vinh university foreign languages department ===    === nguyÔn phan quúnh trang A STUDY ON DIFFERENCES OF USING PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (nghiªn cøu vỊ sù khác cách dùng câu bị động tiếng anh vµ tiÕng viƯt) GRADUATION THESIS Field: Linguistics Vinh - 2011 Bùi Yến Nhi - 48A English Foreign Languages Department vinh university foreign Languages department ===    === A STUDY ON DIFFERENCES OF USING PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (nghiên cứu khác cách dùng câu bị động tiếng anh tiếng viƯt) graduation thesis Field: Linguistics Supervisor: Ngun thÞ kim anh, m.a Student: NguyÔn phan quúnh trang, 48B - English Vinh - 2011 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completion of this thesis, first of all I would like to express my sincere thanks and deep gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Thi Kim Anh for all her experienced guidance, valuable suggestions and advice throughout this thesis My gratitude is also sent to all the staff at the Department of Foreign Languages of Vinh University, who always create favorable conditions for me to complete my study I am grateful to my friends, who provided me with inspiration for the research topic and who helped me with the research data Finally, I am thankful to my family who constantly gave me support and encouragement during the time my study was carried out Vinh, May 20th, 2011 Nguyen Phan Quynh Trang i ABSTRACT Unnaturalness is one of the most common mistakes that the majority of English learners, and even some advanced ones, make as translating passivemeaning sentences from English into Vietnamese In order to help learners overcome those problematic translations, the author has done a research on the passive voice in the two languages, English and Vietnamese The research has three main parts In the first part, some general descriptions of passive voice in each of the language will be made to give readers certain background information about this interesting language phenomenon In the second part, several contrastive points will be performed to explore the causes of mistakes often made In the last one, some implications for teaching as well as suggestions for translating passivemeaning sentences from English to Vietnamese will be done so as for learners to achieve good language transference ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii ABBREVIATIONS .v PART A INTRODUCTION .1 I Justification of the Study II Aims of the Study III Methods of the Study IV Scope of the Study V Format of the Study PART B INVESTIGATION .4 Chapter I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Definition of passive voice .4 1.2 Characteristics of passive voice 1.3 Views about classification of passive voice 1.4 The usage of passive voice in English and Vietnamese .9 1.4.1 The usage of passive voice in English 1.4.2 The usage of passive voice in Vietnamese .11 Chapter II SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF USING PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 13 2.1 Passive voice in English and Vietnamese 13 2.1.1 In English 13 2.1.2 In Vietnamese 17 2.2 Similarities and differences between english and vietnamese passive voice 20 2.2.1 Similarities 20 2.2.2 Differences .20 Chapter III SUGGESTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 25 3.1 Some suggestions for better translation .25 3.2 Implications for English teaching and learning of passive voice 26 PART C CONCLUSION 31 Recapitulation of the study 31 Recommendations for further study 31 iii REFERENCE 30 APPENDIX .32 APPENDIX 36 iv ABBREVIATIONS Eg: for example Etc.: et cetera v PART A INTRODUCTION I Justification of the Study In the modern time of internationalization and globalization, English has become the most commonly used language that has been learnt by more and more people in the world In Vietnamese, more than in anywhere else, learning English to catch up with the time has become an ultimate issue However, the learning of English in our country is not always satisfactory, Vietnamese learners, competent in grammar and vocabulary as they are, still make mistakes In English language, passive voice is acknowledged and used as a grammar point to teachers of English The difference in language origins marks a big gap between English and Vietnamese as well as their passive voice form Moreover, Vietnamese people not often use the passive voice, but usually change it into the active voice Or even when the passive voice is used, the word order in Vietnamese is different from that in English That, as a result, has caused some misunderstanding in translation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa The study on differences of using passive voice in English and Vietnamese, by contrast with others, has been a rather neglected pursuit over recent years and few textbooks in the area on the Vietnamese backgrounds That is the reason why the passive voice in English and in Vietnamese has been chosen for investigation in this study II Aims of the Study My study aims at: • Presenting, describing and analyzing the passive voice in English and in Vietnamese a Tôi được sinh và lớn lên ở Hà Nội b Thầy An được dạy hai bài hát để đem dạy lại cho học sinh c Tôi được chụp ba tấm hình buồng giam để làm tư liêu