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Re: More on contrastive lin.
by ThayLe 20/10/09, 04:52 pm
Thay gui link 1 forum cua 1 dai hoc o Vn co lien quan den NNHoc va 1 phan cua 1 article doi chieu English & Vietnamese. Vi bai nay dai khong the gui 1 lan duoc, cho nen se gui tiep sau
....
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Cross-Linguistic
Analysis of Vietnamese and English with Implications for Vietnamese Language
Acquisition and Maintenance
in the
United States
Giang M. Tang
University of Minnesota
Journal of
Southeast Asian American Education & Advancement Volume 2
Cross-Linguistic Comparison of Vietnamese and English
Section 1 of this article presented
the social and linguistic issues related to language maintenance among
Vietnamese Americans. This information was presented as the rationale of why L1
maintenance is important in the process of participating in the larger
English-speaking society. Based on previous research, we now know that children
of immigrants who speak their parents’ language as well as English are more
likely to have high academic success (Bankston & Zhou, 1995; Feliciano,
2001; Schmid, 2001; Zhou & Bankston, 1994; 1998) as well as have an overall
stronger self-concept and social identity (Kohnert & Derr, 2004; Wong-Fillmore,
1991).
One way
educators can promote L1 maintenance is to better understand the language
structures and possible interactions between Vietnamese (L1) and English (L2).
This section presents a cross-linguistic comparison of Vietnamese and English
across levels of phonology (speech-sounds), lexical semantics (word meaning),
and morpho-syntax (grammar). This cross-linguistic analysis may help educators
who work with Vietnamese Americans have a better understanding of their
students’ language skills and error patterns. Both languages have various
dialects with distinct linguistic features. Since this paper focuses on
Vietnamese Americans, cross-linguistic comparisons are made between the General
American English dialect and primarily the northern dialect of Vietnamese with
certain features from the southern Vietnamese dialect included for comparison.
The northern dialect of Vietnamese was chosen as the main comparison because it
is considered the official dialect of Vietnam (D. H. Nguyen, 2001). Southern
dialectal features of Vietnamese are included because of the wide use of this
dialect among Vietnamese Americans.
This section
begins at the phonological (speech-sound) level, in which a comparison of
Vietnamese and English consonants, vowels, tones, and syllable structures are
presented. Then, a comparison at the lexical semantic (word meaning) level
includes a description of lexical tone in Vietnamese as well as word formation
processes in both languages. Finally, features from the morpho-syntactic
(grammatical) level are compared across languages in the phrase or sentence
context.
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 6
Phonology
A
comparison of Vietnamese and English may begin at the smallest unit of
language: the phoneme or speech sound. A phoneme is defined as “the smallest
phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a distinction in
meaning” (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000). Vietnamese has three types of phonemes:
tones (sometimes referred to as tonemes), consonants, and vowels. English
phonemes consist of consonants and vowels; this language does not have lexical
tones. Vietnamese uses tones as phonemes since a change in tone indicates a
change in meaning. For example, ma “ghost” and má “cheek” are two distinct
words that only differ in tone, the level (không dấu) tone and rising (sắc)
tone, respectively. D. H. Nguyen (2001) describes the six tones of the northern
Vietnamese dialect: level (không dấu), falling (huyền), creaky (ngã),
dipping-rising (hỏi), rising (sắc), and constricted (nặng). In the southern dialect,
the creaky (ngã) and the dipping-rising (hỏi) tones are both produced as the
dipping-rising tone (hỏi). Therefore, there are only five tones produced in the
southern regions.
Consonants
Table 1 compares Vietnamese and English consonant
sounds that occur at the beginning (syllable-initial) and end (syllable-final)
of words or syllables. Speech sounds are represented using International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols. Orthographic letters that correspond to how
speech sounds are written are underlined in the word examples in parentheses.
Consonant sounds from both northern and southern Vietnamese dialects are listed
to represent the primary dialects spoken by Vietnamese Americans. Information
on Vietnamese phonemes is gathered from Dinh and Nguyen (1998) and D. H. Nguyen
(2001). Information on English phonemes is gathered from Erickson (2001) and
Harris (1994).
