A contrastive analysis of idioms containing the parts of animals in english and vietnamese

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY VÕ THỊ NGỌC LIÊN A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: TRUONG VAN DINH, Ph.D BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN VÕ THỊ NGỌC LIÊN PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁC THÀNH NGỮ CHỨA CÁC BỘ PHẬN CỦA ĐỘNG VẬT TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Người hướng dẫn: TS TRƯƠNG VĂN ĐỊNH i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify that all work in this thesis is my original work and the substance of this thesis has not been submitted to any other university or institution Therefore, I am fully responsible for the contents of the thesis The research reported in this thesis was approved by The Department of Foreign Languages, Quy Nhon University Binh Dinh, August 30th, 2021 VO THI NGOC LIEN ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My minor thesis has been successfully completed thanks to the assistance and guidance of my teachers, classmates and relatives Firstly, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mr Trương Văn Định, Ph.D for his enthusiastic assistance, academic guidance, good suggestions and critical comments on my study Secondly, I would also like to show my gratitude to all the teachers of the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, Department of foreign languages, Quy Nhon University, whose lectures and guidance have helped me so much while carrying out this study Thirdly, my deepest thanks are for my lovely colleagues and my friends have helped and encouraged me during my preparation until I complete my study Finally, I would like to acknowledge the considerate support and indispensable assistance of my parents, my husband and my children while the work was being done One more thing I would like to say is that despite all the efforts, I have made and the advice and assistance I have received, I am sure my minor thesis is far from perfect Therefore, there are a lot of inadequacies and shortcomings that are unavoidable in my minor thesis, which is my responsibility iii ABSTRACT One of the most important elements in implication of culture and language is the use of idioms In daily communication, both English and Vietnamese people often utilize a large number of idioms However, learners in both languages have a lot of difficulties in using them Therefore, English teachers have to teach the students not only the knowledge of language but also that of culture, which enable them to communicate languages proficiently Animals plays an integrate role in both English and Vietnamese culture There are a huge number of idioms relating to animals in both languages However, the number of idioms containing the parts of animals is quite small and the study of them is rare Therefore, the study of idioms relating to the parts of animals will contribute to the full collection of works on animal idioms Moreover, this study clarifies the syntactic and semantic features in both languages, which help learners to use them more easily and effectively Finally, the findings analyzed in the study reveal that there are some similarities and differences about structural and semantic peculiarities of idioms containing the parts of animals in English and Vietnamese In respect of syntactic features, both languages have idioms under a variety of phrase and sentence structures Semantically, there are more idioms containing the parts of animals implicating human than non - human in both languages iv TABLES OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT Error! Bookmark not defined.iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Error! Bookmark not defined.iv ABBREVIATIONS Error! Bookmark not defined.v LIST OF TABLES Error! Bookmark not defined.vi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Significance of the study 1.3 Aim and objectives of the study 1.3.1 Aim of the study 1.3.2 Objectives of the study 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Organization of study CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 PREVIOUS STUDIES 2.2 Theoretical background 2.2.1 Definitions of idioms 2.2.2 Idioms and Other Language Units 2.2.3 Idiom relation to Language and Culture 2.2.4 Characteristics of idioms 11 2.2.5 Overview of Phrase and Sentence Structures 18 3.1 Research Methods 23 3.2 Data collection 23 3.3 Data analysis 23 v 3.4 Procedures 24 3.5 Validity and Reliability 