The-Printed-Version.pdf

8/18/2019 The-Printed-Version.pdf

1/138

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

A SURVEY INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING

OF ENGLISH ARTICLES AT ENGLISH FACULTY,

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

A thesis submitted to the

Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

DINH THIEN LOC

Supervised by

NGUYEN THI KIEU THU, Ph.D.

HO CHI MINH CITY, AUGUST 2015


2/138

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

A SURVEY INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF

ENGLISH ARTICLES AT ENGLISH FACULTY,

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

in terms of the statement of Requirements for the Thesis in Master’s Program issued

by the Higher Degree Committee. The thesis has not been submitted for the award of

any degree or diploma in any other situation.

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2015

Đinh Thiên Lộc


3/138

ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Đinh Thiên Lộc, being the candidate for the degree of Master in

TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use ofMaster’s Theses deposited in the Library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the

Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with

the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of

the thesis.

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2015

Đinh Thiên Lộc


4/138

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my advisor,

Dr. NGUYEN THI KIEU THU for the continuous support to my thesis, for herinvaluable guidance, strong motivation, and extensive expertise. I am wholeheartedly

grateful to her deep devotion even when she was on Tet holiday. I simply can not

wish for better supervisor.

I owe a big debt of gratitude to Dr. Nguyen Thu Huong who inspired me to

come up with the thesis topic. He also spent a lot of his time to develop my

background on English articles and he was always willing to support me with his

helpful documents as well as immense knowledge.

I would like to acknowledge all members, teachers and students of the Faculty

of English Linguistics and Literature who directly and indirectly contribute to the

fulfillment of this thesis.

I am deeply thankful to my friends Ba Tong and Thuy Anh who gave me

indispensable advices and unceasing encouragement during my most difficult time. I

also appreciate every single support I received from my other friends at USSH.

Last but not least, my deepest gratitude goes to my parents, my sister, my aunt

and her son who are truly a miracle of my life. Without them, the whole thesis would

still be far from finished.


5/138

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................................ i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ................................................................. ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................... vii

LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................... viii

LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................... ix

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... x

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 1

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY ............................................................. 1

1.2 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY ................................................................ 2

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY ............................................... 2

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS .......................................................................... 3

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ............................................................. 3

1.5.1 Theoretical significance .................................................................. 4

1.5.2 Practical significance ...................................................................... 4

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY ........................................................... 4

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................... 6

2.1 THEORETICAL ISSUES ON ARTICLES .................................................. 6

2.1.1 Definition of Articles ...................................................................... 6

2.1.2 Meaning of English Articles ........................................................... 7

2.1.2.1 Definiteness ...................................................................... 8

2.1.2.2 Specificity ....................................................................... 14

2.1.2.3 Genericity ....................................................................... 16

2.1.3 Types of English articles .............................................................. 17

2.1.4 Meaning of Vietnamese Article-like Determiners ........................ 20

2.1.4.1 Countability and Plurality ............................................... 21

2.1.4.2 Definiteness and Maximality .......................................... 22


6/138

v

2.1.5 Types of Vietnamese Article-like Determiners ............................ 23

2.1.5.1 Một .................................................................................. 24

2.1.5.2 Những/ Các ..................................................................... 26

2.1.5.3 Zero articles .................................................................... 29

2.2 CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS .................................................................... 31

2.3 GRAMMAR TEACHING & THE METHODS TO TEACH ARTICLES 31

2.3.1 Grammar teaching......................................................................... 31

2.3.2 Methodologies to teach articles .................................................... 32

2.3.2.1 Traditional methods ........................................................ 33

2.3.2.2 Cognitive method............................................................ 34

2.4 ACQUISTION OF ARTICLES .................................................................. 36 2.4.1 Types of Articles Errors ................................................................ 36

2.4.2 Causes of Articles Errors .............................................................. 38

2.5 ERROR ANALYSIS .................................................................................. 40

2.6 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................... 40

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................. 42

3.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ........................................................................ 42

3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN ................................................................................ 43 3.2.1 Context of the study ...................................................................... 43

3.2.2 Participants .................................................................................... 43

3.2.3 Research Materials ........................................................................ 47

3.2.3.1 Coursebooks ................................................................... 47

3.2.3.2 SOC, TLU and UOC ...................................................... 48

3.2.4 Research Methods and Research Tools ........................................ 50

3.2.4.1 Coding system ................................................................ 51 3.2.4.2 Contrastive analysis ........................................................ 53

3.2.4.3 Error analysis .................................................................. 54

3.2.4.4 Questionnaire .................................................................. 55

3.2.4.5 Proficiency test ............................................................... 57


7/138

vi

3.2.4.6 Interviews ....................................................................... 59

3.3 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE ...................................................... 61

3.4 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE ............................................................ 61

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ......................................... 63

4.1 ANALYSIS OF DATA AND DISCUSSION ............................................ 63

4.1.1 The teaching of English articles ................................................... 64

4.1.1.1 Coursebooks ................................................................... 64

4.1.1.2 Teaching methodology ................................................... 68

4.1.2 The learning of English articles .................................................... 71

4.1.2.1 Learners’ perception on English articles ........................ 71

4.1.2.2 Learners’ errors in using English articles ....................... 77 4.1.2.2.1 Learners’ errors based on article types ............. 78

4.1.2.2.2 Learners’ errors based on contexts ................... 80

4.1.2.3 Causes of learners’ errors in using English articles ........ 92

4.2 MAJOR FINDINGS ................................................................................... 96

4.2.1 Answers to research question RQ1 ............................................... 96

4.2.2 Answers to research question RQ2 ............................................... 97

4.3 SUMMARY .............................................................................................. 100 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION................................................................. 101

5.1 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 101

5.2 PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS ......................................................... 102

5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES ............................ 105

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 106

APPENDIX 1: Syllabus for Advanced Grammar course .......................................... 114

APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire .................................................................................... 122 APPENDIX 3: Proficiency Test ................................................................................ 124

APPENDIX 4: Interview ........................................................................................... 125

APPENDIX 5: Answer keys for the Proficiency Test ............................................... 126


8/138

vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CA Contrastive Analysis

CL ClassifierEF the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature

ELT English Language Teaching

ESL English as a Second Language

HK Hearer’s Knowledge

L1 First language

L2 Second language

NEG Negative

PASS Passive

PhD Doctor of Philosophy

SLA Second Language Acquisition

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

SR Specific Referent

SOC Supplied in Obligatory Context

TESOL Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

TLU Target Like USe

TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language

UOC Used in Obligatory Context

USSH University of Social Sciences and Humanities – Ho Chi Minh city


9/138

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Classification of English Articles by Master (1994)

Table 2.2: Classification of English Articles Contexts by White (2009)Table 2.3: Classification of Vietnamese article-like determiners by Nguyen (2005)

Table 2.4: Differences between Nhữ ng and Các concerning Definiteness

Table 3.1: Description of Student Participants

Table 3.2: Description of Teacher Participants

Table 3.3: Synthesis of Research Tools and their Functions

Table 3.4: Coding System for the Correct Uses of English articles

Table 3.5: Coding System for the Incorrect Uses of English articles

Table 3.6: The Function of Items in the Questionnaire

Table 3.7: The Distribution of Number of Items within 5 Article Contexts

Table 3.8: The Aim of the Questions in the Interview

Table 4.1: Reliability Statistics of the Questionnaire

Table 4.2: Statistics of Questionnaire’s Items

Table 4.3: Statistic of Students’ Perception on English articles

Table 4.4: Reliability Statistics of the Proficiency Test

Table 4.5: Accuracy in Article Uses among 4 Groups of Participants

Table 4.6: Accuracy in Article Uses according to Article Types

Table 4.7: Combination of Students’ Accuracy according to Article Types and Article

Contexts

Table 4.8: Analysis of All Test Items

Table 4.9: UOC Score in Generic Context

Table 5.1: Articles Types within Four Semantic Contexts


10/138

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: The Difference between Nhữ ng and Các

Figure 2.2: Synthesis of Issues related to the Teaching and Learning of EnglishArticles

Figure 4.1: Accuracy of Article Uses according to Article Contexts

Figure 5.1: Differences in Generic Sense under the View of Cognitive Grammar by

Nguyen (2005)


11/138

x

ABSTRACT

Since the birth of the communicative approach, more and more attention have

been paid to the article system in English language which was partly considered as

function words, hardly carry any message and partly believed to determine users’

level of proficiency. Therefore, the study done for and reported in this thesis was

conducted with the aim to investigate (i) the teaching practices of the English article

system at EF, USSH and (ii) the learning of English articles of 127 EF juniors. To

ensure the validity and consistency of the data collected, the five following research

methods and research tools were applied (i) error analysis, (ii) contrastive analysis,

(iii) proficiency test, (iv) questionnaire and (v) interviews.The findings, although provisional, revealed some problems with EF teachers

and students’ performance in regards to the rules of English articles. The main

concerns were the shortcomings in the coursebooks and the pedagogies being applied

for Advanced Grammar course that might create a false perception on the learners.

