An investigation into linguistic features of volitional verbs in english and vietnamese

Abstract

This thesis has been done in an effort to investigate linguistic features of volitional verbs denoting intentions and wishes in English and Vietnamese in three aspects: syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Some concepts and terms in relation to this linguistic area such as definition of verbs, definition of verb phrases, volition, volitional verbs denoting intentions and wishes have been presented and discussed. The viewpoints on volitional verbs denoting intentions and wishes of some linguists like Halliday (1989), Quirk and Greenbaum (1973), Diệp Quang Ban and Hoàng Văn Thung (2006) have been also mentioned in theoretical background on which 1129 English samples and 1019 Vietnamese ones have been collected from 18 novels and short stories by English, American and Vietnamese writers to find out the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of volitional verbs. A contrastive analysis has been carried out to explore the similarities and differences between English volitional verbs and Vietnamese ones in terms of the above mentioned aspects. The study has showed the collocation of verbs denoting intentions and wishes with other parts of speech such as noun, to infinitive, object and to infinitive, gerund, preposition or that clause. Besides, the diversity in shades of meanings of these volitional verbs is mainly based on the degree of volition. The use of volitional verbs has a great effect on the choice of the level of politeness and formality of the language. In addition, the study has presented the distributions as well as the frequency of these verbs in both languages. The findings then served as a foundation to put forward a number of implications for English language teaching and learning to help Vietnamese learners of English to reach the effective communication. Finally, suggestions for further studies have been offered for anyone that is interested in this problem to continue studying to perfect this research