VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FINAL ASSIGNMENT
CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS
Lecturer:
Dr. Nguyễn Huy Kỷ
Student:
Nhâm Thị Hồng Mai
Code:
20045273
Hanoi, June, 2021
Question 1: What is Contrastive Linguistics? Is it the same as Comparative
Linguistics? How are they different?
What is Contrastive Linguistics?
There have been various definitions of Contrastive Linguistics by scholars or
researchers around the world. In the following analyzation, I would like to firstly
define the Contrastive Linguistics; and secondly, examine the differences between
‘to contrast’ and ‘to compare’ in Contrastive Analysis (C.A).
James (1980) delineates CA as a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing
inverted (i.e. contrastive, not comparative) two-valued typologies and founded
on the assumption that languages can be compared.
According to Johansson and Hofland (1994:25), "language comparison is of great
interest in a theoretical as well as an applied perspective. It reveals what is general
and what is language specific and is therefore important both for the understanding
of language in general and for the study of the individual languages compared".
Besides, Fisiak (1981) defines Contrastive Linguistics as “a sub-discipline of
linguistics” concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or
subsystems of languages in order to analyze both the differences and similarities
between them.
Oluikpe (1982) states that C.A. is the one in which the similarities and differences
between two (or more) languages at particular levels are explicated in particular
context of a selected theoretical framework.
Wikipedia provides the definition of Contrastive Linguistics as a practiceoriented linguistic approach that seeks to describe the differences and
similarities between a pair of languages (hence it is occasionally called
"differential linguistics")
What are the linguistic components of CA?
The framework within which the two linguistics descriptions are organized
mean 3 things. First, CA adopts the linguistics tactics of diving up the unwieldy
concept "a language" into three smaller and more manage- able areas: the levels
of phonology, grammar and lexis. Secondly, use is made of the descriptive
categories of linguistics: unit, structure, class, and system. Thirdly, a CA utilizes
descriptions arrived at under the same 'model' of language. We shall now
consider each of these in turn.
A. Levels of Language
The four descriptive statements of our hypothetical native speaker is each made
on a different level:
a) on the level of phonology
b) on the level of lexis
c) on the level of morphology
d) on the level of syntax
1. Procedural Orientation
On account of the linguists’ perception of feasibility and a conviction that the
phonology of a language is somehow ‘basic’ and merits priority in description,
the traditional procedural direction has been dictated that the order of
descriptions follows phonology, morphology and syntax. However, in fact, the
procedural orientation of describing the phonology initially has been observed
relatively or entirely neglected of the other descriptive levels.
2. Mixing Levels
It is regulated that ‘mixing of levels’, i.e. the level of phonology is described
with other linguistics level, is not allowed. However, these days, mixing is
accepted because of the relation of some language fact.
All CA follow 2 steps: first, the stage of descriptions is introduced when one of
the two languages is described on the suitable level; second, the stage of
juxtaposition is carried out for comparison. The action of cross levels could be
performed at both stages, but it will be frequently seen at the comparison stage.
B. Categories of Grammar
According to Haliday (1961: 274), there are 4 fundamental categories: unit,
structure, class, system. The units of grammar, which are arranged on the scale
from ‘largest’ to ‘smallest’, include: sentence – clause – phrase – word –
morpheme. This order implies a scale called the rank scale. In terms of structure,
Haliday suggests that “A structure is thus an arrangement of elements ordered in
‘places’”. In English, the structure of the unit clause contains Subject,
Predicator, Complement and Adjunct. Regarding class, there are 3 elements:
noun phrase, verb phrase which plays the role of the Predicator, and adverbial
phrase which occurs as Adjunct. About system, each category owes a system:
systems of sentences, of clauses, of groups, of words and of morphemes. To be
more specific, systems at rank are mood, transitivity, theme and information.
For the mood system, we normally recognize indicative and imperative or
declarative and interrogative. In English, the system of number offers a choice
between singular and plural. Besides, English also operates system of case as
common and genitive.
