VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGUES
POSTGRADUATE DEPARTMENT
*** Phạm thị hà trang A contrastive analysis of syntactic structures
employed in describing trends in English and
Vietnamese business articles
(phân tích đối chiếu cấu trúc ngữ pháp dùng trong mô tả chiều
h-ớng trong các bài báo th-ơng mại tiếng anh và tiếng việt)

MA Minor thesis
Major: Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15 Hà nội - 2009

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGUES
POSTGRADUATE DEPARTMENT
***


PART II - DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Literature Review
1.1. Contrastive Analysis and Transfer Theory 5
1.1.1. Contrastive Analysis 5
1.1.2. Language transfer and its influence on foreign language teaching and learning 6
1.2. Syntax and syntactic structures 7
1.2.1. Syntax 7
1.2.2. Syntactic structures 9
1.2.2.1. Definition 9
1.2.2.2. Categories 10
1.3. Journalistic register 15
1.4. Trend description in English and Vietnamese 17

Chapter 2: A contrastive analysis of syntactic structures used in describing trends in
English and Vietnamese business articles
2.1. An overview on the business and economic newspapers used in the contrastive
analysis 19
2.1.1. The English business newspapers 20
2.1.2. The Vietnamese business newspapers 21
2.2. A contrastive analysis of syntactic structures used in describing trends in
English and Vietnamese business articles 22
2.2.1. Clause structures 22
2.2.1.1. Clause structures in general trend description 22

vii
2.2.1.2. Clause structures in terms of movements 29
2.2.1.3. Summary 33
2.2.2. Phrase structures 33
2.2.2.1. Verb phrase 33
2.2.2.2. Noun phrase 35

5. FT: Financial Times
6. O: Object
7. S: Subject
8. SG§TTC: Sµi Gßn §Çu T- Tµi ChÝnh
9. TBKTSG: Thêi B¸o Kinh TÕ Sµi Gßn
10. TBKTVN: Thêi B¸o Kinh TÕ ViÖt Nam
11. TE: The Economist
12. V: Verb
13. WSJ: Wall Street Journal

v
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES 1

PART I - INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale for the study
As Heraclitus (540 BC – 480 BC), a Greek philosopher, once said ‘nothing endures but
change’, the world we live in today is the world of changes and development – the world of
trends. It is therefore necessary to keep pace with the flow of life everyday by gathering
changeable information about that world. Here comes the indispensable role of mass media in
general and newspapers in particular. As Tom E. Rolnicki, C. Dow Tate and Sherri Taylor
(2001) remark in their book Scholastic Journalism ‚Immediacy or timeliness is the most
essential element of most news‛ (p.8), thus we are updated, thanks to newspapers, with latest
news about stock markets, unemployment rate, trends of consumer spending or cases of
bankruptcy somewhere in the world etc.
Given that English is an international language, there are a vast number of newspapers printed
in English regardless of the countries of origin. Together with famous newspapers in America
or Britain like International Herald Tribute, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The Guardian etc.,
we also have Business Standard from India, China Daily from China, Vietnam News from
Vietnam, Business Day from South Africa and so on. The domination of English as a common
language of newspapers is greater and greater, which has gradually been eradicating our
knowledge barriers.
As a teacher of Business English, it is compulsory for me to read English newspapers,
magazines or journals regularly, especially business ones in order to keep me updated and help
me understand more about journalistic register. What is more, I can enrich my Business
English vocabulary and expressions as well as exploit a potential source of teaching materials.
Consequently, my lessons can be more informative and lively. In fact, one of my concerns

from the perspective of traditional grammar
- To make a contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese syntactic structures used in
describing trends in business articles to deduce their differences and similarities
- To propose some pedagogical implications for better teaching and learning of describing
charts or graphs and some recommendations for more effective translation works

3. Scope of the study
Due to the constraint of time and effort, the study only investigates the English and
Vietnamese syntactic structures on the levels of clauses and phrases.
3

Also, as suggested in the title of the thesis, the object of the research is narrowed down to
syntactic structures used in trend description in business news. The trends are either concerned
with specific statistics and figures or with general remarks about changes or tendency.
The resources of the analysis are English and Vietnamese business articles from business and
economic newspapers.

