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VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES NGHIEM THI BICH DIEP A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON IDIOMS ABOUT LOVE, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH Major: Comparative linguistics Code: 22 20 24 SUMMARY OF PHD THESIS LINGUISTICS HA NOI - 2022 The thesis was completed at: Graduate Academy of Social Sciences – Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences Supervisor 1: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Xuan Hoa Supervisor 2: Assoc Prof Dr Lam Quang Dong Reviewer 1: Prof Dr Le Quang Thiem Reviewer 2: Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh Reviewer 3: Assoc Prof Dr Pham Van Tinh The thesis will be defended at the Thesis Assessment Board of the Graduate Academy of Social Sciences at on The thesis may be found at: - Graduate Academy of Social Sciences Library - Vietnam National Library INTRODUCTION Rationale - Idioms are an integral part of a language, expressing feelings, emotions and idiology in a sophisticated way Idioms in each language are closely connected with native people’s way of thinking, reflecting national features in ways of thinking in each native community - Many domestic and foreign studies have conducted descriptions and surveys of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms from different aspects of linguistics and cultology However, there are currently not enough studies comparing idioms in two languages on the topic of love, marriage and family - Idioms about love, marriage and family have a significant position in the idiom treasure of each language, but the study of this group of idioms in Vietnam as well as in the world has not been paid enough attention at the doctoral level in linguistics, especially in the field of comparing two languages This is the reason why we chose the topic "A comparative study on idioms about love, marriage and family in Vietnamese and English" to develop into a doctoral thesis on the basis of inheriting the achievements of the predecessors in research works on Vietnamese idioms and English idioms Research objectives and scope of thesis 2.1 Research objectves The research objectives of the thesis are Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family The thesis focuses on surveying and comparing two important aspects: grammatical structure features and semantic features of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family 2.2 Scope of thesis The thesis focuses on surveying idioms that are limited to the scope of being collected about love, marriage and family from reliable publications Research aims and tasks 3.1 Research aims The thesis aims to studying, comparing and contrasting the structural and semantic features, thereby discovering the cultural characteristics and national thinking of Vietnamese and English idioms about love, marriage and family; at the same time, finding out the similarities and differences, helping to identify, understand the meaning and effectively use this group of idioms in communication 3.2 Research tasks (1) Overviewing research in the world and in Vietnam on idioms in general and Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family in particular (2) Presenting the theoretical basis of idioms and issues related to idioms, meanings and means of meaning transformation, and the relationship between language and culture (3) Surveying, describing and comparing the grammatical structure features of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family (4) Surveying, describing and contrasting analysis of semantic features of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family Methodology and research methods The thesis uses the following research methods: descriptive method, structure analysis method, contrastive method, statistical method and classification New scientific contributions of the thesis 5.1 In theory Theoretically, the thesis contributes to clarifying the theory of structural and semantic features in idiom comparison research The research results of the thesis contribute to promoting the comparative study of idioms in two or more languages and from an interdisciplinary perspective of linguistics - culture – national studies 5.2 In practice In practical terms, the research results of the thesis help researchers and users of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms have a basis to identify, classify, and understand the meanings of idioms in two languages more precisely The thesis also brings out findings about some cultural characteristics, national thinking of Vietnamese and British people through idioms about love, marriage and family, in which there are both similar characteristics and distinctive features only found in Vietnamese or British culture The thesis can be a useful document promoting confidence in using idioms in daily communication, contributing to improving the quality in translation and in teaching and learning Vietnamese and English idioms in general, idioms about love, marriage and family in particular Structure of the thesis Apart from Introduction and Conclusion, the thesis consists of chapters: Chapter 1: Overview of research and theoretical base Chapter 2: Comparing structural features of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family Chapter 3: Comparing semantic features of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family Chapter LITERATURE OVERVIEW AND THEORETICAL BASE 1.1 Overview of research on Vietnamese idioms and English idioms in the world and in Vietnam 1.1.1 Research situation of English idioms Up to now, there have been many works in the world investigating English idioms from different angles and with different research methods The first studies on English idioms tended to focus on phenotypes based on syntactic and formal criteria: Makkai (1972), Weinreich (1969) In the late 20th century and early 21st century, Moon (1998) studied English idioms as a lexical phenomenon These studies agree on the view that the ability to understand and use idioms correctly is the key to fluent use of the language like a native Later studies, possibly since Strässler's (1982), turned to analysis of idioms with pragmatic, interactive, and discursive features with McCarthy (1998) In English, idioms have been studied in many aspects such as structure, pragmatics and functional grammar: Fernado (1981) When cognitive linguistics has attracted the attention of linguistic