VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG VÂN IDIOMS REFERRING TO “HEAD” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS FROM CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁC CÂU THÀNH NGỮ CÓ CHỨA THÀNH TỐ “HEAD” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ VĂN HÓA M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI - 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG VÂN IDIOMS REFERRING TO “HEAD” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS FROM CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁC CÂU THÀNH NGỮ CÓ CHỨA THÀNH TỐ “HEAD” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ VĂN HÓA M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr. Đỗ Tuấn Minh HANOI - 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT ----------*****-------- I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled IDIOMS REFERRING TO “HEAD” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS FROM CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master Degree at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted to any degree at any other universities or institutions.
Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Hanoi, 2017 Nguyễn Thi ̣Hồ ng Vân i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT On completing this study, I owe a profound indebtedness to many people for their invaluable help during the conduct of my research. First of all, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to Dr. Do Tuan Minh, my supervisor for his useful and critical comments and continual guidance.
My appreciation is also offered to my lecturers and my friends of Post- graduate studies for their valuable lessons and precious helps. Finally, I would like to express my profound gratitude towards my parents for their continual encouragement and immeasurable support. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT There is a close relationship between Language and culture. Culture has a strong influence on language and vice versa, language reflects culture.
One of the most effective ways to transfer cultures is utilizing idioms which may be a hindrance for English learners in the process of mastering a foreign language. Hence, in order to help learners have a better understanding of idioms, the researcher decided to conduct “Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese: A contrastive analysis from cultural perspectives.” This research aims to explore the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms containing the word “Head” in terms of syntactic, semantic and especially cultural features. At the end of the study, some educational implications for English teachers, learners and translators are offered to make teaching, learning and translating more effective. Hopefully, this paper will increase the knowledge of idioms referring to “Head” and enhance cultural understanding of Vietnamese and English people to a great extent.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE‟S STATEMENT. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES. vi PART A: INTRODUCTION.
Rationale for the study. Objective of the Study. Scope of the Study .3 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Cultural and the Relationship between Language and Culture.
Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES .20 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Similarities and Differences of Syntactic features of Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese. Semantic features of Idioms referring to “Head” in English & Vietnamese .30 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Cultural Features in Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese.31 PART C: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Implications for Learning, Teaching and Translation Idioms. Implications for Learning. Implications for Teaching.
Implications for Translation. Limitations and Suggestion for Further Research. I v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES List of tables Page Table 1 Noun Phrase 22 Table 2 Verb Phrase 23 Table 3 Adjective Phrase 25 Table 4 Prepositional Phrase 26 Table 5 Adverb Phrase 26 Table 6 Sentence Structure 27 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale for the study English is an interesting language to learn, however, to master English is not easy.
One of the phenomenons that make English learners find difficult is idiom whose meaning cannot be always inferred from the meaning of its parts because they contain not only the literal meanings but also the figurative ones. For example, when we say “He is big-headed”, we do not mean that the man‟s head is big but a man who is very conservative. There are a large number of idioms in English as well as in other languages like Vietnamese. Idioms can be seen everywhere, in newspapers, novels, short stories, and in our daily conversation.
In addition, idioms make a language more interesting, vibrant and colorful. This is the reason why language learners should learn about idioms in order to make their own communications and writings livelier and to avoid misunderstanding the meaning of speakers or documents that use idioms. I am attracted by idioms, especially idioms referring to “Head” which is one of the most important parts in human body. The researcher found many idioms denoting “Head” in both English and Vietnamese whose meanings are extremely interesting.
For example: “fall head over heels” means to be in love with someone very much; and “đầu tắt mặt tối” which means very busy. In fact, English and Vietnamese idioms referring to “Head” share the similarities and differences in the light of culture. From all these reasons above, the researcher decided to choose the topic Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese: A contrastive analysis from cultural perspectives to take detailed exploration. Hopefully, the study can enlarge writer‟s knowledge about idioms referring to “Head” from cultural perspective and contribute a small part of learning and teaching idioms.
