HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

FOREIGN LANGUAGE COLLEGE

THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF THE VIETNAMESE WORDS "BỊ"

AND "ĐƯỢC" ON THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH PASSIVES

(ẢNH HƯỞNG TIÊU CỰC CỦA CÁC TỪ "BỊ" VÀ "ĐƯỢC" CỦA TIẾNG VIỆT
ĐỐI VỚI VIỆCTHỤ ĐẮC CÂU BỊ ĐỘNG CỦA TIẾNG ANH)

M.A. THESIS
FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

By: Nguyễn Văn Đen

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof, Dr. Trần Hữu Mạnh

HANOI-2003
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe Assoc. Prof., Dr. Trần Hữu Mạnh, my supervisor, great gratitude for his
invaluable support and masterful guidance throughout the process of writing the
thesis.

I wish to thank Dr. Lê Hùng Tiến, Deputy Head of the Post-graduate Department, and
Assoc. Prof., Dr. Hoàng Văn Vân at the National University of Hanoi for their open
recommendations on the perspective on the theme.

I also wish at this time to thank all the lecturers at Hanoi Foreign Language College
for their dedicated enlightenment about Vietnamese and English linguistics, and my
mother-in-law for her materials in relation to Vietnamese passives.

Last, I wish to thank my three best friends, who are Huy, Sinh and Trang, for their
assistance in conducting the survey in Hanoi.

All the intellectuals whom I have gratefully acknowledged are indispensable to the
production of the research work.

Hanoi, August 2rd, 2003

Nguyễn Văn Đen

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 ABSTRACT

In the process of forming English sentences, Vietnamese intermediate and

upper-intermediate learners tend to make structural errors concerned with active-
passive distinctions on account of the negative effect of "bị" and "được". So as to
indicate the degree and cause of the effect and seek the best solutions as an aid to the
teaching practices at college, the research entails studying the functions and
meanings of "bị" and "được" and Vietnamese passives, investigating English verbs
and passive structures, comparing and contrasting Vietnamese and English passives,
and conducting a survey for error analysis.
The findings have shown that the presence of "bị" and "được" in the
Vietnamese equivalents to the English verb phrases which should be active in form in
English causes Vietnamese students to wrongly form English passives. On the other
hand, the absence of "bị" and "được" from the Vietnamese equivalents to the English
verb phrases which should take passive forms in English leads Vietnamese learners
to the erroneous formation of English active constructions.
On the basis of the error types and causes, a number of techniques which
concern the introduction of English verbs and passives and the elimination of the
negative effect have been suggested. Besides, two lists of English verb phrases which
frequently cause problems with voice to Vietnamese learners have been made for
reference. Consequently, the present research paper is meant to be of some
significance to both Vietnamese learners of English and English learners of
Vietnamese.

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 ABBREVIATIONS

A Adverbial
Aux Auxiliary
C Complement
Cp Complementation of a preposition
Det Determiner
IC Immediate constituent
N Noun
NP Noun phrase
O Object
Od Direct object
Oi Indirect object
p Page
P Preposition
PM Phrase marker
PP Prepositional phrase
PS Phrase structure
PSG Phrase structure grammar
S Subject/Sentence
TG Transformational grammar
Tns Tense
V Verb
VGp Verbal group
VP Verb phrase

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 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Since a number of terms used in this research have specific scopes, they are to
be defined to avoid confusion. Below are the definitions of those confusing terms.
Action and non-action verbs: They are those denoting actions or not. They are
different from “active and passive verb forms”, which are known as those put in the
active and passive voices.
Active in meaning but passive in form: A few English verb phrases, when
translated into Vietnamese, have apparently active meanings, but in English, they are
put in the passive form.
Complement: It applies to both an object and a complement in English. The
term is deployed by Vietnamese grammarians.
Direct and indirect verbs: Direct verbs come right before objects while indirect
verbs take objects preceded by prepositions. The terms are not related to reported
speech in the least.
Effective and ineffective verbs: They denote activities or actions which cause
entities to change in certain ways or not. These verbs are related to the act of
“affecting” or not.
Formation: The act of forming is the meaning of this term. “Formation” used
in this research work is different from “form”. A form is produced through the
process of formation.
Ill-formed: The term is used to denote “incorrect” in terms of formal grammar.
It also refers to cases in which incorrectness is related to meanings in the light of
formal grammar.
Negative effect: One that causes errors in form and content. “Negative” here
means “bad”. It has nothing to do with “negation” - the state of being not affirmative.
Passive in meaning but active in form: A number of English verb phrases, if
translated into Vietnamese, have passive meanings, but they are structurally active in
English.