Besides, EF students also caused quite many errors which were later classified into 11

types of errors with the application of a statistical software. Discussing learners’

causes of errors, the two main sources were confirmed including (i) the complicatednature of English articles and (ii) the interference of learners’ mother tongue which

was believed to be an article-less language.

The study, therefore, urged for a proper attention on the English articles at EF,

USSH. It also suggested some applicable techniques that (i) facilitate the

understanding of confusing concepts, (ii) balance the concentration on all article types

and (iii) simplify the long list of rules.


12/138

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The articles, in some way, are one of the most commonly used words in

English. To be more accurate, a recent analysis from the Oxford English Corpus of

nearly a billion English words has shown that “the” is the most common word and “a”

is the sixth one. This leads to the fact that articles play a very important position in the

English language system. However, English articles have been believed to be one of

the most difficult grammar aspects for L2 learners, especially for learners whose

native language is article-less (Master 1997; Thomas 1989). According to a research

of Bardovi- Harlig & Bofman (1989) and later Bitchener et al . (2005) inaccurate use

of articles is one of the most frequent errors committed by ESL students. Therefore,

mastering articles is always a challenging task for English learners. For over 50 years,

countless studies were published to clarify the acquisition of English articles of L2

learners and to suggest the most suitable methodology to teach articles as well.

However, in a recent corpus study of nearly 700 L2 learners’ TOEFL essays, Han et

al. (2006) gave a shocking number that one per every eight noun phrases had errors

with articles. These findings somehow upset the previous works of many authors and

encouraged more studies to be conducted.

In his PhD dissertation, Nguyen (2005) raised his concern that articles were

overlooked by both teachers and learners due to the appearance of communicative

approaches in most English classroom. It could be noted that articles are function

words; unlike content words, they do not often carry the key information of a

sentence. In speaking, articles are often unstressed. In writing, especially in news

headlines or SMS messages, articles are even omitted. This fact, according to Master

(2002), might become a trigger that caused the mistreatment of articles in English

language teaching. With respect to learners’ errors in using articles, Barrett & Chen


13/138

2

(2011) suggested that teachers should not ignore those minor mistakes for they may

lead to a false perception in learners’ mind. Especially, as stated by Miller (2005),

native speakers tended to be sensitive with articles’ errors made by foreigners.

According to his research, three most frequent errors caused by non-native speakerswere the choice of tense, subject-verb agreement and the use of articles. While the

first two issues can be overcome, the problems with articles are still the common

errors which can be used to distinguish a native speaker and a non-native one. In a

same manner, Nguyen (2005) called for a special attention to the teaching and

learning of English articles because they reflected the proficiency of learners.

1.2 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY

This study is carried out based on the Doctor dissertation of Nguyen (2005),

namely “Vietnamese learners mastering English articles”. Although Nguyen had

made an experimental teaching, his conclusion seemed yet to be verified by a survey.

It is quite clear that English articles have been discussed in many contexts of L2

speakers with article-less native language; the case in Vietnam is still new. Besides,

the Vietnamese counterparts of English articles were different and the absence of

articles is common in usage. Students, therefore, may lean on a false perception when

using English articles which is believed to lead to a majority of errors on articles. Due

to the reasons above, the current study was conducted by doing a survey on the

teaching and learning of English articles at University of Social Sciences and

Humanities- Ho Chi Minh city, a leading university in English language teaching in

Vietnam to see whether English articles are treated properly. It is obvious that in such

an academic environment where students mostly express themselves in written form,

errors related to articles should be controlled.

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

It should be apparent that errors in using articles still exist at the advanced

level of L2 speakers where there is no equivalence to the English article system


14/138

3

(Master 1995). This encouraged the researcher to conduct a survey to explore how

articles are taught and learnt at EF, USSH. The focus will be on the teachers, the

students and the course books being used in the Advanced Grammar courses. Then, it

is expected that possible causes for the common errors related to students’ use ofarticles could be figured out. Besides, in order to overcome the situation, the

traditional as well as the contemporary pedagogical practice will be analyzed to find

out some useful and applicable solutions. In general, the aim of this study is to

explore the current learning and teaching practice of English articles at USSH. The

main focus will be on full-time English major students at the Faculty of English

Linguistics and Literature.

The objectives below have been set out in order to achieve the aims above:1. To investigate the understanding of English articles of students at EF,

USSH.

2. To find out how the system of English articles is taught at EF, USSH

3. To find out how students at EF, USSH apply their knowledge in using

English articles.

4. To find out some common errors with articles made by students at EF,

USSH.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

To serve the aforementioned significance and to accomplish the aims above,

the research questions were given as follows:

RQ1. What are the current teaching practices of English articles at EF, USSH?

RQ2. What is the current situation of learning English articles at EF, USSH?

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study is hoped to fill the gap in the literature review so that some

significance to the study could be as follows:


15/138

4

1.5.1 Theoretical significance

Chapter 2 of this thesis gave an overview as well as some detailed information

on the understanding of the complicated system of English articles and Vietnamese

counterparts. Some common pedagogical practices to teach articles from the past tothe present were also collected. The study strived to arrive at some errors that L2

learners often made as well. Furthermore, the process of learning articles would be

clarified which was expected to reflect the effectiveness of the current teaching

method at EF, USSH.

1.5.2 Practical significance

Detailed description of learners’ errors and the possible causes would bringsome certain benefits to the teaching of articles at EF, USSH and also at other

universities in Vietnam in general. The teaching and learning implications as well as

suggestions were attempted to provide both teachers and learners the most suitable

and effective method to master the English articles.

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

Regarding the framework of the study, the whole thesis is divided into 5 main

chapters (i) Introduction, (ii) Review of Literature, (iii) Methodology, (iv) Results and

Discussion and (v) Conclusion, apart from the Acknowledgements, Abstract,

References and Appendixes.

The first chapter, the Introduction, presents the rationale of the study, the

reasons that persuade the researcher to conduct the survey. A discussion of the

background and the significance of the study are also addressed in this chapter.

Chapter two, the Review of Literature is divided into two parts. The first one

deals with the theoretical background as well as the definitions of major terms and

concepts. Then comes the second part which reviews the prior studies on the topic. A

wide range of literature is also mentioned in this chapter. As a guideline for the

following chapter, the conceptual framework is introduced as well.


16/138

5

The third chapter, entitled Methodology, describes the methods employed to

conduct the study. Detailed research questions, research designs and relevant

procedures to collect and analyze the data are the other sessions of the chapter.

The next one is Results and Discussion. This can be considered as the mostvaluable part of the study. Chapter four reports the results from the data collection

procedure and gives discussions on the findings. The purpose of this part is not only

to seek for the answers of the aforementioned research questions but also to serve as a

basis of the last chapter.

Chapter five, Conclusion, is a brief summary of the study. It states the

conclusion of the whole thesis. Some suggestions for the suitable approaches of

teaching and learning English articles are also included. Recommendations for thefurther research are the last parts the author would like to contribute in the thesis.


