Rationale
Nowadays, English is obviously considered as the international language that is a tool for global connection and development Idioms, a special part of languages in general and English in particular, seem to be the familiar element which occurs not only in daily conversations but also in literature works People are likely familiar with idioms which are used to express ideas in an attractive and figurative way
Therefore, understanding the meaning of idiomatic expressions is essential and useful for English users However, understanding an idiom by understanding its components is not enough because the meanings of idioms are unpredictable, which derive from unusual forms, stylistic devices and knowledge on culture
Although idioms are not easy to comprehend, it is necessary for learners not to disregard idioms in studying languages because idioms are an unseparated element of languages and so common in daily use As a second language teacher, this urges me to conduct the thesis entitled “A study on idiomatic expressions containing words denoting weather in English and Vietnamese from cultural perspective” to find out the similarities and differences between English idioms containing the words denoting weather (EIWW) and Vietnamese idioms containing the words denoting weather (VIWW) mainly from the cultural view Moreover, despite being considered as the most important second language in Vietnam, English brings various challenges for learners One of the reasons for this problem is the dissimilarities in the way of living and thinking or the differences of culture The result of the study, to some extent, is hoped to help Vietnamese learners of English use EIWW and VIWW effectively in communication so that their speech is more adequate, natural, interesting and imaginative.
Aims of the study
The thesis is conducted in attempt to:
- Explore the English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather, with the main focus on the cultural point of view
- Point out the similarities and differences between these two languages in this particular aspect
- Motivate students to obtain the insight of Vietnamese and English idioms containing words denoting weather
Objectives
The objectives of the study are:
- Investigate Vietnamese and English idioms consisting weather words
- Clarify the cultural intension inside the idioms
- Suggest some ideas for teaching idioms The study will try to answer the questions bellows:
- What are similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather from the cultural perspective?
- What cultural aspects influence the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather?
Scope of the study
This study focuses on English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather from the cultural perspective These idioms are listed in the appendix
Because of some limitation of time, not all idioms are covered.
Methods of the study
In this study, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used It is carried out by carefully collecting materials from numerous sources in both English and Vietnamese including books, websites, newspapers and from observation in daily life Then, the data are analyzed and synthesized to find out the similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather.
Design of the study
The thesis is divided into three main parts:
- The first part is the Introduction, which includes rationale, aim, scope, methods and design of the study
- Part 2 is the Development, which comprises three chapters Chapter one, as implied by the title “Theoretical background”, reviews the literature related to language, culture and idioms in general Chapter two is concerned with “English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather” in which syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather are investigated The last chapter in this part deals with “Findings and discussion” with the analysis of similarities and differences between EIWW and
VIWW from the cultural view
- Part 3 is the Conclusion and Implications for teaching and learning as well as some suggestions for further study
The thesis is concluded by the appendix and references.
DEVELOPMENT
Culture and some characteristics of culture
The term “culture” is undoubtedly familiar with many people, yet it is not really simple to define it Many linguists have spent a lot of efforts on working out the definitions of culture Hence, in this paper, the writer will introduce some in attempt to provide a general view for the readers following easily Following are some of them:
Hofstede (1980, pp 21-23) defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group from another”, which is passed from generation to generation, it is changing all the time because each generation adds something of its own before passing it on It is usual that one‟s culture is taken for granted and assumed to be correct because it is the only one, or at least the first, to be learned
Samovar & Porter (2003) gives a typical definition on culture as follows:
“The deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving” (Samovar & Porter,
Sharing the same opinion, Edward Tylor, a famous British anthropologist, notes in his book “Primitive Culture” (1871), culture “is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, custom and any other capacities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”(p 1)
In the book “Language and Culture: Global flows and local complexity”, Risager
(2005) considers culture from three dimensions of concept including hierarchical, differential and generic concept As regards to hierarchical concept, culture means
“something that the individual human being or individual society either „has‟ or
„does not has‟ at a higher or lower level” (p.32) Meanwhile, culture is thought as the thing that can distinguish one society from others from, differential concept The generic concept of culture focuses on what to distinguish humanity from nature and other living creatures
Also, Kramsch (1998) examines culture by comparing it to nature and showing its development through social activities
“One way of thinking about culture is to contrast it with nature Nature refers to what is born and grows organically (from the Latin nascere: to be born); culture refers to what has been grown and groomed (from Latin colere: to cultivate)”
(Kramsch, 1998:4) According to Goodenough (1957), culture is defined as the thing that people in each particular community must know and possess to run their activities
“A society‟s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves.” (Goodenough,1957:167)
Subjective elements of culture may be the elements such as “values, attitudes, beliefs, orientations, and underlying assumptions prevalent among people in a society” (Harrison and Huntington, 2000:xv)
One more definition that should also be mentioned is the one of Triandis (1994:23) cited in Porter, Samovar and McDaniel (2007): “Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants in an ecological niche, and thus became share among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they lived in the same time and place”
In short, culture is defined in various ways as Harrison and Huntington (2000) note,
“The term „culture‟, of course, has had multiple meanings in different disciplines and different contexts” (p xv) Thus, culture undeniably has many definitions but generally affects nearly everything people do in their society because of their ideas, values, attitudes, and normative or expected patterns of behavior Culture is not genetically inherited, and cannot exist on its own, but is always shared by members of a society (Hall 1976, p 16)
Culture is a complex concept, and no single definition of it has achieved consensus in the literature Regardless of dozens of definitions, it is necessary to examine characteristics of culture because through them, one can see the connection between culture and other elements including language As Huntington (1996) notes, “The heart of culture involves language, religion, values, traditions, and customs.”
