a contrastive analysis on adverbial clauses in the two languages

Nguyễn Thị Hải Yến - K13N

chapter I : introduction

1. The rational for the study

Both in English and Vietnamese, adverbial clauses play an importance roles in Grammar.

In this paper I would like to go detail to analysis on English and Vietnamese adverbial

clauses in order to help the learner distinguish the using of adverbial clauses between the

two languages. This topic can be traced back to two reasons:

In the first place, adverbial clauses are widely considered the most importance type of the

adverbial group. Despite the fact that most of the grammatical references have at least one

part dealing with clauses of this type, learners still have difficulties understanding and

using them correctly. However, there have been so few studies on such a challenging but

interesting topic.

In the second place, the common use of adverbial clauses both in spoken and written

English and the differences existing between English and Vietnamese in this linguistic

area have grabbed my attention. It is hoped that, a detailed research work, especially the

one using contrastive analysis device, will satisfy any people of the same interest.

2. Aims and objectives of the study

The aims of the study on English and Vietnamese adverbial clauses are to bring a more

thorough comprehension of English grammar to intermediate and advanced learners.

Additionally, this research is carried out with a view to helping learners of lower levels

understand and use adverbial clauses correctly and this is a step to their mastery of

English.

The objectives of this work are :

• To give a general understanding of English adverbials.

• To identify and classify English adverbial clauses.

• To show the linguistic characteristics of the adverbial clauses in English.

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• To work out characteristics and classification of Vietnamese adverbial clauses.

• To find out similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese adverbial

clauses.

3. Significance of the study

This research is carried out with the hope of contributing to the mastery of English

of University students and any other intermediate and advanced learners. It is also of

some use to secondary students who wish to have a deep comprehension of adverbial

clauses. I expect any further studies on this topic or studies on other aspects related to this

one.

4. Scope of the study

In doing this paper, I give general point about English adverbials much more in

depth analysis of adverbial clauses is dealt with in the following part of the paper. In

chapter V, a comparison is carried out between adverbial clauses in English and

Vietnamese. I try my best to present logically and scientifically all aspects related to

clauses of this type in both languages.

The data and example in this paper are taken from reliable materials and reference

books.

5. Method of the study

The first methods used during the process of this work are material collecting and

synthesizing with which I can reduced my work from a variety of materials and reference

books by well-known English and Vietnamese scholars.

This is a study on English and Vietnamese adverbials so that the main research

method is based on contrastive analysis. The two steps of contrastive analysis method :

description and comparison are especially of full use in chapter V dealing with adverbial

clauses in the two languages.

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Nguyễn Thị Hải Yến - K13N

6. An outline of the study

My paper includes six chapter:

Chapter I: Introduction

Chapter II: Literature review

Chapter III: English adverbial clauses

Chapter IV: Vietnamese adverbial clauses

Chapter V: A contrastive analysis on adverbial clauses in the two languages.

Chapter VI: Conclusion.

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Nguyễn Thị Hải Yến - K13N

CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition of adverbial :

In Oxford’ Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, an adverb is defined as a word that adds more

information about place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc to a verb, an

adjective, a phrase or another adverb.

For example:

I was soon lost.

He works very hard.

Syntactically, an adverb may function as modifier of an adjective and adverb, for

example: She received so many presents or as adverbial, which is a constituent distinct

from S,V,O and C (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1987,p.126). For example:

When I was in England, I drank tea with breakfast.

A S V O Co

Adverbials are main type of the adverb group. As one of the basic and complicate

categories.

According to Leech & Svartvik (1992,p.197), adverbials usually tell something extra

about the action, happening or state described by the rest of the sentence

Cobuid (1992) define that the adverbial is a word or a group of words that help answer the

questions Where it ( the circumstance of an event or situation) occurs, how much it occurs

or when it occurs.

2.2 Definition of adverbial clause :

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