MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF TAG QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH
WITH THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU CÂU HỎI ĐUÔI
TRONG TIẾNG ANH VỚI NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG
TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT )

NGUYỄN THỊ NGÂN

Hanoi, 2016


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF TAG QUESTION IN ENGLISH
WITH THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU CÂU HỎI ĐUÔI
TRONG TIẾNG ANH VỚI NHỮNG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG
TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT )

NGUYỄN THỊ NGÂN


Apporoved by
SUPERVISOR

Date…………………………

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support
from a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to PhD. Do
Kim Phuong, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me
through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and
suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic
researcher.
A special word of thanks goes to all my classmates and many others,
without whose support and encouragement it would never have been
possible for me to have this thesis accomplished. I am greatly indebted to all
my knowledge and understanding I got at Ha Noi Open University for their
constant support and encouragement.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my husband for the
sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.

ii


ABSTRACT



S

Subject

ANK

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy (ibooks)

BO

Beloved oxford – Dương Thụy

TS

The lost symbol – Dan Brown

IN

Inferno – Dan Brown

LA

Looking for Alaska – John Green

PT

Paper Town – John Green

AK

Example

1

Positive

Negative

It‘s your birthday, isn‘t it?

2

Negative

Positive

It isn‘t your birthday, is it?

3

Positive

Positive

It‘s your birthday, is it?

4

Negative


v


DEFINITION OF KEY TECHNICAL TERMS

In this thisis, the key technical termsare to be employed in thesense as stated
in the example below:
(i) Semantics = Study of the relationship between language signs and
what is denoted by those signs.
(ii) Syntactics = Study of the relationship between language forms and
what is denoted by those forms.
(iii) Equivalents = Study of the relationship between English language
forms and what is denoted by Vietnamese forms.

vi


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality.......................................................................................... i
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ii
Abstract ................................................................................................................ iii
List of abbreviations .............................................................................................iv
List of table and figures ......................................................................................... v
Definition of key technical terms .........................................................................vi
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale for the research ............................................................................... 1
1.2. Aims of the research. ...................................................................................... 2
1.3. Objectives of the research ............................................................................... 3
1.4. Scope of the research ...................................................................................... 3

Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ................................................. 37
4.1. Contrastive analysis of syntactic and semantic features of tag question
in English with their Vietnamese equivalents ..................................................... 37
4.1.1. English:

S + Operator + Predication, Operator + S? .......................... 37

Vietnamese: CN + VN, có phải không?
Có phải + CN + VN + không?
Form 1: S + Operator (be) + Predication, Operator (be) + S? ............................. 40
Form 2: S + Operator (have) + Predication, Operator (have) + S? ..................... 43
Form 3: S + Operator (can/ will...) + Predication, Operator (can/ will...) + S? .. 44
4.1.2. English:

S + Ordinary verb + Predication, Auxiliary verb + S? ....... 45

Vietnamese: CN + VN, à/ ạ/ nhỉ/ đấy nhỉ/ ư/ đấy ư/ sao/ hả/ hở/
đúng không …?
Form 1: S + Ordinary verb + Predication, do + S? ............................................. 49
Form 2: S + Ordinary verb + Predication, don‘t + S? ......................................... 50
Form 3: S + Ordinary verb + Predication, does + S? .......................................... 51
Form 4: S + Ordinary verb + Predication, doesn‘t + S? ...................................... 52
Form 5: S + Ordinary verb + Predication, did + S? ............................................ 52
Form 6: S + Ordinary verb + Predication, didn‘t + S? ........................................ 53
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4.1.3. English:

Imperative statement, modal auxiliary? .............................. 54

spoken by their forefathers. However, English has had worldwide
recognition for ages and becomes the most popular language. Especially, in
open-door period and the trend towards internationalization, English has
become an essential tool in international communication and integration.
Therefore, the need for learning English is increasing not only in quantity
but also in quality.
Apart from learning practical English for daily communication, for future
jobs, for professional advancement, or for knowledge about England - its
people, customs and culture - learners study the theory of its language to get
a through insight into the language. Thanks to this language, we can belong
to the world as well as to our own country, and especially using tag question
is very important in everyday communication for the following reasons.
Firstly, questioning - answering, one of the most common communication
types, can appear with the high frequency in language communication.
Questioning and answering are issues of social-culture implied on them. In
communicative process in English as well as in other languages, questions
play an important role in our daily life. We are not able to keep
communicating going on well without making and answering questions.
We make questions in order to exchange our information, ideas, felling and
knowledge. Therefore, tag questions can also verify information in
communicating. Learning and understanding tag question let learners
translate English into Vietnamese more fluently.

1


Secondly, tag questions play an important part in a language both in written
and spoken forms. They are an integral part of a language and they make the
language more beautiful and dynamic.
Thirdly, there have been quite a number of studies on questions in general;

deeply understand, use tag questions in daily life and apply them to teaching
and learning English effectively.
1.3. Objectives of the research
With a view to achieving the above - mentioned aims, some specific objectives have
been put forward as follows:
1. To find out the semantic and syntactic features of tag questions in English.
2. To find out the similarities and differences of tag questions in English and
Vietnamese.
3. To suggest some implications for teaching, learning tag questions
in English.
1.4. Scope of the research
Tag questions have become an interesting object of several recent studies in
various languages. Within the scope of this study, we wish to confine
ourselves to studying tag questions from some books in English in terms of
syntactic and semantic features. The similarities and differences will help
Vietnamese learners of English learn tag questions in an easier way and use
tag questions in daily communication effectively.
1.5. Significance of the research
(i) Theoretically, the study helps to find out the characteristics and carry out
contrastive analysis of tag questions in English with their Vietnamese
equivalents.
(ii) Practically, in this thesis, Tag question in English with their Vietnamese
equivalents are studied in order that the results of this study can be applied
to increase the efficiency of communication and can be of some help to the
teaching and learning Tag question in English.
1.6. Structural organization of the research
There are five chapters in this research paper.
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its syntactic and semantic analysis on the perspectives of Imad Al-Nabtiti,
william Bright, David Crystal, Randolph Quick in English and those of Le
Dong, Cao Xuan Hao, Diep Quang Ban, Vo Dai Quang and Nguyen Dang Suu
in Vietnamese.
In addition, this chapter also presents the definitions and characteristics of tag
questions in English with their Vietnamese equivalents. This chapter was
carefully mentioned as the foundation for analysis in chapter 4.
2.1.

Review of previous studies

Relevant previous studies to the current research are presented in this section.
The previous findings and discussions play as an evidence of contrastive
analysis of similarities and differences of English and Vietnamese tag
questions in terms of its form and meaning. There have been quite a number of
studies on questions in general. Following are only three of those which are
going to be introduced. Because, up to now there have been many descriptions
of questions by foreign grammarians such as Radolph Quick, Sydney Green
bourn (1973, A university Grammar of English), Vorothy Danielson, Patricia
Porter, BebeccaHeyden (1990, Using English) and by Vietnamese researchers
such as Le Dong (True questions, 1996), Cao XuanHao (Prelimiraries to
functional grammar in Vietnamese, 1991), Vo Dai Quang (True questions,
2000), Nguyen Dang Suu (English questions contrastive to Vietnamese, 2002).
Le Dong (1996) carried out a study on ―true questions‖ on the view of
semantic and pragmatics. The author provided some theoretical background
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about questions and their common characteristics based on different aspects. In
the main part, the author focused on analysis of various types of questions in

semantic and pragmatic factors. In fact, questions play the important role in
both English and Vietnamese. As a popular type of questions, tag questions are
easy to be found in both spoken and written form and it is impossible to carry
out a comprehensive study on them. So, the study is aimed at finding out
the features of tag questions in English with their Vietnamese equivalents
interms of syntactic and semantic features. The writer tries to make a
comparison of tag questions between English and Vietnamese so as to find
out the similarities and differences between the two languages. More
importantly, the study hopes to provide Vietnamese learners of English
with a basic knowledge of the field and enables them to deeply understand,
use tag questions in daily life and apply them to teaching and learning
English effectively.
2.2.

