VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ THUẬN COMMON ERRORS IN THE USE OF THE ENGLISH PASSIVE MADE BY THE GRADE 10 NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT TRAN PHU SPECIALISED HIGH SCHOOL, HAIPHONG NHỮNG LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP Ở THỂ BỊ ĐỘNG CỦA HỌC SINH KHÔNG CHUYÊN KHỐI 10 TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN TRẦN PHÚ, HẢI PHÒNG M.A MINOR THESIS Major: Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 HANOI - 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ THUẬN COMMON ERRORS IN THE USE OF THE ENGLISH PASSIVE MADE BY THE GRADE 10 NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT TRAN PHU SPECIALISED HIGH SCHOOL, HAIPHONG NHỮNG LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP Ở THỂ BỊ ĐỘNG CỦA HỌC SINH KHÔNG CHUYÊN KHỐI 10 TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN TRẦN PHÚ, HẢI PHÒNG M.A MINOR THESIS Major: Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: NGUN HUN MINH, M.A HANOI - 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents Abbreviations Lists of tables and charts PART I - INTRODUCTION I Rationale of the study II Objectives of the study III Scope of the study IV Methods of the study V Organization of the study PART II – DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I – LITERATURE REVIEW An overview of voice in English 1.1 Voice 1.2 Active and Passive Voice 10 1.3 English passive voice 12 1.4 English passive in comparison with Vietnamese passive 26 Error and error analysis 28 2.1 Definition of error 28 2.2 Error analysis 29 2.3 Causes of errors 30 CHAPTER II – METHODOLOGY 33 Subject of the study 33 Setting 33 Research tools 34 Data collection procedures 36 i CHAPTER III – DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION 37 1.Written test 37 2.1 Written test results 37 2.2 Some common errors made by the students 37 Questionnaire for students 47 2.1 Questionnaire results 47 2.2 Data analysis 47 Probable causes of the errors 50 Measures to overcome these errors 52 PART III – CONCLUSION 55 References Appendix Appendix ii Abbreviations E.A: Error analysis Lists of tables and charts Chart1: The change in the position of constituents in passive transformation Table 1: Passive verbs in different tenses Table 2: The statistic of correct answers Table 3: Types of errors found in the study Table 4: Unnatural translation due to unchanging the voice Table 5: Errors of forming the past participle Table 6: Wrong translation samples with “bị, được” Table 7: Errors of using some special passive voice structures Table 8: List of special structures Table 9: Unnatural translation with some special structures iii PART I – INTRODUCTION I Rationale of the study According to statistics of recent studies, people who master English will see greater possibilities of success in doing research, getting promotion, and doing business They also confirm the relationship between English competence and high salary or increased trade Accordingly, the importance of English is undeniable because it has become the most popular language in all over the world This is the reason why English is now an obligatory subject in every high school in Vietnam In fact, many students are finding this subject more difficult than they used to think A lack of grammar can be one of major obstacles to mastering this second language There is an irrefutable fact that grammar is an integral part of every language, and English grammar is not an exception How would you study other specific fields in English without mastering grammar? English grammar includes many beautiful and unique aspects which we cannot find in other languages To Vietnamese learners, English grammar sometimes makes them confused due to the differences between English and our mother–tongue As a result, they have a lot of difficulties in communicating, especially in reading and writing in English The passive voice is considered to be one of the hardest grammatical items for Vietnamese learners to master Although there are a lot of pages, books, chapters which have been written about the passive voice, many students of English still have trouble explaining its usage in understandable ways In my experience in teaching English at Tran Phu Specialised High School in Hai Phong City, students often make common errors in using passive voice and causes of these errors have not been discovered yet The analysis of students’ errors is of great importance in teaching English It helps teachers identify students’ strategies of language learning and their level of proficiency so that teachers can find out suitable ways to improve current situations These are the reasons why I have decided to carry out a small study on common errors in the use of the English passive made by the grade 10 nonEnglish major students at Tran Phu Specialised High School II Objectives of the study: The study is aimed at firstly achieving deeper understanding of English passive voice, and above all, figuring out typical errors made by the students at Tran Phu Specialized High School in using passive voice Besides, the thesis is to find out causes of the typical errors in using passive voice and working out solutions to teaching students passive voice effectively Hence, the research is to answer the following questions: + What are the typical errors made by non – English majors at Tran Phu Specialized High School? + What are probable causes for these errors? + What are possible solutions to help the students overcome these errors? III Scope of the study: The study is focused on the passive