VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION/
FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS & CULTURES OF ENGLISH SPEAKING
COUNTRIES

HỒ PHƯƠNG ANH

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

THE USE OF ENGLISH IMPERATIVES IN SIGNS

AT HANOI'S TOURIST DESTINATIONS

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS
(ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION)

Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm (Ph.D)

Ha Noi, November / 2017

Signature of Approval:

_____________________________________________________________
Supervisor’s Comments & Suggestions
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
1. BACKGROUND
1.1. Imperatives
1.1.1. Definition
“Imperative” is an English term that has been witnessed in different classifications
of various scholars of the English language. According to Brinton (2000), the indicative, the
imperative, and the subjunctive are three fundamental types of mood in English which refers
to “the speaker’s attitude” towards his or her utterance. Of these three moods, the imperative
is used as “direct commands” in the form of sentences without a subject and the verb is in its
bare form (e.g., Go!, Be quiet!, Don’t disturb me!). This type of mood also expresses a kind
of suggestion when Let’s starts the sentence as in Let’s see a movie tonight.
Huddleston (1984) shares the same categorization of mood into the three above-
mentioned types. In his work, in addition, imperative together with declarative, interrogative
and exclamative are introduced as the four different clause types. They are the syntactic
categories that are emphasized to be distinct from semantic categories, namely statement,
question, exclamation and directive.
In his functional grammar book (2014), Halliday suggests three categories of
moods: interrogative, declarative and imperative. Imperative is supposed to basically mean
to want somebody else to do or not to do something.
According to Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik’s work (1985), terms such as
declaratives, exclamatives, interrogatives and imperatives refer to syntactic types of simple
sentences. Imperatives are defined as “sentences which normally have no overt grammatical
subject, and whose verb has the base form.” However, in their analysis of discourse
functions, they mention “imperatives” or “commands” as the equivalence of “directives”,
whose purpose is to tell someone to take an action.
Postdam (2017) mentions the definition of imperative under a semantic
characterization as “a directive speech act type” on the ground that “any construction with
the relevant illocutionary force or pragmatic effect may be classified as an imperative,
irrespective of its form.” In this study, we take this definition of imperatives as the basis.

1.1.2. Realization of imperatives in English.

Quirk et al (1985) and Halliday (2014) both include these two types of imperatives:
positive imperatives and negative ones. More specifically, there are three subtypes, namely
(i) first person imperatives, (ii) second person imperative and (iii) third person imperative as
in these examples:
 Let me help. (i)
Let us all work hard. (i)
You show me what to do. (ii)
Go straight and turn left. (ii)
Somebody open this door. (iii)
Let no one think that a teacher’s life is easy. (iii)
Normally, the subject “you” in the second type is omitted (e.g. Show me what to
do.), and “let’s” is the alternative to “let us” in the first person type. “Do” can be added to
make a positive imperative more persuasive (e.g. Do have some more tea; Do let’s go for a
walk.)
Regarding negative imperatives, we can simply add “Don’t” or “Do not” at the beginning of
the sentences (e.g. Don’t open the door; Do not play in the street.) Moreover, according to
Quirk (1985), imperatives can also take the form of tag questions (e.g. Open the door, will
you?)
However, as we consider imperatives as a “directive speech act type”, it is worth
mentioning these two terms: direct speech acts and indirect speech acts proposed by George
Yule in 1996. This classification is based on the relationship between structural forms
(declarative, interrogative, imperative) and communicative functions (statement, question,
command or request). If a directive (commands, orders, requests, and suggestions) is
performed using the imperative structure, it is a direct speech act; if it is made using a
declarative or interrogative sentence, it is an indirect speech act. Therefore, the sentence
“Move out of the way!” is a direct directive, and the following ones are considered indirect
directives if the contexts of the sentences are taken into account:
You’re standing in front of the TV.
Do you have to stand in front of the TV?
Could you pass the salt?
Why don’t you be quiet?
Apart from these above-mentioned realizations of imperatives or directives, there are two
other ones which should be noticed. The first one is the use of noun phrases. For example,
“Staff only” is often seen in various working environment to imply that this is a restricted
area, so do not enter if not allowed. The other realization of imperatives is pictograms, or
data visualization. These pictograms below has become popular all over the world nowadays
with purposes to give instruction.
1.2. Signs in tourism.
According to Nguyễn, Nguyễn and Trần (2017), the term signs refer to the term
signboard with a variety of shape and size, including billboards, murals, direction signs, etc.
The authors also distinguish tourism signs from mandatory signs in the way that the former
type is less legally obligatory than the latter one. Considering tourism signs, they divide into
5 main categories: entrance signs, information signs, direction signs, regulations signs and
service signs.

2. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM & QUESTIONS

Global tourism has been witnessed to mushroom in this day and age due to the
advancement in the international transportation systems. This leads to the rapid emergence
of multi-language in various tourism texts, and tourism signs cannot be missed out. As a
lingua franca, English is probably an indispensable language to be included in numerous
tourism signs all over the world. However, for nations where English is not their first or
second language, the use of English in tourism signs in specific and signs in general may
easily become a double-edged sword if English texts do not come under thorough
examination. This is attributable to the translation of the native language into English may
overlook the cultural differences between foreign tourists and the local destinations, leading
to the misunderstanding and negative impressions of global visitors. Especially, imperatives
are considered to frequently appear in tourism signs; therefore, it is essential to take the
question which structures of imperatives should be utilized to maintain politeness.
In recent decades, Vietnam has experienced an increase in the number of foreign
tourists. It is seen that at various tourist attractions in big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi
Minh, foreign languages like English, French and Chinese are included in different tourism
signs. The use of these languages, consequently, needs serious consideration with the view
to ensure the effectiveness of tourism signs. However, to the best knowledge of the
researcher, a number of studies into English signs have been conducted in several countries
but this issue has not been adequately discussed in the context of Vietnam, especially the use
of imperative structures. That is the reason why the use of imperatives in English signs at
Hanoi tourist destinations has been selected for investigation in this study.
The study seeks the answers to the following questions:
1. What are the realization of English imperatives?
2. What are the frequent imperative forms used in English signs at certain Hanoi tourist
destinations?
3. What are the suggestions for the use of English imperatives in tourism signs in Vietnam?

3. SCOPE OF RESEARCH
The study collects 127 tourism signs which are taken photos at 4 different tourist
destinations in Hanoi. These destinations include a cultural historic vestige, a religious
place, a museum and an eco-tourism site.

4. SIGNIFICANCE
The study serves to investigate the imperatives used in tourism signs in Hanoi, their
meaning and also their effectiveness in conveying messages. The study also suggest some
improvements in the utilization of imperatives in English signs in Vietnam, serving to
enhance the quality of Vietnamese tourism.

5. RESEARCH DESIGN
5.1. Sampling
The 127 tourism signs in Hanoi can be divided into 5 categories as the classification
in Nguyễn, Nguyễn, and Trần’s work: (i) entrance signs - 8 signs, (ii) information signs - 44
signs, (iii) direction signs - 33 signs, (iv) regulations signs - 23 signs and (v) service signs -
19 signs.
Among these five categories, 73.8% of all the signs have foreign languages including
English, 0.03% of all the signs use only English. 81.9% English signs use imperatives.

5.2. Data collection

The researcher visit different tourist destinations in Hanoi and take photos of tourism
signs. Then, the researcher sort the photo of signs into those including English and those
without English. The researcher count the number of English signs and type the texts in
these signs into computer. Finally, the researcher category these English signs into the
appropriate types of imperatives using the following analytical framework.
5.3. Data analysis
The framework that this study use to analyze and categorize English signs is the
combination of :
(i) The classification of imperatives by Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik
(1985);
(ii) Terms related to imperatives in Wierzbicka’s book: Cross-cultural Pragmatics:
The Semantics of Human Interaction (2003);
(iii) In addition, the researcher also add two more types basing on her own
observation.

Type Definition Example

1. A sentence without a subject. It has Shut the door.

Bare imperative either a main verb in its base form or Be guided by what I say
an auxiliary in the base form Let me see.
followed by the appropriate form of Let us (Let’s) think of it
the main verb. “Please” can be added Do have some more tea.
at the beginning. Do not (Don’t) forget.

2. A bare imperative which is followed Open the door, will you?

Tagged imperative by a tag. The tag is the softener of the Let’s play chess, shall we?
imperative.

3. A statement with conjugated verbs or Visitors should wear

Declarative modal verbs. courteous attire.
imperative Children under 10 is
accompanied by adults.

4. Nonconjugated- A statement with the main verb in its You be quiet.

declarative bare form. Nobody move.
imperative

5. A yes/ no question used to perform a Can you pass me the salt?

Interrogative directive speech act.
imperative

6. Wh- question used to give Why don’t/ can’t you leave

Whimperative suggestion. me alone?

7. - A noun phrase used to give Restricted area

Noun phrase instruction or Staff only
- the structure “No” + gerund No smoking

8. Pictogram Data visualization

6. TIMELINE
October 14th - October 29th: Taking photos of tourism signs
November 1st - November 8th: Reading books and articles related to the topic
November 9th - November 14th: Writing the proposal

7. REFERENCES:

Brinton, L. J. (2000). The Structure of Modern English: A linguistic introduction. Amsterdam:

John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Halliday, M. A., & Matthiessen, C. M. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar

(4th ed.). Abingdon: Routledge.

Huddleston, R. (1984). Introduction to the grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, Nguyễn Diệu Hồng & Trần Thị Long. (2017). Khảo sát thực trạng sử
dụng tiếng Anh trong các biển hướng dẫn du lịch tại một số điểm du lịch ở miền Bắc
Việt Nam. Tạp chí Nguyên cứu Nước ngoài, 33(2), 90-104.

Postdam, E. (2017). Syntactic issues in the English imperatives. (Ed.). London: Routledge.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the
English language. Longman.

Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wierzbicka, A. (2003). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction

(Ed.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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