Khóa luận tốt nghiệp a study of enghish idioms denoting fear with reference to the vietnamese equivalents

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS A STUDY OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH BIỂU THỊ NỖI SỢ CÓ THAM CHIẾU ĐẾN NGHĨA TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT Student : NGUYỄN THỊ ANH Student code : 621203 Major : ENGLISH Supervisor : NGUYỄN THỊ MINH TÂM M.A Hanoi – 2021 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS A STUDY OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH BIỂU THỊ NỖI SỢ CÓ THAM CHIẾU ĐẾN NGHĨA TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT Student : NGUYỄN THỊ ANH Student code : 621203 Major : ENGLISH Supervisor : NGUYỄN THỊ MINH TÂM M.A Hanoi – 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2021 Nguyễn Thị Anh Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis First of all, I am deeply indebted to my beloved supervisor, MA Nguyen Thi Minh Tam for sharing expertise, and sincere and valuable guidance and encouragement extended to me throughout my research I am extremely thankful to her for advice and suggestions right from the beginning when the thesis was adopted Secondly, I take this opportunity to express gratitude to all of the Faculty of Education and Foreign languages members at Vietnam National University of Agriculture for their valuable teaching, help, support and enlighten my learning path Thirdly, my sense of gratitude to my classmates who have taken time and trouble to alert me to errors in my thesis and provided me with useful suggestions which this thesis is used Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family who have supported and encouraged me to complete this thesis Due to the limited knowledge and reasoning ability of myself, there are still many limitations and shortcomings, I hope the guidance and contribution of lecturers and others to make my thesis more complete ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Part 1: INTRODUCTION Page Rationale for the study …1… Aims and objectives of the study …2… Research questions (in form of questions) …2… Scope of the study …3 Significance of the study …3 Design of the study …3 Part 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous studies (at home/abroad) 1.1.1 Related research …5 1.1.2 Related research …6 1.2 Review of theoretical background (depend on what the study is about) 1.2.1 Theoretical framework …7 1.2.2 Idioms …7 1.2.2.1 Definition …7 1.2.2.2 Classification of English idioms …8… 1.2.2.3 Features of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms …18 1.2.3 Human Emotions …22 1.2.3.1 Definition …22 1.2.3.2 Classification of human emotions …23 1.2.3.3 FEAR …25 1.3 Summary …27 iii Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research governing orientation …28 2.1.1 Research question(s) …28 2.1.2 Research hypothesis …28 2.1.3 Research types …28 2.1.4 Research approaches …29 2.1.5 Principles/ criteria for data collection and data analysis …29 2.2 Research methods …30 2.2.1 Major method(s) …30 2.2.2 Supporting method(s) …30 2.3 Summary …30 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 The frequence of English idioms denoting FEAR in Dictionary of …32 Current English – Vietnamese Idioms and their Vietnamese equivalents 3.2 The Vietnamese equivalence of English idioms denoting FEAR in …33 Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms 3.3 Summary …37 Part 3: CONCLUSION Recapitulation …38 Concluding remarks …38 Limitation of the study …39 Recommendations/Suggestions for further study …39 REFERENCES …40 APPENDIX …43 iv ABSTRACT English idioms are an important part of everyday English They appears all the time in both written and spoken English Because idioms don't always mean literally, you'll need to familiarize yourself with each idiom The thesis focuses on investigating features of idioms, including idioms denoting FEAR in Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms and their Vietnamese translation versions Using comparison and contrast method, the thesis attempts to point out the equivalent and non-equivalent of meaning of idioms denoting FEAR found in the selected dictionary and their Vietnamese translation The research results will be useful for improving English teaching and learning, especially English idioms, as well as understand more about culture and people of the two countries Therefore, the author hopes that a study on idioms in Vietnamese and English will help an important part in teaching and learning English in general v LIST OF ABBREVIATION N: noun A: Adjective Adv: adverb Conj: Conjunction PrP: Preposition i.e.: That is i.g.: For example SL: Source Language TL: Target Language vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1.1 List of “basic” emotions Table 3.1 English idioms denoting Fear in Dictionary of Current EnglishVietnamese idioms and their Vienamese equivalents vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY Language is an important part of everyday life, thanks to language people can communicate with each other Today, English is considered a global language - Crystal (2003) found out in English as a Global Language that “A quarter of the world’s population is already fluent or competent in English, and this figure is steadily growing – in the early 2000s that means around 1.5 billion people” and many learning materials, websites on the internet such as newspapers, stories are also written in English In particular, Vietnam