researchers, idioms have also begun to become an object of study from a cognitive perspective Among these studies, emerging is the study of metaphor and conceptual metonymy of Lakoff (1987), Wright (1999) Researching the metaphor of idioms, Giffs (1990) is a pioneer and so far the figurativeness of idioms is widely accepted and considered as one of the characteristics of idioms At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, research works on the relationship between language and other fields such as culture, psychology, ethnography, and ethnography have flourished Notable works can be mentioned such as Brown (1986), James O'discoll (1995), Robert (1988), Wierzbicka (1997) and Ying (2007) Also in this historical period, it is noteworthy that the emergence of interlanguage and intercultural studies, as early as Rosch (1977), Hofstede (1980), Emanatian (1995), Levin, D et al (1980) These studies have illuminated many aspects of life with the light of language, culture, and national thinking It is possible to find studies that choose research subjects that are linguistic and cultural factors that reflect people's emotions, social relationships, love, marriage, and family Some prominent research works can be mentioned such as McGoldrick, Pearce & Giordano (1982), Skogrand, Hatch & Singh (2008) Thus, the history of language research in general and idioms in particular shows that idioms have been studied quite fully and deeply at different angles and with different contents, in relation to different branches of science and its comparative relationship with other languages However, studies comparing idioms about love, marriage, and family in different languages are still very limited, if any, they only stop at a somewhat related angle such as: Compare and contrast idioms indicating feelings or just social relationships 1.1.2 Research situation of Vietnamese idioms From the early period of the history of studying idioms, Vietnamese researchers have approached idioms from the perspective of vocabulary, structure and morphology There are a series of studies by Do Huu Chau that refer to idioms as a phenomenon of vocabulary and grammatical structures: Do Huu Chau (1997, 1998, 1981, 2001a, 2001b), Nguyen Thien Giap (1999), 2000, 2010), Hoang Van Hanh (1976), etc What these studies have in common is that the analysis of Vietnamese idioms has a fixed phrase structure that is not easy to change, and the meaning of idioms is the meaning of the whole phrase, not the aggregate meaning of individual words This is an extremely important research result, which has the foundation for idiom studies at the same time and in later periods In the 80s and 90s of 20th century, many idiomatic studies in Vietnam appeared from a semantic perspective The meaning of idioms has been noticed as a special phenomenon in language The meaning of idioms is not attached to the original meaning of the constitutive word but is a kind of figurative meaning, meaning transferred by means of meaning transfer such as metaphor and rhetorical metonymy It is possible to mention the works of studying idioms from a semantic perspective such as Nguyen Duc Dan (1986), Nguyen Cong Duc (1995) Regarding the semantics of idioms, the work of Trinh Cam Lan (1995) is remarkable with the emphasis on the symbolic value of Vietnamese idioms The author emphasizes that symbolism is the decisive factor to the semantics of idioms After the results of scientific research on the elements and the way to create the meaning of idioms, which are the path that comes from symbols and concepts, a series of idiom studies in Vietnam focus on cognitive and conceptual levels These include Phan The Hung (2008), Tran Ba Tien (2012), Vi Truong Phuc (2013), Tran The Phi (2016) Thus, Vietnamese idioms have attracted the attention of researchers for decades Through each historical period, idioms have been investigated with different angles, and emerging are structural, semantic and cognitive aspects Besides the studies dedicated to Vietnamese idioms, there have also been studies comparing Vietnamese idioms with idioms of other languages such as Russian, Chinese, French, etc 1.1.3 Research situation of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage and family Love, marriage and family are great topics in any ethnic group or country These contents have attracted the interest of researchers from various scientific fields such as sociology, psychology, anthropology and linguistics Around the world, we can find a lot of works and articles in the field of linguistic research on English idioms and proverbs about love, gender, marriage, family and relationships In Vietnam, we have found a number of magazine articles by authors Nguyen Xuan Hoa, Nguyen Huu Tuong (2014) discussing Vietnamese words, idioms and proverbs about love, marriage and conjugal affection Nguyen Van Trao (2019) has compared metaphors of the concept of love in English and Vietnamese idioms The outstanding feature of these studies is that there have been new perspectives and new research directions for Vietnamese and English idioms about emotions, love, and relationships These studies just stopped at the scope of classifying idioms according to individual content such as love, friendship, social community relations or just surveying idioms in a language without any comparative research or studied from a structural, semantic or conceptual perspective There has not been an in-depth study with a large enough scope to survey and compare groups of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family Therefore, a comparative study of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms more fully in terms of research materials, survey perspectives and research methods will make useful contributions in terms of theory and research 1.2 Theoretical base 1.2.1 Comparative analysis method in comparative study of Vietnamese-English idioms about love, marriage and family Principle of comparison: When comparing Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family, it is necessary to ensure a complete and accurate description of popular concepts, definitions, and aspects of marriage in each of these languages At the same time, it is necessary to ensure the consistency in the selection of the field and basis of comparison (structure, semantics, etc.) throughout the comparative research process Research objectives: In a comparative study of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family are key is the