a contrastive analysis of idioms denoting fear in english and vietnamese = phân tích đối chiếu các thành ngữ chỉ nỗi sợ hãi trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt

Emotion Fear Chapter 2: Syntactic features of English idioms denoting idioms fear in comparison with Vietnamese counterparts 2.1.. Differences Chapter 3: Semantic features of English

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTIES OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR IN

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(Phân tích đối chiếu các thành ngữ chỉ nỗi sợ hãi trong

Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 602215

Hanoi, 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTIES OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF IDIOMS DENOTING FEAR IN

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(Phân tích đối chiếu các thành ngữ chỉ nỗi sợ hãi trong

Tiếng Anh và Tiếng Việt)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

1 Rationale for choosing the topic

3 Scope of the study

4 Methods of the study

5 Format of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background

1.1 Idioms

1.1.1 Definitions of Idioms

1.1.2 Distinctive features of English idioms

1.2.1.1 Syntactic features of English idioms

1.2.1.2 Semantic features of English idioms

1.2.1.3 Cultural features of English idioms

1.1.3 Distinction between idioms, proverbs and some other terms:

sayings, phrasal verbs, colloquialisms

1.2 Human Feelings

1.2.1 Concepts of Human Feelings

1.2.2 Classifications of Human Feelings

1.2.3 Emotion Fear

Chapter 2: Syntactic features of English idioms denoting idioms fear in

comparison with Vietnamese counterparts

2.1 Structural features of English idioms denoting emotion Fear

2.1.1 English idioms denoting fear have clause patterns

PAGE

i

ii iii

2.1.2 English idioms denoting fear have phrase patterns

2.1.3 English idioms denoting fear have fixed patterns

2.1.4 English idioms denoting fear have odd patterns

2.2 An English-Vietnamese comparison of syntactic features of idioms denoting

fear

2.2.1 Similarities

2.2.1.1 Vietnamese idioms with clause patterns

2.2.1.2 Vietnamese idioms with phrase patterns

2.2.1.3 Using simile

2.2.2 Differences

Chapter 3: Semantic features of English idioms denoting fear in comparison

with Vietnamese counterparts

3.1 Metaphor and metonymy in cognitive linguistics

3.2 Metaphor and metonymy in English idioms denoting fear

3.3 An English-Vietnamese comparison of semantic features of idioms denoting

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Even having been living in England for a long time, a non-native speaker who has a great command of English could be easily realized that his English is not mother-tongue language when he is in conversation with an English speaker Explanation for this could be his way of using language

Anyone who has already been put in a real communication of the language finds it easy to recognize that native-speakers‟ conversations are far more interesting and varied than that with non-native speakers The answer to this is that in their talk native speakers apply several idioms because of their convenience First, these idioms not only have brief and extraordinary forms, containing key words but they also hold profound meanings They manifest much what the speakers want to say and do not want to say in words The means that can express speakers‟ viewpoints, feelings, attitudes and even personality and

culture is their ways of idioms usage Take this example to consider “pull someone‘s leg‖

The phrase pull my leg would cause a lot of difficulties for non-native speakers because it

has nothing to do with the description of the action of pulling someone‟s leg but just means

“to play a joke on somebody, usually by making them believe something that is not true” (Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 7th edition) or simply “to fool somebody”

Therefore, knowing how to use a language is a completely different category from mastering a language Mastery of a language not only needs speakers‟ acquisition of several aspects of language such as semantics, syntax, phonetics and phonology, pragmatics but also their flexibility in language usage Idioms usage is the clearest evidence for their ability of varied language usage

Moreover, idioms are the combination of culture, language usage and creative competence, personality and mark of time They are everlasting and passed from generation to generation because of their own distinctive features

The combination of all the facts mentioned above is the reason for the thesis In the thesis the author has made an attempt to investigate into English idioms from different aspects Then there will be a comparison between English idioms and Vietnamese idioms

denoting fear

2 Aims of the study

The study is carried out for the following aims

First of all, it demonstrates some general knowledge about idioms in terms of syntactic, semantic and cultural features and their differentiation from other similar terms

Secondly, it represents syntax and semantics of English idioms denoting fear.