has been considering English as an important language in using English for teaching in schools and universities Not only short-term English learners, but also long-term learners or those who have lived in a country that English is their mother tongue for many years, will also have difficulty understanding the meaning that native speakers want to convey Because native speakers not only use simple words, they also use compound sentences, proverbs, slang , local words and idioms a lot into everyday life Idioms are one of the basic units featured in English They are the cultural crystallization of a country that has been handed down in the past If we analyze and study them, we will not only have a deeper understanding of the cultural uniqueness of that nation, but also have a better understanding of the vocabulary and grammar Therefore, many linguists have studied idioms While we communicate, we convey our feelings, emotions about something Therefore, idioms for feelings, emotions have a large amount in English and Vietnamese idioms One of the idioms for emotions still few people have studied is the expression that denotes fear So I decided to a study called "A STUDY OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR WITH Based on the aforementioned methodology, this study will carry out according to the following procedure: after English idioms denoting fear and their translations into Vietnamese are carefully collected from the research dictionary, the characteristics of these idioms be discussed to see how frequently they appear in the selected dictionary as well as identifying equivalents and nonequivalents in meaning between idioms denoting fear in English and their Vietnamese To make it easy for the reader to follow, several tables will be presented, in which statistics of idioms with the same semantic fields are calculated and edited in terms of figures and percentages 2.2 RESEARCH METHODS 2.2.1 Major method(s) As mentioned above, the research is an attempt to compare and contrast English idioms and their translation into Vietnamese (Vietnamese idioms) to find out the equivalence and non-equivalence in meaning Thus the contrastive method seems to be the most suitable methodology for the study 2.2.2 Supporting method(s) Analytical, quantitative methods are also used to describe and analyze the database in order to show the frequency of occurrence of semantic fields in the selected dictionary and to indicate a number of groups of equivalent semantics when translating English idioms expressing fear 2.3 SUMMARY The purpose of this chapter is to describe the research methodology of this study, explain the sampling, describe the procedure used to collect the data, and provide an explanation of the statistical procedures used to collect the data, data analysis Besides, the main methods and supporting methods used in this study have been presented Regarding reliability, the data collected for this study were selected from reliable sources In addition, any information cited in this study is identical to 30 the original documents with explicit references to the author(s), publisher name, time and place of publication, and page number where the information was extracted In terms of validity, this study met all required criteria In order to make the sample of the study, all English idioms and their Vietnamese equivalents were obtained from books, dictionary websites and other reliable sources In particular, English idioms collected from bilingual dictionaries will be carefully looked up in monolingual dictionaries to ensure their origin Furthermore, the collected idioms are always compared with the results from the theoretical background to ensure the quality of the thesis 31 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 THE FREQUENCY OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR IN DICTIONARY OF CURRENT ENGLISH – VIETNAMESE IDIOMS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS During the data collection process, the author found out 50 idioms and classified them into groups with the same semantic fields as follows: Order Semantic Fields Vietnamese meanning Percentage Number of (%) idioms denoting Fear Fear in using weather Sử dụng đặc features điểm thời tiết Fear in using parts of Sử dụng body 4 phận thể 12 24 Fear in using of Sử dụng màu 14 colour sắc Fear in using body Sử dụng phản response ứng thể 18 34 10 20 Sử dụng Fear in using emotion từ cảm words xúc Table 3.1 English idioms denoting Fear in Dictionary of current EnglishVietnamese idioms and their Vienamese equivalents 32 Table 3.1 above illustrates the number and percentage of English idioms denoting Fear in the selected dictionary It should be noted that some idioms contain words from different semantic fields such as "scream out of your head" and "jump out of your skin", the word in the semantic field that appears first represents the whole idioms In terms of frequency, the most frequently used semantic field is fear in the use of bodily responses They make up more than a third of all idioms (34%) The semantic field:fear in the use of body parts ranked second with 24% Reaching third place with a frequency of 20% in the dictionary that is sematic field: Fear in using emotion words Semantic fields appear with low frequency (14%) ranked fourth as Fear in using of colour The last one with the least frequency (8%) of appearance in the dictionary is the semantic field: Fear in using weather features 3.2 THE VIETNAMESE