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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains
no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by
which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma.
No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgements in the
thesis.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in
any other tertiary institution.
Da Nang, 2006
HỒNG ÁI NGA

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ABSTRACT
This study attempts to investigate the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of
deontic markers (DM ) in English and Vietnamese. The study explores the use of
modal devices expressing obligation and permission in modern English and
Vietnamese novels and short stories. The study is carried out through the adoption
of descriptive, quantitative, qualitative and contrastive approaches.
The most important and significant aspect of the study, the similarities and
differences between English and Vietnamese ways of expressing deontic modality
in the view of syntactics, semantics and pragmatics, is presented in order to help
learners have better use of language in communication. The findings of the study
show the frequency and variety in terms of occurrence of deontic forms. On the
basis of the findings, some teaching implications consisting of teaching strategies
and some suggested exercises have been put forward.

2.2.5 Deontic Modality in the View of Pragmatics ......................................... 18
2.2.6 Linguistic Communication ..................................................................... 22
2.3. Summary .......................................................................................................... 27

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CHAPTER 3:

METHOD AND PROCEDURE ........................................ 28

3.1 Aims and Objectives of the Study ..................................................................... 28
3.1.1 Aim of the Study ..................................................................................... 28
3.1.2 Objectives of the Study............................................................................. 28
3.2 Research Methodology ...................................................................................... 29
3.3 Research Procedures .......................................................................................... 30
3.4 Description of Population and Sample ............................................................. 30
3.5 Data Collection ................................................................................................. 31
3.6 Data Analysis .................................................................................................... 31
3.7 Reliability and Validity ..................................................................................... 31

CHAPTER 4:

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ........................................ 33

4.1 Syntactic Representation of UCDM in English and Vietnamese ...................... 33
4.1.1 UCDM Consisting of a Complete Sentence ........................................... 33
4.1.2 UCDM Consisting of an Incomplete Sentence ....................................... 41


AND

IMPLICATIONS

FOR

LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING ........................................... 103
5.1 Conclusions .................................................................................................... 103
5.2 Implications for Language Learning and Teaching ........................................ 108
5.3 Suggestions for Further Research .................................................................. 110

REFERENCES
APPENDICES

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ABBREVIATIONS
DM

: Deontic Markers

D&C

: Directives and Commissives

FTA


Representation of UCDM in English and Vietnamese.

Table 4.2: Summary of the Typical Semantic Meaning of 11 Modal Verbs

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Found in UCDM in English and Vietnamese

Table 4.3: Summary on the Performative Verbs of UCDM in English and

74

Vietnamese.

Table 4.4: Summary of the Representation of DM for the Six Functions

75

of UCDM in English and Vietnamese.

Table 4.5: Relative Frequency (%) of English and Vietnamese Deontic

95

Markers under Syntactic Features.

Table 4.6: Summary of Polite Markers & Mitigating Words in UCDM in
English and Vietnamese.


epistemic meaning. In the sociophysical (deontic) world, the must in John must go
to all the department parties is taken as indicating an obligation imposed upon the
subject of the sentence by the speaker ( or by some other agents). In the epistemic
world, the must in the same sentence could be read as a logical necessity according
to the reasoning I must conclude that it is John’s habit to go to all department

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parties (because I see his name on the sign-up sheet every time, and he’s always out
on those nights). In addition, there is considerable overlap between modals. It is
hard to discern any semantic difference among them since modals are almost
substitutable in almost contexts, such as should and ought to in I should/ ought to
finish this essays tonight. Pragmatically, we can talk about modal meanings in terms
of such logical notions as permission, obligation and prohibition performed by
speech acts of directives and commissives, but this done, we will have to consider
ways in which these notions become remoulded by the psychological pressures of
everyday communication between human beings: factors such as the effect of social
distance, the power relationship between interlocutors, politeness, directness,
indirectness , mitigating devices and hedges. The appropriate use of the linguistic
means to the context is the matter of culture- specifics. A good knowledge of such
factors plays an important role in sustaining communication and good relationship
between interlocutors.
In foreign language classes, focus is given on the teaching and learning of
the linguistic forms and functions. The pragmatic use of them in communication has
completely been ignored or not fully been introduced and practised. Moreover, the
socio-cultural factors and routines of the community using the language have not
been mentioned. As a result, there is a gap between classroom interactions and the

Although Palmer’s notional categories make sense, I found that it was
difficult to process the grammatical patterns in the language data used to illustrate
the categories. Part of my difficulty may be attributed to the fact that I believe
modality needs to be studied in the context of use, i.e., natural texts, not isolated
sentences; and also, I believe that a thorough study of all grammatical expressions
of modality and mood must be done within a single language before the results are
compared and contrasted cross-linguistically. Such linguistic and methodological
viewpoints have revealed that a fully complete study on approaches to syntactic,
semantic and pragmatic analysis of modal meanings is essential, especially for
learners of English as a foreign language.
On recognizing of the needs for such a study, I decided to make an
investigation into deontic markers in English and Vietnamese. It is hoped that the
study is an attempt to consider problematic aspects of deontic modality with the
respects to semantic, syntactic and pragmatic features of English DM in comparison
with Vietnamese ones to serve better communication as well as the teaching. The