subject of study Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family are described respectively based on pre-defined criteria of structural and semantic characteristics so that there is a basis for the comparison of this group of idioms in Vietnamese and English, finding out similarities and differences Research scope: The aspects targeted in this comparative study are: structural morphology and semantics In addition to the research aspects, the comparative scope of this study is the group of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms with meanings about love, marriage and family In the thesis "A comparative study on idioms about love, marriage and family in Vietnamese and English", we respectively describe the two structural and semantic aspects of the Vietnamese idioms and the English idioms about love, marriage and family; then, compare the structural and semantic features of this group of idioms in both Vietnamese and English languages to find out the similarities and differences between these two research objectives Choosing this research approach will result in a more complete, detailed and objective survey of both groups of research objectives (Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage, and family) as an objective and reliable basis for conclusions 1.2.2 Theory of idioms and issues related to idioms 1.2.2.1 Vietnamese idioms In Vietnamese, there are many different definitions of idioms Depending on the approach, Vietnamese linguists have given different definitions The works can be mentioned: Hoang Phe (2002), Mai Ngoc Chu et al (1990), Nguyen Cong Duc (1995), Hoang Van Hanh (1980) Nguyen Thien Giap writes: "Idioms distinguish themselves from other nominal units in their symbolic nature Figurativeness is the basic feature of idioms Idioms denote certain concepts based on specific images or symbols The figurativeness of idioms is built on the basis of comparative and metaphorical phenomena.” (1978) The thesis accepts Nguyen Thien Giap's viewpoint on idioms to analyze the grammatical structure and semantic characteristics of Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage, and family relationships through translations: metaphor and metonymy From the above definitions and viewpoints on Vietnamese idioms, we determine that idioms are fixed word combinations, including fixed word combinations with subject-predicate structure and figurative meaning Classification of Vietnamese idioms Vietnamese idioms are divided according to many different criteria Some authors divide idioms according to the criteria of origin; other authors divide idioms according to semantics, and there are authors who divide idioms according to structural features However, in general, from a structural perspective, Vietnamese idioms are divided into three main categories: idioms with symmetrical structure, idioms with asymmetrical structure and idioms with comparative structure From a semantic point of view, Vietnamese idioms are studied with metaphorical and metonymy transliteration The way to divide Vietnamese idioms according to the structure of symmetric idioms, asymmetrical idioms and comparative idioms is sometimes difficult to distinguish because the symmetry can be symmetric about the number of words on both sides or symmetric in the meaning of both sides In terms of symmetry, the meaning of the two sides is symmetrical because elements are synonymous or part of a whole or things of the same kind, and symmetry due to opposites on both sides Therefore, in order to facilitate the comparison of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms in this study, we propose to classify idioms according to the structure of main categories: idioms with conjugated structure, idioms with conjugation structure, and idioms with a phrasal verb structure and idioms with a subjunctive structure Distinguishing Vietnamese idioms from proverbs and fixed idioms Idioms distinguished from proverbs: "Proverbs are short sentences, often rhyming, summarizing people's knowledge, life experiences and practical ethics." (Hoang Phe, 2002) Meanwhile, idioms are fixed word combinations that have been commonly used, whose meaning cannot be explained simply by the meanings of the words that make it up Grammatically, it cannot be a complete sentence, so it is only equivalent to one word Idioms not state a comment, a life experience, a moral lesson or a criticism at all, so it only has the function of identifying things and phenomena Idioms distinguished from fixed identifiers: Identifiers are fixed phrases, but are built in a similar way to creating compound words that people often call secondary compound words The main element is usually always the naming element Identifiers are not as prominently symbolic as idioms However, there are also fixed idiomatic phrases, whose figurativeness reaches the equivalent of real idioms, which can very well be included in the ranks of idioms: For example: honeymoon, wine daughter, etc 1.2.2.2 English Idioms In English Idioms in Use, Cambridge University Press, Michael McCarthy and Felicity O'Dell (1998) explain how to understand English idioms: "Idioms are expressions which have a meaning that is not obvious from individual words" Jackson and Amvela and Palmer are of the same opinion when it comes to defining idioms According to Jackson and Amvela (1998) "an idiom can be defined as a phrase whose meaning cannot be guessed from the individual meanings of the morphemes that make it up" Studying the different views of scholars on English idioms, it is possible to draw out three important features of idioms that many scholars come to consensus on, namely: First, idioms often mean figurative meanings, difficult to guess the meaning from the meaning of the component words; Second, idioms are often structurally fixed; Third, an idiom is a phrase consisting of at least two words Distinguishing English idioms from proverbs and fixed phrases According to Hornby (1995), "a proverb is a short well-known sentence that states a general truth about life or give advice" According to Greenbaum (1994) “Collocations can be understood as sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur in a language so that the occurrence of one item can often predict the presence of the other.” 