24 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 26 4.1 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 26 4.1.1 Phrase Structures 26 4.1.2 English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals of Sentence and clause Patterns 34 4.2 Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the parts of animals in English and IN Vietnamese 36 4.2.1 Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the parts of animals in English 38 4.2.2 Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the parts of animals in Vietnamese 39 4.3 SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 41 4.3.1 Idioms having Human Implication 41 4.3.2 Idioms having non-human implications 53 4.4 SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING TpsOAs IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 57 4.4.1 Similarities 57 4.4.2 Differences 59 CHAPTER CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 63 5.1 Conclusion 63 5.2 Implications 64 5.2.1 Implication for learning idioms contaning TpsOAs 64 5.2.2 Implication for teaching idioms contaning TpsOAs 65 vi 5.2.3 Implication for translating idioms contaning TpsOAs……………61 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 67 5.3.1 Limitations of the study…………………… ………………… 67 5.3.2 Suggestions for Further Research 67 REFERENCES 69 APPENDIX TOPIC ASSIGNING CERTIFICATE vii ABBREVIATIONS Adj Adjective Ap Adjective Phrase Article Art CW Comparison word N Noun NP Noun Phrase N Number O Object Preposition Prep 10 PrepP Prepositional Phrase 11 S Subject 12 TpsOAs The parts of animals 13 V Verb 14 VP Verb Phrase 15 Vpred Verbal predicate 16 % Percent 17 & And viii LIST OF TABLES Order Name of tables Table 4.1 Noun Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs Page 26 Table 4.2 Verb Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 28 Table 4.3 Adjective Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 31 Table 4.4 Preposition Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 32 Table 4.5 Phrase Structures of the idioms TpsOAs 33 Table 4.6 Sentences of the idioms containing TpsOAs 34 Table 4.7 Frequency of the Parts of animals in English Table 4.7 Table 4.8 and Vietnamese Idioms 36 Frequency of Semantic Features of Idioms containing TpsOAs in English and Vietnamese 57 62 trâu”, “tai nheo” which are not specific for these species These parts of animals only appear in Vietnamese idioms, but not in English Therefore, to understand the meanings of this type of idioms, we base ourselves on figurative meanings, not literal ones 63 CHAPTER5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION 5.1 CONCLUSION From previous chapters investigated, the thesis has mainly studied the linguistic features of idioms containing TpsOAs in respect of syntactic and semantic features to indicate close relationship between the external grammatical structures of idioms and their basic semantic features.100 idioms in both languages are collected, classified and analyzed A contrastive analysis is carried out to find out the similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms containing TpsOAs with the aim of helping second language learners to understand and practice these idioms in English and Vietnamese appropriately and effectively in reality Compared to objectives and research questions set in the Chapter 1, the study has revealed the following results: Syntactically, idioms are analyzed under the phrase structures and sentence structures The phrase structures are classified into noun phrases, verb phrases, and prepositional phrases in English Similarly, Vietnamese idioms are investigated in the structure of noun phrases, verb phrases, and adjective phrases Both English and Vietnamese have only one common sentences and each language their own sentences and clauses Baker (1992,65) gives some suggestions that idioms often “violate truth conditions, such as It‘s raining cats and dogs, storm in a tea cup, fog for thought …” Some idioms “seem ill-formed because they not follow the grammatical rules of the language like in the tail wagging the dog, tail that wag the dog, etc Expressions starting with like also tend to suggest that they should not be interpreted literally.” 