Objective of the Study The purpose of this study is to supply learners of English a basic knowledge about syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting “Head” in comparison with Vietnamese ones. Moreover, this study is carried out with the aim to explore 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms which denote “Head” in term of culture. In addition, some implications for teaching, learning and translating will be explored at the end of the study in order to provide readers useful resources of idioms. Finally, the study is implemented to satisfy researcher‟s interest in idioms.
Research questions In accordance with the objectives of the study, the research is conducted to find out answers to the following research questions: 1. What syntactic and semantic features are reflected in the “Head” idioms in both English and Vietnamese? 2. What are cultural features of idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese? 4. Scope of the Study It is impossible to cover all English and Vietnamese idioms in general and human body idioms in particular in a scope of a minor study.
Therefore, I would like to focus on idioms referring to “Head” to get deeper analysis. Idioms denoting “Head” in English and Vietnamese are collected from many reliable dictionaries. The study would investigate the following points: - General view of idioms in English and Vietnamese. - Syntactic and semantic features of “Head” idioms in English and Vietnamese.
- A contrastive analysis of head-based idioms in English and Vietnamese in the light of culture. - Some pedagogical implications for teaching, learning and translating. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Definitions of idioms Every language has some phrases or sentences that cannot be understood literally.
Even if we know the meaning of all the words in a phrase and understand the grammar completely, the meaning of the phrase may still be confusing. Many clichés, proverbs, slang phrases, phrasal verbs and common sayings pose this kind of problem. Phrases or sentences of this type are usually said to be idiomatic (Spears, 1991). According to Oxford Dictionary of English idioms (p.
57) “An idiom is a word or phrase which means something different from what it says.” - it is usually a metaphor. It means that the meaning of an idiom cannot be inferred from the meaning of individual words in that idiom. For example, the phrase “a pain in the neck” can be literally understood that one‟s neck is painful. However, it also has another figurative meaning in the sentence “Tom always goes mad if others do not obey him.
He is really a pain in the neck.” A pain in the neck here refers to a nuisance, or something or someone that causes nuisance. In the same sense, J.13) defined idioms as “a number of words which, when taken together, have a different meaning from the individual meanings of each word.” For example, “twiddle one’s thumbs” in the sentence “It is not equal when Tim only comes to the office and twiddles his thumbs” has the idiomatic meaning “doing nothing”. This meaning is very different from the meaning of each word in the idiom. Twiddle indicates an action and thumbs are biggest fingers of hand.
In the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (1992), an idiom is seen as “an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from its separate parts”. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com In general, these linguists and dictionaries have the similar opinions about the definition of English idiom which is a phrase whose meanings cannot be predicted from the individual meaning of the components it contains. In Vietnam, Hoàng Văn Hành (1994) defined an idiom as “a stable word - group with a solid formation and structure, and a complete and figurative meaning, used in everyday communication, especially in spoken language.” The idiom “chõ mũi vào chuyện người khác” in the sentence “Bà ta chuyên chõ mũi vào chuyện của người khác” (She always pokes her nose into other‟s life.) is an example for this definition. According to Hoàng Phê (1997) an idiom is “a set expression whose meaning is generally inexplicable simple through the meaning of individual words it contains.” For instance the phrase “da mồi tóc sương” (scaly skin and grey hair) means very old, aged, used to indicate an aged person in the following sentence: “Chốc đà mười mấy năm trời Còn ra khi đã da mồi tóc sương” (Truyện Kiều, Nguyễn Du) (With more than ten years gone If still alive, they must have scaly skin and grey hair) 1.
Features of Idioms Idiomatic expressions can be diagnosed by some properties that are extracted from its practical use in variable discourses. The features that are set below are extracted from an anonymous writer in an article labeled Anonymous. “Czech and English Idioms of Body Parts: A View from Cognitive Semantics, English Language”: Idioms are conventional, i. they are well-established style.
Idioms have paradigmatic fixity, i. the individual elements of idioms are unable to be substituted in the same place of its context. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Idioms are transformational anomalous, i. they are a unique group of words that cannot be created according to a specific pattern.
From the formal viewpoint, idioms have combinatory abilities that are not identical with the combinatory abilities of a regular language. From the semantic point of view, idioms have no compositional function, i. the total meaning of an idiom cannot be predicted from the meaning of its individual parts. Idioms have compositeness, i.