ABSTRACT
The study is an investigation of perceived difficulties through word formation
learning process of first-year students at English division 1, faculty of English
language teacher education (FELTE), university of languages and international
studies, Vietnam national university.
To address the research problem, the paper used questionnaires as the main
research instrument to collect data. In the thesis, role of word formation perceived by
students was provided. Besides, it is revealed that from the study that first- year
students at ULIS have difficulties related to morphological awareness, materials and
strategies of teaching and learning when they study vocabulary as well as practice
English skills.
Based on the findings and the students’ suggestions, the researcher proposes
some recommendations for teachers and students to solve the problems. In detail,
students are advised to build up a systematical learning strategy and pay attention to
deliberate vocabulary acquisition and use of context. To teachers, the thesis
recommends teachers to use flexible techniques to avoid tiresomeness of students. The
paper also comes up with some useful teaching techniques for teachers.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
LIST OF FIGURES viii
LIST OF TABLES ix
LIST OF ABBRREVIATIONS x
CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study 1
1.2 Aims and Research questions 2
1.3 Significance of the study 3
1.4 Scope of the study 4

3.1.2 Participants 23
3.2 Data collection instrument 26
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3.2.1 Reasons for choosing questionnaires 26
3.2.2 Questionnaire format and content 27
3.3 Procedures of data collection 29
3.4 Procedures of data analysis 30
3.5 Summary 30
CHAPTER 4- FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 31
4.1 Findings 31
4.1.1 The role of word- formation to first- year students’ learning
process
31
4.1.2 Students’ perceived difficulties in studying word- formation 37
4.2 Implications 45
4.2.1 Implications to first- year students 45
4.2.2 Implications to teachers 48
CHAPTER 5- CONCLUSION 52
5.1 Summary 52
5.2 Limitations 53
5.3 Suggestions for further studies 54
REFERENCES 55
APPENDIX 59
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
Figure 1.1: Frequency of practicing word formation in class……………………… 32
Figure 1.2: Frequency of practicing word formation in class (in each skill)…………32
Figure 2: Average time spent on learning vocabulary……………………………… 33
Figure 3: Percentage of time spent on learning word-formation process…………….34

Due to the increasingly important role of English in almost every field of our
social life, from communicative uses to business uses, the demand of learning English
has been rising rapidly. In the situation of Vietnam, being aware of English’s role,
most schools and academic institutions have taken English as a compulsory subject.
Consequently, now teaching and learning English are paid much more attention by
both learners and teachers. However, this seems to be far from satisfactory because
foreign learners in general and the Vietnamese learners in particular must face up to
many difficulties in specific fields of English like grammar, pronunciations,
vocabulary, etc.
International linguists state that it is impossible and unaffordable to have a
thoughtful look into human brain to examine how it processes language. Instead,
linguists build hypotheses to verify their appropriate working. One of ways which they
use is grammar. Grammar is considered as a science and often called “science of
language” or “science of how to use words”. According to Domínguez (1991), one of
the biggest goals of linguistic science is “the determination of the rank of morphology
in the grammar of a particular language and in universal grammar”. Then linguists in
the world focus on smaller unit in English and create theories of word-formation.
Word formation is firmly confirmed as the most important divisions in the linguistic
field. However, many EFL learners under-estimate the importance of morphological
awareness as well as word- formation processes. The result of this negative attitude is
slow vocabulary development. According to August et al. (2005) ELLs who
experience slow vocabulary development are less able to comprehend text at grade
level. The situation can become worse when learners may be at risk of being
diagnosed as learning disabled. Learners can fall into the consensus that the reason
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comes from their poor ability. In fact, it is from their limitation to English vocabulary
and comprehension.
In Vietnam, current grammar and vocabulary teaching is paid more and more
attention, but only about quantity, not quality. It means that students are encouraged to
build up the large numbers of English words, but mostly unsystematically, say, by