64 Semantically, the meaning implicating human and non-human through idioms containing TpsOAs in English and Vietnamese have been studied in term of some semantic features such as human characters (frank, greed, cruel, etc.), human mood (happy, sad, tired, etc.), human actions and behaviors (amicable, sacrificial, meaningless, etc.), human situations and conditions (advantageous, dangerous, etc.), human relationship, human success, and human social status On the other hand, the meaningful human implications are often analyzed in aspect of positive, negative and neutral meaning Most of idioms containing TpsOAs in English and Vietnamese expressing human characters are negative meaning while those expressing human actions and behaviors are neutral meaning In addition, although the number of idioms having non-human implications is quite small, they refer to many aspects such as things, quantity, quality, viewpoint, belief, etc Stylistically, most of the idioms of this research show their meanings through means of stylistic devices such as simile, metaphor, metonymy and hyperbole, in which metaphor is more prominent in both languages For example, there are many idioms containing TpsOAs in both languages, in which animal behavior are metaphorically considered as human behavior 5.2 IMPLICATIONS 5.2.1 Implication for learning idioms containing TpsOAs Thanks to cultural diversity of each country, we have a wide variety of idioms Therefore, to learn idioms containing TpsOAs well, learners first have a lot of knowledge about the basis of cultural background in each country For example, Vietnamese idioms reflect images of agricultural origins with a high frequency of trees, crop, rice, water and some kinds of cattle, etc In contrast, English ones mirror the cultural identities of the nomadic origins That is why a large number of idioms appear great cattle containing their specific parts 65 such as horse, bull, sheep, and ox Clearly, most parts of animals have literal meanings under comparative structures so learners find it easy to understand their sense In case, the idioms have figurative meaning, they can base on the semantic mechanism of idioms in decoding its sense such as metaphorical devices, real context, etc to guess the meaning 5.2.2 Implication for teaching idioms containing TpsOAs In recent Vietnamese GCSE, English tests consists a number of idioms, collocations, and word phrases which determine high marks for students The demand for learning idioms results in the challenge of teaching idiomatic expressions whose sense can only be recognized via normal use Therefore, we hopefully would like to take the following measures: Firstly, teachers should introduce suitable idioms to the learners with many different ways, depending on each student‟s level For learners at a low level, idioms should be given in semantic field, topics or key words Certainly, the explanation in respect of structure and meaning is required in order to avoid misunderstanding the figurative meaning For example, in the idiom “rain cats and dogs”, we often help students to recognize their meaning based on key word “rain”, and adverbs relating to “rain”, but not depending on the figurative meaning “cats and dogs” At advanced level, teachers should analyze semantic mechanisms of idioms so that learners can discover the figurative meaning of an idiom by themselves Secondly, idioms should be taught in groups or subjects because most idioms are often given either simple types such as idioms with animals, parts of body or plants, or more complicated categories such as idioms with topics: intelligence or loyalty Classifying idioms in categories can enable learners to memorize them easily Thirdly, teachers should help students to understand idioms through the 66 context because no materials can teach them how to use them effectively In addition, students cannot remember the meanings of a large number of idioms Therefore, it is the best way that teachers should present idioms along with examples in context or related situation Besides, teachers need to let students idiom exercises regularly, or help them to use idioms in daily communication by introducing them some materials relating to idioms More interestingly, teachers can give the equivalent Vietnamese idioms to English one in some games with a view to making students curious to discover other ones through films, articles or social networks Finally, the relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted, so students should be taught basic background of the culture to enable them to expand their knowledge of different cultures through learning idioms in general and idioms relating to the parts of animals in particular 5.2.3 Implication for translating idioms containing TpsOAs In the aspect of translation, it is