English and Vietnamese Imperative 1

Running ahead: IMPERATIVE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Imperatives in English and Vietnamese

Dương Kiều Loan

Class 4B07

University of Pedagogy

HCM City, December 30, 2010

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Abstract:

Language has become an effective means of communication for a long time. Depending

on different purposes of the speakers, language itself possesses different types of

sentences such as statement, question, imperative, etc. to have the Man’s

communication demands met. Of those kinds of sentences, imperative takes a crucial

role in daily communication. Imperative is a type of sentences in which the speaker or

the writer indicates that he wants some actions or situations to result from his words

(Feigen Baum, 1985). In this paper, I would like to provide the useful insight into an

analysis of imperatives in English in contrast with Vietnamese imperatives. Then I will

figure out and discuss some implications for pedagogy.

Imperatives in English

Subject

Many imperatives do not have grammatical subjects, which becomes a distinctive

grammatical feature of the imperative. This is the only case in English in which a subject

is not required in the main clause of a sentence (Lynn M.Berk, 1999).

Close the book.

Give me some sugar.

The imperative is the only case in English in which the subject is omitted. However, we

all understand that the missing subject of the imperative is the understood second

person imperative, you.

She turned on TV, didn’t she? Turn on TV, won’t you?

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Sue has tried her best. Try your best.

Besides the understood second person pronoun, English has a special first person

plural imperative that always employs the form “let’s” or “let us”. This form of imperative

is like suggestions rather than orders. Whenever “let’s” constructions are used, they

direct not only the hearer but the speaker as well.

Let’s go to the zoo.

Let us visit our old teacher tonight.

Despite the state of being subjectless of the prototypical imperative, there are a very

limited number of third person imperatives which requires a subject with indefinite

reference.

Someone turn off the fan.

Nobody enter the room!

Somebody paint the window.

The missing subject of the imperative is usually the understood second person

imperative, you; however, sometimes the doer of the action is expressed in an

imperative for the purpose of emphasis or clarity.

You lay the table before the meal.

Mary, turn the radio louder.

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Verb form

There is no distinctive tense in the imperative. In other words, the verbs in the

imperative always take the same form, the simple form. This form is also known as the

imperative mood.

Be on time for the meeting. Knock the door before entering.

The imperative almost never co-occurs with the perfect and only occasionally with the

progressive (Lynn M.Berk 1999).

Be preparing the dinner when I come home.

The negative of the imperative is formed by adding the word do not or don’t before the

verb.

Don’t/do not +V

Don’t forget print the document.

Don’t smoke in public places.

In the case of the copular verb be, adding either don’t or not before the copular verb to

form the negative imperative is acceptable. However, using the word “don’t” seems to

be more preferable.

Not be late for school. Don’t be late for school.

Not be afraid of the death. Don’t be afraid of the death.

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English imperatives are used for many different purposes such as command,

instruction, request, and suggestion. Of all those functions, the most common use of an

imperative is to command or to instruct other people to do something.

Study hard to pass the final exam.

Read instructions carefully before using the product.

Whenever imperatives function as requests, they often have some polite words or

phrases such as please, would you please, etc.

Please reply my mail when you receive it.

Could you tell the meeting time.

I wonder if you could give me your email address.

Another use of imperatives is to suggest. Suggestion imperatives are different from

other imperatives: the doer of the action may be another person besides the “you” of

you-understood (Feigen Baum, 1985).

Let’s finish all homework before going to bed.

The negative form of a suggestion imperative with Let’s has the structure:

Let’s + not + V-inf + …

Let’s not finish all homework before going to the bed

Another suggestion imperative has the following structure:

Shall we + V-inf + …
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Shall we eat out tonight.

The third type of suggestion imperative is shown in the following examples:

Why don’t you drink a cup of coffee.

Why don’t they finish their work on time.

Some imperatives have the question word order; however, their purpose is not to

question but to making request, suggestion or invitation. When they are spoken, the

conversational situation will be the clue to the appropriate response (Feigen Baum,

1985).

Imperatives in Vietnamese

There are two ways to express imperative meanings in Vietnamese, which consists of

using specialized words and using non-specialized words (Ban, 2004).

Specialized words include hãy, đừng, chớ, không, không được, đi, thôi, nào,

đi thôi, đi nào”. Those words are usually used in informal and friendly context.

Hãy đi nhanh lên.

Đừng phàn nàn suốt ngày như thế.

Chớ bơi xa bờ.

Không được đi học trễ.