Porter, Samovar and McDaniel (2007:21-30) point out six features of culture as follows:
Firstly, culture is obtained from people‟s birth to the end of their life through learning which means that it is learned but not innate Learning here is understood both formal and informal Informal learning normally takes place through interaction, observation, and imitation The formal learning of culture is far more structured and often left to the institutions of the culture such as schools and churches Because culture influences you from the instant you are born, you are rarely aware of many of the messages that it sends Therefore, studying is considered as an essential process in one‟s person‟s whole life
Secondly, culture is shared The means of transmitting the culture can take a variety forms (proverbs, stories, art) and can have numerous carriers (family, peers, church, schools, media), but the key elements of culture (values, ideas, perception) must be shared by other members of the culture
Thirdly, culture is transmitted from generation to generation If a culture is to endure, it must make certain that its crucial messages and elements are not only shared, but they also must be passed on to future generations In this way, the past becomes the present and helps prepare for the future
Fourthly, culture is based on symbols While cultural symbols can take a host of forms, encompassing gestures, dress, objects, flags, or religious icons, “the most important symbolic aspect of culture is language – using words to represent objects and ideas.”(Haviland, Prins, Walrath, and McBride, 1005:38)
Fifthly, culture is dynamic Culture does not exist in a vacuum, because of “other waters continually flowing in”, they are subject to change (p.29) These changes are related to people‟s everyday lives including dress, food, transportation, entertainment, housing, and the like are normally compatible with the existing values of the culture However, values associated with such things as ethics and moral, work and leisure, definitions and freedom, the importance of the past, religious practices, the pace of life, and attitudes toward gender and age are so deeply embedded in a culture that they persist generation to generation
Relationship between language and culture
As presented previously, in the cultural system, language is one of the most crucial parts which can be likened to a key factor, playing the role of an essential medium to transmit much of culture In this subsection, the author attempts to provide some basic issues in the relationship between language and culture
The fact that language is the primary means people use to communicate with one another may seem to be obvious One of the typical definitions of language is Bonvillain‟s one (cited in Porter, Samovar and McDaniel, 2007:164) as follows:
“Language is the primary means of interactions between people Speakers use language to convey their thoughts, feelings, intentions, and desires to others
Language links interlocutors in a dynamic, reflexive process We learn about people through what they say and how they say it; we learn about ourselves through the way that other people react to what we say; and we learn about our relationships with others through give-and-take of communicative interactions.”
Porter, Samovar and McDaniel (2007) also believe that “language use and style reflex the personality of a culture in much the same way that they reflect the personality of an individual” (p.168) The relationship between language and culture is further stressed by Saville-Stroike when she writes, “There is no doubt; however, that there is a correlation between the form and content of a language and the beliefs, values, and needs present in the culture of its speakers.” (Saville- Stroike, 2003:28)
Kramsch (1998) points out that when language is put in contexts of communication, it variously and complicatedly relates to culture He also mentions to three issues of the relationship between language and culture as follows:
Firstly, the words people utter express facts, ideas or events that are communicable
Besides, writers or speakers‟ attitudes, feelings, opinions and trust are reflected through words In both cases, language expresses cultural reality
Moreover, people use language not only for expressing but also creating experience
They use many ways of interaction including face-to-face, writing a letter or sending an email message, reading the newspaper or interpreting a graph or a chart and add the meanings to communication through these spoken, written, or visual media The created meanings are able to understand by members of a community or social group Through all its verbal and non-verbal aspects, language embodies cultural reality
Finally, language is a system of signs that is seen as having itself a cultural value
Speakers identify themselves and others through their use of language; they view their language as a symbol of their social identity The prohibition of its use is often perceived by its speakers as a rejection of their social group and their culture Thus we can say that language symbolizes cultural reality
Kramsch (2000) also proclaims, “Language is the principle means whereby we conduct our social lives When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways.” (p 3) The importance of language in expressing culture is seriously emphasized by Li (2005) when he states “without language, culture would not be possible” (p 25)
According to Porter, Samovar and McDaniel (2007), the relationship between culture and language is a reciprocal one in which they emphasize the role of culture:
“…culture exerts an enormous influence on language because culture teaches not only the symbols and rules for using those symbols, but, more importantly, the meaning associated with the symbols Further, culture influences the way people think and perceive reality.” (Porter, Samovar and McDaniel:2007, p.173)
Explaining for this viewpoint, Porter et al (2007) believe that the symbols, responses are only understood optimally within the same cultural setting When people communicate from their own culture, the process of using words to represent experiences is much easier because within a culture people share many similar experiences Nevertheless, when communication is between people from different culture, the process becomes challenging because of various experiences involved
Consequently, culture, as the whole of human ways of living as well as a set of values, demeanors and patterns of perception, has become extremely crucial to language, having a great impact on the formation and development of language
Generally, language and culture are reciprocal and reinforce together Culture is likely the spirit of the language and vice versus, language reflects both the personality of the individual and the culture of his history Language helps shape both personality and culture as well as makes possible the growth and transmission of culture, the continuity of societies, and the effective functioning and control of social group As Brown (1994) proposed that “language is a part of a culture and a culture is a part of a language, the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture.” (p
165) Hence, with the inextricable relationship, we must know the one to understand the other.