C. Language Models for CA on the Grammatical Level
There are numerous models for use in CA, according to James (1980) such as
the structuralist or ‘taxonomic’; the Chomskyan ‘Standard T-G’; Krzeszowski’s
Contrastive Generative Grammar and Fillmore’s Case Grammar.
1. Structural or ‘Taxonomic’ Model
The structural model is known as Immediate Constituent analysis which claims
that any grammatical construction could be reduced to pairs of constituents. This
model enables us to measure the difference in grammatical structure and to
establish what is the maximum difference between any two language systems.
Applying Immediate Constituent analysis in a noun phrase, we see that lovely
old toy (lovely + old toy) and very old toy (very old + toy) can be analyzed in 2
ways. Therefore, firstly, the decision of the distribution is determined by what
naturally goes with what, and secondly, by the basis of omissibility: if old is
omitted in the later, *very toy is a grammatically error. As a result, it can be
concluded that adjective can go with noun, but the combination of adverb and
noun is a non-construction. This type of analysis suggests that language is
structured on two axes which are horizontal axis describing construction-types
and vertical one defining the possibility of fillers for each position.
2. Transformational-Generative Grammar
The Transformational-Generative Grammar, i.e. recognize a level of deep
structure and a level of surface structure, sets out to specify the notion of and
limits of grammaticality for the language under its purview. In this method, the
structure is related by sets of transformation. While the syntactic component of
the grammar is ‘generative’, i.e. the combination of two senses: projective and
explicit, the semantic component is ‘interpretative’.
3. Contrastive Generative Grammar
According to James (1980), CA involves 2 phases: independent description and
comparison while Krezeszowski (1974, 1976) states that ‘classical’ CAs are
‘horizontal’ in nature which are restricted to statements of 3 kinds of interlingua
relationship: those existing between L1 and L2 systems, or structures, or
transformational rules. Besides, Krzeszowski’s alternative, manifest in CGG is a
vertical CA. This type includes 2 features: it is a single bilingual grammar; it
proceeds in its origins from universal semantic inputs to language-specific
surface structure outputs in five stages (semantic, categorical, syntactic, lexical,
post-lexical).
4. Case Grammar
According to Birnbaum (1970), there are 2 types of deep structure: profound
structure and universal base hypothesis. The former is more complicated and
various than the later which is more simple. It has been proposed that the
‘profound’ deep structure in any language following the form that a sentence
consists a proposition and its modality. In CA, Case Grammar is considered as a
model met the CA’s purpose. Firstly, its finite universal array of groups enables
us to identify a common point of departure for any sentences we compare
structurally. Secondly, all the advantages of the transformational approach apply
well thanks to the surface structure.
Is it the same as Comparative Linguistics? How are they different?
Firstly, contrastive linguistics can be regarded as a branch of comparative
linguistics that is concerned with pairs of languages which are ‘socio-culturally
linked’. Two languages can be said to be socio-culturally linked when (i) they are
used by a considerable number of bi- or multilingual speakers, and/or (ii) a
substantial amount of ‘linguistic output’ (text, oral discourse) is translated from
one language into the other. According to this definition, contrastive linguistics
deals with pairs of languages such as Spanish and Basque, but not with Latin and
(the Australian language) Dyirbal, as there is no socio-cultural link between these
languages.
Secondly, the term ‘contrastive linguistics’ is also sometimes used for comparative
studies of (small) groups (rather than just pairs) of languages, and does not require
a socio-cultural link between the languages investigated. On this view, contrastive
linguistics is a special case of linguistic typology and is distinguished from other
types of typological approaches by a small sample size and a high degree of
granularity. Accordingly, any pair or group of languages (even Latin and Dyirbal)
can be subject to a contrastive analysis.
A comparative and contrastive linguistic analysis differs considerably from a
contrastive linguistic analysis. A comparative study is a diachronic comparison of
two or more linguistic systems with a view to classifying languages into families.
It is concerned with the history and evolution of languages. A comparative study is
interested in establishing the similarities or correspondences between languages.