At the beginning of words (syllable-initial),
Vietnamese and English share the following consonant sounds: /p, b, d, k, m, n,
f, v, s, z, h, l/, the r-flap in “utter” and “y” in “yard.” It
should be noted that /p, k/ in Vietnamese are unaspirated (Dinh & Nguyen,
1998) and may sound like “b” and “g” to an English speaker. In English, /p, k/
may be aspirated depending on context (Harris, 1994). At the end of words
(syllable-final), Vietnamese and English share the following consonant sounds:
/p, t, k, m, n/ and “ng.” In Vietnamese, syllable-final /p, t, k/ are
unreleased or “held in,” whereas these sounds may be released in English.
Although Vietnamese and English share certain sounds,
there are multiple consonant sounds specific to each language. In the initial
position, Vietnamese-specific consonants include the dental “t” as in to “big”
(much like a Spanish “t”) and the dental aspirated “t” as in thỏ “rabbit,”
which is similar to the English “t” but produced between the teeth. The
Vietnamese “g” in gà “chicken” and the “kh” in không “no” are produced with
continuous air flow (fricatives) much like a Spanish “g” in lago “lake” and “j”
in jaula “cage.” Other fricatives include the “r” in rắn “snake” (in southern
dialects and certain northern dialects), and its voiceless counterpart “s” as
in sáng “morning” (in the southern dialect), which is similar to the English
“sh” (see table 1 for precise IPA symbols).
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 7
Table 1
Comparison of Vietnamese and
English Consonant Sounds in Syllable-Initial and –Final Position
Note:
Consonant sounds from both northern and southern dialects of Vietnamese are
based on Dinh and Nguyen (1998) and D. H. Nguyen (2001). General American
English consonant sounds are based on Erickson (2001) and Harris (1994). Sounds
are represented by IPA symbols. Letters that correspond to the sounds are
underlined in the example words in parentheses.
1Found mainly in southern Vietnamese dialects.
2Found mainly in northern Vietnamese dialects.
3Allophone of the Vietnamese “r” in southern dialects
and certain northern dialects.
Vietnamese
has many consonant sounds that are produced with the tongue tip curved upward
and towards the back of the mouth (retroflex) such as the “tr” in trời “sky,”
and “ch” in chơi “to play” (similar to the English “ch”). In addition,
Vietnamese has a glottal
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 8
stop
before words that are written with an initial vowel as in ăn “to eat” (Cao,
2004). There are certain Vietnamese sounds that are found in English but not
found in the initial position such as the “ng” in ngủ “to sleep” found in final
position of English words such as “song” as well as the Vietnamese “nh” in nhỏ
“small” found in the middle of English words such as the “ny” in “Kenya”
(similar to a Spanish ñ). It should be noted that some Vietnamese-specific
consonants are produced with the tongue tip retroflexed (3 of 11) as in trời
“sky” or produced in the back of the mouth or velar position (4 of 11) as in gà
“chicken”—two articulatory places that are considered relatively complex (or
“marked,” following Jakobson, 1968).
English also has consonant sounds not found in
Vietnamese. In the initial position, English-specific sounds include /w/ in
“water,” /t/ in “toy” (generally aspirated; Harris, 1994), /g/ in “girl,” “ch”
in “chair,” “dg” in “judge,” “sh” in “shoe” and its rare voiced counterpart in
“measure.” Possibly the most well known consonant sounds specifc to English
which are very difficult for second language learners include the English “r,”
“soft th” as in “thing,” and “hard th” as in “this.” In addition to single
consonants, English has numerous consonant clusters (two or more consonant
combinations) that involve /s, r, l, w/ (Harris, 1994; see Table 1). Since
Vietnamese only has six consonant sounds at the end of words (syllable-final),
there are numerous sounds specific to English in the syllable-final position
including /b, d, g, f, v, s, z, l/, “soft th,” “hard th” “sh,” its voiced
counterpart in “measure”, “ch” “dg” in “judge,” and consonant clusters that
involve /p, f, t, d, k, l, m, n/. English appears to have a wider variety of
more complex consonant sounds and sound sequences across syllable positions (see
Table 1 for examples).