Idioms
Idioms are believed as a colorful and fascinating aspect of English and are commonly used in all types of language, formal and informal, spoken or written
Although idioms are thought to be used in more informal situations, learners will become masters if they understand and use them confidently and correctly In addition, idioms often have a stronger meaning than non-idiomatic phrases
Following are some definitions of idioms collected from different sources:
In “Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Idioms” (2002), an idiom is defined as a kind of special phrase whose meaning mostly differs from literal meaning of the combined words “Idioms are typically metaphorical: they are effectively metaphors which have become „fixed‟ or „fossilized‟” (p.v)
“In some cases, it is fairly easy to see how the idiomatic meaning related to the literal meaning Example: “kill two birds with one stone” means “achieve two things at the same time”, and the image in metaphor supports this meaning In other cases, literal meanings may make no sense at all Example: “move heaven and earth” literally describes an action which is physically impossible In a few further cases, the metaphors in the idioms are peculiar, so it is very difficult to see how or why idioms have come to have their current meanings” (2002:v)
Manser (1997) shares the same opinion that “Idioms are fairly fixed phrases that consist of more than one word, with a meaning that cannot be understood from putting together the meanings of the individual words”
In “Chambers Dictionary of Idioms” (1996), the term “idiom” is not an easily defined one – it can refer to many kinds of words and phrases In this dictionary, the traditional definition of idiom is concerned that is “a group of words which has a different meaning from the sum of its parts” This means it is nearly impossible to make a good guess at the meaning of an idiom when knowing the meaning of all the words in the expressions Nonetheless, in some cases, it is possible to guess the meaning of an idiom because the image created is an obvious one, for instance, the idiom “Look like thunder” means look angry Otherwise, most of idioms are difficult for people to understand such as the idiom “sit on the fence” which means not to make any clear choice or decision between two possibilities or opposing groups of people Sharing the same viewpoint, Hornby (1995) states in his Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, an idiom is “a phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit”
As can be seen from given definitions, there are numerous ways of defining idioms
However, in this study, the following definition is used: “an idiom is a fixed phrase whose meaning cannot be exposed by looking at the meaning of its individual words” In addition, idioms have often been associated with not only conversation and informal language but also in journalism and magazines – to make their articles and stories more vivid, interesting, and appealing to their readers, and to get their opinions across effectively
It is commonly stated that there are varied forms of idioms, so the learners would feel it really challenging to recognize which one is a real idiom Therefore, it is really important to mention some types of idioms Chambers Dictionary of idioms (1996:v) points out 5 main types of idioms:
- Metaphorical expressions, e.g “Make someone‟s blood boil” means “to make someone extremely angry”
- Sayings, e.g “That‟s the way the cookie crumbles” – that‟s how things are and one must accept them (used when something unfortunate, unpleasant)
- Some phrasal verbs which have a fixed element, e.g “Live it up” – to enjoy oneself, especially in a lively and expensive manner
- Proverbs and variations on proverbs, e.g “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” - said when you recognize that you should not risk losing something you already have by trying to get something you think might be better
- Some foreign or Latin phrases which are commonly used in English, e.g “Fait accompli” means something that has already happened or been done and cannot be changed
Longman (1979) also indicates some types of idioms:
- Traditional idioms: traditional idioms are firstly related to full sentences in which only subjects need to be added to make full sentences For example, the idiom
“Spill the beans” in sentence “He spilt the bean” – He revealed a secret or a piece of information Another example is “It never rains but it pours” which means when troubles or unwelcome events happen they do not come singly but arrive in great quantity Other types of idioms are not almost full sentences but rather function like particular parts of speech An idiomatic noun phrase, for example, will often function in a sentence in the same way a noun would, as a subject, direct object, or a complement E.g He is the salt of the earth (He is a person having the best personal qualities, the best character)
- Idioms in which actions stand for emotions or feelings The distinctions of culture among regions are specially reminded in this type of idiom It is important to note that these actions are not literal and that the meaning associated with a particular action in particular culture The meaning of idioms in different communities may not be associated with one another For instance, “I wash my hands of it” does not mean that the speaker really performs the action but means she/he refuses to accept any responsibility for something or someone