By contrast, in English, passive structure always expresses passive meaning When we omit “be” in passive sentence, its meaning will be changed Eg: Tom was bought a toy car yesterday -> Tom bought a toy car yesterday When we omit “was” in the above sentence, the meaning is totally changed Moreover, while in Vietnamese, “bị” and “được” express the two contrast meaning of the passive voice, one is positive and one is negative; “to be” in English passive voice does not discriminate between those kind of meanings Eg: 1.Tôi bị chó cắn Tôi được tặng một chiếc xe đạp But I was bitten by the dog I was given a bicycle In (1) and (2) we can recognize the positive and negative meaning through the two words “ bị” and “ được”, but in (3) and (4) we cannot that based on the auxiliary “was” As a result, sometimes Vietnamese students are confused when using “bị” and “được” to translate “to be” in English For example: Some students may make mistakes when they translate “ My computer was repaired” into “ Máy tính của bị 23 sửa” Actually, this is not a common mistake Students are smart and flexible enough to use “bị” for negative meaning and use “được” for negative meaning However, Vietnamese students tend to translate “by” into “bởi” when they meet passive structure in an essay Eg: I was bought a new skirt by my mother Tôi được mua cho một cái váy mới bởi mẹ In this case, “bởi” makes the translated sentence sound unnatural Actually, Vietnamese rarely use “bởi” when they express passive meaning Instead, they put the “actor” right after “bị” or “được” or simply discard it Eg: Tôi được mẹ mua cho một chiếc váy mới Tôi bị chó cắn Hắn bị bắt quả tang (discard the actor) This is the common mistake which Vietnamese students often make when they translate English passive structure into Vietnamese While “bị” and “được” are used to translate “ to be”, “bởi” is considered unnatural to translate “by” To conclude, in this chapter the author concentrated to describe the differences of using passive voice in English and Vietnamese The focus is on the differences of the passive voie in which we can explore how the passive is realized in both languages 24 Chapter III SUGGESTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 3.1 Some suggestions for better translation With an aim to help improve the translation of English passive or passive -meaning sentences into Vietnamese, we suggest some following steps (for some typical cases): • Read the sentence and decide whether it has positive or negative meaning If the idea is positive, then the word “được” should be used On the other hand, if the meaning is negative, use the word “bị” • If the English sentence does not fit the usages of Vietnamese passive voice mentioned above, change it into the active voice • Translate the other parts of the sentence The following are five suggested translations for different expressions of passive voice Suggested 1: “S + be + past participle” will be changed into : active voice or subject + “được/ bị” + verb Eg: When were you born? Bạn sinh ngày nào? Suggested 2: “S + be + past participle + by O” will be changed into active voice or S + “được / bị” + O + verb… Eg: Mary is taken to the zoo by her mother” Mary được mẹ dẫn sở thú (often in writing) 25 Or Mẹ dẫn Mary sở thú (often in speaking) Suggested 3: Double passives will be changed into active voice or just keep one main passive-meaning part Eg: This paper is expected to be finished by Monday Thứ hai là phải làm xong bài này Or Bài này cần được hoàn tất trước thứ hai Suggested 4: It is said/ told that … He is said/ told that will be translated: Người ta/ mọi người nói…Nghe nói Eg: It is said that he is a good student Nhiều người nói nó là học sinh giỏi Or Nghe nói nó là học sinh giỏi Suggested 5: Passive causatives: Have/ get/… +things + past participle will be translated: Nhờ người + verb Eg: He has his hair cut Nó mới cắt tóc (an exceptive translation of passive causatives) 3.2 Implications for English teaching and learning of passive voice So far, we have come to conclusion that Vietnamese passive formation is mainly based on the lexical meaning or grammatical status of such words as “bị/ được” However, in some cases, the passive meaning is understood mainly on the semantic meaning of the whole sentence For example: a Thuyền đẩy xa b Cầu đã xây xong 26 These sentences are grammatically correct In term of semantics, these sound illogical because “thuyền/ cầu” is an object and itself cannot carry out the action To understand these sentences, the reader/hearer needs to be aware that they carry passive meanings In both English and Vietnamese, passive voice is used to focus on the fact, the action or result of an action Therefore, in passive sentence, the doer is often omitted Passive voice has an important role in English, especially in academic works where the actions take place without mentioning the doer Vietnamese, vice versa, prefer active forms Hence, sometimes when translating from English into Vietnamese, if the translator keeps the original structure, the Vietnamese version will not be very idiomatic We can take here several examples from the passage: Eg 1: “A recommendation for approval or rejection is made to the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Council (consisting of the