Vowels
Table 2 compares the vowel systems of Vietnamese (Dinh
& Nguyen, 1998; D. H. Nguyen 2001) and English (Erickson, 2001; Harris,
1994). As with table 1, orthographic letters that correspond to speech sounds
are underlined in the words in parentheses. Vietnamese and English share seven
single vowels: /i/ as in “see,” /æ/ as in “had,” /ɛ/ as in “egg,” /ɔ/ as in “caught,” /ɑ/ as in “cot,” /ʊ/ similar to “could” and /u/ as in “blue.” Apart from
these shared sounds, Vietnamese contains five additional single vowels, /e/ as
in lê “pear,” /ɯ/ as in tư
“private,” /ɤ/ as in mơ
“dream,” /ɤ̆/ as in ấm “warm” and
/ɑ/ as in năm “year”;
and three true diphthongs (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998): /ie/ as in biển “sea,”
/uo/ as in cuốn “roll” and /ɯɤ/ as in ướt “wet.” In addition, there are 20 possible
two-vowel combinations in which the principal vowel is combined with either a
medial vowel /-u-/, or a syllable-final semi-vowel “-y” or “-w” and seven
3-vowel combinations that include all three vowel slots: medial, principal, and
final (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998; see Table 2 for examples). These two- and
three-vowel combinations are commonly taught in spelling classes in the primary
grades in Vietnam (e.g., Đánh vần mau, n. d.) It should be noted that these
two- and three-vowel combinations maintain the overall syllable structure (Dinh
& Nguyen, 1998) and are produced in one “beat.” The vowel sounds specific
to Standard American English include three single vowels: /ɪ/ in “kid,” /ʌ/ in “cut,” and unstressed /ǝ/ in “attack.” In addition, English has two rhotacized
(r-rounding)
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 9
Table 2
Comparison of Vietnamese and
English vowels
Note:
Numerous vowel differences exist among regional Vietnamese dialects (see Dinh
and Nguyen, 1998, for details). This table presents Vietnamese vowels primarily
from the northern dialect (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998; D. H. Nguyen, 2001).
General American English vowel sounds are based on Erickson (2001) and Harris
(1994). Sounds are represented by IPA symbols. Letters that correspond to the
sounds are underlined in the example words in parentheses.
1 Regional dialects of American English may not exhibit
a difference between /ɔ/ and /a/.
2The phoneme /a/ may serve as an allophonic variation
of /ă/ in certain Vietnamese dialects. The phoneme /ɛ/ may serve as an allophonic variation of /e/ in
certain Vietnamese dialects.
vowels
/ɝ/ in “bird” and its
unstressed counterpart /ɚ/ in
“thunder.” There are five English-specific diphthongs: /oʊ/ as in “oh,” /aʊ/ as in “cow,” /ai/ as in “eye,” /oɪ/ as in
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 10
“boy,”
and /eɪ/ as in “bake”; as
well as four vowel combinations: /aɪæ/ as in “Diana,” /ieɪ/ as in “pronunciation,” /ioʊ/ as in “stereo,” and /oʊeɪ/ as in “oasis” (Harris, 1994).
Syllable
Structure
Given information about the phonemes or speech-sounds
of each language, it is also important to understand how these sounds combine
together to form a syllable. Syllable structures in Indo-European languages may
be described as sequences of consonants (C) and vowels (V). For instance, in
English, there are numerous syllable structures that are plausible such as CV,
CVC, CCVC, CCCVC, (Erickson, 2001) as in the words “me,” “bat,” “stop,” and
“scratch,” respectively. In contrast, linguists in Vietnam have posited that
representing the Vietnamese syllable using consonant and vowel sequences
inaccurately portrays its structure since CV sequences would not account for
tones, a compulsory element that contributes to lexical meaning, nor the
adjustments in vowel length that contribute to the preservation of the syllable
structure and length (H. T. Nguyen, personal communication, November 15, 2005).