- Pairs of words: a large number of idioms consist of pairs of words joined by “and” or “or” Many belong to the first group and function as particular parts of speech
The noun phrase “cats and dogs” in “It is raining cats and dogs” (It is raining heavily) functions as an adverb
- Idioms with “it”: many idiomatic verb phrases have the pronoun it as a fixed part of the idiom The pronoun does not refer to the word coming before it as normally it does Considering the idiom “It stands to reason (that)” – It is quite clear
- Allusions: certain common phrases and a few single words have special significance in English society E.g “Whitehall” means the government or the civil service
- Sayings: these are usually complete sentences; e.g “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” (It is better to content with something one is sure to receive than to lose it by trying to get something better that one may perhaps not obtain)
- Typical conversation phrases: some fixed conversational phrases whose meanings are not literal and which therefore may be difficult to understand; e.g so to speak, now you‟re talking, how do you do, etc
- Similes: a large number of idioms, which compare a quality, condition, action, etc with a noun; e.g as easy as a pie (very easy), as free as air (very free, with no limits)
1.2.3 Main features of idioms in English and Vietnamese
For a deeper understanding of idioms, some main features of this type of expression are highly recommended Since the purpose of this study is to discover the relationship between EIWW and VIWW, the emphasis is laid on semantics and structural features
Weather definition
This thesis will also consider the definition of weather in order to provide a more comprehensive view on the given subject
Throughout history, the weather has been both feared and revered for its powerful influence over living creatures Not only does it control our moods, activities, and fashions, but it has also played a crucial role in broader issues of cultural identity, concepts of time, and economic development In fact, the weather has become so ingrained in our everyday routines that many of us forget just how profoundly this omnipotent force shapes culture As being defined in “The Hutchinson Paperback Encyclopedia”, weather is:
“day-to-day variation of climate and atmospheric conditions at any one place, or the state of these conditions at a place at any one time Such conditions include humidity, precipitation, temperature, cloud cover visibility and wind To a meteorologist, the term “weather” is limited to the state of the sky, precipitation and visibility as affected by fog and mist” (1994:894)
Also, in “Oxford Advanced learners dictionary” (1995), the term weather is understood “the condition of the atmosphere at a particular place and time, such as the temperature, and if there is wind, rain, sun, etc”
Because of its strong connection to people‟s lives, weather becomes one of the leading concerns and topic of daily conversations as well as included in idioms
People use weather idioms to express their ideas, emotions figuratively These idioms are not purely the description of true weather conditions but are put some messages The words denoting weather such as wind, rain, sun, cold, hot, etc are included in these idiomatic expressions in various structures and with different meanings To get the best understanding of weather idioms, these idioms will be analyzed from the syntactic and semantic view Then, under the light of culture, the thesis will examine the similarities and differences between EIWW and VIWW
In short, language and culture are closely related with one being part of another
Idioms – a part of language must reflect the culture of the people who speak that language In that connection, this chapter has reviewed the literature relating to language, culture in general and idioms and its different types with the hope that it will provide a theoretical background for what is being presented in the following chapters
CHAPTER TWO: ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS CONTAINING
On the basis of what has already been dealt with, this chapter will analyze the syntactic and semantic features of EIWW and VIWW so as to shed light on the distinction between EIWW and VIWW
2.1 Syntactic features of EIWW and VIWW
In his book named “A Grammar of Contemporary English”, Quirk (1973) mentions the term “New traditional grammar” This allows people to analyze structures into such phrases as noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), prepositional phrase (PP), adjective phrase (AdjP) and so on The author will use this method to analyze English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather However, with regards to syntactic analysis, there are also other degrees including sentence structure Therefore, English and Vietnamese idioms in this study can be divided into two main parts including idioms having phrase structure and sentence structure