17/138

6

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 THEORETICAL ISSUES ON ARTICLES

2.1.1 Definition of Articles

Although numerous studies have been conducted on the system of English

articles, there seemed to be a widespread agreement on the definition of articles that

very few authors tried to redefine the term. Traditionally, articles are considered as

adjectives due to the fact that their function is to modify the nouns standing right after

them. However, with times, the linguists realized the differences between the

functions of adjectives and articles. The most common explanation of articles is that

articles are used to indicate whether a noun refers to a specific or a general item. This

way of defining articles can be found in most grammar books and also documents on

the internet. Using specificity to define articles, to some extent, is to determine the

definiteness of a noun which is widely accepted by many authors (Chaudron &

Parker, 1990; Chesterman, 1991; Nguyen 2005). Besides the role of marking the

specificity of noun phrases, Foster (2010) added that articles can also be used to

“signify the level of definiteness or knowness”.

A more general definition could be found in (Berry, 1993) that “articles are

determinatives which serve to give precision to the nouns/noun equivalents to which

they are attached” (p. 23). Similarly, in his book about English grammar, Alexander

(1998) defined that “articles are determiners which affect the meaning of the noun and

make it clearer by showing which particular thing we are referring to” (p. 55). Latter,

Neldelcu (2003) supported the idea of Berry (1993) and stated that the definitions ofEnglish articles do not, in general, “go beyond” Berry’s description.


18/138

7

2.1.2 Meaning of English Articles

While most scholars and linguists agreed on the definition of English articles,

they based on different ways to categorize the system of articles. When talking about

articles in English, it comes to our mind that a/an, the and zero article are the maincategories. The word zero article is used to describe the state in which no article is

used before nouns or noun phrases. Some authors also suggested putting one more

type to describe the state of non-use article, which is named null article (Chesterman

1991, Nguyen 2005). The line to distinguish the two terms is also based on

definiteness. As explained by Master (2003), zero article is applied with the most

indefinite nouns like non-count nouns (e.g. ∅ sugar) or plural count nouns (e.g. ∅

tables); meanwhile, null article is the most definite form of English articles.Chesterman (1991) stated that “null article represents “entities that have distinctive

exterior form”, a complete external boundary” (p. 86). Or in other words, null article

often occurs before proper nouns or some specific count nouns (e.g. ∅ Paris). This

means zero and null article stand at two opposite poles, one represents the most

indefinite nouns, one indicates the most definite nouns. However, because the

distinction between zero and null article is fairly vague and not very necessary, it is

still not mentioned in most current grammar books. Thus, in the scope of the thesis,

zero article is the only word used to refer the situation in which no article is needed.

With regards to the approaches on studying of English articles, Chesterman

(1991) summarized the linguistics history into three main trends. The first one was

triggered by Russell (1905) who considered the role of definiteness as the core of the

system of English articles. Those who followed this trend mainly based on the

meaning and the role of definiteness in the grammar system. The second trend tended

to generate the uses of articles in various contexts. Although this approach revealed a

certain number of weaknesses, quite a lot of scholars do not stop their ambition on

finding the more exact generated rule of choosing articles. And those who learn about

the articles from the articles themselves, i.e. the meaning and distribution of each

article belong to the third group.


19/138

8

Within the limited scope of this study, only the very selected literature would

be reviewed among numbers of valuable ones. The focus would mainly on the first

trend of studying on English articles, i.e. discussing the role of definiteness as the core

of English articles. The reason comes from the current situation in Vietnam that whena student or a teacher is required to classify articles, it would be common that they list

the two types: definite and indefinite articles. The popularity and trueness of the first

approach is another reason that persuaded the author to navigate his study to this

direction. Many linguists and scholars spent thousands of pages to investigate every

corner of the notion of definiteness and up to now, there have not been a common

agreement on all elements that create the definiteness of English articles. So as to give

a sound classification of the system of English articles, three main notions that carrythe meaning of English articles would be reviewed: (i) definiteness, (ii) specificity

and (iii) genericity.

2.1.2.1 Definiteness

Unlike most teachers who classify English articles by the name of a/ an, the or

zero article, researchers always base on one or some particular terms to arrange those

articles in smaller groups. Firstly, the literature review comes up with the most

famous notion which was mentioned in most of studies throughout the history of

English linguistics, ‘definiteness’. Although the term was considered as the core of

the system of English articles by many scholars (Master 1990, Lyons 1999, Butler

2002, Ionin 2004 among others), Nguyen (2005) believed it is not easy to give a clear

definition on definiteness. Using up to six notions to discuss the meaning of

definiteness, Nguyen explained the term based on three different levels. The first one

was about definiteness itself, the second was the intersection between definiteness and

specificity and the intersection between definiteness and genericity was the last level

of this complex definition. Similarly, Chesterman (1991) showed that there are

numbers of issues need to be examined so as to answer the core question on

definiteness. He used a metaphor image “a labyrinth of problems” to express his


20/138

9

feeling on definiteness in his book of over 250 pages (Chesterman 1991, p. 3). To

some degree, the study of Lyons (1999) on definiteness was quoted by a handful of

studies of various researchers. Thus, in order to clarify the meaning of definiteness,

three following elements suggested by Lyons (1999) would be discussed (i)familiarity, (ii) identifiability and (iii) inclusiveness.

Familiarity

Among the other ways of defining definiteness, Yang & Ionin (2009)

considered the notion both in semantic and pragmatic aspect. This is somehow in line

with a famous study on definiteness of Lyons (1999) who assumed that the simplest

and most common ways to mention this issue should base on both view of logicians(or semanticists) and pragmaticists. Firstly, discussing the semantic feature of

definiteness is not new, however failure to recognize it may result in

misunderstanding of articles. Ionin (2004) claimed that definiteness is a “discourse-

related semantic feature” or in other words, it linked with the knowledge of both

speaker and hearer in a specific discourse (p. 325). Likewise, Guillemin (2011)

considered a definite noun as it refers to an entity that is both known to the speaker

and the hearer while indefinite noun is familiar only to the speaker. Though the term

‘familiarity’ Guillemin gave for this distinction between definite and indefinite may

differ from Ionin, Nguyen (2005) tended to have the same way to discuss familiarity.

Nguyen (2005) even traced back to the age of ancient Greek that familiarity can be

simply translated as “the thing you know”. That is why this notion is also called

knowness as suggested by Bolinger (1977). The following examples given might

clarify the semantic feature of definiteness in terms of familiarity:

(1a) Can you give me the book ?

(1b) Can you give me a book ? – Which one?

The difference between the two sentences above lies in the notion of

familiarity of the hearer. It can be understood that in (1a), the hearer has already

known the book that the speaker mentioned. However, in (1b), there might be a lot of


21/138

10

books that the use of “a book” from the speaker confused the hearer. To some extent,

the misunderstanding of familiarity is the main cause of the overgeneralization rule in

choosing the correct articles. With regards to definiteness, the element of familiarity is

also known as “Familiarity theories of Definiteness” and is believed to be firstmentioned by Christophersen (1939) and latter is supported by Heim (1983).

However, the linguist community would not pay much attention to familiarity without

the works of Heim (1983) and his famous ‘donkey example’ (Abbott 2006). In most

literature, the role of familiarity is defined as to decide whether definite or indefinite

should be put before a noun. As the father of the Familiarity theories, Christophersen

also recognized its weakness that he warned learners should pay attention to the

‘unambiguous relation’ between the noun and an entity related to the noun that hasalready been known by the hearer. The expression of The author is unknown is a

prominent example when we talk about a certain book. To make it short,

Christophersen (1939) suggested “For the proper use of the, it is necessary that it

should call up in hearer ’s mind the image of the exact individual that the speaker is

thinking of” (p. 28).

Interestingly, Hawkins (1978) who was inspired by the quantification theories

of Russell claimed that sometimes the is linked with unfamiliarity rather than

familiarity. Take the example below as an example.

(2) They’ve arrived in Ho Chi Minh city. The plane was five hours late.