Health Ministers of Australia and New Zealand)” should not be translated word for word : “ Một khuyến nghị được làm….” but : “ Người ta cho rằng ANZFSC đưa khuyến nghị hoặc chấp nhận hoặc bác bỏ (có cả ý kiến của Bộ Sức khoẻ Úc và New Zealand) Eg 2: “An initial safety assessment is made by ANZFA experts, with public comment invited” should be translated: “Chuyên gia ANZFA đánh giá đầu tiên về độ an toàn, có tham khảo ý kiến của công chúng” Eg 3: “ A review of all the finding is undertaken” should be changed into: “Tổng kết tất cả những phát hiện” 27 Eg 4: “A full safety assessment is conducted by ANZFA experts” is translated into: “Chuyên gia ANZFA tiến hành đánh giá một cách đầy đủ về độ an toàn” There may be some special significance to the object noun phrase As it is used with a particular verb and a certain subject Consider ( Active) : “ I saw a table in the bar” ( Passive): “ A table was seen by me in the bar.” The passive one sounds artificial and unlikely to be said But if the active sentence was “My mother saw me in the bar” then the passive “I was seen (by my mother) in the bar” is definitely feasible if the passive was used, one might guess the speaker should not be there and may now get into trouble In reality, there is still another quite interesting thing of using “bị/ được” especially in spoken language in Northern Vietnam For example: Thân hình của chị ấy bị đỉnh đấy Em của bị xinh đấy nha Tôi nấu ăn bị ngon đấy It can be seen that in these examples bị/ mean nothing relating to passive or suffering May be, the speaker wants to express his “suspicion” about the girl’s body form, the girl’s beauty.etc Also, sometimes “được” can be used and followed by a verb to express the meaning of a “good result” of an action, such as in this sentence: Tôi được đề cử làm giám đốc ( I was nominated to be the manager) In short, at elementary level, bị/ is overemphasized in English – Vietnamese translation As a consequence, there is the tendency to treat any sentences containing bị/ as passive The most typical examples are: Xe bị hư = The car was broken down 28 Tôi bị mất tiền = I was lost my money The author argues that the scope for “bị/ được” is much larger than their usage in passive sentences Therefore, careful notes should be given to beginners of English to avoid misleading way of thinking in the long run The writer also suggests that in sentences like these, teachers may ask students to drop “bị/ được” and see whether they are still grammatical If the answer is “yes” the sentence under consideration is not passive and vice versa At the same time, learners should be noticed that the number of verbs that can be used in the structure: NP object + VP transitive is quite limited compared with Vietnamese For example: a Hàng chở tới bằng xe tải b Nhà xây xong rồi A learner should be aware that the subject cannot carry out the actions and in this case, it is better to stay safe by translating them as passive although English does allow a subject of its verb to be used similarly to those of Vietnamese These practical applications are very helpful for language learners and such a research is the goal the author aimed at Some analysis and contrastive points between English and Vietnamese passive voice made above have set the stage for the next idea: some implications for English teaching and learning of the grammatical aspect mentioned Firstly, Vietnamese students tend to translate nearly word by word from English into Vietnamese and vice versa, which usually causes them to make a lot of mistakes Therefore, this paper is written with the hope of helping them be aware of the differences between passive voice in English and Vietnamese so that they can use it correctly For example, when they need to translate an English 29 passive-meaning sentence into Vietnamese for their parents or friends, they need to make a natural and correct translation so that it does not sound strange and difficult to understand Secondly, teachers should also help students know that passive voice plays an important role in English, and sometimes in Vietnamese, and it is expressed in various forms This will help students recognize the passive voice more easily and have correct transference For instance, in the sentence “ I get my car fixed”, though there is no normal structure of passive voice “ be + past participle”, the sentence still has a passive meaning ( passive causatives) Thirdly, the author hopes that this paper will help students develop their linguistic skills in both languages Learning theories is just a way for students to exercises well, but understanding about the contrastive points between English and Vietnamese passive voice will give them deeper and better knowledge Finally, this paper will be helpful for teachers and students who like to become translators Natural and correct translations will bring them a successful job Moreover, people whose native language is English, or those who not speak English as mother tongue but are good at it can also get some good information about the passive voice in English and Vietnamese from this paper, and therefore can communicate with Vietnamese people better 30 PART C CONCLUSION Recapitulation of the study Passive voice is an important grammatical point English and Vietnamese, but