands in English and Vietnamese.


CHAPTER 3: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF COMMANDS IN
ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

3.1. Forms of commands in English and Vietnamese

3.1.1. Commands in form of Imperative sentences
The most familiar form of commands in English is imperative
sentences whose subjects are usually omitted but understood as the person
pronouns “you” or “we”. This form occurs very often whenever a command
is called for.
E.g. 1. Just take it easy! (1) (*)
2. Let‟s make sure he‟s dead. (1)
In Vietnamese the imperative form of commands is widely used.
Those Vietnamese ones seem to be more various. Their subjects are also
the second pronoun with a large number of words based on the social
relationship between the S (Speaker) and the H (Hearer), such as: bạn, anh,
em, chị, anh chị, bà, ông, cậu, mày, u mày, bố, mẹ, con, thầy, cô, bác, bà
con, ngươi, tụi bay,…
E.g. 1. Anh đứng đây đợi tôi mua về cho. (2)
2. Anh chị cho biết lý do ly hôn! (18)
3. Chiếc nhẫn vàng bà đưa cho cậu cả nhé. (20)
4. Cậu phải cắt đứt thói quen đó của cơ ấy. (31)
5. Ngươi cứ nói. (73)
6. Thầy cứ hỏi xin ba em thử ạ! (44)
Sometimes the subjects are omitted:
E.g. 1. Im đi! (46)
2. Bắt thằng ăn cướp! (5)
3. Kêu ca gì, đợi chuyến sau! (29)
Note: (*) (1), as well as the numbers in brackets, is the order of the story
from which the command preceding it is collected. We listed the names of all
stories at the end of this paper.