Because to reach Ho Chi Minh city, a passenger have many other choices

beside using air way, the appearance of the plane is obviously not known to the hearer

before it was uttered by the speaker. Thus, there was the appearance of ‘unfamiliarity’

in the choice of definite article the in this case. The Familiarity theories of

Christopheren were challenged again when Perrion (1989) finally pointed out the

weakness he found in indefinite NPs. In his dissertation, Nguyen (2005) restated the

example of Perrion to illustrate this interesting idea:

(3) You have a fine daughter .


22/138

11

The point here is that the hearer must have known who his daughter is but the

way the speaker addressed the girl using a instead of the is totally correct. It means

that the element of familiarity seems to have problem in this situation. As the result,

this led the linguists to coin a new term: ‘identifiability’.

Identifiability

According to Lyon (1999), identifiability appears when the hearer can refer the

entity that the speaker mentioned “by signaling that he [the hearer] is in a position to

identify it” (p. 6). The use of identifiability, as explained by Lyons (1999) does not

deny the element of familiarity. Without the prior knowledge of familiarity, the hearer

can hardly apply identifiability. The combination of the two terms allows the hearer tomatch the noun mentioned by the speaker with the real entity that the hearer knows

about its existence. Although the speaker does not directly mention that entity, the

hearer can refer to the exact entity because he has seen it, heard about it or he can

base on common senses. From the definition of Russell (1905), Guillemin (2011)

simply explained identifiability as a “discourse referent that belongs to a set that the

hearer must be able to identify for clear interpretation” (p. 4). Here is an example

taken from a study of Russell (1905).

(4) I took a taxi to the airport, but the driver was new to the area. So I missed

the flight.

In this case, although the hearer does not know about the driver, he can refer to

the existence of the driver of the taxi. This happens thanks to his knowledge that he

has had before in his life. Or we may say he can identify the driver due to the link

between the taxi and the driver. But the situation is not that simple, Lyons (1999)

suggested that it also required hearer’s readiness to identify the real entity of the noun

phrase indicated by the definite article the. To explain the idea of Lyons, Nguyen

(2005) introduced two examples as follows:

(5a) Just give the shelf a quick wipe, will you, before I put the television on it.

(5b) Pass me the hammer , will you?


23/138

12

At this stage, some linguists start to look at definiteness under pragmatics

viewpoint. So as to understand the situation, the physical condition of the utterances

needs to be regarded as well. In (5a), both the speaker and hearer are in a same room,

the speaker asks for a favor and of course the hearer can immediately refer to the shelfthat visible in his eyesight. However, the setting for (5b) is when the speaker stands

on a ladder and intends to drive a nail into the wall and the hammer is out of his reach.

At that very moment, the hearer entered the room and immediately the speaker utters

the suggestion to the hearer. In this case, the hearer does not have any idea about the

hammer but he can quickly realize the current situation with the speaker on the ladder.

The hearer then can look around and find the chair. The quick response action of the

hearer can be understood as the “hearer’s readiness” when he hears the definite articlethe before hammer as supposed to exist by Lyons (ibid). The example also proves the

interchange between familiarity and identifiablity. As in “The author is unknown”,

where familiarity fails to explain the choice of article, identifiability can bring

evidence.

It might be noted that Hawkins (1999) used to suggest the use of ‘ locatability’

in which the location joins the steps of deciding the definiteness as well. This means

in some cases, the speaker and the hearer do not communicate in harmony because the

relationship between speaker’s referent and hearer’s identifiable entity in real life can

not be established. The suggestion of Hawkins was that location needed to be

considered. The theory was soon directly criticized by some prominent authors like

Lyons (1991) and Chesterman (1991) as another way to define the alrealdy-known

notions of uniqueness and identifiability. Conversely, Nguyen (2005) still believed it

would be worth discussing the examples raised by Hawkins.

I nclusiveness

According to Lyons (1999), to criticize the idea of uniqueness , Hawkins (1978)

suggested that with plural nouns or mass noun, the definiteness was affected by

‘inclusiveness’ rather than uniqueness. In terms of uniqueness, Russell (1905)


24/138

13

concluded that definite the must be applied before unique entities, the entities that

happened to be the only on Earth. In contrast, when indefinite article a is used, there

must be more than one entity of that kind found on Earth. Therefore, Hawkins (1978)

proposed that if something is marked definite , it is not necessary a unique entity but itneeds to carry the element of inclusiveness. Lyons (1999) seems to stand on both

sides that inclusiveness and uniqueness have a mutual affection. The most important

thing Lyons (1999) reminded was that it would be a wrongly assumption that “ the

signals uniqueness with singular noun phrases and inclusiveness with plural and mass

noun phrases” (p. 11& 12). However, inclusiveness , according to Hawkins, did not

directly belong to a list of category of definiteness but just a part of identifiability or

to be more exact, inclusiveness took care of the quantity aspect of identifiability. Todiscuss the link between quantity and inclusiveness, Chesterman (1991) based on both

semantic and pragmatic view. And from the viewpoint of Chomsky, Chesterman

(1991) somehow added the feature [+all] to inclusiveness. Or in Lyons (1999)’s

words, the is a “universal quantifier” which has the same meaning with all. The

following example is taken from Hawkins (1978)

(6) We have to ask you to move the sand from our gateway.

The use of definite article before the mass noun here requires the hearer to

consider the feature [+all] in this case. This means in a common sense, the hearer

would remove all the sand away. In the same manner, Lyons (1999) compared “I’ve

washed the dishes” and “I’ve washed all the dishes” to emphasize the very link

between the and all.

But again, the theory of Hawkins was not supported by quite a lot authors.

Among those, Chesterman questioned the link between mass noun/ plural noun with

the feature [+all] included in inclusiveness. Nguyen (2005) demonstrated this debate

by an example of Chesterman (1991)

(7) The Americans have reached the moon.

It is as clear as crystal that not all Americans have reached the moon. The

definite article the in this example can not be understood correctly within its


25/138

14

inclusiveness. Thus, the theory of Hawkins needs to be modified. One way to revise

inclusiveness, in Chesterman’s opinion, is that [+all] might be just “more or less all”.

Talking about definiteness, there are tons of paper to discuss and debate on

every small aspects of its. However, in this paper, only the prominent literatures onsome main features of familiarity, identifiability and inclusiveness are reviewed.

Although this is just an overall review, Lyons (1999) and Nguyen (2005) believed the

core of definiteness somehow can be understood with the knowledge on those

aforementioned notions.

2.1.2.2 Specificity

According to Lyons (1999), specificity is a term applied for an indefinitesingular noun phrase to decide whether it refers to a particular entity or a general one.

Later, Briton (2000) supported the idea by defining a specific article as an article that

denotes “a particular entity in the real world” and an article that denotes “no particular

entity in the real world” is a nonspecific article (p.292). It is also well documented in

SLA that specificity is linked with “particular entity in the real world” (ibid.).

Huebner (1983) seemed to trigger this trend and his idea was highly appreciated by

many authors like Roberson (2000). Another way to distinguish specificity and non-

specificity is to identify the two notions of reference and denotation (Guillemin

2011). As explained by the author, the purpose of a specific expression is to “refer”

while a non-specific expression is to “denote” (p. 6). The examples bellows were

given to demonstrate his idea.

(8a) A/ the cat purrs. (non-specific)

(8b) A/ the cat purred. (specific)

In (8a), the meaning of the sentence is applied for all cats or it can be viewed

as a universal truth. Hence, sentence (8a) denotes a generic sense which does not aim

to any specific cat. In contrast, sentence (8b) directly asserts a/ the cat that purred.

Hearer, in this case, can refer to the existence of such cat.


