VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS A STUDY OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH BIỂU THỊ NỖI SỢ CÓ THAM CHIẾU ĐẾN NGHĨA TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT Student : NGUYỄN THỊ ANH Student code : 621203 Major : ENGLISH Supervisor : NGUYỄN THỊ MINH TÂM M.A Hanoi – 2021 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS A STUDY OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH BIỂU THỊ NỖI SỢ CÓ THAM CHIẾU ĐẾN NGHĨA TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT Student : NGUYỄN THỊ ANH Student code : 621203 Major : ENGLISH Supervisor : NGUYỄN THỊ MINH TÂM M.A Hanoi – 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in English Language. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Hanoi, 2021 Nguyễn Thị Anh Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. First of all, I am deeply indebted to my beloved supervisor, MA.
Nguyen Thi Minh Tam for sharing expertise, and sincere and valuable guidance and encouragement extended to me throughout my research. I am extremely thankful to her for advice and suggestions right from the beginning when the thesis was adopted. Secondly, I take this opportunity to express gratitude to all of the Faculty of Education and Foreign languages members at Vietnam National University of Agriculture for their valuable teaching, help, support and enlighten my learning path. Thirdly, my sense of gratitude to my classmates who have taken time and trouble to alert me to errors in my thesis and provided me with useful suggestions which this thesis is used.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family who have supported and encouraged me to complete this thesis. Due to the limited knowledge and reasoning ability of myself, there are still many limitations and shortcomings, I hope the guidance and contribution of lecturers and others to make my thesis more complete. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Part 1: INTRODUCTION Page 1. Rationale for the study …1… 2.
Aims and objectives of the study …2… 3. Scope of the study …3. Significance of the study …3. Design of the study …3.
Part 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Review of previous studies (at home/abroad) 1. Review of theoretical background (depend on what the study is about) 1. Classification of English idioms …8….
Features of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms …18. Classification of human emotions …23. iii Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 2. Research governing orientation …28.
Principles/ criteria for data collection and data analysis …29. Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3. The frequence of English idioms denoting FEAR in Dictionary of …32. Current English – Vietnamese Idioms and their Vietnamese equivalents 3.
The Vietnamese equivalence of English idioms denoting FEAR in …33. Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms 3. Limitation of the study …39. Recommendations/Suggestions for further study …39.
iv ABSTRACT English idioms are an important part of everyday English. They appears all the time in both written and spoken English. Because idioms don't always mean literally, you'll need to familiarize yourself with each idiom. The thesis focuses on investigating features of idioms, including idioms denoting FEAR in Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms and their Vietnamese translation versions.
Using comparison and contrast method, the thesis attempts to point out the equivalent and non-equivalent of meaning of idioms denoting FEAR found in the selected dictionary and their Vietnamese translation. The research results will be useful for improving English teaching and learning, especially English idioms, as well as understand more about culture and people of the two countries. Therefore, the author hopes that a study on idioms in Vietnamese and English will help an important part in teaching and learning English in general. v LIST OF ABBREVIATION N: noun A: Adjective Adv: adverb Conj: Conjunction PrP: Preposition i.: For example SL: Source Language TL: Target Language vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1.
List of “basic” emotions Table 3. English idioms denoting Fear in Dictionary of Current English- Vietnamese idioms and their Vienamese equivalents. vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY Language is an important part of everyday life, thanks to language people can communicate with each other.
Today, English is considered a global language - Crystal (2003) found out in English as a Global Language that “A quarter of the world’s population is already fluent or competent in English, and this figure is steadily growing – in the early 2000s that means around 1.5 billion people” and many learning materials, websites on the internet such as newspapers, stories. are also written in English. In particular, Vietnam has been considering English as an important language in using English for teaching in schools and universities. Not only short-term English learners, but also long-term learners or those who have lived in a country that English is their mother tongue for many years, will also have difficulty understanding the meaning that native speakers want to convey.
Because native speakers not only use simple words, they also use compound sentences, proverbs, slang , local words and idioms. a lot into everyday life. Idioms are one of the basic units featured in English. They are the cultural crystallization of a country that has been handed down in the past.
If we analyze and study them, we will not only have a deeper understanding of the cultural uniqueness of that nation, but also have a better understanding of the vocabulary and grammar. Therefore, many linguists have studied idioms. While we communicate, we convey our feelings, emotions about something. Therefore, idioms for feelings, emotions have a large amount in English and Vietnamese idioms.