Since this thesis mainly focuses on investigating EIWW and VIWW from cultural point of view, the author will ignore too detailed analysis on structures of this kind of idiom
In this section, IWW will be analyzed in terms of phrases Only some typical representatives of phrases are listed, the remaining ones are supplied in Appendix
2.1.1.1 IWW with noun phrase structure
1 A breath of fresh air Bão táp mƣa sa
2 A face like thunder Bụng đói cật rét
3 A fair-weather friend Chân mây cuối trời
4 A place in the sun Đầu sóng ngọn gió
5 Any port in a storm Gió dập sóng vùi
6 Billy Wind Hai sương một nắng/một nắng hai sương
7 Blood and thunder Hồn vía lên mây
8 Bolt from the blue Lời nói gió bay
9 Brass-monkey weather Màn sương chiếu đất
10 Cloud on the horizon Mƣa bom bão đạn
11 Eye of the hurricane Sóng to gió lớn (cả)
12 Seven sheets to the wind Tai bay vạ gió
2.1.1.2 IWW with verb phrase structure
1 Blow hot and cold Ăn đói mặc rét
2 Bring a storm about one‟s/someone‟s ears ăn gió nằm mƣa
3 Cast a cloud over Ăn sóng nói gió
4 Chase (after) rainbows Bắn nhƣ mƣa
5 Chill/freeze someone‟s blood Bắt gió chu ̣p bóng
6 Come rain or (come) shine/rain or shine Chọc trời khuấy (quấy) nước
7 Dance up a storm Chửi bóng chửi gió
8 Feel the draught/wind Có trăng quên/phụ đèn
9 Find which way the wind blew Dãi gió dầm mƣa
10 Get one‟s second wind Đã mƣa thì mƣa cho khắp
11 Give the cold shoulder Đi mây về gió
12 Go down a storm Góp gió thành bão
2.1.1.3 IWW with adjective phrase structure
1 As black as thunder Cùng trời cuối đất
2 As cold as charity Dạn gió dày sương
3 As cool as a cucumber Khô nhƣ ngói
4 As dry as a dust Mạnh nhƣ vũ bão
5 As free as air Nắng nhƣ đổ lƣ̉a
6 As quick as lightning Nhanh nhƣ chớp
7 As right as rain Nhƣ (nắng) hạn gặp mƣa rào
8 Bright and breezy Nhƣ buồm/diều gặp gió
9 Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
Như cá gă ̣p nước như rồn g gă ̣p mây
10 Free as the wind Như ngo ̣n đèn trước gió
11 Full of hot air (a) Nhƣ rồng gặp mây
12 High and dry Nhƣ sét đánh
2.1.1.4 IWW with prepositional phrase structure
1 Before the flood VIWW have no contribution to prepositional phrase structure
6 In the teeth of the wind
10 With one‟s nose in the air
Besides phrase structures, EIWW and VIWW have some in sentence structure which may be simple or complex sentences
1 A red sky at night is the shepherd‟s delight
Cây muốn lặng mà gió chẳng đừng
2 Every cloud has a silver lining Mƣa bão chết cò
3 God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb Mƣa lâu thấm đất
4 It‟s an ill wind that blows nobody
(any) good Rồng gă ̣p mây
5 It never rains but it pours Rồng mây gă ̣p hô ̣i
Here is the statistical summary of syntactic features of EIWW and VIWW after analyzing 160 English and 154 Vietnamese given idioms:
It can be seen from the investigation above that both EIWW and VIWW have the patterns in form of noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases and sentence structure Generally, noun phrase and verb phrase reach the largest number
Prepositional phrases do not appear in Vietnamese while the number of this type in English is 15 % As mentioned before, most idioms are fixed expressions, but in some cases, there are some changes of the words in the same semantic field or the order of the words in the idioms which does not break its meaning at all like “Chill someone to the bone/Chill someone to the marrow; Dầm mƣa giãi gió /nắng The users themselves through using habit make the changes to create the convenience and the pleasing to the ear
One more similarity between EIWW and VIWW is that both use a lot of comparison construction expressed by “as…as” or “like” in English and “nhƣ” in Vietnamese Hence, there exists the linkage between weather issues and aspects of human‟s life despite different regions and cultures For instance:
- nhƣ vũ bão With regard to phrasal forms, the number of EIWW as verb phrases is more than that in Vietnamese whereas VIWW as noun phrases are used more than those in English In addition, among samples, besides the difference in the use of prepositional phrases, Vietnamese idioms differ from English idioms in applying parallelism Many words with the same grammatical category are repeated For example, the repetition of same part of speech in “Ăn sấm nói gió” in which “ăn” and “nói” are in the same grammatical category of verb, “sấm” and “gió” are in the same part of speech of noun Or in “Nắng trƣa mƣa tối”, the words “nắng” is parallel to “mƣa” because they belong to the same semantic category of weather phenomena, “trƣa” is parallel to “tối” because they belong to the same semantic category of time The symmetric structures in VIWW are diversified, for instance V + N/V + N (Gội gió tắm mưa), N + N/N + N (Màn sương chiếu đất), V + Adj/V+
Adj (Ăn đói mặc rét)
Moreover, the words in Vietnamese idiomatic expressions are separated to obtain the euphonic property and the parallelism in the structure of four -word term As in the case “Nắng giƣ̃ mƣa gìn” , the word “giƣ̃ gìn” is separated into two parts then combined with two nouns to set up a four -word idiom Another case is “Nói bóng nói gió”, “bóng gió” are split into “bóng” and “gió” and the word “nói” is repeated All these usages of parallelism, repetition and word separation help Vietnamese idioms are easy to remember with rhythm.