4. Methodology of the study
As the title of the thesis suggests, the study is aimed at comparing and contrasting the syntactic
structures used in describing trends in English and Vietnamese business articles; therefore,
three methods namely descriptive, comparative and contrastive are employed.
By descriptive method, a systemic list of structures used to describe trends in business articles
will be presented. Their syntactic features will be shown explicitly. Comparative and
contrastive methods enable the author to discover the similarities and differences between
structures used in describing trends in the two journalistic languages.
The basic process of the research is as follows. Firstly, four English and four Vietnamese
business and economics newspapers are chosen with two copies each. Three articles are taken

description as well as helping students how enhance their skills of describing charts and graphs
in English.
Lastly, the Conclusion part includes a review of the study, some concluding remarks and
suggestions for further research. 5

PART II - DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, some basic theoretical issues related to contrastive analysis, syntactic
structures, news language and trend description will be reviewed to form a theoretical
framework for the next chapter. First, the history of contrastive analysis and theory of

1960s and is based on the following assumptions:
a. the main difficulties in learning a new language are caused by interference from the
first language
b. these difficulties can be predicted by contrastive analysis.
c. teaching materials can make use of contrastive analysis to reduce the effects of
interference. (1992:83)
Characteristically, James (1980) believes that ‚CA belongs to interlanguage study, and, since
‘emergence’ is an evolutionary concept, it follows that CA is to be viewed as diachronic rather
than synchronic in orientation.‛ (1980:3) Also, he points out the relation between CA and
language learning, especially foreign language learning, ‚CA is concerned with the way in
which native language affects foreign language learning in the individual ‛ (1980:9)

1.1.2. Language transfer and its influence on foreign language teaching and learning
The idea of language transfer started from the post war years and continued its influence into
the 1960s. It was defined by Ellis (1965) as ‚the hypothesis that the learning of task A will
affect the subsequent learning of task B‛. (Quoted in James, 1980:11) At that time, it was
strongly believed that ‘most of the difficulties facing the L2 learner were imposed by his or her
first language.‛ (Ellis, 1985:6) Specifically, where there were differences between the L1 and
L2, the learner’s L1 knowledge would interfere with the L2, and where the L1 and L2 were
similar, the L1 would actively aid L2 learning. (Ellis, 1985:7) Therefore, by identifying the
similarities and differences between L1 and L2, teachers might find the ways to make use of
the positive transfer and eliminate the negative transfer during students’ learning process.
Odlin presents similar ideas while claiming that "teaching may become more effective through
a consideration of differences between languages and between cultures." (2000:4) Also,
according to this author, research on language transfer may result in goals other than
pedagogical ones, for example, "For historical linguists, such knowledge can lead to insights
about the relation between language contact and language change." (2000:4)

colors to the syntax mosaic with their so-called Phrase Structure Grammar in the books
8

Information-based Syntax and Semantics. Volume I: Fundamentals (1987) and Head-driven
phrase structure grammar (1994).
Evidently, syntax has quite a long history of independent development and has been an
indefinite source of inspiration for grammarians and linguists. A preliminary question is then
put forward, ‘what is syntax?’
To put it simply, according to Delahunty and Garvey (1994), ‚the word ‘syntax’, in its root
sense, means ‘arranging together’. The –tax root is the same one as in tactics. Syn means ‘with’
or ‘together’. Syntax concerns the combining of words into phrases and sentences.‛ (p.175)
Miller (2002) asserts that ‚syntax has to do with how words are put together to build phrases,
with how phrases are put together to build clauses or bigger phrases, and with how clauses are
put together to build sentences.‛ (p.xiii) He also emphasizes that words alone cannot help us
communicate easily and effectively. Syntax has an indispensable role to play ‚because without
syntax human beings would be unable to construct complex messages conveying information
about complex situations, proposals or ideas‛ (p.134).
In his book English Syntax, Jacob (1995) defines syntax as ‚the grammatical principles, units,
and relations involved in sentence structure.‛ (p.4) This body of rules and principles governs
the way people produce sentences grammatically and acceptably in their own language even if
they are aware of it or not.
Fromkin et al. (2000) confirms the above idea by defining syntax as a part of our linguistic
knowledge that decides what constitutes a well-formed string of words and how to put words
together to form phrases and sentences. The grammaticality and ungrammaticality can be
differentiated through the two following examples:
Lear had three daughters.
*Had three Lear daughters. (p.8)

constituent structure and syntactic dependencies. The latter includes selection, case,
agreement, movement, negative polarity item licensing and antecedent/ reflexive relations. As
can be seen from the two definitions, both Richards and Fromkin pay attention to the
arrangement or combination of words to produce grammatical units. However, Richards
specifies further the components of a syntactic structure (words, morphemes, phrases, clauses
and sentences) whereas Fromkin only mentions words and sentences. It is also important to
know that Richards’s definition is an entry taken from his dictionary of language teaching and
applied linguistics while Fromkin’s idea is elaborated as part of a book about linguistics. Thus,
Fromkin provides a deeper understanding of syntactic structures and their characteristics.
Meanwhile, Jacob (1995) makes a specific investigation into English syntax through three
10

