Vietnamese Chinese Speakers Of Chinese And Vietnamese Words

Vietnamese has in many ways been greatly influenced by the Chinese language ever since the ancient times. Such influence is found in all levels of language:grammar, vocabulary, phonology, and others; the two languages are inextricably linked with each other. As far as vocabulary is concerned, Vietnamese has now a large number of words derived from Chinese, or the so-called "Sino-Vietnamese words". This puts the Vietnamese learners of Chinese as a second language in a somewhat advantageous position, compared with learners from other countries. On the other hand, both Vietnamese and Chinese have undergone dramatically changes or developments in the long course of time. As a result, some of the Chinese words now do give Vietnamese learners a degree of positive influence, but a large part of the Sino-Vietnamese words have experienced changes, such as extension or narrowing of the semantic units and a small number of them even cannot find their equivalents in the modern Chinese vocabulary. This will of course add to the difficulty for the Vietnamese learners, or it may bring about a negative influence in their learning and use of the Chinese language.This thesis, therefore, takes the Sino-Vietnamese words as the objective of study. It starts from their origins, features and development or changes, makes an analysis of both the positive and negative influence of the Sino-Vietnamese words in the course of the SLA for Vietnamese Chinese learners, and then provides a tentative effort of utilizing them in the classroom, with some practical teaching cases. The conclusion drawn from the thesis is that Sino-Vietnamese words do exert some influence in the course of SLA for the Vietnamese Chinese learners, but this influence can be an advantage or a disadvantage; their positive or enhancing effect cannot be exaggerated as they may induce errors or even misunderstanding in the learning or use of Chinese, nor can it be ignored, since it does give some help or convenience in learning and teaching Chinese as a second language, to the Vietnamese learners.