26/138

15

As one of the most prominent modern writers on English articles, Ionin et

Wexler (2003) suggested that standard English does not carry the feature of

specificity. The is marked for definite article and a/an is marked for indefinite article,

regardless the appearance of specificity. It is, in fact, the colloquial English (or spokenEnglish) that can mark the element of specificity. This can be understood as only the

context can explain the specificity. And thus, definiteness does not affect the selection

of specificity. To support this idea, Nguyen (2005) gave 3 examples to show the

combination between definiteness and specificity (not including [-specific, + definite],

i.e. generic case)

(9) A lion and two tigers are sleeping in the cage.

(10) I am going to clean the house.(11) Pass me a book .

First, sentence (9a) can be inferred that hearer can refer to a specific lion

although he can not identify the lion mentioned by the speaker. Concerning the

second example, it is pretty clear that both speaker and hearer can refer to a specific

house and that house is known by the hearer. In the third sentence, the book

mentioned by the speaker is not a specific one and it neither belongs to any set of

books that is known by the hearer. In this case, by using “a book”, the speaker means“any book”

In conclusion, Guillemin (2011) gave a brief review on specificity from the

association with definiteness. Firstly, considering the definite cases, Guillemin relied

on the previous studies of Pesetsky (1987) and Ishane & Puskás (2001) to state that

the discourse determined the specificity. The entity indicated by the speaker can either

be mentioned before or in the discourse, there is enough information given by the

speaker that somehow the hearer can refer to a unique entity in the real world.

Secondly, in indefinite situations, Guillemin wrote that specificity can be identified by

a ‘presupposition of existence’ (Brickerton 1981), or an ‘assertion of existence’ (Ionin

2006)” (Guillemin 2011, p.7).


27/138

16

2.1.2.3 Genericity

As a main interest of many authors who have delicately worked on the system

of English articles, genericity has been so far a debatable topic on hundreds of studies.

Therefore, a detailed literature review might be too large for the scope of this study.When talking about genericity, it would be a big mistake not mentioning Carsol who

has been considered as an inspiration for many notable works on this topic

(Greenberg 2003, Mari et al. 2013). The definition given by Carsol (2009) is that

“genericity is a phenomenon whereby generalizations are expressed by sentences that

typically abstract over events, situations”. Lyons (1999) also stated that the most

common way of defining generic sentence is that it is “used to express a clas s as a

whole” (p. 179). This means all the entities included in that specific class wouldnormally satisfy all the characteristics of the generic noun. “Universal truth” is

another term which is widely used to explain the genericity (Guillemin 2011,

Hawkins 1999 among others). Also, Guillemin (2011) added that the sense of a

generic sentence often denotes a permanent characteristic on the noun. Concerning the

choice of article affected by the appearance of genericity, Nguyen (2005) remarked

that all three forms of article (i.e. a/an, the and zero article) can appear with generic

sense. This explains why in most literature, genericity is put at the same level with

definiteness and specificity although generic articles are a sub-category which is equal

to [+definite, - specific] cases. According to Greenberg (2003) who spent five years

writing a dissertation on genericity, the distinction between ‘indefinite plural’ and

‘bare plural noun’ is the key point to decide the use of generic article. This appears to

be in line with a recent book on about genericity by Mari et al. (2013) in which they

mentioned various forms of plurality in their very first chapter of the book. To

understand the element of genericity and different meaning of generic articles, we

should have a look the examples below:

(12a) ∅ Cats purr.

(12b) A cat purrs.

(12c) The cat purrs.


28/138

17

Although the three sentences above seems to carry the same meaning, a

detailed explanation can show the slightly different generic sense of the, a and zero

article. In (12a), bare plural with generic sense is considered as a denoting term

(Carlson 1978, 1999). Besides, a generic bare plural can stand for the category of anentity; thus this sentence can be understood as “Generally a cat purrs.” (Guillemin

2011). For sentence (12b), Guillemin translated it into “For all cats, if x is a cat, then

x purrs”. In most literature, when a generic article is used before an indefinite singular

noun, the noun is considered as “property associated with the kind” (Guillemin 2011,

p.9). Interestingly, Nguyen (2005) raised his concern that normally there exists two

ways of analyzing the meaning of generic a. The first one compared it with “a

typical” and the second one viewed it as “any”. Taking a neutral stand, Nguyen suggested the uses based on each particular sentence. Lastly, in reference to example

(12c), a paraphrase of its should be “That kind of animal purrs”. Guillemin (2011)

stated that a generic definite noun can be the “representative of the kind”.

It is worth noticing that Lyons (1999) also warned the misunderstanding that

generic articles are another forms of “any, each, every, all”. He quoted from previous

studies that there were some examples to prove the irrelevance between the sense of

generic articles and the aforementioned determiners. For the generic sense is

somehow outside the influence of semantics, Lyons (1999) suggested that the specific

cases should be considered before drawing up a description for generic uses.

2.1.3 Types of English articles

Due to the notion of definiteness, most teachers and grammar books divided

the English articles into two groups: definite and indefinite articles. Moore (2004)

seemed to be one of a few researchers who claimed that the system of English articles

included three groups: definite, indefinite and zero article. Zehler & Brewer (1980)

gave a more exact division that this kind of classification consisted of definite,

indefinite and null article because in most researches published by international

journals, zero article was listed as an item of both definite and indefinite articles


29/138

18

(White 2009, Han et al . 2006, Hall 2004, Butler 2002). However, from the study of

Chesterman (1991), Master (2003) directly concluded that zero and null article were

at the two opposite extremes namely most definite and most indefinite article. Thus, it

would turn back to the basic classification that English has two types of articles:definite and indefinite.

When definiteness was mentioned, another term was coined: specificity.

According to Ionin et al . (2004), definiteness occurs in case both speaker and hearer

are aware of the existence of a thing denoted by a noun phrase. Specificity, on the

other hand, occurs when the speaker refer to a thing denoted by a noun phrase and

“considers this individual [a thing denoted by a noun phrase] to possess some

noteworthy property”. White (2009) suggested that the main theoretical premise behind the division of definiteness and specificity was rooted from a very famous

classification scheme by Bickerton (1981). It is worth noticing that Bickerton believed

a referent, i.e. a thing denoted by a noun phrase, had two universals: (i) semantic

universal which decided whether a referent is specific or not, i.e. [+SR] or [-SR] and

(ii) discourse universal which assumed whether a referent is known by the hearer or

not, i.e. [+HK] or [-HK]. From this study of Bickerton, Huebner (1983) introduced his

semantic wheel which is later adapted in numerous studies related to English articles.

It is, indeed, the most common classifications to be found in academic researches. In

1994, Master summarized the idea of Huebner in a table and gave some examples as

shown below.

Table 2.1: Classification of English Articles by Master (1994)

Category Article Environment Example (from Master 1994)

[-SR] [+HK] the, a, ∅ Generics The favorite food of the jaguar is the wild pig.∅ Wild pigs move in bands of fifteen to twenty.

[+SR] [+HK] the Unique, previouslymentioned, or physically present referents

What is the diameter of the moon?Once there were many trees here. Now, the treesare gone.


30/138

19

[+SR] [-HK] a, ∅ First-mention NPs or NPs followingexistential “has/ have” or“there is/ there are”

I would like a cup of coffee, please.I always drink ∅ water with my meals.There is an orange in the bowl.

[-SR] [-HK] a, ∅ Equative NPs, or NPs innegation, question, orirrealis mode

What is the sex of your baby? It’s a boy!Einstein was a man of great intelligence.∅ Foreigners would come up with a better soluti

(SR: Specific Referent / HK: Hearer’s Knowledge)

It can easily be seen that the classification above was influenced by the three

concepts of definiteness, specificity and genericity. Specific referent and hearer’s

knowledge somehow were just another name for the notions discussed above. The

existence of genericity also appears in the case where a noun carries the feature of

hearer’s knowledge but denies the specific referent.

At the end of the 1980s, Thomas (1989) was one of a few who suggested

adding a fifth category to the list. He argued that the use of idioms was not mentioned

in the semantic wheel of Huebner. In favor of Thomas (1989)’s idea on the fifth

category, Butler (2002) supported the new classification system by giving some

examples as all of a sudden to argue that the use of article here is beyond [+/- SR] and

[+/- HK]. In the same manner, Hall (2004) believed the system of five categories

should be applied for the idiomatic uses of articles required neither semantic nor

discourse explanation.