Semantic features of EIWW and VIWW
According to the theory of semantic fields which “contain words that belong to a defined area of meaning” (Jackson and Amvela, 2000:92), EIWW and VIWW can be grouped into the following themes:
Obviously, the first purpose of using idioms containing weather words is to express weather condition that is considered as one of the closest issues in daily life
E.g It is raining cats and dogs outside
- A red sky at night is the shepherd‟s delight
- A red sky in the morning is the shepherd‟s warning
- Nắng lƣ̉a mƣa dầu
- Nắng nhƣ đổ lƣ̉a
- Nắng nhƣ thiêu nhƣ đốt
In this term, we will consider some idioms denote people mental conditions
- Go up in the air
- Over the moon E.g They’re going on holiday on Wednesday so they’re all over the moon
- Nhƣ nắng ha ̣n mong mƣa
- Ruô ̣t nóng nhƣ lƣ̉a đốt /ruô ̣t nóng nhƣ cào
- Ủ rũ nhƣ gà phải trời mƣa
- Seven sheets to the wind
- Sound in wind and limb
- A cloud hangs over sb/st
- The calm/lull before the storm
- You could cut atmosphere with a knife
- Cùng trời cuối đất
- Đau đẻ còn chờ trăng sáng
- Nhƣ mă ̣t trăng mă ̣t trời
- Nhƣ nắng ha ̣n gă ̣p mƣa rào
- Như ngo ̣n đèn trước gió
- Find which way the wind blew
- Have your head in the clouds
- In the heat of the moment
- Know which way the wind blows
- Make hay while the sun shines
- Bán trời không văn tự
- Gió chiều nào che chiều ấy
- Not have enough sense/imagination/intelligence to come in from (or out of) the rain
- Sail close to the wind
- Sunshine one minute, rain the next
- Throw caution to the winds
- Trời đánh không chết
- Trời không dung đất không tha
- It never rains but it pours
- Sunshine one minute, rain the next
- Bán mặt cho đất bán lƣng cho trời
- Bụng đói cật rét
- Hai sương mô ̣t nắng
- Nắng dãi mƣa dầu
- Like greased (a steak of) lightning
- Ăn nhƣ gấu ăn (mặt) trăng
- Ăn vụng nhƣ chớp
- Like the wind - Lên nhƣ diều gặp/đƣợc gió
- In the teeth of the wind
No idioms express human character - Ghen bóng ghen gió
- Sớm nắng chiều mƣa
No idioms express danger and challenges
- Gió quét/táp mƣa sa
No idioms express opportunities and advantages
- Gió thổi là chổi trời
- Như cá gă ̣p nước như rồng gă ̣p mây
- Nhƣ nắng ha ̣n gă ̣p mƣa rào
- Bring a storm about one‟s/someone‟s ears
- Find/see how/which way the wind is blowing
- Save (st) for rainy day -Take a shine off/out of
- Ăn vụng nhƣ chớp
- Chƣ̉i bóng chƣ̉i gió
- Khóc nhƣ mƣa (nhƣ gió):
- Van/lạy nhƣ tế sao: lạy lia lịa để cầu xin
- Xem/trông gió bỏ buồm
No idioms express state of life - Ăn đất nằm sương
- Bán mặt cho đất bán lƣng cho trời
- Hai sương mô ̣t nắng/mô ̣t nắng hai sương
No idioms express virginity and immortality
- Nắng giƣ̃ mƣa gìn
- Trời đánh không chết
- Trời không dung đất không tha
In short, it is correct to say that under the syntactic view, English and Vietnamese weather idioms share the same noun, verb, adjective phrases and sentence structure
English idioms exceed in number with prepositional phrases In terms of semantic feature, 14 semantic fields have been discovered in both languages Among those , English and Vietnamese share 8 semantic fields namely: weather conditions, psychological states, physical states, behavior, circumstance, human actions, speed, bad fortunes and disadvantages whereas there are 5 other ones only found in the Vietnamese corpus: human character, opportunities and advantages, dangers and challenges, state of life, virginity and immorality Besides, there are no findings in the field of directions in VIWW The next chapter will deal with the focal point of investigating cultural influence on the use of IWW The author also tries to figure out the interesting similarities and differences between EIWW and VIWW from the cultural viewpoint
CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
It is commonly agreed that “Language is the principle means whereby we conduct our social lives When it used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways” (Kramsch, 1998:3) As was mentioned in Chapter 1, idioms are mostly fixed expressions and used for a long time They definitely reflect human‟s remarks, experience, behavior, comments or estimations about numerous phenomena in life Being one of the language‟s phenomena, therefore, idioms have cultural features of specific regions and are said to be
“culture-specific” (Baker, 1992:68) This chapter will point out some similarities and differences between EIWW and VIWW in the light of culture It is necessary to look through some remarkable characteristics of Vietnamese and English people, culture and weather conditions before going to the main comparison
3.1 Some characteristics of Vietnamese/English people, culture and weather conditions
3.1.1 Characteristics of Vietnamese people, culture and weather conditions
Vietnam is characterized with strong monsoon influences with considerable amount of sun, a high rate of rainfall, and high humidity The monsoon tropical climate with long periods of sunshine and rain on the one hand provides favorable conditions for the development of vegetation but on the other hand, it causes many troubles marked by big floods or prolonged drought According to Nguyen (2004), originated from the Southeast Asian culture, the Vietnamese river-imprinted culture deeply affects the whole spiritual as well as material life of people This culture is in close interaction with other cultures in Asia, particularly with the Chinese one
Vietnamese culture is said to be an agricultural one with the most distinguishing products as rice, vegetables and fish People base on farming to live that creates unity, collective spirit and independent spirit They are also seriously influenced by Yin and Yang philosophy, clearly expressed in harmonious tendency between people with people and people with nature In their social and communicative relationships, Vietnamese prefer feelings to reasons, spirit to material, and peace to violence Especially, Vietnamese people belong to the Oriental Thought Group that deals with problems indirectly as proved by Kaplan (1966)