1.2.2.3 Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family One of the first tasks of the comparative study on Vietnamese and English idioms about love, marriage and family is to survey and collect idioms about love, marriage and family in Vietnamese and English as research objectives There are many different definitions of love, marriage and family depending on the research angle The research objectives of the thesis is 11 First, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms are composed of fixed word combinations, including word combinations with subject predicate structure Second, in terms of meaning, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms are both highly symbolic and often cannot be explained simply by the meaning of the single words that make up them The meaning of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms can be explained through metaphorical and metonymic transitions Chapter A COMPARISON ON STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH IDIOMS ABOUT LOVE, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY Chapter focuses on analyzing the grammatical structure characteristics of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family with main categories: idioms with conjugation structure (co-ordination), idioms have a phrase structure and idioms have a clause structure For each type, the idiom structure is further analyzed into fixed phrase types, including: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjectival phrases, and prepositional phrases 2.1 Structural features of Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage and family Figure 2.1 Classification of Vietnamese idioms by structure Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage and family have a conjugated structure which is a combination of words with isoequivalence relations that often have an even number of words: words, words, words or 10 words divided into two parts, texture 2-2 or 3-3 or 4-4 or 5-5 Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage, and family have a conjugated structure accounting for a large percentage (60%) In which, 12 idioms with conjugated structure are the most common nouns (51%), followed by conjugated idioms with verb structures (26%) Idioms with conjugated structures are adjectives, prepositions and owls with a small number Vietnamese idioms have a conjugated structure that is often tight, structurally stable, and semantically complete and complete Vietnamese idioms have a common conjugate structure with the phenomenon of word repetition, the phenomenon of separating compound words into single words and interlacing them in parts of the idiom, which has created a solidity in structure and completeness adjusted in the semantics of idioms with conjugated structure In addition, in the structure of many conjugated idioms, there is a phenomenon of using synonyms on both sides or antonyms or corresponding words of elements of the same type Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage and family have a short phrase structure that is a combination of words with main and secondary relationships A sentence is usually composed of three parts: the preceding sub-element, the central element, and the latter sub-element Based on the word type of the central element, there are four basic types of short phrases in Vietnamese: noun, verb, adjective, and preposition According to statistics in this study, 36% (corresponding to 100 idioms) Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage and family have a short structure Of the total of 100 Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage and family with phraseological structure, 56% are nouns, 37% are verbs and 7% are adjectives, none of which are idioms Idioms have a phraseological structure that does not have two symmetric components, and idiomatic meanings are figurative and figurative Among the idioms that have a short structure, there are some idioms with a comparative structure These idioms are called comparative idioms Comparative idioms include those whose structure is a comparative construction Besides comparative idioms with a clear comparative structure, there are also idioms built on the basis of describing an event, a phenomenon in phrases and metaphorically expressing meaning In essence, metaphor is also a comparative phenomenon, but this is an implicit comparison, the word comparison is not present at all While surveying the structure of Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage and family, in addition to idioms with conjugated structures and predominately short phrases, there are only 12 idioms with phraseological structure These are idioms with a subject-predicate structure and without a conjugated (clause-clause) structure 13 The analysis of grammatical structure features of Vietnamese idioms about love, marriage and family has also helped to find idiom variants, which are different forms of an idiom, have the same symbolic meaning, in which it is possible to change the phonetic form, structural order or replace the structural components with synonyms and the same meaning field Variations of idioms have no fundamental difference in meaning, but only in shades of expression or stylistic color Distinguishing the original idiom and the variant idiom, in our opinion, needs to be based on two aspects of synchronicity and chronology for consideration From a synchronous perspective, the original idiom has a stable structure, is universal, and is widely used in all communication situations Meanwhile, the variant idiom has the following, less common, structural break of the original idiom For idioms with many origins, in our opinion, it should be based on the chronological aspect Then, the original idiom was the pre-existing idiom containing ancient words that no longer exist in the language of the entire people They are no longer in use Idioms in use today that not have the above characteristics are considered variant idioms Variations of these idioms have the following forms: idiomatic variations by changing the order of constitutive elements, idiomatic variations by shortening or expanding, idiomatic variations with constitutive elements created are replaced by synonyms or the same field of meaning, idiomatic variations whose constitutive elements are replaced by antonyms 2.2 Structural features of English idioms about love, marriage and family Figure 2.4 Classification of English idioms by structure The survey of the thesis shows that not many English idioms have conjugated structure, especially very rare in the group of idioms about love, marriage and family The thesis found only 12 out of 210 14 idioms surveyed in the thesis having