Table 3 displays the syllable structure of Vietnamese
(Doan, 1999; see also Dinh & Nguyen, 1998). Double lines delineate the
three main syllable components: tone, syllable-initial sound, and the rime.
Tone is present throughout the syllable and carries lexical meaning (see the
lexical-semantic section for a discussion of tone as a lexical unit). The onset
or syllable-initial position consists solely of consonant sounds. (According to
Cao, 2004, written Vietnamese words that begin with a vowel actually are
produced with an initial glottal stop). The rime consists of a medial vowel,
principal vowel, and final sound, of which the principal vowel is the only
required vowel in the syllable (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998). Table 3 displays four
word examples that illustrate possible syllable structures: toán “math,” toà
“court,” tan “to melt” and ta “we” or “I.” Note that the smallest possible
syllable, ta, is produced with an initial consonant sound, principal vowel, and
a tone (level tones are not marked orthographically).
Table 3
Vietnamese Syllable Structure
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 11
Compared to English, Vietnamese has a wider variety of
single vowel and vowel combinations with a total of five unshared singletons
and 30 vowel combinations compared to five unshared singletons and eight vowel
combinations in Standard American English (see Table 2). A complex vowel system
may be related to the Vietnamese syllable structure that allows three possible
slots for vowel sounds and only two possible slots for consonants (see syllable
structure in Table 3). Correspondingly, the relatively limited number of
consonants may be related to their limited role in a syllable. A relatively
larger vowel inventory may counterbalance a more limited number of consonants
in Vietnamese.
Based
on this comparison of Vietnamese and English phonology, we find that while
certain speech sounds are common to both languages, there are many differences
to be noted. First, tones in Vietnamese carry lexical meaning and are
obligatory in the syllable structure. Second, Vietnamese has a more complicated
vowel system, while English has a larger consonant inventory with greater
distribution across syllable positions. Lastly, in regards to complexity,
Vietnamese contains multiple relatively marked retroflex and velar consonant
sounds, while English contains complex structures such as affricates and
consonant clusters.
....
http://khoaanh.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewforum&f=44
Cross-Linguistic
Analysis of Vietnamese and English with Implications for Vietnamese Language
Acquisition and Maintenance
in the
United States
Giang M. Tang
University of Minnesota
Journal of
Southeast Asian American Education & Advancement Volume 2
Cross-Linguistic Comparison of Vietnamese and English
Section 1 of this article presented
the social and linguistic issues related to language maintenance among
Vietnamese Americans. This information was presented as the rationale of why L1
maintenance is important in the process of participating in the larger
English-speaking society. Based on previous research, we now know that children
of immigrants who speak their parents’ language as well as English are more
likely to have high academic success (Bankston & Zhou, 1995; Feliciano,
2001; Schmid, 2001; Zhou & Bankston, 1994; 1998) as well as have an overall
stronger self-concept and social identity (Kohnert & Derr, 2004; Wong-Fillmore,
1991).
One way
educators can promote L1 maintenance is to better understand the language
structures and possible interactions between Vietnamese (L1) and English (L2).
This section presents a cross-linguistic comparison of Vietnamese and English
across levels of phonology (speech-sounds), lexical semantics (word meaning),
and morpho-syntax (grammar). This cross-linguistic analysis may help educators
who work with Vietnamese Americans have a better understanding of their
students’ language skills and error patterns. Both languages have various
dialects with distinct linguistic features. Since this paper focuses on
Vietnamese Americans, cross-linguistic comparisons are made between the General
American English dialect and primarily the northern dialect of Vietnamese with
certain features from the southern Vietnamese dialect included for comparison.
The northern dialect of Vietnamese was chosen as the main comparison because it
is considered the official dialect of Vietnam (D. H. Nguyen, 2001). Southern
dialectal features of Vietnamese are included because of the wide use of this
dialect among Vietnamese Americans.