Thirdly, the study provides a comparison of English and Vietnamese idioms, then

clarifies syntax and semantics of Vietnamese idioms denoting fear

3 Scope of the study

English idioms have a great number of idioms denoting human feelings A few of basic emotions have been researched by some Vietnamese researchers such as “A Study on Structural and Semantic Features of English Idioms of Anger in Comparison with Vietnamese Equivalents” by Doan Ngoc Diep, “An Investigation into The English Words and Idioms Denoting Happiness” by Nguyen Thi Van Lam

One human emotion that appears daily, therefore has several idioms, but has not

been received much study is fear Hence, in the study the author concentrates on English idioms denoting fear and put it them in comparison with Vietnamese idioms

4 Methods of the study

The approaches and procedures employed to achieve the research goals are as follows:

- To establish a theretical framework for the study, both domestic and foreign publications are critically reviewed and referred to

- The quantitative method is dominantly used for the data statisctics In addition, the

contrastive analysis approach is employed to compare the two language and cultures

As for websites, they are the tool that is made use of The websites are a huge source of idioms Three basic websites are En.wikipedia.org, News.google.com and Books.google.com

As for other materials, namely the previous theses in linguistics which are involved in the content of the study are also collected to grab related information

Data analysis procedures:

Idioms that are related to fear are collected from the dictionaries and books

mentioned above Then the examples are taken from websites and books for illustration The last step is to investigate and analyze according to the requirements of the study

5 Format of the study

The study consists of three parts which are Introduction, Development and Conclusion

Introduction: a brief account of relevant information for carrying out the study is

represented They are the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims, the scope, the methodology and the format of the study

Development: This crucial part concludes four chapters Chapter I is Theoretical

Background, which introduces initially necessary theories on the topic from the different aspects involved in idioms and human feelings Chapter II provides a deep insight into

syntactic features of English idioms of fear and the comparison between the two

languages, English and Vietnamese Chapter III has the similar steps as the second chapter

It is concerned with semantic features of English idioms describing fear and its

comparison with Vietnamese ones

Conclusion: which includes Recapitulation, Concluding Remarks, and Suggestions for

further researches

The study ends at Reference and Recapitulation

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

1.1 Idioms

1.1.1 Definitions of Idioms

Idioms are a broad and crucial field of any languages Usage of idioms is integral in human interaction Be aware of this, recently, much work on idioms has been carried out Hence, a great number of definitions of idioms is understandable Every linguist who specializes in different branches will have different way to understand and describe idioms

Jackson & Amvela and Palmer share the similar viewpoint on idiom definition

According to Jackson & Amvela (2000, p.66), “an idiom may be defined as a phrase the meaning of which cannot be predicted from the individual meanings of the morphemes it comprises” Palmer (1990) states that an idiom is an expression whose meaning cannot be

inferred from the meanings of its parts It can be seen that there are two visible points in their statements First, an idiom is a phrase; second, its meaning is not simply the meanings

of constituents making up the phrase Having the same point of view is Seidle and Mordie

(1978, p.8) who consider “an idiom is a number of words which, taken together, mean something different from the individual words of the idiom when they stand alone‖ Collins

has a different way to define idioms but shares the similar idea To take the definition by Collins (1995) to consider, an idiom is a special kind of phrase It is a group of words which have a different meaning when used together from the one it would have if the meaning of each word were taken individually […] idioms are typical metaphorical: they are effectively metaphors which have become „fixed‟ or „fossilized‟ In his definition, there are two noticeable terms, “typical metaphorical” and “fossilized” used to describe idioms

„Metaphorical‟ could be referred to figurative and non-literal characteristics of idioms In the meanwhile, „fossilized‟ implies unchangeable property of idioms It can be seen from the definitions mentioned above, the linguists have defined idioms just in terms of their semantics and syntax

In fact, idioms are man‟s creation and originated from human communication, thus usage of idioms is integral in human interaction Idioms have a deep interrelation with the human beings‟ thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and attitude, which means the speaker‟s culture Therefore, it would be a shortcoming in the attempt to define idioms without regarding their cultural aspect As for her viewpoint on idioms, Fernando (1997, pp.1-30) describes

idioms as “conventionalized multiword expressions […] individual units whose

components cannot be varied or varied only within definable limits […] Nor are the words

of an idiom usually recombinable” At the same time, in her book, she lists three features

which are commonly brought up with idioms to make it clearer, they are compositeness, institutionalization and semantic opacity Compositeness means that idioms are multiword expressions, consisting of more than one word According to Fernando, the shortest length

is a two-word compound structure and the maximum limit is a complex clause with no more than two subordinate clauses In terms of institutionalization, idioms are the product

of socially interaction expressions which have conventionalized, therefore, idioms are conventionalized expressions Semantic opacity could be understood as figurativeness and non-literalness of idioms In accordance with Fernando, an idiom is made up from at least two words and its meaning is not inferred from the meaning of each constituent or of both