a conjugated structure but the conjugated structure of English idioms often have a linking word (and, or, but, to or comma) separating the two sides of the idiom In English, idioms with short phrase structure (main-subrelationship) are counted in a very large number In the thesis, 90% of idioms about love, marriage and family were found to have a short phrase structure A feature that can be noticed quite clearly about the structure of English idioms about love, marriage and family is that they are all structured as a fixed idiom (mostly concise, not many idioms are conjugated and symmetrical) Each English idiom is composed of a specific type of idiom; not many idioms have mixed expressions, or free expressions are difficult to distinguish English idioms have a short phrase structure, including noun phrases, verb phrases, adjectival phrases, and prepositional phrases Idioms are verb phrases with relatively diverse structures The survey shows that up to 70%, corresponding to 147 idioms about love, marriage and family surveyed in the thesis are composed of phrasal verbs and fixed verb phrases English idioms with a noun phrase accounted for 27% of the number of English idioms with a short phrase structure surveyed in the thesis English idioms with short phrase structure are adjectival phrases and prepositional phrases accounting for 3% of the number of English idioms with short phrase structure surveyed in the thesis Similar to idioms with a short phrase structure in Vietnamese, an English idiom with a short phrase structure does not have two symmetrical components and the idiomatic meaning is figurative Among the idioms that have a short structure, there are some idioms with a comparative structure These idioms are called comparative idioms English idioms in the structure that contain the comparative preposition "like" or "as" combined with other words to create comparative idioms In addition to comparative idioms with comparative words present in the structure such as "like" "as", many English idioms have implicit comparative meanings (no comparative words "like", "as") These idioms are called metaphorical descriptive idioms English idioms about love, marriage and family have a subcategory structure (subject-subject relationship) only 4% Although idioms with sub-paragraph structure already have a subject and a predicate, they cannot independently create a sentence because it has only a figurative meaning, an identifier, but does not have a specific context and specific object 15 Just like Vietnamese idioms, English idioms also have variations We easily come across English idioms that have the same meaning as the original idiom but have a change in words or phrases (synonyms or words or phrases in the same field of meaning) However, unlike Vietnamese, which is an isolated language, English is a metamorphic language (verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, etc with their morphological characteristics have their own rules of positions as well as their own grammatical functions) Therefore, idiomatic variants hardly see the phenomenon of word position change as seen in Vietnamese idiom variants, if any, only the phenomenon of word position change of the same type in the phrase occurs Surveying and comparing the structures of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family, we could draw the following conclusions: Figure 2.1 Classification of Vietnamese and English idioms by structure Similarities: - Vietnamese idioms and English idioms have a fixed phrase structure, including: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjectival phrases and prepositional phrases - Idioms are fixed phrases, so they cannot arbitrarily add, remove or change the position of components in the structure - Vietnamese idioms and English idioms can be divided into main types according to grammatical structure: conjugated structure (equivalent relation) usually has sides of symmetry, complete meaning (contrast or homogenous); phrase structure (main-sub-relationship) usually does not have sides of symmetry; clause structure (subjectpredicate relationship), in which the number of idioms with clause structure is very small in both languages - Vietnamese and English both have idiom variation phenomenon In practical use of idioms, we will encounter and accept changes in word 16 order, changing words with synonyms or the words with similar meaning and possibly antonyms, shortening or expanding as long as they keep the same meaning of the original idiom and are widely used in society at different historical periods Differences: - The first and most obvious difference in the grammatical structure of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms is the different predominance of each type of idiom: conjugated structure, phrase structure and clause structure Vietnamese idioms dominate with conjugated structure (60%), while English idioms dominate with phrase structure (90%) This difference is explained from the difference in the characteristics of two types of isolated languages (Vietnamese) and morphological languages (English) In an isolated language, words not change form and function freely The combination and placement of words in phrases and sentences depends on the meaning of the word Therefore, Vietnamese idioms with a conjugated structure (equivalent relationship) have two symmetric sides thanks to word repetition, or by separating compound words into single words and interlacing on two symmetrical sides, or through the use of words that are similar in meaning or have opposite meanings on both sides of the idiom Meanwhile, English with the characteristics of a metamorphic language has regulations on word morphology and position of type words in phrases and sentences, so it does not allow disturbance of word position or word change to create an equality relationship on both sides of the idiom That is the reason why in English, the number of conjugated idioms is small (only 6%), while 90% of English idioms have a phrase structure (main-sub-relationship), in which the main components are verbs, nouns, adjectives, prepositions combined with affixes in strict regulations on position and word morphology - The second difference is: Vietnamese idioms are structured as dominant nouns, distributed in both types of conjugated idioms and short idioms Meanwhile, structured English idioms are the dominant verbs and mainly idioms with short idiomatic structures There are very few English idioms that have