While current studies tended to favor the classification with five categories,

few still seek for other ways. Among those was Ionin et al . In their journal article in

2004, they based on previous studies which chose definiteness and specificity as key

notions. However, after doing an experimental study on Korean speakers, they added

the element of ‘ partivity’ to the universal semantic feature of a referent. Thus, their

classification would include eight categories, each one was described by three factors

(for example [-definite, + specific, + partitive]). In one way or another, partitive,

according to their explanation, could be interpreted as “previously mentioned”.

Taking a middle-ground position, White (2009) on the one hand supported the idea of


31/138

20

definiteness and specificity, but on the other hand, he hoped to explore the deeper

layer of the semantic context. Therefore, although two issues may seem to have the

same semantic features [+definite, + specific], their meaning may not be the same. As

the result, the classification with six different contexts of White was introduced asfollows:

Table 2.2: Classification of English Articles Contexts by White (2009)

Context 1 [+definite, +specific] Previous Mention

Context 2 [+definite, +specific] Explicit Speaker Knowledge

Context 3 [+definite, - specific] Denial of Speaker Knowledge

Context 4 [- definite, +specific] Explicit Speaker Knowledge

Context 5 [- definite, - specific] First MentionContext 6 [- definite, - specific] Denial of Speaker Knowledge

Nguyen (2005) believed that the intersection between definiteness and

specificity is not the last level of English article. Genericity, in his opinion, was

indeed the last one. When it came to genericity, the problem was even more complex.

Or in other words, the four categories were not the most detailed classification which

could be found. Depend on the meaning and the usage, the categorization can be

various. Quirk et al . (1985) could even divide the use of the in seven different

contexts. In general, the classification of English articles may vary; authors are still

looking for the most correct one but many appear to agree on the system of five

categories.

2.1.4 Meaning of Vietnamese Article-like Determiners

In the scope of this thesis, the theory that Vietnamese is an article-lesslanguage is appreciated. However, it could not be ignored that the idea whether

Vietnamese language has a system of article is still controversial. In most literatures,

it was believed that Truong (1888) was one of the pioneers who tried to compare the

Vietnamese system of article-like words with the real system of articles in Western


32/138

21

countries. However, the case was only seriously discussed after decades when two

famous scholars Nguyen (1975) and Dinh (1986) considered một , nhữ ng/các and zero

article as Vietnamese counterparts of articles in French or English. M ột is used before

singular indefinite nouns. Nhữ ng and các, despite their slightly differences indefiniteness, are used with plural nouns. Lastly, zero article can be used before mass

nouns with generic sense or before definite singular nouns. Thus, to some extent,

Nguyen (1975) and Dinh (1986) believed there exists a system of articles in

Vietnamese language. As a rebuttal to this point, Cao (1999) simply classified those

words as quantifiers or determiners. He used many noteworthy examples to

demonstrate for his arguments. The case was also taken into consideration by other

researchers as To (2011) or Bui (2000). On the one hand, Vietnamese linguists agreedupon the existence of some “words” which are somehow equivalent to English

articles. Their grammatical role, on the other hand, still challenged linguists’

community and that caused different ways of naming those words. To avoid

misunderstanding, the name “article-like determiners” is used in the thesis to refer to

Vietnamese counterparts of English articles as suggested by Nguyen (2005).

2.1.4.1 Countability and Plurality

Unlike English articles which were classified built on definiteness and

specificity, Vietnamese counterparts were grouped due to their ‘countability’. Hoang

& Nguyen (2008) stated that Truong (1883) was the first to point out the element of

countability in Vietnamese noun phrase base on his understanding of French.

According to Cao (1999), countability is the key notion which appears not only in

grammatical but also in lexical aspect of Vietnamese nouns. Cao strongly believed

that his view on countability as the main criteria of Vietnamese noun phrases was

totally fit with previous studies of famous linguists like Jespersen (1924) or Chomsky

(1965). In his book on Vietnamese grammar, he stated that most of Vietnamese nouns

are [-countable], leaving the rest 350 nouns are [+countable]. Within the small

number of countable nouns in Vietnamese, Cao argued only 270 words are


33/138

22

[+substantive]. That leads him to add ‘substance’ to the list of factors that can be used

to select the suitable article-like determiners. Another factor that linked to countability

is ‘ plurality’ , the state to decide whether a noun is in singular or plural form. Nguyen

(2004) divided the system into two categories, (i) một, cái and zero article are usedwith singular form and (ii) for plural form, Vietnamese language has nhữ ng and các.

Although not many studies discuss the feature of [+/- unit] as an important part

of Vietnamese grammar, Hoang & Nguyen (2008) noted that it appeared quite often

both explicitly and implicitly in various articles. As an author of many high school

and university coursebooks, Diep (1991) directly suggested ‘unit’ as a criteria to

classify the system of Vietnamese noun phrases. According to him, unit can be the

criteria to mark something as in ổ “loaf”, miế ng “piece” or a collective of things asbầ y “herb”, đàn “flock”. The way of understanding ‘unit’ seemed to attract linguists

like Hoang & Nguyen (2008) who agreed that unit plays an important part in diving

unit noun and mass noun. In their recent work, Hoang & Nguyen (2008) also

suggested that [+/- unit] should be considered before [+/-countability] to determine

the article for Vietnamese noun phrases. This is a typical difference between noun

phrase in English and in Vietnamese. It would be wrong to say *một lính “a soldier”

in Vietnam, một ngườ i lính is a correct expression, instead. To some extent, the

appearance of [+/- unit] is implied into the system of Vietnamese classifier (Nguyen

1975).

2.1.4.2 Definiteness and Maximality

Definiteness in Vietnamese counterparts of English articles was also

mentioned by many researchers (To 2011, Bui 2000, Nguyen 2005). In his recent

journal, Bui (2000) debated an issue raised by Nguyen (1975) and Dinh (1986) that

definiteness can be applied to distinguish between nhữ ng and các. Moreover, Nguyen

(2005) and Cao (1999) assumed that the confusion of một and zero article in

Vietnamese language can also be determined by the element of definiteness. It might

be noted that the notion of ‘maximality’ was introduced by Nguyen (2005) to


34/138

23

compare with definiteness. First, he based on the study of Langacker (1987) to list

maximality and uniqueness as two elements to decide the definiteness in speech act.

Basically, maximality is used to inform a mass noun. But to some extent, maximality

can occur when the is put before plural nouns to refer the mutual mental contact of thespeaker and the hearer. The point here is that Nguyen (2005) used the background

from Langacker and mixed it with the theory of Nguyen (1975) and Cao (1999) to

reveal some correlations between maximality and definiteness in the system of

Vietnamese article-like determiners. In general, to classify the Vietnamese

counterparts of English article, (i.e. các, nhữ ng, một and zero article), we depend on

countability, plurality, definiteness or maximality. The following illustration from

Nguyen (2005) is expected to summarize the ideas above.

Table 2.3: Classification of Vietnamese article-like determiners

by Nguyen (2005)

Instance Type

Indefinite/

Limited size

Definite/

Maximal size

Count

Singular

Một cái bánhA piece cake( A cake)

Ø cái bánhØ piece cake(The cake)

Plural

Những cái bánh-s piece cake(The cakes/ Cakes)

Các cái bánh-s piece cake(The cakes/ Cakes)

Non-

countMass

Ø bánhØ cake(Cake)

2.1.5 Types of Vietnamese Article-like Determiners

Although most linguists agreed that một, nhữ ng, các and zero article altogether

make up the Vietnamese counterparts of English articles, it is worth noticing that cái

also appeared in some literature. However, the role of cái is very complicated which

might almost be the most controversial word in Vietnamese, according to Nguyen

(2005). Depending on different authors that cái played quite a various role as an

article (Tran 1941), a general classifier (Nguyen 1997) or a special word for counting


35/138

24

(Cao 1999), an ‘indexical cái1’ (Nguyen 1975) or even a ‘particle cái’ (Nguyen 2004).