not easy to understand idioms in general and idioms containing TpsOAs in particular as well as finding out the similar meaning in both languages because of semantic opacity, no connection between the origin and current usage, and the use of metaphor In this study, some translation methods relating to literal translation and figurative translation could be proposed to aid Vietnamese learners of English to solve with idioms containing TpsOAs 5.2.3.1 Literal translation The purpose of literal translation is to save the national flavor of source language idioms without breaking the linguistic principles of the target language Many idioms in the comparative pattern could be translated in a literal way, for example: like water off a duck‘s back, like a bear with a sore head, etc With this kind of translation, the original form and images of 67 English idiom are unchanged, which does not lead to confusion in meaning For example, like water off a duck‟s back could be translated like Vietnamese idiom “như nước đổ đầu vịt” 5.2.3.1 Figurative translation It is difficult to understand the figurative meaning of idiom, the author would like to give some approaches to the translation of English idioms containing TpsOAs into Vietnamese: - Interpreting the denotative meaning of the given idiom containing TpsOAs in the source language; - Make clear of the connotative meaning of the idiom mentioned; - Clarifying the general meaning of the idiom in given context mentioned; - And finding out the Vietnamese equivalence in the mechanisms of the semantic which have been discussed 5.3 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES 5.3.1 Limitations of the study In spite of a considerable effort that has been made, some limitations of this study can be unavoidable because of limitation of time, knowledge, reference material Besides, due to the limited number of idioms containing TpsOAs serving as the data for the study, some sections of the study have not fulfilled a satisfactory depth as they should 5.3.2 Suggestions for Further Research In this research, the author focused only on the research of a modest part of syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms containing TpsOAs in order to find out their similarities and differences As a result, many other aspects are required to be studied in further researches Therefore, some suggestions for further studies to people who are interested in topics related to mine: 68 - A study on cultural features of English and Vietnamese idioms which contain parts of animals - A study on pragmatic features of English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals - A study on cognitive semantics features of English and Vietnamese idioms containing parts of animals 69 REFERENCES In English: Anh, N T T (2019) A Contrastive Analysis On Selected English and Vietnamese Dog – Related Idioms Master thesis, Vietnamese Pedagogical University, Hanoi Arnold, I V (1986) The English Word Cowie, A.P (1998) Phraseology:Theory, Analysis, and Applications Clarendon Press: Oxford Fusté-Herrmann Belinda (2008) Idiom Comprehension in Bilingual and Monolingual Adolescents Ph.D Dissertation, University of South Florida Cruse, D.A (1986) Lexical Semantics,Cambridge,CUP Ellis Rod and Barkhuizen Gary (2005) Analysing Learner Language Oxford: 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ngữ đời sống, số Nguyễn Lực Lương Văn Đang (2002) Thành ngữ Tiếng Việt: Nxb Hà Nội Vũ Ngọc Phan (2000) Tục ngữ, ca dao, dân ca Việt Nam : Nxb Văn học Hà Nội Phan Văn Quế (2000) Hình ảnh chó thành ngữ tục ngữ tiếng Anh T/c Ngôn ngữ & đời sống, số Hồ Phương Tâm (2014) Đối chiếu thành ngữ báo chí Tiếng Trung Tiếng Việt Luận văn thạc sĩ, Tp Huế Phạm Thị Thài (2013) Thành ngữ chứa từ gọi tên Ðộng vật tiếng Việt 72 Luận văn thạc sĩ, Tp Cần Thơ Websites https://dictionary.cambridge.org/vi/dictionary/english/idiomen.wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clause http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom https://www.lexico.com/grammar/avoiding-cliches https://languagers.