conjugated structures Specifically identified as the following: + Vietnamese idioms with a noun structure account for 51% of all idioms with a conjugated structure, and 56% of all idioms with a short phrase structure Meanwhile, English idioms with the structure of a noun account for 27% of the total number of idioms with a short phrase 17 structure Because the number of English idioms with conjugated structure is too small (accounting for 6%) of the total 210 English idioms surveyed in this study, the classification and calculation of the rate of conjugated idioms according to the types of idioms unnecessary + Vietnamese idioms with a verb structure account for 26% of all idioms with a conjugated structure, and 37% of all idioms with a short phrase structure Meanwhile, English idioms with verb structures account for 70% of all idioms with phrase structures In verb phrases, verbs as the main component have many phenotypes combined with affixes, so the number of idioms with verb phrase structure is the largest - Vietnamese idiom variants and English idiom variants have equivalent forms However, due to the specific characteristics of the language type (Vietnamese – non-metamorphic language, English metamorphic language), Vietnamese has many idiomatic variants with the form of changing components’ positions; Meanwhile, English has the most idiomatic variants with the changes by synonyms or words of the same field of meaning Summary of chapter Studying the structural features of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family, the following conclusions can be drawn: In terms of structure, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms share the important feature of being a complete fixed phrase, including noun phrases, verb phrases, adjectival phrases and prepositional phrases Regarding the classification of idioms based on structure, both Vietnamese and English have idioms with conjugated structure (equivalent relation), idioms with short phrase structure (main and subrelationship) and clause idioms (subject-predicate relationship) Further classified, both languages have idioms with comparative structures and metaphorically described idioms However, the structure of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms in each type is not exactly the same Each language has a different way of expressing it according to the structure The idioms with conjugated structure are found the most among the types in Vietnamese In contrast, this type of idiom is not very common in English Idioms with short phrase structure are common idioms in English Research on structural features of idioms has discovered the phenomenon of idiom variations - idioms that have the same meaning 18 and parallel in the function of the original idioms, and in many cases, idiomatic variants occur more often than the original idioms The analysis and comparison of structural and structural features of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms clearly shows the difference in linguistic typology of Vietnamese (non-metamorphic language) and English (metamorphic language), thereby making it easier to identify idioms in each language, making the use of idioms in speech and sentences more grammatical and logical Users base on the type of phrase (noun phrases, verb phrases, adjectival phrases, prepositional phrases, clauses) to put idioms into more appropriate sentences and contexts The results of structural idiom analysis are also sequential and consistent in the semantic analysis of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms discussed in Chapter Chapter A COMPARISON ON SEMANTIC FEATURES OF VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH IDIOMS ABOUT LOVE, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY When studying idiomatic meanings, the thesis considers three important factors which are the modes of meaning transference (metaphor and metonymy) - this is the basis for the second factor which is figurative meaning and the third factor is cultural features, national thinking 3.1 A Comparison on the modes of meaning transference of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family After surveying and analyzing the figurative meanings of Vietnamese and English idioms about love, the thesis draws the following comments about the similarities and differences of this group of idioms in the two languages: Firstly, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love have the following figurative meanings: (1) belief in predestined fate, (2) conception of proportionality, (3) intense feelings of love, (4) break-up and separation, (5) make-up and healing These figurative meanings are represented by images that are not quite the same between the two languages The symbolic meaning of the belief in predestined fate and correspondence is more clearly depicted in Vietnamese idioms Some figurative meanings of love are found in Vietnamese idioms but not in English idioms, and vice versa Vietnamese idioms 19 have many images expressing the appreciation of a girl's virginity; the shyness, the secret when in love; strict attitude, condemning male and female relations outside of marriage English idioms have many images expressing openness, easy to confess when in love; active dating; proactive confession; neutral attitude about male and female relations outside of marriage; lust and longing Table 3.1 Figurative meanings of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love Figurative Meaning Vietnamese English idioms idioms The shyness and the secrecy of love + The openness and the generosity of love + Belief in predestined fate + + The concept of proportionality + + The intense feeling of being in love + + The initiative to date when in love + Proactive confession + Strict attitude, condemning male and + female relationships outside of marriage Non-strict attitude about male and + female relationships outside of marriage Desire, longing + Break-up, separation + + Make-up, healing + + Note: + Yes - No Total: 7+ Total: 10+ 3.2 A comparison on the figurative meanings of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about marriage Through surveying groups of Vietnamese and English idioms about marriage, the thesis has found similarities and differences in figurative meanings in idioms about marriage Table 3.2 Figurative meanings of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about marriage Figurative Meaning Vietname English se idioms idioms The result of love + + Ceremonial