This section
begins at the phonological (speech-sound) level, in which a comparison of
Vietnamese and English consonants, vowels, tones, and syllable structures are
presented. Then, a comparison at the lexical semantic (word meaning) level
includes a description of lexical tone in Vietnamese as well as word formation
processes in both languages. Finally, features from the morpho-syntactic
(grammatical) level are compared across languages in the phrase or sentence
context.
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 6
Phonology
A
comparison of Vietnamese and English may begin at the smallest unit of
language: the phoneme or speech sound. A phoneme is defined as “the smallest
phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a distinction in
meaning” (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000). Vietnamese has three types of phonemes:
tones (sometimes referred to as tonemes), consonants, and vowels. English
phonemes consist of consonants and vowels; this language does not have lexical
tones. Vietnamese uses tones as phonemes since a change in tone indicates a
change in meaning. For example, ma “ghost” and má “cheek” are two distinct
words that only differ in tone, the level (không dấu) tone and rising (sắc)
tone, respectively. D. H. Nguyen (2001) describes the six tones of the northern
Vietnamese dialect: level (không dấu), falling (huyền), creaky (ngã),
dipping-rising (hỏi), rising (sắc), and constricted (nặng). In the southern dialect,
the creaky (ngã) and the dipping-rising (hỏi) tones are both produced as the
dipping-rising tone (hỏi). Therefore, there are only five tones produced in the
southern regions.
Consonants
Table 1 compares Vietnamese and English consonant
sounds that occur at the beginning (syllable-initial) and end (syllable-final)
of words or syllables. Speech sounds are represented using International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols. Orthographic letters that correspond to how
speech sounds are written are underlined in the word examples in parentheses.
Consonant sounds from both northern and southern Vietnamese dialects are listed
to represent the primary dialects spoken by Vietnamese Americans. Information
on Vietnamese phonemes is gathered from Dinh and Nguyen (1998) and D. H. Nguyen
(2001). Information on English phonemes is gathered from Erickson (2001) and
Harris (1994).
At the beginning of words (syllable-initial),
Vietnamese and English share the following consonant sounds: /p, b, d, k, m, n,
f, v, s, z, h, l/, the r-flap in “utter” and “y” in “yard.” It
should be noted that /p, k/ in Vietnamese are unaspirated (Dinh & Nguyen,
1998) and may sound like “b” and “g” to an English speaker. In English, /p, k/
may be aspirated depending on context (Harris, 1994). At the end of words
(syllable-final), Vietnamese and English share the following consonant sounds:
/p, t, k, m, n/ and “ng.” In Vietnamese, syllable-final /p, t, k/ are
unreleased or “held in,” whereas these sounds may be released in English.
Although Vietnamese and English share certain sounds,
there are multiple consonant sounds specific to each language. In the initial
position, Vietnamese-specific consonants include the dental “t” as in to “big”
(much like a Spanish “t”) and the dental aspirated “t” as in thỏ “rabbit,”
which is similar to the English “t” but produced between the teeth. The
Vietnamese “g” in gà “chicken” and the “kh” in không “no” are produced with
continuous air flow (fricatives) much like a Spanish “g” in lago “lake” and “j”
in jaula “cage.” Other fricatives include the “r” in rắn “snake” (in southern
dialects and certain northern dialects), and its voiceless counterpart “s” as
in sáng “morning” (in the southern dialect), which is similar to the English
“sh” (see table 1 for precise IPA symbols).