DENOTING FEAR IN EQUIVALENCE DICTIONARY OF OF ENGLISH CURRENT IDIOMS ENGLISH – VIETNAMESE IDIOMS After the English idioms denoting FEAR in Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms and their Vietnamese versions were compared and contrasted, it is remarkable that there are three groups of Vietnamese translated equivalents of the English idioms expressing Fear as follows: 3.2.1 Total Equivalence (Form and Meaning) The first group includes English idioms denoting Fear translated into Vietnamese idioms with the same meanings and similar form in the TL These English sematic elements have their virtually absolute equivalence in Vietnamese This way of translation appears in a very small number in selected dictionary For example: I was holding my breath as he was approaching the bushes  Tôi nín thở đến gần bụi 33 It is noticeable that the Vietnamese idiom “nín thở ” is an absolute equivalent of “holding my breath ” in terms of semantics, lexicology and structure All elements in the SL idiom are retained, even the word order, i.e two words “hold” and “breath ” are translated into “nín” and “thở” respectively This translation strategy seems ideal in nature; However, such ideal combinations in more complex idioms are rarely achievable because other aspects, such as register, style, or rhetorical effect, must also be considered Here are some more examples of this type total equivalent: English idioms Vietnamese equivalents His face was as white as a ghost when he saw his two-year-old son standing in front of the open as white as a ghost window => Mặt anh trắng ma nhìn thấy đứa trai hai tuổi đứng trước cửa sổ mở to give somebody the creeps The sound of the wind in the forest at night give us the creeps => Tiếng gió rít gào đêm tối làm cho chúng tơi rùng (as) motionless as a statue She was as motionless as a statue when she saw the snake near her => đứng tượng nhìn thấy rắn gần cô to frighten/scare smb to death The child was frightened to death by the violent thunderstorm => Thằng bé sợ đến chết bão có sấm sét dội to frighten into/out of News of robberies frightened many people into 34 doing smth fitting new locks to their doors => Tin tức nạn trộm cướp làm nhiều người hoảng sợ phải gắn thêm ổ khóa vào cửa 3.2.2 Partial Equivalence (Similarity in meaning not in form) The second group consists of English idioms expressing FEAR that have been converted into Vietnamese idioms with similar meanings but there is another form It is often possible to find an idiom in TL that means the same thing as an SL idiom, but includes different lexical entries The following are illustrative examples of SL idioms that have been translated into TL idioms with the same meaning, but different form: The sight of a horrible traffic accident make her blood run cold:  Trông thấy tai nạn giao thông khủng khiếp cô ta ớn lạnh người The normal drop in body temperature is its response to feelings of fear The cold affects parts of the body such as the spine, feet, blood These images are often associated with run, lạnh in Vietnamese This version seems appropriate because it conveys the purpose meaningful yet still resonates naturally with the reader culturally at the same time Consider the following examples of the partial equivalence with same meanings but different form: English idioms Vietnamese equivalents They went to the teacher in fear and trembling to tell him that they'd broken a window in fear and trembling => Chúng run sợ đến gặp cô giáo để thú nhận chúng đánh vỡ kính cửa sổ to jump out of one's skin She jumped out of her skin when hearing the news => Bà ta giật nảy nghe tin 35 to make one's blood freeze The sight of the masked gunman made my blood freeze => Nhìn thấy tên cướp mang sung đeo mặt nạ làm sợ tái người to send a shiver down one's spine The gruesome gives me sent a shiver down my spine => Cảnh tượng khủng khiếp làm tơi ớn lạnh xương sống to shake one's shoes He was shaking in his shoes at the thought of flying for the first time => Anh ta sợ da gà trước ý nghĩ việc bay lần đầu weak at the knees The shock made me go all weak at the knees => Cú sốc làm đứng không vững to have one's heart in one's mouth to make smb's blood run cold My heart was in mouth => Tôi sợ líu lưỡi The sight of a horrible traffic accident make her blood run cold => Trông thấy tai nạn giao thông khủng khiếp cô ta ớn lạnh người to bundle of nerves The poor chap was a bundle of nerves at the interview => Anh chàng hèn nhát lo sợ vấn 36 3.2.3 Non-equivalence The last group contains translated versions in which English idioms denoting FEAR not have equivalence in Vietnamese English idioms expressing FEAR that have been converted into Vietnamese idioms with a brief explanation of the meaning behind the idiomatic expression being used in the ST This is usually done when the translator is faced with idiomatic expressions in the SL which have no corresponding idiomatic expressions in the TL, or, more often, when he fails to find an idiomatic expression in the TL that matches the one used in the SL For example: After escaping the bandits, she is become a prey to fear  Sau thoát khỏi bọn cướp, cô bị nỗi lo sợ giày vò * The last group appears very rarely in the selected dictionary Contrary to it, the partial equivalence appears the most 3.3 SUMMARY In this chapter, the study discussed the frequency of occurrence of semantic fields and studied three types of translation into Vietnamese equivalents of English idioms expressing Fear in the selected dictionary 