Because the role of cái is rather difficult to decide, the author of this study would

leave cái out of the list of Vietnamese article-like determiners with the hope that one

day experts will give an apparent investigation on this most complex word inVietnamese language. The following part will introduce some main points on each

member of Vietnamese article-like determiners, i.e một , nhữ ng , các and zero article.

2.1.5.1 Một

Normally, một is used as a singular, indefinite article in Vietnamese language.

Or it can be said that một is [+singular, -definite]. However, as mentioned before,

most of noun phrases in Vietnamese are [-countable], thus they require a classifier,e.g. chiế c, miế ng, con after một (To2011). This seems to be in line with the element of

unit mentioned in the previous part. It is also emphasized that the appearance of such

classifiers between một and an uncountable noun is necessary in most cases. Consider

the following examples:

(13) Tôi vừa mua một quyể n sách ở tiệm sách.

I just buy a CL book at store book.

‘I have just bought a book at the book store.’

It might be confused that một is also a numeral “one” in Vietnamese. To

demonstrate the differences between the two functions of một , let us have a look at the

following example of Nguyen (2004)

(14) Họ chỉ có một ngườ i con, chứ không phải hai.

They only have one CL child but NEG right two.

‘They have only one child, not two.’

An interesting feature of một is that it is often used for first mentioned noun

phrase. For the next times the noun phrase is referred, một is no more put before that

noun phrase. Or as explained by Nguyen (2004), this can be a clear evidence to prove

Indexical cái1: cái chỉ định


36/138

25

the indefiniteness of một. Somehow it can be compared with the use of the indefinite

article a in English. Here is the example

(15) Bà tôi cho tôi một con mèo. Một hôm (*một) con mèo ...

Grandmother I give I one/a CL cat one day (one/a ) CL cat...‘My grandma gave me a cat. One day, the cat …’

Another notable point which is observed by Nguyen (2004) is that một can also

immediately precede an uncountable noun in case the noun belongs to a kind of food

and it is used with a countable sense.

(16) Cho tôi một cà phê đá.

Give I a coffee ice

‘Can I have a (glass of) coffee with ice, please?’ In this case, the speaker does not need to add any classifier between the

uncountable noun “cà phê” and the article-like determiner một. Still, this kind of

expression is not very popular and is mostly used in informal language.

Interesting, Nguyen (2004) also remarked the use of một in daily conversation

where no formality is required. He noticed the absence of một before indefinite noun

phrase, especially in case when the indefinite context can be inferred easily by the

hearer. To understand the situation where một is omitted, the context should be

considered.

(17) Context: a regular customer at the newsstand

Bán cho (một) t ờ báo.

Sell give (one/a) CL newspaper.

‘A newspaper, please.’

With regard to generictiy, the use of một requires a strict rule as highlighted by

To (2011). In her recent article, she stated three requirements that can create the

generic use of một, i.e. (i) một must appear at the first position, (ii) the classifier must

not be omitted and (iii) the uncountable noun need to carry a restrictive adjunct. Only

then can a singular noun be the representative for a whole class of people, animals or

things.


37/138

26

(18) M ột nhà lãnh đạo giỏi thì không thể nào hành động như thế.

One/a house leader good is NEG can behave like that.

‘A good leader cannot behave in such a way.’

On the other hand, according to Nguyen (2005), the generic một can not betranslated as an equivalence of a in English. To fully acquire the genericity of một and

a, users must regard the pragmatic use of them. The following example from Nguyen

is worth discussing the common errors of Vietnamese learners.

(19) Bất k ỳ con sư tử nào cũng là thuộc loài động vật có vú.

Any CL lion also be belong class mammal.

‘Any representation of the lion is a mammal.’

‘A lion is a mammal.’ In general, there are sound evidence to prove that một carries the feature of

[+singular] [-definite] in Vietnamese language. In most situations, một requires a

classifier before an uncountable noun. Sometimes, in particular contexts, either một or

the classifier can be omitted. Besides, the generic use of một is a remarkable point.

And the misunderstanding between numeral một and the determiner một might

confuse users as well.

2.1.5.2 Nhữ ng/ Các

Many authors viewed nhữ ng, các as plural markers or pluralizers in

Vietnamese language (Cao 1992, Nguyen 1997, Bui 2000 among others). Although

the plurality of nhữ ng and các is widely agreed in the community, the definiteness of

nhữ ng and các seems to be a debatable topic with various viewpoints. In his literature

review, Bui (2000) summarized2 the ideas into two main branches (i) nhữ ng and các

are at two opposite poles of definiteness in which các carries the feature of [+definite]

and nhữ ng , as opposed to các, is [-definite] (Tran, T. K 1950) or two poles of

[+/-precise2] (Nguyen 1975, Dinh 1983, Diep 1996) and (ii) các is marked [+definite]

while nhữ ng takes a neutral position which is [+/-definite] (Cao 1992, Nguyen 1996).

Precise2: chỉ biệt


38/138

27

Standing on the second point of view, Nguyen (2004) added that despite the

fact that both nhữ ng and các can mark [+definite], nhữ ng is, to some extent, less

definite than các. To demonstrate the slightly difference between the two words,

Nguyen (2004) drew a diagram based on the idea of Thompson (1965) that nhữ ngrefers to “only certain of the total possible number are referred to” while các

emphasizes “all of a given set of entities” (quoted from Nguyen 2004, p. 36).

Figure 2.1: The Difference between Nhữ ng and Các

The outer circle marks the use of các which represents for the whole class of

entity while nhữ ng is put in the inner circle which demonstrates the use to “mark a

boundary between a subset and another within a set” (Nguyen 2005:106). To explain

the differences, Nguyen (2005) proposed that các carries the element of maximality

while nhữ ng can be understood as the cataphoric use of English article the or some in

some cases. Standing on the same line, Nguyen (2004) believed the meaning of some

proves the [-definite] feature of nhữ ng. Let us consider the examples below

(20) Đó là nhữ ng d ấ u hiệu đầu tiên của mùa đông.

This be -s sign first of season winter.

‘These are some of the first signs of winter.’

(Not ‘….the first signs’)

(21) Có nhữ ng ngườ i số ng sót k ể r ằng…

There -s man surviving tell that…

‘There are some of the survivors telling that…’

(Not ‘…the survivors’)

những

Các

Những


39/138

28

This tricky use of nhữ ng and its counterpart in English might be difficult for

Vietnamese learners, according to Nguyen (2004). ‘The first signs’ or ‘the survivors’

is definite but ‘some of the first signs’ and ‘some of the survivor’ are obviously

indefinite.Hoang & Nguyen (2008) focused on the element of maximality of các which is

not contained in nhữ ng to distinguish two words. They argued that the presence of các

implied the maximiality of the noun. The following examples were given in their

article in 2008:

(22a) Các thự c khách (đều) đã đến.

-s guest (all) aleady come

‘(All) the guests came.’ Not ‘Những thực khách (đều) đã đến.

(22b) Có nhữ ng thự c khách đã đến.

There -s guest already come

‘There are some of the guests who already came.’

Not ‘Có các thực khách đã đến’.

In (22a), the speaker tends to refer to the whole set of ‘guests’, therefore, the

use of các is obligatory because nhữ ng can not mark maximality. In contrast, sentence

(22b) simply infers ‘some of the guests’, thus we need to put nhữ ng to differentiate

between those who came and those who have not came. Nguyen (2004) emphasized

that in existential sentence which requires indefiniteness like (22b), các can never be

used. It should also be noted that Hoang & Nguyen (2008) believed in some cases

where các and nhữ ng can be used interchangeably, nhữ ng is used to compare with the

other subsets contained in the same set which is marked by các. This way of

identifying is similar to what Nguyen (2005) called “mark the boundary” (p.106). The

table below is expected to summary the differences between of nhữ ng and các in

terms of definiteness.


40/138

29

Table 2.4: Differences between Nhữ ng and Các concerning Definiteness.