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investigation will be a significant task contributing to the study of English as a
foreign language, especially to learners of both languages.
1.2 JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY
Although many linguists have studied English deontic modality, they have
paid attention to studying modal verbs in terms of semantics and syntactics. In fact,
the contrastive analysis on the means of expressing deontic modality in English and
Vietnamese is of great demand. This is the first thesis studying DM in English and
their Vietnamese equivalents that has realised the deontic forms and discovered the
similarities and differences between English means of expressing obligation,


Vietnamese DM?
2. What are the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of DM in English
and Vietnamese?
3. How are the DM distributed in literary works in English and Vietnamese?

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
This paper includes the following parts:
- Chapter 1 introduces the rationale of the study, presents the aims and objectives,
the scope, the justification and the organization of the study.
-

Chapter 2 is the literature review which includes previous studies and the

linguistic concepts of modality, types of modality,

notions of possibility and

necessity as semantic category of deontic modality, linguistic realizations of DM in
English and Vietnamese. Besides, the theory of speech acts, principles of politeness
and mitigation to express obligation and permission in social interaction are
discussed.
- Chapter 3 mentions the method and procedure, research questions, description of
population and samples, data collection and procedure of studying modal lexical
devices, imperative mood in English and Vietnamese and their semantic, syntactic,
pragmatic features.
- Chapter 4 presents the findings and discussions consisting of the linguistic
features of DM that are the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features, the
frequency of occurrence of DM in English and Vietnamese.
- Chapter 5 is the conclusion which draws the similarities and differences on

provides a fresh look at parts of English grammar, in which modals are considered
as secondary verbs due to their dependent semantic roles in verbs phrases.
Furthermore, it should take into accounts of viewpoint of Lyons (1962) in
Semantics and Sweetser (1976) in From Etymology to Pragmatics. Lyons provides
basic ideas on modality, in which modals are seen as a means to express modal
meanings. Sweetser, on the other hand, sets forth discussions of approaches to
pragmatic interpretation of modal semantics in terms of speech acts.

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In 1999, Nguyen Duong Nguyen Chau presented a M.A thesis about modal
verbs must, should, have to expressing obligation. Her investigation focused on the
semantic and pragmatic features of these three English modals.
Tran Thi To Nga (2002) with the thesis “An Investigation into the Syntactic
and Pragmatic Features of Directives in English and Vietnamese” described and
analysed the syntactic and pragmatic features of directives in English and
Vietnamese. At the same time, she presented the differences and similarities
between English and Vietnamese in the syntactic and pragmatic perspectives of
directive speech act.
Though there have been so many investigations on modals, such researches
are general discussions of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of English
modal system. There have not been so far a specific study which attempts to apply
certain fully complete approach of syntactic and semantic analysis as well as
pragmatic features of deontic modality expressing the notion of obligation and
permission so as to help learners of English have a thorough insight into this
problematic


speech and grammatical classes (word, phrase and clause) are said to function. In
English, a sentence normally contains one independent clause with a finite verb.
Utterance in discourse is defined as what is said by one person before and after
another person beginning to speak.
The utterance, in general, is not identical with the “sentence”. Firstly, the basic
criterion for a sentence is grammatical correctness, while that of an utterance is its
acceptability or meaningfulness in the context. That can explain the existence of
utterances in form of incomplete sentences or of more than one sentence. Secondly,
sentence meaning is free from context, whereas utterance meaning is context
dependence. A sentence may have different meanings in different contexts. In short,
utterances are sentences in context.

2.2.1.2 Proposition and Modality
In a sentence, there are two semantic components. One is what Jespersen
(1909:313) refers to as “the content of the sentence” and the other is the speaker’s
attitude or opinion. In other words, they are proposition and modality. The former
contains information and the latter makes it more meaningful and informative.
Let look at the following two examples:
(a) John may be in his office.
(b) John must be in his office.
Both utterances carry the same content or proposition, that is “John – in his
office”. However, it is the presence of modal markers may and must that
differentiates their meanings. In (a) the speaker only speculates on John’s presence
in his office and therefore, John may be somewhere else. While in (b) the speaker is

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feelings about what we are saying. In English, we do all these things by using a set
of verbs called modal verbs or modal auxiliaries.
Modals are one way for a speaker to encode modality into what (s)he sayssuch ideas as necessity, possibility, obligation, etc. Here is a list of the modals used
in English. Of the same pair, one is root modal and the other is distal one. Distal
modal will be more polite than its root one.
can / could

may / might

shall / should

will/ would

2.2.2.2 Semantic features of modal verbs
According to Lewis (1990: 101), the primary semantic characteristic of
modals is that they allow the speaker to express an attitude to the non-factual and
non-temporal elements of the situation. This means (s)he can introduce elements of
modality such as possibility, necessity, desirability, morality, doubt, certainty, etc.
For example, in making such a question as What should I do?. It is clearly about the
speaker, but is also equally importantly about the listener’s judgement or opinion.
In an approach to modal semantics, Dixon (1991:170) points out that each
modal has a fair semantic range, extending far beyond the central meanings that are
indicated. There is in fact considerable overlap between modals. For instance, the
central meaning of can refers to inherent ability: John can lift 100 kilos, and any of
may to the possibility of some specific event happening: We may get a Christmas

modals in social interaction, which are speech acts and theory of politeness.