A contrastive linguistic study is a synchronic comparison. It studies languages
belonging to the same period, without paying much attention to their histories or
language families. It is more concerned with dissimilarities than similarities.
Question 2: To the best of your knowledge and experiences, can you give
examples for illustration for the question mentioned above to show how you
can apply it/ them in your teaching institution?
A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOUN PHRASES IN ENGLISH
AND VIETNAMESE
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study is to indicate the differences of noun phrases between
English and Vietnamese and their influences in teaching and studying English in
Vietnamese context. Then, several pedagogical implications for those are also
stated. Through a contrastive view in this paper, I hope that I am able to clarify
the similarities and differences of English and Vietnamese noun phrases in terms
of their internal and external structures so that teachers can avoid making
mistakes and confusion in their translation.
I.
ENGLISH NOUN PHRASES
1.
Definition
According to L. H. Nguyen (2004), a noun phrase is a group of words with a
noun or pronoun as a main part (the head). The noun may only consist of a one
word such as “Tom, table” or it may be long and complex like “the cat that I
bought yesterday”.
2.
English noun phrase elements
In English grammar, a noun phrase has three components:
Pre-Modification
HEAD
Post-Modification
(optional)
(obligatory)
(optional)
The old
man
standing in front of the
shop
If the NP has more elements than the head, it may contain one or more premodifiers and/or one or more post-modifiers
2.1.
Pre-modification: consists of all the words placed before the head.
2.1.1. Determiner
A determiner is an optional element in a noun phrase that occurs at the front
most position in a noun phrase. It consists of Pre-determiner, CentralDeterminer, Post-determiner.
She meets [all her many friends]
[Pre-central-post- Noun]
2.1.2. Pre-modifier
Pre-modifiers are placed before the head, including nouns, adjective phrases
and participle phrases.
2.2.
The head
The word “noun phrase” means that a noun is the central element of a noun
phrase. That word is called “the head”. It may be an uncountable or a countable
noun or a pronoun. There are some kinds of pronouns functioning as heads:
personal pronoun, indefinite pronoun, possessive pronoun, and demonstrative
pronoun.
Eg:
He in he is my teacher.
Someone in someone in the room.
My in my is expensive.
That in that will affect his life.
2.3.
Post-modifier
Post modifiers are placed after the head includes prepositional phrases, relative
clauses, non-finite clauses and complementation.
3.
Function
Functions
Examples
Subject
The thief escaped.
Subject complement
She is a student.
Direct and indirect object
John gives {me} {a bar of candy.}
Direct - Indirect
II.
VIETNAMESE NOUN PHRASES
A noun phrase is a free combination of a noun nucleus and one or more than one
subordinate elements which are of 2 types: front element (Pre-nominal
modifiers) and end element (Post-nominal modifiers). (Doan, T.T., Nguyen, K.
H., Pham, N. Q., 2001).
In Vietnamese grammar, the noun phrase has the following structures.
Pre-modification
Totality
Articl
Quantifier
Head
Post-modification
Classifier N
Attributive
e
Demonstrative Prepositional
phrase/
modifiers
Cả
sác
bốn
cuốn
1.
Pre-nominal modifiers
1.1.
Articles (Art)
h
Possessive
Anh Việt
này
của tôi
Most researchers argue that there are no lexical articles in Vietnamese. In fact,
Vietnamese has a class of lexical articles. According to T. C. Nguyen (1975),
“một”, “những”, “các” are articles in Vietnamese. Where classifiers are used,
articles must precede the classifiers and the head noun as in:
“những con chim”
Art- CL-N
The article “một” is also an optional element in Vietnamese noun phrase and
precedes the head noun but where there is the presence of this article, it carries a
singular and indefinite interpretation as in “cô ấy bán một cuốn sách”
Sometimes “một” function as the numeral but the indefinite article “một” differs
from the homophonous numeral in a certain aspect.
1.2.
Numerals
Numerals occur in Vietnamese noun phrases with the word order [Num-CL-N].
