Phenomenon of conversion in Vietnamese and English – applying to the teaching of languages

Abstract

The paper presents the characteristics of conversion in Vietnamese and English according to different kinds of conversion (between nouns and verbs, nouns and adjectives, verbs and adjectives; nouns and function words, verbs and function words), and according to two types of conversion which are complete conversion (zero derivation) and approximate conversion. The paper also presents some ways of teaching conversion-words based on comparing the similarities and differences of the phenomenon conversion between English and Vietnamese.