voice However, it is not my ambition to cover every issue of the passive voice Within this small thesis, I desire to give readers some aspects of passive voice: a description of the passive voice sentence, uses, passive transformation constraints, and the formation of passive voice A comparison between English passive sentences and their Vietnamese equivalents is also mentioned Moreover, second language learners are various and different in the way of making errors However, because of limited size, the study will concentrate on giving an analysis of errors made by only 70 students from two non-major classes at Tran Phu Specialised High School IV Methods of the study: This study is a quantitative survey research In fact, a combination of data instruments is employed in an attempt to attain all the objectives above All the theory is attested by the exact data collected from a written test and a questionnaire for students which is presented in the later parts of the study From the analysis of the data, the problems will be found and the solutions will be given V Organization of the study: The study consists of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion - Part I (Introduction) shows the rationale, the objectives, the scope, the methods and the organization of the study - Part II (Development) includes three chapters Chapter I reviews the literature related to English passive voice and error analysis Chapter II provides the methodology which takes a closer look at the subjects, the background, and the methods in use Chapter III analyzes actual errors made by the subjects This chapter also discusses the causes of these errors and suggests some solutions to the improvement of teaching this grammatical item - Part III (Conclusion) summarizes the content of the research and gives some suggestions for further study PART II – DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I – LITERATURE REVIEW An overview of voice in English 1.1 Voice Verb plays a vital role in English It involves many verbal categories such as mood, tense, aspect, and voice Among these aspects, it appears that voice is one of the most dominant parts of English grammar Accordingly, numerous grammarians have studied voice and defined what voice is in their own way Followings are some typical definitions, which are usually used in teaching and learning English “Voice is a grammatical category which makes it possible to view the action of sentence in two ways without change in the facts reported.” (Randolph Quirk, 1973:98) “Voice is a form or set of forms of a verb in which either person or thing that does something is the subject of the verb (the active voice) or the person or thing that is affected by the action of the verb is the object (the passive voice)” (The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary) All things considered, the above definitions express the relationship between the subject and the action of the verb To illustrate this relationship, consider the following example:  Jim’s daughter drew that picture  That picture was drawn by Jim’s daughter In the first sentence, the subject “Jim’s daughter” is the person who performs the action “draw” Conversely, in the second sentence, “that picture” does not perform the action “That picture” is created by the action of drawing 1.2 Active and Passive Voice English has two voices, the active voice and the passive one, to indicate the relationship between the subject and the action described by its verbs (Illinois, R 397:1985) 1.2.1 Active Voice The active voice shows that the person or thing denoted by the subject of the sentence is the agent (doer) of the action expressed by the predicate it acts E.g.: About 30 million people are watching this program (a) Sentence (a) is said to be an active sentence since the form of verb is in the active voice The subject “about 30 million people” is performing the action of “watching” 1.2.2 Passive Voice “The passive voice serves to show that the person/thing denoted by the subject of the sentence is not the agent (the doer) of the action expressed by the predicative verb but is the object of this action The subject of a passive verb does not act but it acted upon, it undergoes an action” (Gordon, E.M., 1972:25) E.g.: This program is being watched by about 30 million people (b) On the contrary to sentence (a), the inanimate subject “this program” in (b) cannot perform the action of watching Actually, it is affected by this action The performer is now put at the end of the sentence after “by phrase” Sentence (b) is treated in grammar as a passive sentence 1.2.3 Differences between active voice and passive voice Comparing active voice and passive voice, several marked distinctions are noticed In terms of structure, the crystal difference is the verb form The following instances will elaborate this: John bought this clock (c) This clock was bought by John (d) ... GRADE 10 NON -ENGLISH MAJORS AT TRAN PHU SPECIALISED HIGH SCHOOL, HAIPHONG NHỮNG LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP Ở THỂ BỊ ĐỘNG CỦA HỌC SINH KHÔNG CHUYÊN KHỐI 10 TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN TRẦN PHÚ, HẢI PHÒNG M.A MINOR THESIS... errors in the use of the English passive made by the grade 10 nonEnglish major students at Tran Phu Specialised High School II Objectives of the study: The study is aimed at firstly achieving deeper... trouble explaining its usage in understandable ways In my experience in teaching English at Tran Phu Specialised High School in Hai Phong City, students often make common errors in using passive voice