Two most miraculous issues to Vietnamese people are motherland and family The majority of the Vietnamese avoid leaving their homeland and try to save a stable life there Moreover, the tight relationship among family members in Vietnam distinguishes it from other cultures Therefore, personalism in Vietnamese culture far exceeds individualism in the Western culture This feature is clearly presented in phrases as “Lá lành đùm lá rách”, “Sáng lƣ̉a tối đèn có nhau”
In short, Vietnamese culture is an undetachable part of the Southeast Asian cultural space with typical features of a wet-rice civilization and Vietnamese people are said to be hard-working, brave and faithful in their living and behaviors
3.1.2 Characteristics of the British people, culture and weather conditions
As being analyzed by Trần Quốc Vươ ̣ng (1998) and Trần Ngo ̣c Thêm (1999), the living environment with cold dry climate and huge steppes forms the nomadic culture of Western countries which in turn make people more dynamic than other cultures Regional climates in the United Kingdom are influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and latitude Northern Ireland, Wales and Western parts of England and Scotland, being closest to the Atlantic Ocean, are generally the mildest, wettest and windiest regions of the UK, and temperature ranges here are seldom extreme Most parts of the UK including England are mostly under the influence of the maritime tropical air mass from the south-west (Wikipedia)
Therefore, English climate is not only famous for its changeability but also characterized by a lack of extremes There is even a saying that it “does not have a climate; it only has weather It may not rain very much altogether, but you can never be sure of a dry day” (James O‟Driscoll, 1995)
Among these four cultural regions in Great Britain, the English culture is considered a representative and often used to refer to the entire country‟s culture Like most of Europeans, the English are known as “reserve” They often keep a certain distance to strangers and often use weather as a communicative topic A typical English man is expected to be modest and humorous He also expects this manner from others, especially when he communicates in flowery language
Moreover, sportsmanship and directness are highly valued in England In Kaplan‟s graphic (1966), English people‟s thought is expressed by a straight line They highly appreciate individualism; however, they do not want to take advantage of another‟s misfortune And of course, everybody talks of “fair play”, “playing the game” or “playing fair”
Generally, the English culture is the most proper representative of the British They bring both common cultural features of Western countries and specific ones.
Comparison of syntactic features between EIWW and VIWW from the cultural
One of the most similar characteristics between EIWW and VIWW is that the majority of them have phrase structures and so highly fixed structures that is hardly possible to reorder, add or omit words in these idioms However, several idioms have variants and some changes, but keep the original meaning Considering idioms
“Chill/freeze someone to the bone/marrow” and “Dầm mƣa giãi nắng/gió” with the changes in the use of words denoting weather “chill”, “freeze”, “nắng” and “gió”
These alternatives can be made by replacing the existed words by other words of same types or with similar meaning Hence, one can observe that English and Vietnamese use idioms quite flexibly and practically
In addition, in both English and Vietnamese idioms, comparison is frequently used with the main structure of “as…as”, “like…” in English and “nhƣ…” in Vietnamese When using comparison, people create a linkage between their thought and weather phenomena For instance, the image of “thunder” is often used to express someone is really angry, as in “As black as thunder” or “A face like thunder”; “Nhƣ vịt nghe sấm” expresses somebody cannot able to understand something One of the explanations for this point is because weather is too close to daily life Therefore, there is a tight connection between weather aspects and most respects of people‟s life despite different cultures
Although few in number, there still exit VIWW which are equivalent to EIWW both in meaning and structure as follows:
As quick as lightning Nhanh nhƣ chớp
Like the wind Nhanh nhƣ gió
White as driven snow Trắng nhƣ tuyết
In these idioms, both English and Vietnamese observe and recognize the outstanding characteristics of some weather issues which can be generalized into human being‟s speed and appearance such as the speed of lightning and wind, the color of snow However, the number of equivalent IWW is limited due to the difference between two cultures: nomadic culture and agricultural culture
Nonetheless, there are great syntactic differences between English and Vietnamese idioms due to respective geographic environment, national experience, cultural inherence and formation of thinking
Being affected by nomadic living style, English people show their activeness in many manners of their lives Using a lot of verb phrases is considered the most proper clarification for this point of view The number of verb phrases in English idioms is 70/160 (44%) while this number in Vietnamese is 57/154 (37%) This usage indicates the high appreciation of self-action as well as decisiveness and individualism of English people in comparison with the dependence and communitarian of the Vietnamese people
Another difference in syntactic feature between English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather is that Vietnamese idioms apply rhyme , mainly interior rhymes such as : “Gió thổi là chổi trời”, “Nắng lửa mưa dầu”, “Sóng to gió lớn”, “Trông gió bỏ buồm” Moreover, parallelism (for example, “Ăn sấm nói gió” in which “ăn” and “nói” are in the same grammatical category of verb, “sấm” and
“gió” are in the same part of speech of noun) and symmetric structures (as in “Màn sương chiếu đất” with structure of N + N/N + N) are used in Vietnamese idioms If one knows that Vietnam is famous for its great treasure of traditional culture, he will not be surprised at these distinctions These characteristics do not exist in English idioms and make Vietnamese idioms more poetic, more musical and easier to remember and use in daily life as well Also, the application of rhymes can help optimistic farmers reduce hardships in production and in life