solemnity associated with religion + Faithful attachment + Harmony, the obedience of wives towards + - 20 their husbands Challenges + + Change of heart + + Break-up + + Make-up, healing + + Note: + Yes - No Total: 7+ Total: 6+ Similar figurative meanings of marriage expressed in Vietnamese and English idioms are: (1) Marriage is the result of love, (2) Marriage is a challenge, (3) A change of heart, (4) Marriage breakdown, (5) Marriage healing The different figurative meanings of Vietnamese marriage are: (1) Attachment, fidelity, (2) Harmony The different meanings of British marriage are: solemnity, ritual associated with the religion of the wedding ceremony at the church This is a very unique characteristic of Westerners when holding a wedding ceremony at a Catholic church 3.3 Figurative meanings of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about family Table 3.3 Figurative meanings of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about family Figurative Meaning Vietnamese English idioms idioms Blood kinship + + Following the path + Gender discrimination + Heredity, congenity in offspring + + Influence of parents' personality and lifestyle + Having many children is a blessing + Many generations, many people living + together Filial piety, family’s rules + Bride and groom relationships + Adult children create their own lives + Note: + Yes - No Total: 8+ Total: 4+ Through surveying groups of Vietnamese and English idioms about family, the thesis has found similarities and differences in Vietnamese and British cultural characteristics and national thinking when talking about family topics 21 Similar family characteristics depicted in Vietnamese idioms and English idioms are: (1) Emphasizing the kinship of blood and blood, (2) Recognizing the genetic and innate factors of children Female The distinctive features of Vietnamese families are: (1) Emphasis on ancestral lineage, (2) Respect for men and contempt for women, (3) Families with many children and grandchildren are blessed, (4) Family many generations, many people living together, (5) Placing great importance on filial piety and family etiquette, (6) Relationship between bride and groom These distinctive features of the Vietnamese family originating from the feudal system are more or less left behind In today's modern life, the residual features of feudalism and patriarchy have somewhat faded The current Vietnamese family model is gradually shifting from a multi-generational family to a nuclear family consisting of two generations of parents and children However, the filial piety of the children and grandchildren, the preservation of family etiquette is always the direction of Vietnamese families The distinctive features of the British family are: (1) Attention to parents' influence on their children's personality and lifestyle, (2) The independence of children to build their own lives when they become adults These are two characteristics that clearly show Westerners' views on raising children The success of parents in raising children is to teach children independence at a young age 3.4 National cultural characteristics in idioms about love, marriage and family in Vietnamese and English One of the tasks set at the beginning of the thesis is through surveying and analyzing the semantics of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family in order to see the similarities and differences in the characteristics of sedimentary ethnic culture in idioms In this part, the thesis examines idioms that are equivalent in meaning in Vietnamese and English, idioms found only in Vietnamese but not in English, and idioms found only in English but not in English Vietnam The survey results will provide additional assessments of similarities and differences in Vietnamese and British national culture and thinking when it comes to love, marriage and family Summary of chapter Through the study of the theory of meaning, the methods of metaphorical and metonymy translation, the figurative meanings of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage, and family have been surveyed and can be reached Conclusion: idiomatic meanings 22 are built from metaphorical, metonymy and figurative meanings Metaphor and metonymy are two common modes of meaning transference in both Vietnamese and English languages Metaphorical modes are found more frequently than metonymy modes With the metaphorical modes, the concrete-concrete and concrete-abstract metaphors both work well with the Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage, and family Vietnamese idioms use many forms of metaphorical form and manner; English idioms use many forms of metaphorical manner That explains English idioms are mostly verbs (expression of manner) With metonymy modes, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms are the most popular with the mechanism: the part instead of the whole Although there are many differences in the content of cultural reflections deposited in Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage, and family, this group of idioms in both languages have figurative meanings thanks to their hidden metaphor and metonymy Nearly all idioms in this group of both languages are interpreted based on understanding figurative meanings Very few idioms are understood and explained directly from the individual words’ meaning CONCLUSION The thesis has reviewed the research situation of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family and has drawn the following conclusions: Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family are subjects that need to be studied and compared fully This is a group of idioms used in daily life, with very familiar topics, close to everyday life: love, marriage, family Idioms are culturally colorful sedimentary linguistic units with glossy, concise and profound meanings Research results will be a useful reference for teaching and learning Vietnamese and English, translation work, and especially create favorable conditions for the effective use of idioms about love, marriage and family in daily communication With the research objectives and tasks set out from the outset: to compare the structural and semantic characteristics of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family The comparison results will show the similarities and differences between Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family 23 By examining the theories of Vietnamese and English idioms, including