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A Contrastive Analysis of Personal Pronouns in English and Vietnamese

Student: Huynh Ngoc Thanh

Professor: Nguyen Ngoc Vu

Contrastive Analysis 2009

28 December 2009
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Pronouns are words used to refer to someone or something in context so

that we can avoid repetition in the process of communication. In fact, most

languages in the world, including English and Vietnamese, have this type of

word. However, each language has its own characteristics. The use of

Vietnamese pronouns, especially personal pronouns, may cause lots of

confusion for English people who learn Vietnamese. Therefore, this paper aims

at exploring personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese in a contrastive view,

especially in the ways they are used. Then, I will suggest some implications for

language teaching so that the process of L2 acquistion can be better.

What are personal pronouns?

In general, “personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for

proper or common nouns” (Wikipedia, “Personal pronoun”). In the example

following, “her”, “she”, “it” and “me” are personal pronouns.

Mary took out her book. Then, she gave it to me.

Personal pronouns in English

According to Heather MacFadyen, forms of English personal pronouns

vary according to case, person, number, and gender (“What is a Pronoun?”).

In term of case, in general, there are three cases depending on the

grammatical role of the personal pronouns in a sentence: subjective, objective

and possessive (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun Characteristics”).

- In subjective case, the personal pronouns are used as the subject of a

verb, such as I, you, we, he, she, it, and they (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun

Characteristics”). For example: I am a student.

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- In objective case, they are used as the object of a verb or a preposition,

such as me, you, us, him, her, it, and them (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun

Characteristics”). For example: How can you stand living with them?

- In possessive case, they are used as markers of possession and define

who owns a particular object or person, such as mine, yours, ours, his, hers, its,

theirs (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun Characteristics”). For example: Her

clothes are always clear while his are always dirty.

In term of person, personal pronouns in English have three persons: first

person, second person and third person (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun

Characteristics”).

- First personal pronouns refer to the speaker or writer, such as I

/me/mineand we/us/ours. For example: Bob told us about his family.

- Second personal pronouns refer to the addressee of the speaker or the

audience of the writer, such as you/you/yours. For example: You must tell me the

truth.

- Third personal pronouns refer to anyone else or others, such as

he/him/his, she/her/hers, it/it/its/ and they/them/theirs. For example: She loves

him.

In term of number, English personal pronouns are divided into singular

and plural ones (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun Characteristics”).

- Singular personal pronouns include I/me/mine, you/you/yours,

she/her/hers, he/him/his and it/it/its. For example: It is a pen. Or Are you a

doctor?
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- Plural personal pronouns include we/us/ours, you/you/yours and

they/them/theirs. For example: They will go with me tomorrow. Or Are you

doctors?

In term of gender, English personal pronouns have three genders:

masculine, feminine and neuter (Megginson, “Noun and Pronoun

Characteristics”).

- Masculine personal pronouns involve male sexual organs, such as

he/him/his. For example:

Tom is a naughty boy. He is always playing truant.

- Feminine personal pronouns involve female sexual organs, such as

she/her/hers. For example: Mai is a good girl. She usually helps me.

- Neuter personal pronouns are used when the sexual state of referents is

not mentioned, such asthey/them/theirs, it/it/its. For example: They are the books

that my father bought me last year.

Above are all English personal pronouns categorized in term of case,

person, number and gender. To make it brief, I have summarized all in the

following table:

English Personal Pronouns

Singular Plural
Subjective Objective Possessive Subjective Objective Possessive
First I Me Mine We Us Ours
Second You You Yours You You Yours
Masculine He Him His
Third Feminine She Her Hers They Them Theirs
Neuter It It Its
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Personal pronouns in Vietnamese

The system of Vietnamese personal pronouns is absolutely more

complicated than the one of English. Not only age, gender, person but also the

social context, attitude of the speaker to the listener as well as the relationship

between the speaker and listener are indicated through the way Vietnamese

choose personal pronouns in every day communication. There are two branches

in the system of Vietnamese personal pronouns: true personal pronouns and

kinship terms (Wikipedia, “Vietnamese Pronouns”).