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 Positive and negative modality: “Positive” does not mean “affirmative” but
“good”. Likewise, “negative” does not refer to the state of being “negated” but
something “bad”. “Positive” and “negative” are used throughout the thesis in the
sense specified.
Subject-predicate relation: The term is used for an embedded clause with a
subject and a predicate.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
ABBREVIATIONS iv
DEFINITION OF TERMS v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 01
I-Rationale 01
II-Research presupposition 02
III-Research objectives 02
IV-Research scope 03
V-Research tasks 03
VI-Research methods 04
VII-Significance of the proposed research 04
VIII-Design of the research work 05
PART TWO: INVESTIGATION 07
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 07
I-Literature review in brief 07
II-"Bị" and "được" and related problems in Vietnamese 10
II.1-Verbs in Vietnamese 10
II.1.1-Action verbs 10
II.1.2-"Nonaction" verbs 11
II.1.3-Intransitive verbs 12
II.1.4-Transitive verbs 12
II.1.5-"Middle" verbs 13
II.2-Grammatical features and meanings of "bị" and "được" 14
II.2.1-Grammatical features of "bị" and "được" 14

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II.2.2-Meanings of "bị" and "được" 16
II.3-Passive sentences in Vietnamese 18
II.3.1-Terminology
18
II.3.2-Passive constructions 19
III-English passives 24
III.1-English verbs 24
III.2-Tense, aspect and mood of the English verb 28
III.2.1-Tense and aspect 29
III.2.2-Mood 30
III.3-Phrases and clauses and passive sentences 30
III.3.1-Phrases 31
III.3.2-Clauses 31
III.4-Formation of the past participle 32
III.5-Passive constructions from the theoretical point of view 34
III.5.1-Active-passive transformations 34
III.5.2-Get-passives 35
III.5.3-Voice constraints 35
III.5.4-The passive gradient 38
III.6-Passives from the practical point of view 39
III.6.1-Formation of passive tenses 39
III.6.2-Agentless passives 40
III.6.3-Mentioning of agents, things or methods 41
III.6.4-Stative verbs in the passive voice 41
III.6.5-Phrasal verbs in the passive 42
III.6.6-Verbs usually or rarely used in the passive voice 42
III.6.7-Ditransitive and complex transitive verbs in the passive 43
III.6.8-Sentences with the have-something-done structure 43
III.7-English passives in the light of modern schools of linguistics 44

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III.7.1-English passives in the light of functional grammar 44
III.7.2-English passives from the point of view of
transformational-generative grammar 49
CHAPTER TWO: THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF "BỊ" AND "ĐƯỢC"
ON THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH PASSIVES 53
I-Comparison and contrast 53
I.1-Similarities between English and Vietnamese in passives 53
I.2-Differences between them in passives 55
I.2.1-Verbs in the passive 55
I.2.2-Formation of passives 57
I.2.3-Types of passive sentences 58
II-Grammaticality judgement questionnaires on verb forms 61
II.1-Procedures 61
II.2-Results of the survey 62
II.2.1-At intermediate level 63
II.2.2-At upper-intermediate level 63
II.2.3-Other findings at both levels 64
III-Error types and causes 65
III.1-General remarks 65
III.2-Presence of "bị" and "được" that leads to English passive
formation 69
III.3-Absence of "bị" and "được" that results in English active
formation 72
III.4-Other problems 75
IV-Solutions to the problems 78
IV.1-Theoretical solutions 78
IV.2-Practical solutions 79
IV.3-Suggested exercise types 81

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 PART THREE: CONCLUSION 85
REFERENCES 88
APPENDICES 92
I-Intransitive phrasal verbs quite often used in the passive 92
II-Transitive and phrasal verbs usually used in the passive 96
III-Transitive and phrasal verbs rarely used in the passive 98
IV-Grammaticality judgement questionnaires on verb forms 100
V-Results of the survey 104
VI-English verb phrases which are active in form but
passive in meaning and their Vietnamese equivalents 107
VI.1-Phrases whose Vietnamese meaning is "bị" + V 107
VI.2-Phrases whose Vietnamese meaning is "được" + V 115
VII-English passive phrases whose Vietnamese translational
equivalents are seemingly active 118