Luận Văn A contrastive analysis of adverbial clauses between english and vietnamese

INTRODUCTION
1. Reasons for choosing the study
English usage is a subject as wide as the English language itself. By far the greater part of usage raises no controversies and poses no problems for native speakers of English, just because it is their native language. However, there are certain problems for learners of English as a foreign language, especially English constructions. Since plenty of them often fail to recognize kinds of adverbial clauses.
For example: Working all day, he felt tired.
They think that this sentence may be an adverbial clause of time “After he worked all day, he felt tired” or “When he worked all day, he felt tired”. This sentence may also be an adverbial clause of reason “Because he worked all day, he felt tired”.
Adverbial clauses are very important parts in English grammar but they are not easy to use and usually cause difficulties for learners. English adverbial clauses have been dealt with by numerous grammarians. But until recent years, there have no research works on English Adverbial clauses and their Vietnamese equivalents and the ways to help learners overcome the confusion.
2. Aims of the study
The above - mentioned background shows that the status of adverbial clauses in English needs more detailed study not only in structure but also in uses as well. With this trend, this study is aimed at:
- Giving the description and features of English adverbial clauses and their equivalent realizations in Vietnamese to illustrate the differences and similarities of adverbial clauses in the two languages.
- Offering suggestions for teaching adverbial clauses to Vietnamese learners.
* Research questions
Determined by its aims, this paper tries to find the answers to the following questions:
1. What is an adverbial clause?
2. What are the features and classifications of adverbial clauses?
3. What are the differences and similarities between English adverbial clauses and their Vietnamese equivalents and how they serve the teaching of English grammar to Vietnamese students?
4. What are the predicted errors Vietnamese students may make when learning English adverbial clauses?
5. How are these errors eliminated?
3. Scope of the study
These thesis are about adverbial clauses, especially, we focus on the kinds of adverbial clauses, adverbial clauses in English and their Vietnamese equivalents. In addition, we will provide learners how to overcome errors in using adverbial clauses.
4. Methods of the study
i. Comparative and contrastive method.
ii. Statistical method.
iii. Analytical method.
5. Design of the study:
This subject consists of three main parts and references.
Part A: The Introduction outlines the reasons, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the methods, and the design of the study. In addition, the organization of the thesis is introduced.
Part B, entitled “Investigation”, is divided into three chapters.
The first one, “Theoretical preliminaries” supplies an over view of sentence, clause, and adverbial clauses in English.
The second chapter, “Concrete cases of adverbial clauses In English and their Vietnamese equivalents”, presents English adverbial clauses and their Vietnamese equivalents. The presentation focuses on syntactical features, functional roles and Concrete cases of each kind of adverbial clauses in the sentence.
The last chapter is about the applications of the study to the teaching of English adverbial clauses to Vietnamese students.
Part C is the conclusion summarizing the main point discussed in previous parts.