True personal pronouns are catergorised into first person, second person

and third person.

- First personal pronouns in singular forms include: tôi, ta, mình, tao… Tôi

is usually used in polite speech (Ex: This is a statement in a wedding: “Tôi xin

chân thành cám ơn sự có mặt của quý vị trong buổi lễ ngày hôm nay”). Ta is

often used when someone talks to himself/herself (Ex: When someone is

wavering between coming back or staying on, he may ask himself: “Ta nên đi

hay nên ở lại đây?”) or it can be used to indicate the higher status of the speaker

to the addressee (Ex: A boss may say to his charwoman: “Hãy chuẩn bị mọi thứ

sẵn sàng cho ta”). Mình is also used for soliloquy (Ex: When someone

encourage himself, he may say: “Mình cần phải cố hơn nữa!”). Tao is used in

informal case when the speaker and the addressee have a close relationship

(Ex: A pupil want to borrow his friend’s picture book, he may say: “Cho tao mượn

cuốn truyện này nha”) or when the speaker is angry with the listener (Ex: “Tao sẽ

đánh cho mày nhừ xương”).

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- Second personal pronouns in singular forms include: mày, mi, bạn…Mày

is used in close relationship or informal social context (Ex: A sister may ask her

brother: “Mày đang làm cái gì đó?”). Mi is usually used for familiar relationship in

the Middle area of Vietnam; it has the same function as mày. Bạn is used to creat

friendly atmosphere (Ex: An MC could ask a contestant in a gameshow: “Bạn có

thể giớ thiệu về bản thân mình cho khán giả được biết không ạ?”).

- Third personal pronouns in singular forms include: nó, y, hắn, gã, ả…Nó

is often used to refer to animals, things or children (Ex: “Chiếc bàn này được làm

từ gỗ quý nên nó có giá rất cao”). Y and hắn are both used to refer to someone

scorned or untrustworthy (Ex: When you accuse someone as a criminal, you

could say: “Hắn là một tên tội phạm”). Gã and ả are both ofetn used to refer to

someone unliked, however, Vienamese use gã for male and ả for female (Ex: A

girl talks about a man who makes her annoyed: “Gã thật là phiền phức” while the

man could say: “Ả thật là đánh đá”).

The plural forms of first, second and third personal pronouns can be

created by adding the words like “chúng”, “tụi”, “bọn” such as: chúng tôi, tụi nó,

bọn mày, bọn tao….(Ex: This is a statement in a wedding: “Chúng tôi xin chân

thành cám ơn sự có mặt của quý vị trong buổi lễ ngày hôm nay”). However, we

can also use “họ” as the plural form of a third personal pronoun without adding

any words (Ex: Instead of saying: “Tụi nó là bạn của tôi”, one can say: “Họ là bạn

của tôi” with a more formal level).

The other branch of Vietnamese personal pronouns is kinship terms which

are the most popular ways Vietnamese use to refer oneself and others. Even
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though the listener is not a family member or relative, kinship terms can also

used as pronouns to address and refer to friends and unfamiliar interlocutors

(Luong, 1990). The system of these kinship terms is quite complicated and they

can different according to specific areas, so in this paper I just mention some

typical ones.

- Parents and children relationship: cha-con (father-children) and mẹ-con

(mother-children). For example, a child talks to her mother: “Tối nay, mẹ và con

đi siêu thị nhé!” The term cha-con is also used in the relationship between parish

priests and Christian believers.

- Sibling relationship: anh-em (older brother-younger brother/sister) and

chị-em (older sister-younger brother/sister). For example, a little boy says to his

sister: “Ba bảo chị một lát chở em đi học.” A person can also use anh/ chị to refer

people who are in the same generation and older than him/her, and use em to

prefer people who are in the same generation and younger than him/her.

- Grandparents and grandchildren relationship: ông-cháu (grandfather-

grandson/granddaughter), bà-cháu (grandmother- grandson/granddaughter). For

example, an old man talks to his niece: “Để ông kể cho cháu nghe chuyện Tấm-

Cám nhé!” The terms ông-cháu and bà-cháu can also be used when a person

talks to people who seem to be as old as his/her grandparents.