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 7
Table 1
Comparison of Vietnamese and
English Consonant Sounds in Syllable-Initial and –Final Position
| Vietnamese Only | Shared Sounds | English Only | |
| Syllable- Initial | t̪ (to), t̪h (thỏ) ʈ1 (trời), c (chơi), ʔ, ʐ (rắn), ȿ (sáng)1 ɣ (gà), x (không) ŋ (ngủ), ɲ (nhỏ) | p (pin or pie), b (bà or bear), d (đen or doll), k (kéo or kite), m (má or me) n (năm or note), f (phở or fire), v (và2 or very) s (xin or send), z (rồi2 or zebra), h (hết or hair), l (làm or love) j (dì1 or yard) ɾ (rắn3 or utter) | t (time), g (go), Ɵ (thing), ð (then), ʃ (shoe), Ʒ (measure), ʧ (chain), ʤ (june), ɹ (rope), w (water), s-clusters (sk, scr, sm, sn, str…) r-clusters (br, cr, scr, dr, gr), l-clusters (bl, cl, fl, gl), w-clusters (dw, sw, tw, qu) |
| Syllable- Final | p (lớp or hop) t (ít or bat), k (gác or luck), m (làm or lamb), n (sơn or sun), ŋ (sông or song) | b (lab), d (sod), g (bag), Ɵ (bath), ð (bathe), f (laugh), v (love), s (kiss), z (buzz), ʃ (ash), Ʒ (rouge), ʧ (itch), ʤ (bridge), l (ball) -pt (slept), -ps (oops), -kt (walked), -ks (licks) , -ft (laughed), -sp (lisp), -st (list), -sk (brisk) –lp (help), -lb (bulb), -lt (wilt), -ld (wild), -lk (bulk), -lf (elf), -lv (delve), -lƟ (wealth), -lʧ (belch), -lʤ (bulge), -lm (balm), -mp (bump), -mf (triumph), -mƟ (warmth), -nt (mint), -nd (wand), -nƟ (tenth), -nz (lens), -nʧ (wrench), -nʤ (binge), - ŋk (bank), -ksƟ (sixth), -kst (whisked), -lpt (helped), -mpt (bumped), -mps (bumps)… | |
Note:
Consonant sounds from both northern and southern dialects of Vietnamese are
based on Dinh and Nguyen (1998) and D. H. Nguyen (2001). General American
English consonant sounds are based on Erickson (2001) and Harris (1994). Sounds
are represented by IPA symbols. Letters that correspond to the sounds are
underlined in the example words in parentheses.
1Found mainly in southern Vietnamese dialects.
2Found mainly in northern Vietnamese dialects.
3Allophone of the Vietnamese “r” in southern dialects
and certain northern dialects.
Vietnamese
has many consonant sounds that are produced with the tongue tip curved upward
and towards the back of the mouth (retroflex) such as the “tr” in trời “sky,”
and “ch” in chơi “to play” (similar to the English “ch”). In addition,
Vietnamese has a glottal
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 8
stop
before words that are written with an initial vowel as in ăn “to eat” (Cao,
2004). There are certain Vietnamese sounds that are found in English but not
found in the initial position such as the “ng” in ngủ “to sleep” found in final
position of English words such as “song” as well as the Vietnamese “nh” in nhỏ
“small” found in the middle of English words such as the “ny” in “Kenya”
(similar to a Spanish ñ). It should be noted that some Vietnamese-specific
consonants are produced with the tongue tip retroflexed (3 of 11) as in trời
“sky” or produced in the back of the mouth or velar position (4 of 11) as in gà
“chicken”—two articulatory places that are considered relatively complex (or
“marked,” following Jakobson, 1968).
English also has consonant sounds not found in
Vietnamese. In the initial position, English-specific sounds include /w/ in
“water,” /t/ in “toy” (generally aspirated; Harris, 1994), /g/ in “girl,” “ch”
in “chair,” “dg” in “judge,” “sh” in “shoe” and its rare voiced counterpart in
“measure.” Possibly the most well known consonant sounds specifc to English
which are very difficult for second language learners include the English “r,”
“soft th” as in “thing,” and “hard th” as in “this.” In addition to single
consonants, English has numerous consonant clusters (two or more consonant
combinations) that involve /s, r, l, w/ (Harris, 1994; see Table 1). Since
Vietnamese only has six consonant sounds at the end of words (syllable-final),
there are numerous sounds specific to English in the syllable-final position
including /b, d, g, f, v, s, z, l/, “soft th,” “hard th” “sh,” its voiced
counterpart in “measure”, “ch” “dg” in “judge,” and consonant clusters that
involve /p, f, t, d, k, l, m, n/. English appears to have a wider variety of
more complex consonant sounds and sound sequences across syllable positions (see
Table 1 for examples).
