Ministry of Education and Training

Hoa Sen University

CRITICAL THINKING
MID TERM OUTLINE

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURES

Lecturer: Dr. Hockings Edward Liam Henry

Ho Chi Minh City, 2023

 Ministry of Education and Training
Hoa Sen University

MID TERM OUTLINE

Subject: Critical Thinking
Topic: Language and Literatures
Class: LE202DV01 – 2300
Lecturer: Hockings Edward Liam Henry
LIST MEMBERS:

Trịnh Anh Cường - 22014584

Đặng Nguyễn Quang Sĩ - 2190348

Ngô Quang Khải - 22205384

Phạm Thị Minh Huyền - 22207369

Nguyễn Ngọc Huy - 22205818

Trần Thị Ngọc Anh - 22207207

Nguyễn Ngọc Bích Nguyệt - 22206648

Phan Long Hồ - 22206261

Nguyễn Phi Khanh - 22200029

Ho Chi Minh City, 2023

Table of Contents
1. Description Of Vietnamese Language ............................................................................................. 4
2. Description Of English Language..................................................................................................... 4
3. Comparing the history of English and Vietnamese ......................................................................... 4
The influences and development of Vietnamese ............................................................................... 4
The influences and development of English ....................................................................................... 5
4. Analyzing Vietnamese literature and then English literature ......................................................... 5
Vietnamese literature ......................................................................................................................... 5
English culture..................................................................................................................................... 6
5. Why Vietnamese literature is not very developed despite its long history? .................................. 7
6. Rise and Fall .................................................................................................................................... 7
7. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 7
MAIN CONTENT
1. Description Of Vietnamese Language
Vietnamese (Vietnamese: tiếng Việt)is the national and official language of Vietnam and is an
Austroasiatic language. More individuals speak Vietnamese as a first language than any other
member of the Austroasiatic family combined—over 70 million people. It is the first or second
language for other ethnic groups in Vietnam, as well as the native tongue of Vietnamese (Kinh).
Vietnamese is an analytical language having a phonemic tone, just like many other languages in
Southeast Asia and East Asia. Noun classifiers are also utilized. Chinese and French have had a big
impact on the terminology.

Vietnamese was historically written using Chữ Nôm, a logographic script that combined many
locally created characters to represent various words with Chinese letters (Chữ Hán) to express
Sino-Vietnamese lexicon and some native Vietnamese words. The official adoption of the Latin-
based Vietnamese alphabet (Chữ Quốc Ngữ) was a result of French colonial administration over
Vietnam. To mark tones and some phonemes, it employs digraphs and diacritical marks.

2. Description Of English Language

English is an Old Germanic language with many influences from other languages such as French,
Latin, and Old Norse. It belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. It is the official language
of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia. In addition
to being used and spoken by over a billion people worldwide.

The majority of the languages spoken in Europe and western Asia, from Iceland to India, are related
to English because it is a member of the Indo-European language family. About 5,000 years ago,
the parent language, known as Proto-Indo-European was spoken by Normads believed to have
roamed the southeast European plains.

English is one of 53 official languages and is spoken as a first language by about 400 million people
globally.

3. Comparing the history of English and Vietnamese

The influences and development of Vietnamese
The base of Vietnamese is Mon – khmer.
 Vietnamese has undergone a tremendous amount of influences from Chinese.

30% of commonly used words are of Chinese origin

In formal texts that rises to 60% - 70%

The influences and development of English

English, as we know it today, is very different from its original Anglo-Saxon version. Many
languages have left their footprint on the English language, but the most notable influences were
Latin, Scandinavian, and Norman French.

With the Norman invasion of England.

Viking invaders in the 8th to 11th centuries added more borrowings from Old Norse into the mix.

English, although not a Romance language, owes much of its origins to Latin and the Roman Empire.

4. Analyzing Vietnamese literature and then English literature

Vietnamese literature
When we talking about Vietnam literature we often think of Vietnam famous literature creation
like Chi Pheo, De Men phieu Luu ky, Luom, cau vang.
Vietnamese literature also consist of fairy tale, myth, jokes, poetry, poem, song, folk,story of
imaginary legends,...
English culture
Some famous literature creation like Romeo and Juliet, Frankenstein, Moby-dick.

British literature often work or based on some real life story, there a lot of long story being
published.
British literature are known for such epic poetry. British culture are very old because it begin very
long long ago.

5. Why Vietnamese literature is not very developed despite its long

history?
Invasion: Vietnamese being invade for over 100 years so everything include literature still not
developed like England.

Funds: Vietnam still a developing countries so having funds on other economic stuff like house,
building cities is more important than literature.

6. Rise and Fall

7. Conclusion