- Uncle and niece/nephew relationship: chú-cháu (father’s younger

brother-nice/nephew), bác-cháu (parents’ older brother- nice/nephew), cậu-cháu

(mother’s younger brother- nice/nephew), dượng-cháu (ant’s husband-

nice/nephew). For example, a man may talk to his nephew: “Cậu có quà cho
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cháu này.” The term chú-cháu is also used when a person talks to a male who is

the same age or younger than his/her parents whereas bác-cháu is used when a

person talks to a male who is older than his/her parents.

- Ant and niece/nephew relationship: cô-cháu (father’s younger sister-

nice/nephew), dì-cháu (mother’s younger sister- nice/nephew), bác-cháu

(parents’ older sister- nice/nephew), mợ-cháu (uncle’s wife on the maternal side-

nice/nephew), thím-cháu (uncle’s wife on the paternal side- nice/nephew). For

example, a woman may say to her niece: “Cháu của dì hôm nay giỏi quá!” The

term dì-cháu or cô-cháu is also used when a person talks to a female who is

younger than his/her parents while bác-cháu is used when a person talks to a

female who is older than his/her parents.

To make the third-person forms of the kinship terms above, the word “ấy”

is added behind them such as ông ấy, bà ấy, thím ấy, dì ấy, chú ấy, chị ấy, anh

ấy…For example: Lan là chị của tôi. Chị ấy rất thương tôi.

Within this paper, I would like to discuss the contrast between English and

Vietnamese personal pronouns in ways they are used.

Firstly, there are different pronouns in English that indicate subject vs.

predicate position (eg. “he” vs. “him”) while Vietnamese pronouns remain the

same without indicating subject vs. predicate position (Erickson 199-203).

Example:

- He is Mary’s boyfriend. I met him at Mary’s birthday party last week.

- Anh ấy là bạn trai của Mary. Tôi đã gặp anh ấy trong buổi tiệc sinh nhật

của Mary vào tuần trước.

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Secondly, English has possessive pronouns to indicate the possessor of

another noun (eg. “mine”, “yours”, “his”, “hers”). In contrast, possessive pronouns

do not exist in Vietnamese; in stead, the word “của” is used to indicate the

possession.

Example:

My coat is pink. Yours is blue.

Áo khoát của tôi màu hồng. Cái của bạn màu xanh.

Thirdly, because of the dominance of ellipsis, Vietnamese pronouns have

low frequency as compared to English pronouns (Thu, “The Functioning of

Pronouns in Vietnamese and English”).

Example:

He said that he would go to Hanoi the following month.

Anh ấy nói sẽ đi Hà Nội vào tháng tới. (The subject of reported clause is

omitted).

Finally, the choice of pronouns in Vietnamese, especially kinship terms, is

strongly influenced by semantic and pragmatic factors while this is not the case

in English (Thu, “The Functioning of Pronouns in Vietnamese and English”). For

example: In English, we use only the pronoun “he” for referring to both brother

and father; however, in Vietnamese, we have to use the pronoun “ông ấy” for

referring to father and the pronoun “anh ấy” for referring to brother.

Through a contrastive view into Vietnamese and English personal

pronouns above, I would like to suggest some implications for English and

Vietnamese teaching and learning.

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Firstly, language teachers have to pay much attention to semantic and

pragmatic factors such as age, sex, social status, relationship, attitudes and

feelings of the speaker and addressee, as well as the formality of the context in

the process of teaching Vietnamese pronouns. Towards English people who

learn Vietnamese, teachers should explain clearly the different meanings of each

Vietnamese personal pronoun, especially the kinship terms in specific contexts.