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/language-function/ https://studopedia.su/3_26924_Syntactical-classification-of-phraseologicalunits.html APPENDIX English idioms and proverbs containing the parts of animals Parts of animals Back Beard Brain English idioms and proverbs straw that breaks the camel‟s back set a beggar on horse back and he‟ll ride to the devil like water off a duck's back beard the lion in his den a bird-brain in a pig‟s eye cast sheep‟s eyes look at somebody with a cock in one's eye Eyes Ear Face Feather/ hair Foot/feet/leg gut Head Horn Knee Mouth make sheep‟s eyes at somebody have eyes like a hawk the green-eyed monster eagle‟ eyes a bird‟s eye view make a pig‟s ear (out) of sth hold the wolf by the ears a flea in one‟s ear jest with an ass he will flap you in the face with his tail take a hair of the dog that bits birds of a feather flock together the hair of the dog ( that bit you) talk the hind leg off a donkey Not to know B from a bull‟s foot carry gut to a bear, not fit to like a bear with a sore head run around like a chicken with its head cut off take the bull by the horns grab the bull by the horns the bee‟s knees from the horse‟s mouth rush into/to the lion's mouth Neck Skin Stomach Tail Tallow Teeth Tongue Thump throw sb to the lion‟s mouth run one's head into the lion's mouth put your head in the lion‟s mouth don‟t look a gift-horse in the mouth the lion's mouth albatross Around One‟s Neck sell the bear‟s skin before one has caught the bear catch the bear before you sell its skin skin a flea for its hide There‟s more one way to skin a cat lion's skin Have butterflies in one‟s stomach like a dog with two tails in two shakes of lamb‟s tail twist the lion‟s tail tail that wags the dog the tail wagging the dog flay a flea the hide and tallow take a bear by the tooth Has a cat got one‟s tongue cow‟s thump Vietnamese idioms and proverbs containing the parts of animals Parts Back Belly ( bụng/ dạ) Beard Body Eyes/ eyebrow Fins Fins/ wings Face English idioms and proverbs Ngồi lưng cọp ( sit on a lion‟s back) Cá vàng bụng bọ (a fair face may hide a foul heart) Vuốt râu hùm (beard the lion in his den) Làm thân trâu ngựa (work like a buffalo and a horse) Mắt dơi mày chuột (a bat‟s eyes and a mouse‟s eyebrows) Ăn cá bỏ vây (eat fish without fins) Chim có cánh cá có vây (birds with wings as fish have fins) Cò bay thẳng cánh (the stork flies straight) Như chim liền cánh (like a bird with wings) Như hùm mọc cánh ( as a tiger has more wings) Mặt dài mặt ngựa ( the face is as long as the horse‟s Feather Foot/feet/leg Gut/ intestines/ bowels Head/ tail face) Cháy nhà (lòi) mặt chuột (rats desert a sinking ship) Lơng phượng gót lân (phoenix‟s feathers and heels of the unicorn) Cóc mọc lơng nách (as vain as a peacock/as conceited as a barber‟s cat) Buộc chân voi (tie the elephant's feet) Chuột gặm chân mèo (a mouse gnaws a cat's paw) Vẽ rết thêm chân ( draw many legs for a centipede) Chuột gặm chân mèo (the mouse graws the leg of the cat) Chân gà lại bới ruột gà (chicken feet with chicken intestines) Muỗi đốt chân voi (mosquito bites elephant‟s feet) Như rết thêm chân (like many legs for a centipede) Lôi cá trôi xổ ruột (diffused like a fish moving their bowels) Rối ruột tằm (tangled like silkworm‟s intestines) Thẳng ruột ngựa (straight as a horse's intestines) Rút ruột tơ tằm (take out silkworm‟s silk) Đầu cua tai nheo (cannot make head of tail of sth) Đầu trâu mặt ngựa (horse‟s faces and buffaloes heads) Đầu voi đuôi chuột (the mountain has brought forth a mouse) Đầu rồng đuôi rắn (dragon‟s head and snake‟s tail) Đầu gà má lợn (chicken‟s head and pig‟s cheek) Đầu gà đuôi trâu (better be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion) Được đầu voi đòi đầu ngựa (who are given a horse and ask for a fairy) Treo đầu dê bán thịt chó (He cries wine and sells vinegar) Trăm dâu đổ đầu tằm (Hundreds of mulberries poured silkworms) Cá đối đầu (The same position, not distinguish high or low position) Như rắn đầu (like a headless snake) Horn Liver Mouth (miệng/ mồm) Paw Spur Tail Testicle Teeth (răng/ nanh) Như nước đổ đầu vịt (like water off a duck‘s back) Cưa sừng làm nghé (a buffalo tries to cut its horns to look like a buffalo calf), (Mutton dressed (up) as lamb) Gan rồng trứng trâu (Dragon‟s liver and buffalo‟s eggs) Khẩu phật tâm xà (a honey tongue, a heart of gall) Miệng hùm gan sứa (brave before a lamb, but a lamb before the brave), If you cannot bite, never show your teeth Mồm chó vó ngựa (dogs‟ mouth and horses‟ hoop are very dangerous) Miệng hùm nọc rắn (a tiger‟s mouth and a venom) Nói toạc móng heo (call a spade a spade) Gà giò ngứa cựa (Young fighting-cock quickly ruffled up its feathers) Tiu nghỉu chó cụp (with a hang – dog look one‟s face) Bắt ngựa đằng (catch the horse in the back) Mó dái ngựa (touch a horse‟s testicle) Lo bò trắng (don‟t trouble the trouble until the trouble trouble you) Như hổ thêm nanh (as a tiger has more teeth)