Vowels
Table 2 compares the vowel systems of Vietnamese (Dinh
& Nguyen, 1998; D. H. Nguyen 2001) and English (Erickson, 2001; Harris,
1994). As with table 1, orthographic letters that correspond to speech sounds
are underlined in the words in parentheses. Vietnamese and English share seven
single vowels: /i/ as in “see,” /æ/ as in “had,” /ɛ/ as in “egg,” /ɔ/ as in “caught,” /ɑ/ as in “cot,” /ʊ/ similar to “could” and /u/ as in “blue.” Apart from
these shared sounds, Vietnamese contains five additional single vowels, /e/ as
in lê “pear,” /ɯ/ as in tư
“private,” /ɤ/ as in mơ
“dream,” /ɤ̆/ as in ấm “warm” and
/ɑ/ as in năm “year”;
and three true diphthongs (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998): /ie/ as in biển “sea,”
/uo/ as in cuốn “roll” and /ɯɤ/ as in ướt “wet.” In addition, there are 20 possible
two-vowel combinations in which the principal vowel is combined with either a
medial vowel /-u-/, or a syllable-final semi-vowel “-y” or “-w” and seven
3-vowel combinations that include all three vowel slots: medial, principal, and
final (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998; see Table 2 for examples). These two- and
three-vowel combinations are commonly taught in spelling classes in the primary
grades in Vietnam (e.g., Đánh vần mau, n. d.) It should be noted that these
two- and three-vowel combinations maintain the overall syllable structure (Dinh
& Nguyen, 1998) and are produced in one “beat.” The vowel sounds specific
to Standard American English include three single vowels: /ɪ/ in “kid,” /ʌ/ in “cut,” and unstressed /ǝ/ in “attack.” In addition, English has two rhotacized
(r-rounding)
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 9
Table 2
Comparison of Vietnamese and
English vowels
| Vietnamese only | Shared sounds | English only | |
| Singletons | e (lê), ɯ (tư), ɤ (mơ) ɤ̆ (ấm), ă (năm) | i (xin or see) æ(làm or had), ɔ(cho or ought1) ɑ (mắt2 or cot1) ʊ (tư or wood) u (tu or blue) ɛ (chết2 or egg) | ɪ (kid) ʌ (cut), ǝ (attack) ɚ (thunder) ɝ (urgent) |
| Diphthongs | ie (biển, mía, yên) uo (cuốn) ɯɤ (ướt, trưa) | oʊ (oh), aʊ (how) aɪ (eye), ɔɪ (boy), eɪ (bake) | |
| 2-Vowel Combinations (medial vowel -u- and principal vowel) | ui (suy), oe (Huế) oɤ (thủơ), oɤ̆ (luật) ɔe (khoe), ɔa (hoa) | ||
| 2-Vowel Combinations (principal vowel with final semi-vowel) | ɤj (chơi), ɯj (chửi) oj (nồi), uj (lùi), aj (chai) ɔj (voi), ɜj (cây), ɐj (cay) iw (xíu), ew (kêu) ɛw (leo), ɯw (lưu) ɐ:w(áo, rau), ău (lâu) | ||
| 3+ vowel combinations (medial vowel -u- and principal vowel and final semi-vowel) | iew (nhiều, yêu) ɯɤw (hươu), ɔaj (khoai) uɜj (nuôi), ɯɤj (mười) uia (khuya), uej (uây) | aɪæ (Diana) ieɪ, (pronounciation) ioʊ (stereo), oʊeɪ (oasis) | |
Note:
Numerous vowel differences exist among regional Vietnamese dialects (see Dinh
and Nguyen, 1998, for details). This table presents Vietnamese vowels primarily
from the northern dialect (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998; D. H. Nguyen, 2001).
General American English vowel sounds are based on Erickson (2001) and Harris
(1994). Sounds are represented by IPA symbols. Letters that correspond to the
sounds are underlined in the example words in parentheses.