1.1.2 Distinctive features of English idioms

Analysis of the idioms in terms of definition simultaneously demonstrates some features of idioms Idioms should be treated as a special kind of every language They separate themselves from regular rules compared with other sorts of a language In other words, only in idioms the unacceptability in both meaning and form of a language could

exist If a sentence she puts her money where her mouth is immediately indicates the meaning via its words, it could be changed into passive voice her money is put where her mouth is However, strangely enough, following the same form of every form that could be

changed into passive voice Agent – Action – Recipient, the form mentioned above must

not be employed in passive voice, otherwise, it looks odd Because, in fact put one‘s money where one‘s mouth is is an idiom, it is therefore necessary to be known as a fixed unit

which does not permit of any rearrangement of its elements Put another aspect of idioms into consideration, that is semantic one, there will be one more aspects involved in

Whether the sentence he loses his shirt should be treated as having a meaning directly through words or an idiom denoting losing a great deal of money, it will depend on the

context it is embedded with That means idioms deal with pragmatics Exploration of features of idioms provides unique and interesting their peculiarities

1.1.2.1 Syntactic features of English idioms

Johnson-Laird (1993, p.iii) states that “if natural language had been designed by a logician, idioms would not exist” Idioms hold distinctive features that cannot be seen in

other kinds in a language Having the same idea, Fravel (1992) also states that idioms are anomalies of language

Idioms exist in various forms, containing different number of words According to

Fernando (1997), English idioms fluctuate between „two-word compound structure‟ and „a complex clause with no more than two subordinate clauses‟ On ice (set aside for future use), fork over (hand over), or wet blanket (dull or boring person who spoils the happiness

of others) are some examples of the smallest structure of idioms Or if the shoe fits, wear it (admit the truth), people who live in glass houses shouldn‘t throw stones (one should not

criticize when one is equally at fault) are illustration for the maximum limit of idioms

In fact, there are idioms that have only one word “Lemon” (denoting something defective) is an idiom with only one word Or “fishy” is in the same case

Seidl and Mordie (1978) discover syntactic properties of idioms when syntactic features and semantic features are put into correlation According to them, an idiom can

have a regularly, irregularly or even wrongly grammatical structure Idiom spill the beans (reveal a secret) is a regular structure with the form Verb_ Direct Object, fill somebody‘s boots/shoes (do somebody‟s job in a satisfactory way when they are not there), give me five

(hit the inside of somebody‟s hand with the inside of your hand as a greeting or to

celebrate a victory) are in the case, or as free as (the) air/ as a bird (completely free)

possesses the normal form, the comparative form However, consider sell him short, it is easy to see that the form of the idiom sell somebody short (underestimate somebody) is

grammatically incorrect The last element short must be an adverb to modify sell Conversely, adjective short which is used to describe height of a person or to measure length or distance is applied to do the job instead Do something on the off chance (to do

something even though you think that there is only a small possibility of it being

successful), fight shy of something/ of doing something (avoid something or doing

something, not want to do) are the instances of the extraordinary structure

Some idioms that may have regular forms but the meaning is ambiguous The

idiom dressed to kill (wear one‟s finest clothing) takes the regular form but has obscure

meaning It could make sense that someone prepares for an action of killing someone by wearing clothes if it is not recognized as an idiom There are some same instances such as

different strokes for different folks (everyone has different interests and tastes), eating someone (bothering or worrying someone), bite the bullet (endure in a difficult situation) ,

mind one‘s P‘s and Q‘s (take care in speech and action), have the world by the tail (be successful and happy), or call the shots/ the tune (be in control)

There are idioms whose both meaning and form are abnormal The idiom on somebody’s own head be it (somebody is alone for responsible for the results of their

action or decision) causes difficulties in explaining the form and guessing the meaning as

well The same cases are for be in at the finish (be present when something ends), more fool you/ them… (you/ them… were very foolish to do something), cut one‘s eye teeth (to

get wiser, more mature and more experienced) and so on

Another particularity that makes idioms special is their uniqueness and fixation in their grammatical structure First, their components cannot be varied, which means that

idioms do not accept any replacement or substitution Little Mary never allows to change into “big Mary”, “little John” or “big John” just because “little Mary” is an idiom denoting

the stomach Most idioms are in the case such as lion of the day (the person who attracts much attention), bite the dust (go down in defeat), jump the gun (to be hasty)