Definite

CácThưa các ông các bà!Greeting -s gentleman – s lady!( Ladies and gentlemen!)

Nhữ ng/ Các

Những giáo viên ấy r ất nhiệt tình.Các giáo viên ấy r ất nhiệt tình.-s teacher that very enthusiastic

(Those teachers are very enthusiastic.)

Indefinite Nhữ ng

Tôi thích những quyển sách đắt tiền.I like -s CL book expensive.( I like expensive books.)

In addition, the genericity is also mentioned for nhữ ng and các. It requires the

noun phrases to be [+countable] and [+plural] so as to be marked genericity with

nhữ ng and các. To (2011) noted that restrictive adjuncts are often required in those

cases.

(23) Các sản phẩm Việt Nam có chất lượ ng tốt.

-s product Vietnam have quality good

‘The products from Vietnam have good quality.’

(24) Nhữ ng k ẻ lườ i biếng thì không làm gì nên thân.

-s CL lazy is NEG do decently.

‘Lazy people cannot do anything decently.’

To sum up, nhữ ng and các are both plural markers in Vietnamese. Still, there is

a slightly difference in their usage in which nhữ ng can precede an indefinite noun

phrase while các cannot. In terms of their meaning, các presents all the entities within

a given set; nhữ ng, however, refers to only a certain number of entities in a set.

Lastly, the sense of genericity can also be inferred by nhữ ng and các with some

specific requirements.

2.1.5.3 Zero articles

The no-use of article in Vietnamese is also named zero article. Some authors,

like Nguyen (2005) also suggested null article for some specific cases where the


41/138

30

absence of article before a noun phrase occurs. Despite that Nguyen (2005) provided

clear evidence for his distinction, in this study only zero article is applied for the no-

use of article due to the simplicity.

Based on the previous studies of Cao (1999), Bui (2000) and Dang (2010), zero article in Vietnamese can be used to precede an uncountable noun no matter it is

definite or not.

(25) Tôi thích Ø trà.

I like Ø tea.

‘I like tea.’

(26) Tôi gặ p một ông già trong công viên. Ø Ông già trông r ất yếu.

I meet a man old in park. Ø Man old look very weak.‘I met an old man in the park. The old man looked very weak.”

Additionally, Nguyen (2004) believed that zero article can also be applied for

a singular definite noun phrase in Vietnamese. The following example will

demonstrate his idea.

(26) Ø Người ăn mày chờ đấy từ lâu.

Ø CL beggar wait there since long.

‘The beggar has waited there for a long time.

In terms of genericity, To (2011) assumed that zero article can also carry this

feature as long as some strict requirements can be satisfied. Although the detailed

description may sound complex, it can be understood that both uncountable nouns and

singular nouns can follow zero article to mark genericity with the presence of

restrictive adjuncts.

(27) Ø Chó là loại động vật trung thành vớ i chủ.

Ø Dog is CL animal loyal with master.

‘Dogs are loyal animal to their masters.

(28) Ø Xã hội có quyền nhìn thấy k ẻ phạm pháp bị tr ừng tr ị.

Ø Society have right see CL break law PASS punish.

‘Society has the right to see law- breaker punished.’


42/138

31

In general, like its counterpart in English, Vietnamese also has zero article. It

can either mark [+definite] or [-definite], [+countable] or [-countable]. The sense of

genericity, as well, can be expressed with zero article in some certain cases.

2.2 CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

Over eighty years ago, contrastive analysis used to be the only way to teach

English properly. There was a consensus among many linguists that learning a new

language is to compare and contrast with one’s mother tongue. In terms of pedagogy,

Fries (1945) was the first who officially established contrastive analysis as a part of

English teaching. In his book on teaching and learning English, he wrote that “The

most efficient materials are those that are based upon a scientific description of thelanguage to be learned, carefully compared with a parallel description of the native

language of the learner ” (Fries 1945, p. 9). Similarly, Lado (1957) believed that the

basis of contrastive analysis is to identify the interference of learners’ mother tongue

on the target language so that similarities and differences between two languages can

be a helping hand for the learning process. Unfortunately, the analysis was later

strongly criticized both on empirical validity and theoretical foundations by many

authors in which Selinker, F. was one of the most prominent (Render 1990). Ample

evidence were given to prove that in some cases, the predictions of CA were not

correct or some errors were not rooted from the interference of mother tongue. As the

result, the role of CA in the modern world of linguistics was not to predict every

errors made by L2 learners. However, it cannot be denied that the presence of CA was

very helpful when it came to retrospective explanation of learners’ errors.

2.3 GRAMMAR TEACHING AND THE METHODS TO TEACH ARTICLES

2.3.1 Grammar teaching

The benefit of teaching grammar as a part of second language teaching has

long been a controversy. The debate was mostly on the necessity of grammar

instruction in the process of language acquisition. Krashen (1982) was a


43/138

32

representative for the anti-grammar teaching side with the famous Krashen Monitor’s

hypothesis which he believed the “learned” language can never become the

“acquired” language. As could be explained from his hypothesis, grammar teaching

based on conscious learning process in which language was learnt by explaining andremembering rules. To acquire a language, on the contrary, learners should be

exposed to it by communication and the subconscious ability would take care of the

rest. Notably, the message conveyance was the key issue that learners should focus

on during the acquisition procedure. Pursuant to Krashen’ hypothesis, Truscott (1996)

suggested a strange teaching method that ignored grammar mistakes in learners’

written performance. He developed the theory of Krashen (1982) that grammar

correction was like grammar teaching, could solely be affective for learning but notfor acquisition. Conversely, Long (1983) and Ellis (1999) expressed their objection to

Krashen by using ample evidence to prove that the form-based teaching techniques

can also encourage the acquisition process. Explained by Ellis (2006), grammar rules

were very beneficial for memorizing and for metalinguistic application. Steady

practicing, according to Long (1991), would bridge the gap between “learned” and

“acquired” knowledge to such an extent that the two concepts would almost overlap.

To be more exact, Ellis (2006) claimed that it would be most efficient if grammar can

be taught in the way that could be compatible with the process of natural language

acquisition. As should be apparent by now, Yabei (2007) concluded that within ELT

community, the grammar teaching “has never left the classroom” (p. 8).

2.3.2 Methodologies to teach articles

It has become common today to discuss the methodologies to teach the system

of English articles for L2 learners whose native language is article-less, Japanese

(Butler 2002, Snape 2006), Turkish (White 2003), Polish (Karkefka 2012), Russian

(Ionin & Wexler 2003), Korean (Ionin et al. 2004), Chinese (Li & Yang 2010,

Lardiere 2004), Vietnamese (Nguyen 2005), to name a few. The standard way of

thinking was that the system of English articles was one of the hardest grammar parts


44/138

33

to be acquired by L2 learners (Master 1997). Likewise, Maslamani (2008) asserted

that the system was not only complex for students to understand but also too hard for

language teachers to articulate. Hence, the author would like to review some studies

related to pedagogy methods to see how English articles have been taught so far.

2.3.2.1 Traditional methods

In discussion of articles pedagogy, Maslamani (2008) summarized the

traditional approaches into two main branches. Master (1995) was one of the authors

who supported the method which focused on form. To some extent, it can be viewed

as grammar-translation method (Karkefka 2012). Pica (1983a), on the other hand,

strongly believed that communicative approach was the most suitable one to teachEnglish articles. One of the most famous methods introduced by Master (1988) to

decide a suitable article for a noun phrase was answering six following questions: (i)

Is the noun generic or specific?, (ii) Is the noun definite or is it indefinite? (iii) Is it

countable noun or uncountable noun? (iv) Is the noun post modified or not? (v) Is it

common noun or proper one? And (vi) is the noun a part of an idiomatic phrase or

not? Later, Master made further research and he also provided learners with many

other rules for choosing articles before noun phrases in English. Inspired by the

co

Date post:	07-Jul-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	stormbringer
View:	213 times
Download:	0 times

The-Printed-Version.pdf

Documents