37 PART 3: CONCLUSION RECAPITULATION With the idea that doing research in the field of idioms is worthwhile, the author finds that studying idioms denoting Fear in English with references to Vietnamese equivalents is very useful After that, the author spent a long time collecting idioms about fear from the dictionary of the author choice All data have been carefully selected, organized, and analyzed to help find answers to two proposed research questions After presenting the research method, the results of the study were presented in the main part of the thesis, pointing out the equivalents and nonequivalents in the meaning of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms denoting Fear from Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms It is hoped that what has been discussed in the study will benefit teachers and students in the teaching and learning of idioms in general and the learning and teaching of idioms denoting in particular This research also hopes to benefit those who wish to proceed in this field and who are interested in the matter CONCLUDING REMARKS The current thesis has dealt with two primary issues: describing the features of English and Vietnamese idioms The review of literature provides theoretical background on English and Vietnamese idioms, including human emotions The main tools deployed throughout the survey are contrastive analysis After collecting all idioms denoting FEAR in Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms and their Vietnamese versions, the reserachers find out that the English idioms expressing FEAR have different types of Vietnamese equivalents such as total equivalent with the same meanings and similar form in the target language, or partially equivalent with the same meanings and different form 38 LIMITATION OF THE CURRENT RESEARCH We hope this research will help readers apply in teaching and learning in practice Due to the limitation of time and knowledge, the thesis cannot cover in more detail all aspects, all areas of idioms expressing fear in English and Vietnamese Although the author has tried the best to find the necessary materials, the following shortcomings may be unavoidable We look forward to receiving the contributions and enthusiastic guidance from scientists, teachers and readers to further improve the thesis in both theory and practice SUGGESTITIONS FOR FUTHER RESEARCH This thesis has just pointed out the equivalents and non-equivalents in the meaning of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms denoting Fear, therefore, futher research it is also possible to study the structural and grammatical features of idioms expressing fear in a more specifically, more deeply, and more fully 39 REFERENCES Al-Talabani, A (2015, December) Automatic Speech Emotion Recognition- Feature space Dimensionality and Classification Challenges Retrieved from ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/1-A-Selection-of-Lists-of- Basic-Emotions-Ortony-Turner-1990_tbl1_292397051 Anahit Hovhannisyan, Rouzanna Ghazaryan (2018) Morphological classification of idioms in English and Armenian Science and 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Phraseological Units acedemia, p https://www.academia.edu/7077484/Phraseological_Units%201h25%2011/6/20 21 29 Emotion, and the Power of Coincidences | Emotion Researcher Retrieved from http://emotionresearcher.com/the-component-process-model-of-emotionand-the-power-of-coincidences/ 30 Frijda, Nico H., Markam, Suprapti, Sato, Kaori, & Wiers, Reinout (1995) Emotions and emotion words In J A Russell et al (Eds.), Everyday conceptions of emotion (pp 121–143) Dordrecht: Kluwer 31 THE NATURE AND CLASSIFICATION OF IDIOMS (2017, January 4) Mexico documents, pp https://vdocuments.mx/the-nature-and-classification-ofidioms.html 32 Fernando, C (1996) Idioms and Idiomaticity London: Penguin Books Print 42 APPENDIX List of English idioms denoting fear from Dictionary of Current English – Vietnamese Idioms (As) motionless as a carving (As) motionless as a statue A lump in one's throat As pale as a ghost As silent as a death As silent as the grave As stiff as a poker ( a post, a ramrod) As stiff as death As white as a ghost 10 As white as a sheet 11 For fear of smth/of doing smth 12 Hot and bothered 13 In fear and trembling 14 In fear of one's life 15 One's hair stands on end 16 One's heart leaps into one's mouth 17 To be afraid of one's own shadow 18 To be all of a tremble 19 To be all of shake 20 To be pale with fear 21 To become a prey to fear 22 To bundle of nerves 23 To fear smb or smth as the devil fears holy water 24 To freeze smb's blood 43 25 To frighten into/out of doing smth 26 To frighten smb out of his senses 27 To frighten/scare smb out of his wits 28 To frighten/scare smb to death 29 To get the breeze up 30 To give smb the creeps 31 To give smb the jumps 32 To have one's heart in one's boot ( shoes) 33 To have one's heart in one's mouth 34 To have/ get the wind up about smth 35 To jump out of one's skin 36 To look green 37 To lose one's colour 38 To make one's blood freeze 39 To make smb's blood run cold 40 To quake like a leaf 41 To scream one's head off 42 To send a shiver down one's spine 43 To shake like a leaf 44 To shake one's shoes 45 To shiver in one's boots 46 To show a white feather 47 To take to one's heels 48 To throw up one's hands in horor 49 Weak at the knees 50 With one's tail between one's legs ( to have one's tail between one's legs) 51 Hold one’s breath 44