Second, rearrangement of any constituents is unacceptable in idioms For example,

shoot the breeze, the native speaker of English would find it funny and quite odd if the

idiom is caught into passive voice whenever the form “Subject (agent) – Verb (action) –

Object (recipient)” appears as in “the breeze can be shot” Some more instances are paint the town red (carouse and have a good time) into “the town (– be) paint red, make a splash (be successful and attract attention) into “a splash (– be) made”, feed someone a line

(deceive someone) into “someone (– be) fed” and so on It is also impossible to change the position of idioms‟ components, though grammatically it is correct, such as the idiom

shake up or ship out Shape up or ship out (behave properly or leave!) must not get changed by moving the second phrase to the front of the second phrase as “ship out or shape up‖ Or if the shoe fits, wear it (admit the truth) should not be wear it if the shoe fits,

or leave someone high and dry (abandon someone) cannot be leave someone dry and high

Third, idioms resist any addition and any deletion of their elements Look at the idiom

smell a rat (feel that something is wrong) One could delete and add some elements to

emphasize the event such as “smell a million of rats” This is not wrong in grammatical

aspect but idiomatically, it is not right The reason is that only the combination of the three

components “smell”, “a”, and “rat” could create the meaning feel that something is wrong

Thus, addition of any other words to idioms‟ fixed expression is completely unacceptable

Similarly, shake a leg (hurry) could not be “shake both legs” in order to make sense “more hurry”, come one day after the fair (be late, lose the chance) must avoid either “come after the fair” or “come one minute after the fair”, or can‘t put two words together (have not

capacity of doing something) is impossible to become “can‟t put words together”

Most of English idioms follow the strict rules mentioned above, though there are some exceptions As a matter of course, only a small number of idioms could permit some limited changes in the parts that are not fixed and not key ones According to Fernando (1997), an idiom may be varied in terms of number and tense (inflectional changes) or the replacement of one structure word like an article by another or by zero Consider the

example for the idiom hold a gun to somebody’s head (force somebody to do something

that they do not want to do by making threats)

He had to sack a hundred workers last week He didn‘t want to, but the bank was holding a gun to his head

(Oxford Idioms Dictionary, 2006)

The past continuous is used for the original idiom hold a gun to somebody’s head in

regard with grammatical rule, and “was” in the agreement of number with “the bank” – the

third and singular

The similar exception happens to the following instances, such as drink to somebody‘s health (drink to congratulate someone) could be:

At the party, they drank to the health of the chief guest

(Bùi Phụng, Thành Ngữ Anh - Việt)

The article “the” and the preposition “of” have been applied to the sentence, instead of

remaining the possessive adjective

Or in the eyes of somebody (in somebody‟s point of view) could be in other way to

express:

In your teacher’s eyes, you are intelligent

(Bùi Phụng, Thành Ngữ Anh - Việt)

Although substitution hardly ever appears in English idioms, in fact in some cases

it happens based on the similarity in both part of speech and meaning, which will be illustrated by the examples below

It‘s not the reason to make the feathers fly, dear!

(Phạm Văn Bình, Tục Ngữ Nước Anh & Thành Ngữ Tiếng Anh Giàu Hình Ảnh)

“Feather” in the idiom make the feathers fly (quarrel, scuffle) could be replaced by “fur”

to become make the fur fly without changing its original meaning “Feathers” and “fur”

share the same part of speech – noun as direct object, and the similar semantic meaning,

hence, they can interchange each other Move heaven and earth and move mountains both denote „do everything you can in order to help somebody, achieve something‟; “get” or

“pour” could replace “put” in put a quart into a pint pot (try to do something impossible, especially to try to put something into a space which is too small for it); or “quaking” replacing “shaking” and “boots” substituting for “shoes” in quaking in your boots (be

very worried or frightened)

According to Cacciari and Tabossi (1993: xiii) “the difficulties in characterizing idioms is one of the reasons why idioms have attained fairly little attention even though their relevance is unquestionable‖ Besides such anomalous features that retain non-native

speakers of English from acquiring this language, English idioms is normally recognized to take grammatically common forms