3.3 Comparison of semantic features between EIWW and VIWW from the cultural perspectives
As was mentioned in Chapter 2, English and Vietnamese weather idioms share 8 semantic fields namely: weather conditions, psychological states, physical states, behavior, circumstance, human actions, speed, bad fortunes and disadvantages
Normally, the primary purpose of using IWW is to denote weather condition such as “Rain cats and dogs” , “Mƣa tầm tã” Nonetheless, both English and Vietnamese people pay much attention to the figurative meanings of these idioms They summarize and infer weather aspects they encounter in everyday life, and then hide them under the image of idioms Both objective and subjective factors are coved and revealed through idioms such as circumstance and behavior respectively
Besides, both the English and Vietnamese find it mysterious and impossible to cover or control all weather aspects Clearly, weather conditions can bring both advantages and disadvantages to human life When analyzing semantic features of IWW, we have found out that a lot of the idioms refer to unsmooth issues including bad weather conditions (Brass-monkey weather: extremely cold weather ; Nóng nhƣ thiêu nhƣ đốt : extremely hot weather), bad behavior (A storm in a teacup: an unnecessary amount of excitement or argument about an unimportant matter; Mươ ̣n gió bẻ măng : unreasonably profit); or bad fortunes (Feel the wind/draught: to experience hardship because of lack of money; Bão táp mƣa sa: unwanted problems occur constantly) Obviously, people in both regions have the same opinion of serious effects weather conditions bring about and both reflect their thoughts through idioms
Although there are some similarities as mentioned above, the cultural differences between English and Vietnamese cause the dissimilarities in the meanings of IWW
Interestingly, the use of words also points out some distinctions of the two cultural communities Firstly, because weather conditions directly affect agricultural activities whose ultimate purpose is to produce food for survival, many Vietnamese verb phrases contain the word “ăn” as in “Ăn đói mặc rét”, “Ăn sóng nói gió”, “Ăn vụng nhƣ chớp” Vietnamese people are so familiar with the saying “Có thực mới vực đƣợc đạo” which represents their high attitudes towards food in general and eating in particular If someone has studied Vietnamese history, he/she must know that the Vietnamese people experienced the terrible famine in 1945 which caused lots of deaths Also, after fighting against many enemies and many serious disasters, Vietnamese people understand better than anyone else that eating is really important for their life and is the starting point to motivate other activities Secondly, from the corpus of EIWW, the traits of Frigid Zone are easily seen through a plenty of the weather words like “snow”, “frost”, “freeze”; whereas, these words occur in VIWW with really low frequency Furthermore, many VIWW reveal characteristics of a tropical country through words indicating tropical plants like “Mươ ̣n gió bẻ măng”,
“Gió trúc mƣa mai” but English idioms do not have anything like that
Additionally, while there is a long list of English idiomatic phrases which have nautical origins such as: “Sail close to the wind”, “Three sheets to the wind”,
“Before the wind”, “Take the wind out of somebody‟s sail”, some directly reflex the agricultural life in Vietnamese idioms like “Bán mă ̣t cho đất bán lƣng cho trời” ,
“Hai sương mô ̣t nắng”, “Nắng dãi mưa dầu” One more feature in word usage is that VIWW often include words indicating domestic and other animals close to agricultural life such as gà, chim, cá, chuô ̣t, cò These words can be picked up in
“Ủ rũ nhƣ gà phải trời mƣa” , “Nhƣ vịt nghe sấm” , “Chim trời cá bể”, “Ƣớt nhƣ chuô ̣t lô ̣t”, “Mƣa bão chết cò” Also, the image of dragon – the animal reflects specific mark of the Asian culture is used in idiom (Nhƣ rồng gặp mây, Rồng mây gặp hội) Finally, some other words that are closely linked to everyday life of Vietnamese as can be found in “Gió thổi là chổi trời”, “Màn sương chiếu đất”, “Có trăng quên đèn”, “Coi trời bằng vung”, “Nhƣ diều gă ̣p gió” These issues are so familiar that most of them play an essential role in the Vietnamese life
Semantically, from the analysis in the previous chapter, there are no cases of idioms about direction in VIWW in comparison with EIWW On the contrary, there exist idioms expressing five other semantic fields that can only be found in the Vietnamese corpus: human character, opportunities and advantages, dangers and challenges, state of life, virginity and immorality Although English and Vietnamese idioms share 8 semantic fields including weather conditions, psychological states, physical states, behavior, circumstance, human actions, speed, bad fortunes and disadvantages, human‟s attitudes, feelings and actions are not all the same Here are some interesting differences:
Firstly, with the nomadic features and seldom-extreme weather conditions, English people do not display too serious or critical issues through idioms For example, with English idioms expressing psychological states, not only sadness and anger but also happiness is pointed out as in “A breath of fresh air”, “Bright and breezy”, “On cloud nine”, “Over the moon” However, in this semantic field, most Vietnamese idioms have negative meanings like “Gió thảm mƣa sầu”, “Ruột nóng nhƣ lửa đốt”,
“Ủ rũ nhƣ gà phải trời mƣa” Besides, Vietnamese idioms are used to describe extremely dangerous conditions such as “Gió dâ ̣p sóng vùi” , “Tai trời ách đất” ,
“Gió quét mƣa sa” It is clear that weather directly affects not only cultivation but also Vietnamese people who consider farming as the main means of subsistence
Hence, when unsmooth weather conditions occur too frequently, negative connection between these conditions and people‟s events, emotions or feelings are inevitable