The word hãy asserting the affirmative meaning never occurs before negative words

such as không, chẳng, chưa in negative imperatives in order to avoid making the idea
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of the sentence contradict itself. Moreover, đừng, chớ are not put before words không,

chẳng, chưa to avoid the phenomenon of double negative which can change the

meaning of the sentence from negative to affirmative.

Words đi, thôi, nào, đi thôi, đi nào are put after the order content. Whenever thôi, nào

are used, the subject of the sentence is usually the first person pronoun such as “ta,

chúng ta”.

Em đi đi. Em đi đi thôi

Ta đi nào. Ta đi đi nào.

These words are usually used in informal situations. In formal ones, appropriate

emotional elements such as “xin, cho, ạ” are employed in imperative sentences in

order to show the speaker’s respect to the listeners.

Xin ông hãy chờ cho một lát ạ.

Xin ông hãy chờ một lát.

Ông hãy chờ cho một lát ạ.

Ông hãy chờ một lát ạ.

Apart from those above ways, others popular ways to make command are to use modal

verbs such as cần, nên, phải and the adverbs such as cứ. Those verbs are usually put

before the imperative verbs in imperative sentences.

Anh cứ nên ngồi đây [, lát nữa tôi quay lại].

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Nên: in the communication the speaker with the higher position than the listener’s one

advises the listener to do something that is useful for both of them.

Quan bác nên cầu duyên rồi hãy cầu tự (TNCL-NCH)

Cần: it expresses the higher level of necessity than the word nên.

Trông Tuyết có dáng mệt nhọc lắm. Tuyết cần nghỉ ngơi một lát. (ĐMG-KH-

NL)

Phải: the speaker who is at the same or higher communication position than listener’s

one. It expresses forceful meaning more than the two other words nên and cần.

We can easily see that the imperative structure with imperative predicates cần, nên,

phải and the imperative structure with imperative predicates hãy, đừng, chớ are the

same. However, the imperative predicates cần, nên, phải are used more widely than

hãy, đừng, chớ (Lan, 2010)

Besides imperative predicates above, other words such as hộ, giùm, giúp are added in

imperative sentence and considered as subordinate imperative predicate. Those words

are put right after the verbs in imperative sentences.

Anh mở hộ tôi cái cửa sổ

Anh mở, giúp tôi cái cửa sổ

Anh mở giúp tôi cái cửa sổ.

Whenever those words are applied in an imperative, people have to obey the two

following rules quite strictly.

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Firstly, they are used to request other people do the imperative at the time of

speaking. Moreover, it is not used to describe things in the past, in the present or

in the future. Secondly, in that kind of imperative sentence, the subject must be

the hearer and after those words are verbs.

In addition, Vietnamese has other verbs named performative verbs with the imperative

meaning such as “yêu cầu, đề nghị, khuyên, xin, etc”.

Yêu cầu: we usually use it in informal situations and rarely in informal situation.

Chúng tôi yêu cầu ông tổng biên tập hãy cứng rắn đứng ở đầu sóng ngọn
gió lấy dư luận làm áp lực cho chúng tôi. (X.C)

Đề nghị: the communicational position of the speaker is higher than that of the listener.

Đề nghị mọi người thảo luận về cách giải quyết vấn đề này.

Khuyên: the speaker advises the hearer to do something in friendly way. So it is usually

used in intimate situations.

Em khuyên anh nên đổ nước đi cho được việc. (NNB)

Xin: the communication position of the speaker in is lower than the listener’s one. It is

used to express modesty and politeness.

Tôi xin đồng chí chú thích thêm cho cái bản thiết kế này, tôi không hiểu.
(MT- TVT)

Using those performative verbs people have to follow the two important rules. The first

rule is that the imperative action must be done at the same time of speaking. The other

is that the subject of the sentence is the speaker.

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(Chúng tôi) mong các bạn sẽ đến chung vui cùng gia đình.

(Cô) yêu cầu các bạn nghiêm túc trong giờ chào cờ

(Bác) mời các cháu uống nước.

In affirmative imperative, people should use auxiliary verb such as “hãy, nên, xin, cứ,

phải” put before the verb or the “đi” put after the verb.

Hãy giữ vững lòng tin tưởng.

Ăn đi.

Cứ thẳng thắn phê bình.

Cứ làm bừa đi.

Although people sometimes do not use auxiliary verbs in Vietnamese imperatives, the

sentence itself still has functions such as command, advice, instruction, etc.

Đỗ lại, hãm lại!

Đỗ lại, hãm lại ngay!

The two verbs “đỗ, hãm” in the two examples above themselves express the other

content without having the help of auxiliary verbs.