concepts, concepts, structural and semantic features in relation to and distinguishing from adjacent linguistic units such as customary language, fixed phrases, the thesis finds many similarities between Vietnamese and English idioms Two common characteristics are emphasized and play a key role throughout this study: Firstly, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms are fixed expressions in structure Second, in terms of meaning, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms are both highly figurative and often cannot be explained simply by the meaning of the individual words that make them up The meaning of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms can be explained through metaphorical, metonymy and figurative translations In terms of structure, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family have important commonalities and this common point is also similar to the structural features of idioms in general That is, idioms are structurally complete fixed expressions, including: verb phrases, noun phrases, adjectival phrases, and prepositional phrases Idioms with sub-clause structure (subjectpredicate) are also found in both Vietnamese and English Regarding the classification of idioms based on structure, Vietnamese and English both have conjugated structural idioms, short phrase structural idioms and sub-clause structure idioms However, the structure of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms in each type is not exactly the same Idioms with conjugated structures are found more often in Vietnamese than in English Idioms with phrasal verbs are more common in English than in Vietnamese In both Vietnamese and English, idioms with the sub-clause structure are few in number The phenomenon of idiom variation was investigated and studied from the structural features of idioms The idiomatic variant has the same meaning as the original idiom, sometimes due to the age, the idiom variant is used more than the original idiom Idiomatic variant is defined as the substitution of synonyms or words of the same field of meaning and sometimes antonyms, either shortening or expanding Idiomatic variant is a completely different concept from synonymous idioms Idiomatic variant is the original idiom with the phenomenon of replacing words with synonyms, the same meaning or antonyms, or shortening, or expanding Synonymous idioms have different grammatical structures, and/ or have words with different symbolic or symbolic meanings 24 In terms of semantics, Vietnamese idioms and English idioms about love, marriage and family not represent the meaning from the original meaning of each individual word constituting the idiom Idiomatic meanings must be understood through metaphorical and metonymy transference modes Metaphors are found in most idioms in both Vietnamese and English Two metaphorical mechanisms: concreteconcrete and concrete-abstract are both found in Vietnamese idioms and English idioms Formal metaphor, form and mode, are found a lot in Vietnamese idioms The metaphorical form of manner is found more often in English idioms Metonymy is only found in some Vietnamese and English idioms and is mainly a metonymy mechanism: the part instead of the whole Metaphorical and metonymy transference modes have created the foundation and basis for investigating the figurative meanings of each group of Vietnamese and English idioms about love, marriage and family The similarities and differences in figurative meanings of each group of Vietnamese and English idioms have created two separate pictures depicting Vietnamese and British cultural characteristics and thinking about love, marriage and family The thesis has completed the set research objectives and tasks The thesis hopes to be a useful reference for idiom research, semantic research, translation research, teaching and learning activities of Vietnamese idioms and English idioms, and most importantly, bringing idioms back into everyday communication Due to the limited source of collected data, the survey of some structural and semantic features is still difficult, even left open, and cannot be concluded With this topic, the direction of further research will need to collect more data to investigate more closely the mechanism and form of translation of Vietnamese and English idioms about love, marriage and family, thereby proposing a way to translate equivalent meanings between the two languages LIST OF PUBLISHED RESEARCH BY THE AUTHOR Nghiem Thi Bich Diep (2017), "Method of comparative analysis of Vietnamese idioms and proverbs with English" Journal of Education & Society, Special issue, 3-2017, p 110-114 Nghiem Thi Bich Diep (2018), "A comparison of semantic features of Vietnamese-English idioms about love, marriage and family" Journal of Dictionaries & Encyclopedias No (55), 9-2018, p 202-209 Nghiem Thi Bich Diep (2019), “The relationship between language and culture: A semantic approach of Vietnamese-English idioms about love, marriage and family.” Journal of Dictionaries & Encyclopedias, No 2(58), 3-2019, p 100-105 Nghiem Thi Bich Diep (2020), "A comparative study on structural features of Vietnamese-English idioms about love, marriage, and family" Journal of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, No (64), 3-2020, p 75-804 Nghiem Thi Bich Diep (2021), “The figurative meaning of idioms about love in Vietnamese and English” Language Magazine, No 5(367), 5-2021, pp 71-81 Nghiem Thi Bich Diep (2021), "Modes of meaning transference: an approach to semantic features of English idioms about love, marriage and family" Proceedings of the National Scientific Conference 2021 (UNC 2021): Research and Teaching of Foreign Languages, Linguistics and International Studies in Vietnam, University of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Volume 2, pp.200-208 ... structure, pragmatics and functional grammar: Fernado (1981) When cognitive linguistics has attracted the attention of linguistic researchers, idioms have also begun to become an object of study from... grammatical structures: Do Huu Chau (1997, 1998, 1981, 2001a, 2001b), Nguyen Thien Giap (1999), 2000, 2010), Hoang Van Hanh (1976), etc What these studies have in common is that the analysis of Vietnamese... Ba Tien (2012), Vi Truong Phuc (2013), Tran The Phi (2016) Thus, Vietnamese idioms have attracted the attention of researchers for decades Through each historical period, idioms have been investigated
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