COMPARING AND CONTRASTING DIRECTIVES IN ENGLISH AND IN VIETNAMESE - SOME APPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH

Abstract

Speech act is a part of pragmatics where there are certain aims beyond the words or phrases when a speaker says something. As a category of speech act, the directives is one of the main linguistic actions. Understanding the directives plays an important role in mastering a mother tongue or a second language. The directives in each language have certain similarities and differences. This is the study of the differences between directives in English and in Vietnamese. The aim is to compare some aspects of the conversations collected in two languages. This study applies the method of surveying discourses to find out the differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese in terms of the nature of that linguistic act in the cultural context of those acts. The results of the study revealed the similarities in structure, emotion, and intonation in the two languages. That clarity will make it easier to teach English as well as to translate, interpret these acts in both English and Vietnamese. To be more specific, although there is a strong tendency for combination of different speech act types, single groups are presented with the predominance.