it is expressed differently in the two languages An important way in which Vietnamese passive differs from English one is that Vietnamese verbs themselves not imply a clear notion of “ voice” in the grammatical sense Whereas, in English, a transitive verb must be either active or passive No such distinction is necessary in Vietnamese Hence, the object of Vietnamese verbs is not formally marked So far we have revised the structure and meaning of passive voice in English and similar ways to express it in Vietnamese We have also discussed the differences between passive voice in English and Vietnamese, which cause the common mistakes that students get when they learn English as a foreign language In general, the ways to express passive meaning of the two languages are quite different, despite the minor similarity However, with some descriptions, contrast and implications for teaching and learning languages made above, I hope that this paper can help students and teachers have better knowledge and correct translations of the passive-meaning sentences Moreover, learning a foreign language is not easy at all, especially knowing and mastering all the differences Thus, learners should try their best to practice the languages and overcome the confusion and difficulty of the gaps between English and Vietnamese Recommendations for further study This research is an attempt at describing and analyzing the similarities and differences of passive voice in English and in Vietnamese The study does not claim to cover all issues in both languages, or all their possible meanings when used in different 31 contexts Of course, there are still many other points that remain untouched because of the limited scope of the study and require further investigation The further research may be conducted on classification of passive voice, which is a rather promising topic Other research works can be carried out with characteristics of passive voice For what stated above, author hopes it is beneficial for those who concern in this area of English language and wish to go further on this matter 32 REFERENCE Alxander, L.G.(1988) Longman English Grammar Longman Group Ltd Arar, B.S (1999) Understanding and using English Grammar Mary Jane Poluso B loor T and Bloor M (1995) The functional analysis of English, Arnold, London Cao Xuân Hạo (1991), Tiếng Việt: Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức năng, Quyển 1, NXB Khoa học Xã hội, Hà Nội Cook, S.J and Richard, W.S (1980) The Scope of Grammar New York Diệp Quang Ban (2003), Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt, Tập 2, NXB Giáo dục, Hà Nội Diệp Quang Ban (2004), Ngữ pháp Việt Nam - Phần câu, Nhà xuất Đại học Sư phạm Hà Nội Eastwood, J (1985) Oxford Guide to English Grammar Oxford University Press Granger S (1983) The be + Past Participle Construction in Spoken English New York: Oxford 10 Hewings, M (2006) Advanced Grammar in Use NXB Tre 11 Hoàng Văn Vân (2001) (Dịch), Dẫn luận ngữ pháp chức năng, NXB Đại học Quốc Gia, Hà Nội 12 Huddleston, R (1987), Introduction to the grammar of English London: Cambridge University Press 13 Leech, G & Svartvik, J (1989) A Communicative Grammar of English, Longman 14 Murphy, R (1994) English grammar in Use Cambridge University Press 15 Nguyễn Khuê (1999) English Grammar Đồng Nai Publisher 16 Norish, J (1983) Language Learners and Their Errors Macmilan Press London 17 Palmer, F R Grammar (2nd eds) London: Penguin 18 Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G and Svartvik, J (1972) A Grammar of Contemporary English London: Longman 19 Quirk R and Greenbaum S (1973), A university grammar of English, Longman 20 Quirk R et al (1985), A comprehensive grammar of the English language, Longman 21 Roderick, A Jacobs (1995) English Syntax, A Grammar for English Language Professionals, Oxford University Press 22 Thomson, A.J & Martinet, A.V.(1986) A Practical English Grammar, Oxford University Press APPENDIX OTHER WAY TO EXPRESS PASSIVE MEANING IN VIETNAMESE Order Means of expressing Passive sentence Subject Central verb Object đạn Ăn nó ăn đòn hối lộ chém Chết nó Chết đâm rấp trận Chịu nó chịu khổ phiền anh giúp anh cứu Có nó có anh bênh anh đỡ anh bảo vệ anh dìu dắt dễ nó dễ thương ghét sợ mến làm thực hiện để vẽ dùng Cái này dùng viết lau làm thương ghét yêu khen Nó đáng Hắn ta đáng Ông ta kính phục sợ khinh chém phạt đạn đỡ nó đỡ đòn nạn ma gặp nó gặp xui không may mạt vận đòn 10 hứng nó hứng đạn 11 hưởng nó hưởng lợi gia tài lương hoa hồng lãi 12 khả nó khả miễn bảo chịu 13 khó nó khó ngửi tha lương tiền 14 lĩnh Anh ta lĩnh phụ cấp thưởng giáo nhạc lời 15 nghe nó nghe đài giảng chửi tiền quà 16 nhận nó nhận lương thưởng hối lộ ... not always satisfactory, Vietnamese learners, competent in grammar and vocabulary as they are, still make mistakes In English language, passive voice is acknowledged and used as a grammar point... passive voice in the two languages are drawn out The research is confined to the description, analysis and comparison of the function, forms and meanings of the passive voice in English and Vietnamese, ... analysis and contrastive points between English and Vietnamese passive voice made above have set the stage for the next idea: some implications for English teaching and learning of the grammatical