1 Regional dialects of American English may not exhibit
a difference between /ɔ/ and /a/.
2The phoneme /a/ may serve as an allophonic variation
of /ă/ in certain Vietnamese dialects. The phoneme /ɛ/ may serve as an allophonic variation of /e/ in
certain Vietnamese dialects.
vowels
/ɝ/ in “bird” and its
unstressed counterpart /ɚ/ in
“thunder.” There are five English-specific diphthongs: /oʊ/ as in “oh,” /aʊ/ as in “cow,” /ai/ as in “eye,” /oɪ/ as in
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 10
“boy,”
and /eɪ/ as in “bake”; as
well as four vowel combinations: /aɪæ/ as in “Diana,” /ieɪ/ as in “pronunciation,” /ioʊ/ as in “stereo,” and /oʊeɪ/ as in “oasis” (Harris, 1994).
Syllable
Structure
Given information about the phonemes or speech-sounds
of each language, it is also important to understand how these sounds combine
together to form a syllable. Syllable structures in Indo-European languages may
be described as sequences of consonants (C) and vowels (V). For instance, in
English, there are numerous syllable structures that are plausible such as CV,
CVC, CCVC, CCCVC, (Erickson, 2001) as in the words “me,” “bat,” “stop,” and
“scratch,” respectively. In contrast, linguists in Vietnam have posited that
representing the Vietnamese syllable using consonant and vowel sequences
inaccurately portrays its structure since CV sequences would not account for
tones, a compulsory element that contributes to lexical meaning, nor the
adjustments in vowel length that contribute to the preservation of the syllable
structure and length (H. T. Nguyen, personal communication, November 15, 2005).
Table 3 displays the syllable structure of Vietnamese
(Doan, 1999; see also Dinh & Nguyen, 1998). Double lines delineate the
three main syllable components: tone, syllable-initial sound, and the rime.
Tone is present throughout the syllable and carries lexical meaning (see the
lexical-semantic section for a discussion of tone as a lexical unit). The onset
or syllable-initial position consists solely of consonant sounds. (According to
Cao, 2004, written Vietnamese words that begin with a vowel actually are
produced with an initial glottal stop). The rime consists of a medial vowel,
principal vowel, and final sound, of which the principal vowel is the only
required vowel in the syllable (Dinh & Nguyen, 1998). Table 3 displays four
word examples that illustrate possible syllable structures: toán “math,” toà
“court,” tan “to melt” and ta “we” or “I.” Note that the smallest possible
syllable, ta, is produced with an initial consonant sound, principal vowel, and
a tone (level tones are not marked orthographically).
Table 3
Vietnamese Syllable Structure
| Tone | |||||
| Syllable-initial sound | Rime | ||||
| Medial /u/ | Principal vowel | Final sound | |||
| T | o | á | n | ||
| T | o | à | |||
| T | a | n | |||
| T | a | ||||
Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education & Advancement, 2 Tang – Cross-linguistic Analysis of
Vietnamese and English 11
Compared to English, Vietnamese has a wider variety of
single vowel and vowel combinations with a total of five unshared singletons
and 30 vowel combinations compared to five unshared singletons and eight vowel
combinations in Standard American English (see Table 2). A complex vowel system
may be related to the Vietnamese syllable structure that allows three possible
slots for vowel sounds and only two possible slots for consonants (see syllable
structure in Table 3). Correspondingly, the relatively limited number of
consonants may be related to their limited role in a syllable. A relatively
larger vowel inventory may counterbalance a more limited number of consonants
in Vietnamese.
Based
on this comparison of Vietnamese and English phonology, we find that while
certain speech sounds are common to both languages, there are many differences
to be noted. First, tones in Vietnamese carry lexical meaning and are
obligatory in the syllable structure. Second, Vietnamese has a more complicated
vowel system, while English has a larger consonant inventory with greater
distribution across syllable positions. Lastly, in regards to complexity,
Vietnamese contains multiple relatively marked retroflex and velar consonant
sounds, while English contains complex structures such as affricates and
consonant clusters.
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