They are express through system called cardinal number such as “một, hai, ba,
etc”. As I have already mentioned, Vietnamese numerals precede the particle
CÁI and classifiers or measure phrases (if there is one) as given below: Hai CÁI
bạn nhân viên này.
1.3.
Quantifiers
Vietnamese quantifiers are words that can occur within a noun phrase before a
head noun (with or without a classifier).

Estimated quantity: mấy, vài, dăm,…

Distribution: mọi, mỗi, từng, tất cả, toàn bộ,….
2. The head
The head of a noun phrase can be a single noun (e.g.: bàn) or a classifier + a
noun (e.g.: cái bàn).
Nguyen Tai Can claims if the noun is preceded by a classifier, both the noun and
the classifier form the head, so the head is the combination of T1 and T2.
Pre-modifier
Một
Head
Post-modifier
T1 (classifier)
T2 (noun)
cái
thảm
mới
According to K. L. Nguyen (2004), the two most widely used classifiers in
Vietnamese indicate inanimacy (“cái” as in “cái ghế”(chair)) and animacy
(“con” as in “con chó” (dog)). There are also many words that classify the shape
and size of objects such as “cuốn” (long and cylindrical) in “cuốn phim”
(camera film), “miếng” (small piece) in “miếng vải” (small piece of [torn] cloth)
and “cây” (long and slender) in “cây vàng” (long piece of gold).
Two classifiers cannot co-occur in the same noun phrase as illustrated follow:
Grammatical: cái ghế, con chim, người đàn ông
*Ungrammatical: con ghế, cái gà, cái đàn ông, cái con ghế, con cái chim
3.
Post-nominal modifiers
Noun can have any of the following post-modifiers: NPs, adjective phrases,
prepositional phrases, relative clauses, demonstrative, or possessive
phrases.
3.1.
Adjective phrases (AP)
The adjective may be preceded by an intensifier such as rất, hơi, khá as in Cái
ghế khá cũ. In case, there is a noun adjunct, the AP must follow the Noun
adjunct as in:
Quạt [trần] [cũ]
NP- NA- AP
3.2.
Possessives (PossP)
In Vietnamese grammar, Possessives are expressed by a prepositional phrase
consisting of preposition “của” (“of”) plus a possessor. The possessor can be a
personal pronoun, a kinship term, a proper name, or a full NP.
In Vietnamese, if there is co-occurrence between a PossP and an AP or PP in a
noun phrase, the PossP always follows the AP or PP. For example,
Một con cá vàng [của tôi]
Art- CL- N- AP – PossP
Những quyển sách [trong phòng ngủ] [của tôi]
Art- CL -N- PP - PossP
4.
Functions
Functions
Examples
Subject
Hà Nội là thủ đô của Việt Nam.
Predicate
Cả làng này đều nhà ngói.
Noun modifier (định ngữ)
Câu chuyện hài này rất nhạt nhẽo.
Object
Tôi đang làm bài tập.
.
III.
CONTRAST BETWEEN ENGLISH NOUN PHRASES AND
VIETNAMESE NOUN PHRASES
1.
Similarities
1.1.
Elements
English and Vietnamese noun phrases have some similar elements such as
article, demonstrative, possessive, etc. They may be in different word order but
they have the same functions which help the head noun have the clear meaning.
1.2.
Functions
English and Vietnamese noun phrases all share the same functions to each other
such as subjects, noun modifiers, objects and adverbials.
2.
Differences
2.1.
Word order
Another aspect that we need to pay attention to is word order. The order of subconstituents of English noun phrases is more rigid than that of Vietnamese noun
phrases.
Word order
English
Determiner – adjective - noun
Vietnamese
Classifier – noun - adjective
Classifier

Simultaneously, Vietnamese possessives are prepositional phrases beginning
with “của”. They follow the head noun and normally occur as the right most
position in a noun phrase as in: Những con chim trong lồng của tôi rất quý. That
is not the case of English possessives. They are pre-determiners in noun phrases
thus precede the head nouns as in the following sentence: My friend is very
generous.