One of the idioms for emotions still few people have studied is the expression that denotes fear. So I decided to do a study called "A STUDY OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR WITH 1 REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS" This study characterizes the idioms in English and Vietnamese that denote fear, and then collates them to indicate similarities and the difference in meaning when translating between Vietnamese and English idioms in Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms (Thành ngữ từ điển Anh- Việt thông dụng) of Nhà xuất bản Khoa học và Kỹ thuật in 1995) - A dictionary can be considered as a reference for many Vietnamese to use when learning idioms. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY * Aims of the study The aim of this thesis is to investigate similarities and differences in the meaning of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms denoting Fear from Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms of Nhà xuất bản Khoa học và Kỹ thuật in 1995). * Objectives of the study To achieve the mentioned aims above, the following objectives can be put forward: - Find out the features of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms.
- Find out equivalents and non-equivalents in the meaning of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms denoting fear from Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms. RESEACH QUESTIONS (IN FORM OF QUESTIONS) As presented, the thesis was conducted to learn more deeply about the equivalent and non-equivalent meanings of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms denoting Fear. It is designed to seek answers to the following questions: - What are the features of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms? - What are the equivalents and non-equivalents in the meaning of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms denoting Fear from Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms? 2 1. SCOPE OF THE STUDY The thesis will focus on English idioms denoting fear in Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms (Thành ngữ từ điển Anh- Việt thông dụng) of Nhà xuất bản Khoa học và Kỹ thuật in 1995 and compare them with the translation of “Từ điển thành ngữ và tục ngữ Việt Nam” by Professor Nguyễn Lân.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Through this thesis, readers will have a better understanding of the similarities and differences in the features of the expressions of fear in English and Vietnamese. They will understand more about culture and people of the two countries: England and Vietnam. This study contributes one important part in teaching and learning English in general. DESIGN OF THE STUDY Apart from abstracts, references & appendices, the study consists of three main parts: PART 1 - INTRODUCTION presents rationale of the study, aims and objectives of the study, research questions, the scope as well as the significance of the study.
PART 2 - DEVELOPMENT is divided into 3 chapters: Chapter 1 - LITERATURE REVIEW – provides theoretical background for the study including definition of English idioms, classification of English idioms, features of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms, human emotions and fear. Chapter 2 – METHODOLOGY -describes the methodology used in the research including research governing orientation, research methods. 3 Chapter 3 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS - reports and discusses the findings of the study. PART 3 - CONCLUSION Summarizes the main issues that have been addressed in the study.
4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. REVIEW OF THE PREVIOUS STUDIES (AT HOME & ABROAD) 1. Related research 1 Nguyễn Thị Thùy studies "A contrastive analysis of idioms denoting FEAR in English and Vietnamese". This is the study which was performed by the Faculty of post-graduate student at Viet Nam National University, Ha Noi in 2010.
In this study, the researcher studied 103 English idioms, 103 Vietnamese idioms from main materials are Oxford Idioms (2010), Từ Điển Thành Ngữ Anh- Anh-Việt (2004), Thành Ngữ Tiếng Việt (2009), Từ Điển Thành Ngữ và Tục Ngữ Việt Nam (2008), Từ Điển Thành Ngữ và Tục Ngữ Việt Nam (2006) and presented the problems: Theoretical background of idioms (definition, distinctive feature of English idioms and distinction between idioms, proverbs and some other terms: saying, phrasal verbs, colloquialisms) and human feelings (concepts, classifications and emotion FEAR). According to research about structural features, English idioms denoting Fear exist in almost all the clause patterns. In addition, Research also compares about syntactic features of English- Vietnamese idioms denoting Fear to point out the similarities and differences. The researcher also talk about some opinions related metaphor and metonymy in cognitive linguistics, moreover, the researcher quoted metonymic model of Kovecses (1990) to conceptualize Fear in English: Physical agitation, increase in heart.and a list of metaphor used to describe Fear in English of the same author: Fear is a fluid a container, Fear is a vicious enemy (human or animal).Finally, The researcher find out the similarities and differences of semantic features of idioms denoting FEAR between English idioms and Vietnamese idioms.
To sum up, the researcher confirmed that “Fear is an 5 emotion that every human being experiences and is unavoidable the whole life. It is common therefore the languages that express it also share the common way of denoting its meaning. If there are any differences, it must be due to the languages created by different cultures. Related research 2 Trần Thế Phi at the University of Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City-Social Sciences and Humanities has studied "Emotional conceptual metaphors in Vietnamese idioms (compared with English idioms)” in 2016.
First, the researcher said the history of idioms studies and the research situation of words expressing emotions in English and the main survey object of the researcher were the 5 emotions: happy, sad, angry, FEAR, love. The researcher talks about some problems of cognitive linguistics: composition, basic foundation. and problems related to emotions.