organizations, sentence structures, clause structures and phrase structures. He indicates three
basic properties of sentence structure namely linearity, hierarchy and categoriality.
To conclude, syntactic structures demonstrate a relationship between words and larger units
such as phrases, clauses and sentences. They also own fundamental properties like constituent
structure (or linearity and hierachy), selection (or categoriality), case etc.

1.2.2.2. Categories
Basically, there are three classes of syntactic structures including phrases, clauses and
sentences. However, within the scope of the thesis, only the first two types are going to be
examined.

a. Phrases
Richards (1992) states that a phrase ‚is a group of words which form a grammatical unit‛ and
‚does not contain a finite verb and does not have a subject-predicate structure.‛ (p.153)
Delahunty and Garvey (1994) show their disagreement with the traditional definition of a

 Head + Modifier(s)
 Combinations of the above (p.191)
A prepositional phrase has a simple functional formula: Head + Object with a preposition as
the head and a noun phrase as the object. (p.177)
An adjective phrase with an adjective as the head belongs four formula possibilities below:
 Head
 Intensifier(s) + Head
 Head + Complement
 Intensifier(s) + Head + Complement (p.179)
The final category is adverb phrase which contain a head adverb and an optional intensifier. Its
formula possibilities are
 Head
 Intensifier + Head (180)
As far as Vietnamese phrases are concerned, Diep Quang Ban (2007) shares some ideas with
Richards’s definition. He believes that phrases are constructions of two words or more
combined freely in accordance with particular grammatical relations and do not include
conjunctive words initially (p.6). Conjunctive words in Vietnamese belong to two groups, i.e.
12

main-subordinate (such as của, cho, bằng, do, vì, để, mà, ở, tại, với, về, trong, ngoài, trên d-ới,
nh-) and those that indicate equal relations (và, với, cùng, hay, thì, chứ etc.) (2007:132)
Also, Diep Quang Ban (2007) categorizes phrases into five types namely Noun phrase with a
noun as the head, Verb phrase with a verb as the head, Adjective phrase with an adjective as
the head, Numeral phrase with a numeral as the head and Pronoun phrase with a pronoun as
the head. (pp.15-16)Obviously, the first three types are similar with the English categorization
and the rest are different. From my personal viewpoint, it is better if numeral phrase and
pronoun phrase are included in noun phrase to avoid confusion.


(Very rich in potential)
SÏ ®Ñp h¬n
(will be beautiful more)
Front element
Nucleus (Adjective)
End element

In short, there appear similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese phrase definition
and categorization. Therefore, to keep the research consistent and coherent, five types of
phrases in the English category (Noun phrase, Verb phrase, Adjective phrase, Adverb phrase
and Preposition phrase) will be used as criteria for the contrastive analysis.

b. Clauses
Jacob (1995) claims that ‚Clauses are constructions with one phrase constituent, typically a
noun phrase, that bears the subject relation and another constituent, the verb phrase, bearing
the predicate relation.‛ (p.49)
A clause, according to Richards (1992), is ‘a group of words which form a grammatical unit
and which contain a subject and a finite verb. A clause forms a sentence or part of a sentence
and often functions as a noun, adjective, or adverb.‛ (p.53) He also mentions two types of
clause namely dependent and independent clauses.
Delahunty and Garvey (1994) suggest that ‚Clauses are combinations of two phrases,
specifically an NP and a VP, that are grammatically and semantically related to each other.‛
(p.255) They put clause patterns into eight types in accordance with the type of the main verb
in verb phrases.
(1) Intransitive: Subject Verb Head
(2) Simple transitive: Subject Verb Head Direct Object
(3) Subject complement: Subject Verb Head Subject Complement
(4) Object complement: Subject Verb Head Direct Object Object Complement
(5) Indirect Object: Subject Verb Head Indirect Object Direct Object

other parts namely conjunctions and annotation. He suggests 12 types of sentence patterns as
follows:
(1) Noun + lµ (be) + Noun
(2) Noun + b»ng (in) + Noun (material)
(3) Noun + t¹i, do, bëi (due to/ because of) + Noun
(4) Noun + ®Ó (for) + Noun or Subject-Predicate
(5) Noun + cña (of) + Noun or Subject-Predicate
(6) Noun + Adjective (quality)
15