1.3. Significance of the study
Overall, the research could be considerably a helpful assistance, an available
source for teachers, course administrators and researchers of related topics.
As for teachers at ULIS, the study is conducted with the hope to raise teachers’
awareness in grammar and vocabulary teaching. Once completed, the paper is
expected to give conclusion of the common mistakes of word-formation which
students often make. Based on the findings of the research, several pedagogical
implications will be provided and teachers can adapt them to their teaching and help
learners overcome difficulties in word-formation.
Furthermore, to ULIS students in general and first- year students in particular,
after being aware of possible problems related to word-formation, they will build
carefully learning strategies and have appropriate studying plans. Then, according to
recommendations for students, they can also improve their learning process and adapt
these advices to their plans.
Lastly, this research can be considered as a useful reference for further studies
on the relevant topics. Collected data are able to be a valuable source for educators as
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well as book editors to make changes with text books in schools and to enhance the
efficiency of vocabulary teaching.
1.4. Scope of the study
Word-formation processes, as defined by Quirk and Greenbeaum in “A
university grammar of English” (2008), consist of eight processes. However, within
the framework of the graduation thesis, this study concentrates on investigating word-
formation which is defined Plag (2002) in the book “Word formation in English”:
“The study of the ways in which new complex words are built on the basis of other
words or morphemes”, or in other words, the thesis mainly focuses on affixation,
compounding, and conversion.
Furthermore, the author specifically aims at investigating problems related to
word-formation process which first-year students at ULIS often encounter. The reason
for the author to choose first- year students as target participants of the thesis is that at

– affixation, conversion, compounding as well as other processes which are divided
according to the view of Quirk and Greenbeaum in “A university grammar of English”
(2008). The third being explores the role of word formation in English learning
process. The last part is the focus of the most common difficulties of morphological
awareness perceived by EFL learners.
2.1. Basic concepts
2.1.1. Definition of word
Until now, word is still considered as an abstract matter that receives many
conflicting points of view about its definition from linguistic researchers.
As stated, word is considered in spoken language as the basic unit of the
language which enables effective communication. In other words, word is defined as
an essential instrument for communicative purpose.
As a natural reaction, people tend to think of word as a unit in written system.
For example, orthographic theory in which word is call an orthographic lexicon,
defines word as an interrupted string or letter preceded by blank space and followed by
a blank space or punctuation mark (Plag, 2002)
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Whereas, Plag (2002) fought the idea of orthographic theory that a word does
not simply depend on fancies of individual writers or the arbitrariness of English
spelling system. He defines word on the basis of four factors: sound structure, internal
integrity, meaning and sentence structure. In accordance with sound structure, Ingo
Plag calls the way that a word built is phonological way. Accordingly, in terms of
phonological method, word is crucial for existence and distribution of stress.
Considering integrity criterion, it is affirmed that word is an indivisible unit into which
no intervening material may be inserted. However, questions about modification of
word are raised and seem to be conflict to the previous idea. As responded by Plag,
when modification element is added to a word, it must be placed at the edge of word.
Although at first stage, internal integrity seems to be a good definition and easily
applied, there are many cases in which internal integrity is violated such as sons – in –
law. This is the reason for Plag to continue with the third criterion – meaning. In other

Morpheme system can be subdivided into smaller branches in terms of function
and semantic meaning. Firstly, in relation to function, morphemes are subdivided into
derivational morphemes, inflectional morphemes and “cranberry morphemes”.
Morphemes which change lexical meaning of the word belong to derivational
categorization. Morphemes that serve a purely grammatical function and create
different forms of the same words are inflectional morphemes. As for cranberry
morphemes, they are asserted with no constant associated meaning, for example,
permit, commit and submit. Secondly, regarding semantics, there are two types of
morphemes: content morphemes and function morphemes. As the term suggests, they
are linguistic units that hold semantic content with grammatical function while
function morphemes express grammatical relationship between words in sentence.
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To summarize, studying word-formation has the familiar meaning with dealing
morphologically with complex words (Plag, 2002). In this thesis, the author will
survey and analyze, after all, how “movement” such as adding, removing or changing
position of morphemes can create changes to word.
2.2. Morphological processes
2.2.1. Affixation
2.2.1.1. Definition of affixation
Affixation is the morphological process in which an affix is attached to a root or
stem. In there, roots (or bases) are conceived as the morphemes which hold principal
or basic concepts, ideas or meanings in the word. Roots organizing content and
function word are free morphemes and roots forming part of word are perceived as
bound morphemes. As for stems, they are considered as free roots “to which
derivational affixes have been added or likely to be added” (Zapata, 2007). Thus, it
can be referred that stems sometimes can be roots such fish or place but in some cases,
roots would go with one or more derivations, for example, comfortable,
uncomfortable. In other words, stems are words without inflectional morphemes.
2.2.1.2. Types of affixation
Two authors Quirk and Greenbeaum (2008) divide affixes into two kinds:

E.g.: 1. - the bottle to bottle
2. - to call a call
3. - better to better
4. - poor the poor
With the same view, Quirk and Greenbeaum (2008) describe English conversion
as derivational process in which an item changes words-class without an affix. With
definitions of linguists as well as given examples above we can come up with an
appropriate definition for conversion:
It is a process in which a new word is produced not by adding any affix or
changing its form but using this word in new function. Conversion is sometime known
with other names such as functional shift or zero- derivation.
2.2.2.2. Types of conversion
Most linguists recognize two popular branches of this word-formation process:
conversion to noun (from verbs, adjectives, closed-class words, affixes and phrases)
and conversion to verb (from noun and adjectives). Zapata (2007) continues to
subdivide conversion into one more category which is conversion to adjective from
noun.
Eg.: 1. Conversion to noun

• From verbs
answer, attempt, bet, blow-out, bore, catch, cheat, coach, cover, desire, dismay,
etc.
• From adjectives
bitter (type of beer), comic, daily (newspaper), final (race), marrieds (married
people), natural (a naturally skilled player), roast, red, regular (customer), etc.
• From closed-class words
buts, downs, how, ifs, a must, ups, why, etc.
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• From affixes
Isms (patriotism, capitalism)

When nouns are in the corresponding verb forms, there is a substantial change of
pronunciation especially of vowel sounds.
E.g.: Noun  Verb
breath /breθ/ breathe /bri:ð/
bath /bɑ:θ/ or / bæθ/ bathe /beð/
glass /glœs/ (or /glɑ:s/) glaze /gleiz/
• Shift of stress
When two-syllable (or three- syllable) verbs are turned into nouns, the primary
stress is sometimes shifted from the second to the first syllable. The noun and verb
form do not always have the same semantic range (application, uses, meanings or
senses) (Zapata, 2007).
E.g.: decrease (n) /ˈdiːkriːs/ decrease (v) /dɪˈkriːs/
extract (n) /ˈɛkstrakt/ extract (v) /ɪkˈstrakt, ɛk-/
import (n) /ˈɪmpɔːt/ import (v) /ɪmˈpɔːt/
2.2.3. Compounding
2.2.3.1. Definition of compounding
As state by Norquist (2006), in linguistics, the process that two words combine
to make a new word (commonly a noun, verb, or adjective) is called compounding.
Compounds can be in form of one word (teapot), or two hyphenated words (life-
threatening), or two separate words (football stadium). Elements of compounding
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words can be roots (e.g.: astro-, bio-, photo-, etc.), words (e.g.: park commissioner), or
group of words (e.g.: over- the fence- gossip) (Plag, 2002).
To sum up, until now compounding has been one of the most controversial type
of word-formation in terms of linguistic analysis, the author has desire to slightly draw
a conclusion of compounding:
It is a process combining two or more elements. Each element can be a root, a
word or a phrase. However, we need to note that these elements always belong to two
members: non-head and head.
2.2.3.2. Types of compounding

primary stress on the first constituent, for example, goody- goody, chit-chat, Ping-
Pong, tip-top, etc. However, it is patent that exceptional cases still exist such as pooh-
pooh, harum-scarum, willy- nilly, etc.
2.2.5. Clipping
Clipping refers to process in which lexeme is shortened but still remains the
meaning and part of speech. In clipping process, only style of words changes. Quirk
and Greenbeaum (2008) define clipping that it represents the subtraction of one or
more syllables from word. In the other words, clipping can be seen as a word
shortening process. This shortening can occur at the beginning of the word, the end of
the word (more commonly) and at both ends of the word (rarely).
The domination of clipping is nouns then adjectives, verbs, adverbs (rarely),
preposition, even interjections and conjunctions (more rarely).
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Zapata (2007) presents other characteristic of clipped forms which is tone of
informality reflected in their spelling such as showbiz (for show business), ‘cause (for
because), etc. Sometimes, to suit the pronunciation of the original word, the spelling of
word is altered, for example, mike for microphone, Mike for Michael, veg for
vegetable, bike for bicycle, etc. However, the tone of informality will usually
disappear when they become well established in the language and acknowledged by
most of community such as taxi, bus, plane, stereo, etc.
2.2.6. Blends
Quirk and Greenbeaum (2008) simplify blends that they have at least one of the
elements which is fragmentary in comparison with its corresponding uncompounded
word. In short, blending is a process in which combining the beginning of one word
and the end of another will create a new word.
E.g.: Bash = bang + smash
Motorcade = motor + cavalcade.
Clash= clack + crash
According to Quirk and Greenbeaum, blends have a short life, are informal and
some of them have become more or less fully accepted in language. However,

is the process in which new words are produced by removing an affixation from
existing word. In most cases, back formation adapts an existing word with deletion of
a suffix (e.g. edit from editor, enthuse from enthusiasm, execute from execution, etc.).
We can see from examples above, this word- form process generally involves turning
one part of speech to another. For example, to form a verb form a noun, back
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