Then, in Vietnamese noun phrase, noun does not allow any modifying adjective
phrase to its left. In English, on the other hand, we can put an adjective phrase
before the head noun. Thus, it’s acceptable to say “a new table” in English but
we cannot say “một chiếc mới bàn” in Vietnamese.
In addition, in Vietnamese, ordinal numerals occur post-nominally and are
introduced by the marker thứ ‘order, rank’ as in: Tôi là người con thứ nhất trong
gia đình. In English, on the contrary, ordinal numbers precede the head noun so
the sentence below is grammatical in English: The first cat is more beautiful.
It’s important to notice that in English noun phrase, it is possible to use
quantifiers to function as pre-determiners or post-determiners as in:
All these books
PreD-Dem- NP
The several rooms of the house
Art- PostD-NP
2.2 Hierarchy relationships
In terms of hierarchical relationship, I would like to discuss the following main
points.
First of all, the occurrence of English nouns and determiners is obligatory,
whereas that of Vietnamese is optional. Therefore, the following sentence is
ungrammatical: I buy table. However, in Vietnamese, the sentence “Tôi mua
bàn” is grammatical. Furthermore, where the English language is concerned,
there can be as many as three determiners prior to the head noun as shown in the
following
[The first two] answers
Article- ordinal-cardinal
Secondly, the optional element- particle CÁI can appear in Vietnamese noun
phrase as in: ba CÁI ghế kia. In English language, there is no such case.
IV.
PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
From what I have discussed so far, I would like to suggest some teaching
implications for teaching as well as studying English as a second language.
Actually, students tend to translate their target language based on knowledge of
their mother tongue. Hence, due to differences in hierarchical relationships,
word order, and co-occurrence restrictions between English and Vietnamese
noun phrases, students are easy to make mistakes when translating from English
to Vietnamese and vice versa.
Firstly, they tend to put the wrong order of constituents in a noun phrase. For
example, the Vietnamese expression “một quyển sách quý” may be translated
into English like this “a book precious”. Therefore, as teachers we should give
enough explanation of negative transfers in word order between the two
languages or we give some funny expressions like “beautiful girl” “handsome
boy” and distinguish them with “cô gái xinh đẹp” and “cậu bé đẹp trai”,
respectively so that students may have some impressions of this grammar point.
Secondly, the occurrence of English nouns and determiners is necessary,
whereas that of Vietnamese is optional. Therefore, Vietnamese students tend to
produce nouns alone, without any determiners or sometimes, they cannot find
the equivalent determiners in Vietnamese. For instance, there is a slight
difference between the articles “các” and “những”. “Các” can only occur in
contexts that denote definite noun phrases while “những” can only occur in
contexts that denote indefinite ones. As a result, students tend to miss “the”
when translating the expression “Các quyển sách quý” into English: “precious
books” instead of “the precious books”.
transfers so that they can avoid making these mistakes.
V. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, noun phrases in English and Vietnamese have some interesting
thought-provoking differences that are really necessary to recognize. That is not
only for implication in teaching but also in translation. In general, there are
some similarities in the internal and external English and Vietnamese noun
phrase. However, there are still some important differences between them. I
hope that this paper, to a certain extent, will provide language teachers some
ideas for their teaching of noun phrases.
REFERENCES
1. Ban, D. Q., & Thung, H. V. (1991). Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt, tập 2. NXB Giáo
dục, Hà nội.
2. Clark, M. (1978). Coverbs and case in Vietnamese. Pacific Linguistics, Series
B, No. 48. Canberra.
3. Eastwood, J. (1994). Oxford guide to English grammar. Oxford University
Press.
4. Jacob, R. A. (1995). English Syntax: A Grammar for English Language
Professionals. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
5. James, C. (1980). Contrastive Analysis.
6. Kosur, H.M (2009). English Nouns and Noun Phrases.
7. Nguyễn, T. C. (2007). Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt. Đại Học Quốc Gia Hà Nội.