For example, to utter the sentence “I love you” in Vietnamese, we should

consider the relationship, sex and even social status between the speaker and

the listener. If the speaker is a female and the listener is a male, the utterance

should be “Em yêu anh”. On contrast, if the speaker is a male and the listener is

a female, the utterance should be “Anh yêu em”. However, if the utterance is said

by people in a family, the personal pronouns must be change: “Mẹ yêu con” for

the mother to her child and “Con yêu mẹ” for the child to his/her mother, “Bà yêu

cháu” for the grandmother to her grandchild and “Cháu yêu bà” for the grandchild

to his/her grandmother. Besides, if the utterance is said by a girl to a man who

has much higher social status than her, she may say “Em yêu ngài”.

Secondly, when sudden change of personal pronouns in Vietnamese

contexts appears, it is the teacher’s duty to explain clearly the reason for such

change. The following example will make the suggestion more clear:

This is the conservation between a father and his daughter when the

father wants to forbid his daughter’s love for her boyfriend.

Ba: Con hãy bỏ thằng đó đi. Nó không thể mang hạnh phúc đến cho con

đâu.
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Con gái: Nhưng con đã lỡ yêu anh ấy rồi, ba ơi!

Ba: Nghe lời ba đi con. Bỏ thằng đó đi. Ba sẽ tìm cho con một người tốt

hơn.

Con gái: Con xin lỗi ba, nhưng con không thể.

Ba: Vậy thì mày hãy ra khỏi nhà tao để đi theo thằng đó luôn đi.

In the conservation above, we can see the sudden change from “cha-con”

to “mày-tao” when the father gets angry because he fails to convince her

daughter to leave her boyfriend. Moreover, the daughter’s boyfriend is refered

differently according to the attitude of the utterer. He is called “nó”, “thằng đó” by

the father with scornful attitude, but the daughter use the pronoun “anh ấy” to call

him respectfully.

Thirdly, English teachers should help their Vietnamese students get

aquainted with using possessive and objective pronouns which do not exist in

Vietnamese. For example, the sentence “Mặc dù nó đã cố gắng rất nhiều nhưng

sự vụng về của nó khiến cho mọi người không muốn giao nhiệm vụ cho nó” is

translated into English “Although he tried a lot, his awkwardness made nobody

want to commission him” with the consideration of subjective, objective position

as well as possessive case.

Last but not least, ellipsis is dominant in Vietnamese while it is not the

case in Eglish. Therefore, English teachers should help Vietnamese students

make sentences correctly by avoiding ellipsis, especially at the beginning of

conservation. The example below will make clear this point:

A and B meet each other in the street by chance.

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In Vietnamese In English
A: Đi đâu đó? A: Where are you going?
B: Đi chợ. B: I’m going to the market.

In conclusion, each language has its distinct characters, so it is not easy

at all to acquire a second language effectively. The differences of using personal

pronouns in English and Vietnamese, for example, are problems that learners

need to make their efforts to adapt. With this research paper, I hope that readers

can distinguish the personal pronouns in English in comparison with personal

pronouns in Vietnamese. Then, we can find out more effective solutions to help

learners grasp the using of personals pronouns between the two languages more

easily. It is obvious that this paper cannot avoid shortcomings, so your useful

contributions are welcomed.

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References

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languages: An encyclopedia of the world’s major languages, past, and

present. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 2001.

Luong, H. V. Discursive practices and linguistic meanings: The Vietnamese

system of person reference. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing

Company, 1990.

Megginson, David. “Noun and Pronoun Characteristics.” uOttawa. 16 Aug. 2007.

25 Dec. 2009

<http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/

nounchar.html#persons>.

MacFadyen, Heather. “What is a Pronoun?” uOttawa. 10 Oct. 2008. 25 Dec.

2009 <http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/pronouns.html>.

“Personal pronoun.” Wikipedia.25 Dec. 2009. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 25

Dec. 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_pronoun>.

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Duc Dai Hoc. 11 Jan. 2006. Vu Dai hoc va Sau Dai hoc. 28 Dec. 2009

<http://www.hed.edu.vn/TrangChu/LuanAnTienSi/11128299/>.

“Vietnamese pronouns.” Wikipedia. 30 Oct. 2009. Wikimedia Foundation,

Inc. 28 Dec. 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_pronouns>.