2.2.3 Types of modality
The distinction that Jespersen draws between the two kinds of modality
(“containing an element of will” and “ not containing an element of will”) is closely
paralleled in Lyon’s (1977:452) reference to “the speaker’s opinion or attitude
towards the proposition describes”.
Steele et al. (1981:21) implicitly make the same distinction: “Elements
expressing modality will mark any of the following: possibility or the related notion
of permission; probability or necessity or the related notion of obligation, certainty
or the related notion of requirement”. The remarks in Steele et al. can be illustrated
from English; the following sentences can be interpreted either in terms of
possibility, probability and necessity, or in terms of permission, obligation and
requirement. (the glosses are rough paraphrases):

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He may come tomorrow. (Perhaps he will / he is permitted)
The book should be on the shelf. (It probably is / Its proper place is)
He must be in his office. (I am certain that he is / he is obliged to be)
There is no doubt that the English modals have both epistemic and deontic
interpretations, and it would appear from the glosses that both interpretations are
available for a single form.
However, although the same forms are used, there are often quite clear formal
distinctions between epistemic and deontic use. In English, for example, the
negative form mustn’t is generally used only deontically, as in he mustn’t be in his
office. The only way of expressing the negative of epistemic must is to use can’t: He

the imposition of a state of affairs on individuals, or with the modality as deixis, the
imposition of an expressed world on a reference world.
Deontic modality, in one form or another, is related to all the following:
orders, rights, willing, duty, exhortation, permission, requirements and even ability.
These concepts comes into two basic categories: obligation and permission .
Within the scope of the study, a version of obligation and permission is dealt
with so as to lay the foundation for later discussion on its semantic and pragmatic
aspects.

2.2.3.3 Deontic and performative
Deontic modality is essentially performative. By using a deontic modal, a
speaker may actually give permission may, can, could ; lay an obligation must or
make a promise or threat will, shall.
The criterion of being performative may be starting-point for defining the
deontic modals. They give (or refuse ) permission, lay an obligation, or make a
promise. Moreover, there will normally be no past tense forms, for by their nature
performatives cannot be in the past; the act takes place at the moment of speaking.

2.2.3.4 The notions of possibility and necessity as semantic category of deontic
modality
The notions of possibility and necessity, traditionally associated with modal
logic, are also central to the discussion of modality. They are relevant to epistemic
modality as well as to Von Wright’s alethic. They can also be used to describe

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deontic modality, since to give permission is to make an action possible and to lay



1

concerned with the necessity or possibility of acts performed by morally responsible
agents. When we impose upon someone the obligation to perform or to refrain from
performing a particular act, we are clearly not describing either his present or future
performance of that act. There is a sense in which the sentence we utter can be said
to express a proposition; but it is not a proposition which describes the act itself.
What it describes is the state-of-affairs that will obtain if the act in question is
performed; and we have already seen that directives can be analyzed, along these
lines, as utterances which impose upon someone the obligation to make a
proposition true (or to refrain from making it true) by bringing about (or refraining
from bringing about) in some future world the state-of-affairs that is described by
the proposition.

2.2.4 Linguistic realization of deontic modality
Modality, conceived as a general notional category present in all languages
and therefore subject to a cross-linguistic comparison, indicates the attitude of the
speaker towards the propositional content of the utterance. It can be expressed in a
variety of forms, either grammatical or lexical, mood, modal verbs, modal uses of
tenses, sentential adverbs, particles, periphrases (verbal, adjective and nominal
expressions), or via intonation.
Deontic modality can be expressed by different devices such as syntactic,
lexical and morphological devices. On the scope of this research, only syntactic and
lexical devices are investigated.

2.2.4.1 Linguistic realization of deontic modality in English
Deontic modality is marked in various ways, especially by lexical devices
(modal verbs, performative verbs) and by mood.

lệnh, cho phép
+ Modal lexical verbs:
- Obligation : phải, cần, nên
- Prohibition: dám, nỡ, đành, đang tâm, không được, đừng

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- Permission : có thể, được
- Exemption: khoan, không thể
- Advice: nên, thử, khoan, phải
- Suggestion, proposal: nên, cần, phải

+ Modal adverbs: Hãy, đừng, chớ
+ Modal particles: à , ạ, sao, nhỉ, nhé, nghe , cho, với, mà…
- Command: đi, đã, thôi, chứ, mà
- Request: xem, coi
- Suggestion: nào, nhé
- Entreating/ Begging: vôùi , mà
Particles play a
Vietnamese.

very

important

role