Empty words such as “đừng, chớ” or words with negative meaning such as “không

nên, chớ nên, không phải” are often used to form negative imperatives.

Đừng lo lắng!
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Không phải cầu lụy nó.

Chớ có bỏ cuộc giữa chừng.

Không nên ăn uống những thức ăn hết hạn.

After the analysis of imperatives in English and Vietnamese, I would like to compare

them so that we could point out similarities and differences between them.

First of all, take the subject of the imperative into consideration. It can be easily seen

that there is an omission of the English imperative subject which is normally the

understood second person pronoun, you and a very limited number of indefinite nouns

such as someone, anyone, etc. On the contrary, there is always the presence of the

variety of subjects including pronouns, proper nouns and common nouns in Vietnamese

imperatives. Thanks to that, Vietnamese are freer to express their feelings or attitudes

when making imperatives. Therefore the subject of Vietnamese is more various in

comparison to the English’s one.

Second, people use many special structures in making English imperatives. Sometimes

some of those structures have the question word order; however, they are, in fact, used

to express request, suggestion, etc, which can be recognized easily when they are used

in particular situations.

Why don’t you drink a cup of coffee. ( the listener looks sleepy)

Could you tell me the time of the next train. (the speaker is really hurried)
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On the other hand, in Vietnamese imperatives, people use popularly other terms such

as hãy, đi, đi thôi, đi nào , modal verbs cần, nên, phải and performative verbs such

as yêu cầu, đề nghị, khuyên, xin, etc.

Chị hãy cứ cố gắng lên.

Con làm bài tập đi.

Despite the difference of the imperative in the two languages above, there are some

similarities between them. There are some terms that express the same meanings in

both English and Vietnamese imperatives for example terms please, do, don’t in

English and Vietnamese terms vui lòng, hãy, hãy đừng.

Open the door, please. Vui lòng mở hộ cái cửa sổ

Do be on time for the meeting Hãy đến buổi họp đúng giờ

Don’t smoke in public places Đừng hút thuốc ở nơi công cộng

Last but not least, there is a difference between intonation in English and Vietnamese

imperatives. The usual intonation for an English imperative is falling intonation at the

end (Feign Baum, 1985)

Turn off the light!

Be on time for the meeting.

The Vietnamese imperative intonation is in contrast to English one. It is generally

rising intonation at the end and stress on word that bring the content of the order (Ban,

2005).

Anh kia đứng lại! Đọc to lên!

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Some implications for English teaching

From the analysis of imperatives in English and Vietnamese above, we can see many

differences which may cause a lot of difficulties for Vietnamese students. I would like to

show common mistakes and then offer some approaches to teach imperative aspect

more effectively.

Firstly, the omission of the subject in English imperatives makes Vietnamese learners

quite confused when they translate those sentences into Vietnamese. Teachers should

help students explore the context as well as draw their attention to that difference

between the two languages so that learners themselves could avoid negative transfer

and finish their translation more effectively.

Secondly, there are too much imperative structures that do not exist in Vietnamese, for

example imperative structures which have the same word order with questions, which

may confuse them and make students misunderstand or even not understand the

meaning of the sentence. To overcome that, teachers should provide students with

English imperative form and explain clearly their functions such as request, command,

instruction, suggestion, advising, etc. in different contexts.

Finally, teachers should design speaking tasks for them to practice using imperatives. In

those tasks teachers draw students’ attention to aspect of politeness and formality of

the context. Students can work in pairs or in groups and each of them will take the role

of both the speaker and the listeners in different contexts. During the tasks, students

themselves have to find out the most suitable imperative forms to express their own

ideas in a particular situation.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, imperative is a very common type of sentence in language, so grasping it

become very essential in language learning. Although there are a lot of differences

between the mother language and the target language, with a deep view insight into the

two languages, language learners may avoid common mistakes and use imperatives

effectively. I hope that my paper is somehow useful for Vietnamese learners who are

interested in English in general and in English and Vietnamese imperative in specific.

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REFERENCES

Baum, I. F. (1985). The Grammar Handbook. Oxford University Press.

M.Berk, L. (1999). English Syntax from word to discourse. oxford university press.

Robert D.Van Valin, J. (2001). An Introduction To Syntax. Cambridge University Press.

Tịnh, B. Đ. (1996). Văn Phạm Việt Nam. Nxb Văn Hóa.

Ban, D. Q. (2005). Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt. Nxb Giao Duc

Lan, Đ. T. (2010). Ngữ Pháp-Ngữ Nghĩa Của Lời Cầu Khiến tiếng Việt. Nxb Khoa Học

Xã Hội.