A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SUBORDINATE CLAUSES WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATION AND TEACHING

Abstract

This study offers a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese subordinate clauses,
focusing on adverbial, nominal, and relative constructions. Findings show that English depends on
explicit subordinators, relative pronouns, and fixed word order, whereas Vietnamese allows omission,
flexible positioning, and pragmatic inference. These differences cause predictable learner and translator
difficulties: Vietnamese learners often omit or misuse obligatory markers, while translators must reconcile
English syntactic hierarchy with Vietnamese brevity. Recommended strategies include clause restructuring,
nominalization, and selective omission, supported by explicit instruction and cross-linguistic analysis
in ELT. The study highlights how syntactic awareness fosters grammatical accuracy, stylistic fluency,
and intercultural communicative competence, contributing to applied contrastive linguistics, translation
studies, and English language pedagogy.