(7) Noun + Verb (relation)
(8) Noun + Verb (modality)
(9) Noun + Verb (intransitive)
(10) Noun + Verb (transitive)
(11) Noun + Verb or Adjective (result/ consequence)
(12) Noun + Verb (command)
(p.128)
In the book ‚English and Vietnamese syntax: A contrastive analysis‛, Tran Huu Manh
(2007:388) demonstrates numerous similarities and differences in the two syntactic systems
among which are the shared Vietnamese clause/sentence types with 7 patterns presented in A
University Grammar of English by Quirk and Greenbaum (1973). Apart from the similarities
in English and Vietnamese clause types, Tran Huu Manh also specifies some differences. For
instance, the Vietnamese pattern S + C (a noun phrase or an adjective phrase) is sometimes
equivalent to the English pattern S + V + C.
E.g. Anh ta ng-êi Thanh Hãa ®Êy. (He_ person Thanh Hoa)
S C (Noun phrase)
~ He is a Thanh Hoa person.

Circumstances and nuances can change almost anything into news.‛ (p.3). Another way to
understand news concept can be found in the website
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/news; news is ‘the presentation of a report on recent or
new events in a newspaper or other periodicals or on radio or television.’ Also, in the book
Professional Journalist by John Hohenberb (1972), news is defined as ‘a recent happening or
idea that can relates to or affect the majority of a community and can be understood by them‛
(p.76) [Quoted in Nguyen Thi Thoa (2008:8)]. We can assume from these definitions that
news is recent, changeable, various and have some impact on a certain group of people.
As far as news language is concerned, Nguyen Thi Thoa (2008:35) proposes that ‚news
language includes a system of morphology, words, active and stative images, sound signals
etc. and the rules of combining them used by journalists as the means to express the contents,
topics and ideology of a journalistic product‛.
The author introduces three main characteristics of news language namely accuracy,
conciseness and emotiveness. Accuracy means that language must reflect the truth at certain
moments, in certain contexts. The second feature, conciseness, is guaranteed with careful word
choice as well as coherent expressions to meet the needs of busy readers. Emotiveness can be
interpreted as using language effectively to express of the writer’s opinions and feelings to a
certain event (2008: 36-37).
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Rolniki (2001) shares the first two characteristics of journalistic style, i.e. accuracy and
conciseness with Nguyen Thi Thoa (2008). He put a special emphasis on the accuracy of news
‚News must be accurate. Factual accuracy means that every statement, name and date, age and
address, and quotation is a verifiable fact.‛ In order to obtain accuracy, news reporters must
‚check every note‛ and ‚learn to question sources carefully‛ (2001:6) Besides, news writing
should be concise and clear to reach the average audience although the news writer can still
make it lively and personally creative. (2007:7). However, this author shows a different point

This, to some extent, enables journalists to use the medium of language to convey their opinion
or belief or create a remarkable impression on the audience about a certain event.

1.4. Trend description in English and Vietnamese
Up to now, there have not been any systematic studies about language of trend description in
English and Vietnamese in general as well as that in English and Vietnamese business
newspapers in particular. Accordingly, it is both a disadvantage and an advantage for the
investigator. The disadvantage lies in scarce and scattered reference resources, the lack of
evidence verification and the frequent disorientation during the research. However, the
advantage of novelty and magnetism of the topic becomes an obvious advantage for the writer
to be ready for a promising exploration.
In the first place, trend is understood as ‚the general way in which a particular situation is
changing or developing‛ (Longman Business English Dictionar, 2007: 560) or simply ‚general
tendency or direction‛ (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998: 970).
In fact, business trend and trend description are widely seen in mass media such as
newspapers, television, the internet etc. everyday. Trends are visualized in the form of charts,
graphs, or table i.e. the so-called non-textual means or visual aids so that complicated
information can be transferred to the audience more effectively and easily. Also, trend analysis
is available in business news or reports on the market condition, GDP indicators, or stock
indexes etc.
Besides, trend description appears as a requirement in course book or reference books such as
TOEFL, IELTS, TOEIC in the form of chart or graph description.
It is important to notice that effective trend description is concerned with the use of language
in general and the constructions of syntactic structures in particular. Therefore, the thesis will
approach the topic from syntactic perspective to find out the rules of structure building to
describe trends successfully.


for the mass. Second, it would be possible to find out the similarities and differences between
English and Vietnamese trend description as well as discover the distinctive features due to