Part A: Introduction

I. Rationale
In order to become competent in a foreign language, it is
important for language learners not only to acquire new vocabularies
and a new set of phonological and syntactic rules but also to learn
what Wilson (1986) calls the rules of speaking: the patterns of
sociolinguistic behavior of the target language. The rules of speaking
involve us in knowing when and how it is suitable to open a
conversation, what topics are appropriate to particular speech events,
how speech acts are to be given and interpreted. In many cases, this
interpretation goes beyond what the language learners might intend to
convey and includes assessments such as “polite” and “impolite”.
In Vietnam, as the economy grows and international business
develops, English proficiency becomes a master tool for young people
to get a job. They encounter foreigners in everyday settings where
communication is necessary. In the modern society, the need for
communication is increasing, especially in the process of globalization,
when communication spreads beyond the boundary of a country.
During the last decades, linguistic researchers have broadened their
focus of their interests from the development of grammatical
competence to other areas of target language development, such as
discourse and pragmatic competence, common speech routines, for
example, requests, apologies, complaints, compliments, refusals, and
the like have been most frequently studied in cross-cultural and
interlanguage pragmatics. According to Tsui (1994), there seems to be
little empirical research that has been conducted in responses to
questions. For a long time, question-response has been considered one
of the most basic structures of conversation (Schegloff, 1974) but as
Tsui (1994; p. 160) points out: “responses have been given little
attention in the speech acts literature. Most of the acts characterized
and listed in the various taxonomies are illocutionary acts which are
often done by making the function of utterance in discourse, and as
many responding acts do not have a corresponding responding
performative verb, this kind of analysis inevitably neglects responses”
A characterization of utterances (based on observation of real-
life discourse) is not likely to neglect the importance of responses.
Let’s consider an example illustrated by Tsui (1994)
A: What’s the time?
B: (a) Eleven
(b) Time for coffee
(c) I haven’t got a watch, sorry
(d) How hold I know
(e) Ask Jack
(f) You know bloody well what time it is
(g) Why do you ask?
(h) What did you say?
(i) What do you mean?
Various possible responses from (a) to (i) shows us the
complicated relationship between question and a proper answer. For
the same question, the speaker A may be replied in different ways with
different intentions by the addressee. Obviously, a response can be a
proper answer, an indirect or implicit reply, an evasive answer, a
refusal or denial, an outright lie or even a challenge to the speaker’s
questioning act. Moreover, the question-answer exchange cannot
always be a simple relationship in the actual communicative process. It
is the addressee’s response that may establish, deepen and maintain
the conversation, develop the intimacy among interlocutors, or
interrupt the interactional process and even badly change the
participants’ role, for example, from friends to enemies. There is no
doubt that the addressee’s responses depend on so many social
factors: the speaker’s intent; the hearer’s perception of that intent, the
various fits between actual and perceived intents, concurrent gestures,
facial expressions, movements and some decisions as to how the two
parties are to deal with this complex mix of factors (Wardhaugh,1997).
A question which is now posed to us is how we can precisely
understand and interpret the speaker’s intents to a question; what
types of question responses are; what strategies the speaker uses to
respond to questions; and what factors affect speaker’s responding
behavior. This is the reason that motivated our choice of the research
to present a contrastive analysis of responses to questions in English
and Vietnamese conversation. Through the study, we hope to gain
some insights which highlight both the similarities and the differences
between English and Vietnamese response types, strategies used to
respond to question by Native Speakers of English and Vietnamese.
The study will also try to present difficulties as well as some practical
recommendations for the process of teaching and learning English.
II. Aims of the study
In order to distinguish the different ways of replies and responses
to questions as well as different responding strategies in English and
Vietnamese, this research aims at:
- describing and analyzing different types of responses to
questions in English and Vietnamese conversation
- investigating how verbal responses to question express cultural
values by examining the relationship between gender, closeness of
relationship and status of the interlocutors and the kinds of responses
to questions.
- putting forward some implications for teaching and learning the
functions of responses to questions in everyday conversation.

PART I INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In Vietnamese, the verb ‘chạy’ does not only indicate a physical activity only but also
imply other situations in real life communication. To some extent, it is not too difficult to
find such circumstances in which people use the verb ‘chạy’: ‘chạy ăn từng bữa toát mồ
hôi’, ‘chạy làng’, ‘chạy triện đồng’ etc. Especially, modern Vietnamese language, which
has developed and reflected the life in its own way, has been supplemented with many
new words, or new interpretations to the existing words such as ‘chạy điểm’, ‘chạy
trường’, ‘chạy án’, ‘chạy thận, ‘chạy sô’, etc.
The verb ‘run’ in English, similarly, is rich in meaning which can be listed some
expressions like ‘run in the race’, ‘run a company’, ‘run a risk’, ‘run a temperature’,
‘run the risk’ etc.
How do English people find equivalents for such expressions like ‘chạy tang’, ‘chạy
làng’, ‘chạy mả’, etc. in their language, and how do Vietnamese people translate such
expressions like ‘run guns’, ‘hit and run’, etc? This is the very question that seriously
runs in the author’s mind.
Language is widely accepted as the reflection of life. By comparing languages, the
similarities and differences not only between the languages but also between the speakers
of the languages as well as their cultures can be revealed.
R.J. D Pietro (1971:12), a French educational linguist, believed that CA was founded
on the foreign language teaching experiences. Each language has its own phonological,
morphological and syntactical features that could present difficulties for language
learners. To help overcome specific teaching and learning predicaments, this thesis has
been made with an attempt to create a definite pedagogical value with its presentation of
effective teaching strategies. On these points of departure, the author has conducted the
study entitled “A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the
Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese”.
2. Aims of the Study
The study is aimed at:
* Finding the similarities and differences between the verb ‘run’ in English and the
verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese mainly in terms of MiCA and briefly in term of MaCA;
* Providing recommendations for the teaching and learning as well as some tips when
translating ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ into the target language.
To fully achieve these aims, the study should answer the following questions:
 What are the grammatical and semantic features of each verb and how are they
similar and different in terms of these features?
 What are their synonyms and idioms?
 What are the implications of the study for EFL teaching/learning and translation?