Review of theoretical background

2.2.1. Definition of tag questions
2.2.1.1. Definition of question
Question is a category used to classify sentences based on communicative
purpose. A question is a linguistic expression used to make a request for
information, or the request made using such an expression. Hoang Trong Phien
states in his book ―Vietnamese Grammar: sentence‖ that ―Question is a kind of
sentence used to classify sentences toward reality. A statement is of true
category; however, a question is of possible category‖ (Phien, 1980). Defined
in Oxford Dictionary, question is ―a sentence worded or expressed so as to
elicit information‖. In verbal communication, questions can play the roles as
communicative functions. Question, in both English and Vietnamese, is
initially ―used to ask‖ so as to help speakers get the unknown information that
they would like to know. Additionally, questions are occassionaly considered
as a greeting, suggestion, a negation or affirmation, etc.

from others. Consider the following examples:
Tại sao lúc đó mình không giúp cô ấy nhỉ?
Có ai hiểu được lòng mình lúc này không?

8


There are many different points of view about classifying English as well as
Vietnamese questions. Based on the opinion of Bui Y and Bui Thanh Phuong
(as citied in Le, 2004, p.227), we have four types of questions:
-

General questions (Yes/No questions)

-

Special questions (Wh – questions)

-

Alternative questions

-

Tag questions.

2.2.1.2. Definition of Tag question
The term tag question is used to refer to a special kind of yes – no question
which consists of linguistic item (a question tag) attached to declarative,
exclamative or imperative clauses (Huddleston 1995:375) to express the



According to Huddleston, based on the way the question defines the set of
answers and tag question is a special kind of question in English.
Example:
You skipped class last week, didn’t you?
Huddleston noted that interrogative clause added as a supplement to the
declarative clause is called the tag. The declarative clause is referred as an
anchor (Huddleston &Pullum, 2002, p.892). A special rule is that a negative
tag is attached to a positive anchor or positive tag is attached to a negative
anchor.
Examples:
She is beautiful, isn’t she?( Cô ấy đẹp, có đúng không?)
She isn’t beautiful, is she?( Cô ấy chẳng đẹp chút nào, phải
không?)
Tag questions can be used for imperatives or suggestions. After imperatives,
won’t

you

to

often

used

to

invite people


comma ―,‖ before the tags. As a rule, in tag questions, the statements can be
positive or negative and the tags will be negative or vice versa. So, there are
four types of tag questions:

Type

The statement

The tag

Example

1

Positive

Negative

It‘s your birthday, isn‘t it?

2

Negative

Positive

It isn‘t your birthday, is it?

3




English can be form with the formulas. The table below used to illustrate
forms of English tag questions.

Form

Structure
Statement

Tag

1

S + Operator + Predication,

Operator + S?

2

S +Ordinary verb + Predication,

Auxiliary verb + S?

3

An imperative clause,

Modal auxiliary + S?


polarity and constant polarity.
As far as reversed polarity is concerned, a negative tag follows a positive
statement and vice versa.
Examples:
It broke down, didn't it? (positive statement - negative tag)
It didn't break down, did it? (negative statement - positive tag)
For a constant polarity tag question, both the statement clause and the tag
are in positive form or them are in negative form.
Examples:
You met him this morning, did you?

(positive statement -

positive tag)
You didn't meet him this morning, didn't you? (negative
statement - negative tag)
Invariant tag questions
A positive or negative statement with a falling tone is followed by an
invariant tag with rising tone. Sometimes, the tags are accompanied by
falling intonation to indicate more insistence.
Examples:
They forgot to attend the lecture,/am I right?/
They didn't forget to attend the lecture,/am I right/
ii) Tag questions with imperative statements
The implicit subject of an imperative statement can be the second person
singular of plural ―you‖ or a third person like ―everybody‖, ―somebody‖.
13