Cowie, Mackin and McCaig (1975) point out that English idioms can be classified under two general headings which are phrase idioms and clause idioms Within these major groupings are several dominant sub-categories

English idioms could be in the following clause patterns:

 Verb – Adverbial, such as whistle in the dark, prey on sb‘s mind

 Verb – Subject Complement, such as turn sour, sound asleep

 Verb – Direct Object, such as bend the truth, bury the hatchet

 Verb – Direct Object - Adverbial, such as play it by ear, string someone along

 Verb – Direct Object – Object Complement, such as leave someone high and dry, paint the town red

 Verb – Indirect Object – Direct Object, such as give someone the slip, feed someone a line

 Subject – Verb, such as sb‘s knees are knocking

English idioms could be:

 Noun phrase, such as somebody‘s blue-eyed boy, a big girl‘s blouse

 Adjective phrase, such as black and blue, a bit thick/ strong

 Prepositional phrase, such as on the blink, in black and white

 Adverbial phrase, such as out of the blue, as regular as clockwork

 Verb phrase, such as scare the pants off sb, get the shivers

In addition to the common patterns of English idioms, there is occasional appearance of a great number of sentence idioms, for example:

They‘re all yours (passing the responsibility for somebody or the use of something

to another person)

You have to laugh (you think there is funny side to a situation)

When hell freezes over (it will never happen)

1.1.2.2 Semantic features of English idioms

According to Johnson-Laird (1993, p.vii), ―idioms are illogical and frustrating

features of discourse since their meanings do not depend on the meanings of their parts and the syntactic relations of those parts‖ English idioms are not only extraordinary in

terms of their syntax as analyzed but their semantics also

With regard to the lexical aspect, English idioms are considered as lexemes since

they satisfy the criteria required for being stored in the lexicon Lexeme is defined as “a word or several words that have a meaning that is not expressed by any of its separate parts” (Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 7th edition) In fact, idioms cause the confusion on the case whether or not they should have been put into lexical system due to their abnormal peculiarities in terms of syntax and semantics Unwillingly, they are counted for but considered to be the odd exception as stated by DiSciullo and Williams (1987), there is nothing more to say about them [idioms] than that (1) they are syntactic objects and (2)they are listed because of their failure to have a predictable property (usually their meaning) The acceptance could be possibly explained as follows the criteria for being part of the lexicon is listedness, and objects that are listed have been dubbed listemes by the authors In order for an object to be listed in the lexicon, it must have a meaning which cannot be computed compositionally, thus its meaning must be

“memorized” Based on the norms analyzed by both the authors for a word or a phrase to

turn into a lexeme, an idiom is completely to meet the requirements of being a part of the lexicon Take the time to consider the example given to illustrate their point:

“Knowledge of language involves in some way a knowledge of particular

linguistic objects – for example, the word transmission and the knowledge that it (1) has a certain morphological form and (2) refers to a part of a car; that take to task has a certain syntactic form and means “rebuke” To the extent that an object

does not have the form or interpretation specified by the recursive definitions of the objects of the language, that object and its properties must be “memorized.” Our overall point is that listedness is no more intrinsically characteristic of words than it is of phrases Some words and some phrases are listed, but infinitely many

of each are not”

(DiSciullo and William, On the Definition of Word)

Jackendoff (1997) as well as Van Gestel (1995) are in favor of the assessment of

idioms as listemes As one states that an idiom is a lexical item in its right because of its

expression of completely semantic idea, and must learned, stored and recycle as a single chunk

The second notice of English idioms is their semantic opacity or in their figurative sense by another term So far, it has been assumed that English idiom is formed by separate components However, the overall meaning of this fixed expression is not contributed by its components‟ meanings but conventionalized This is called non-compositionality For

example, the meaning be frightened by cannot be decoded by splitting the idiom take fright at into “take”, “fright” and “at” and referring the meanings from these split words flog a dead horse cannot be deciphered into “to waste the effort by trying to do something

that is no longer possible” by separating the idiom into “flog”, “a”, “dead”, “horse” and

then, jointing the meanings of these words

According to Gill Philip (2007), the ease with which an idiom can be interpreted is based on its level of semantic transparency as well as truth conditions and other contextual cues As regards the level of semantic transparency, an idiom varies from opacity to transparence An idiom is transparent if the expression is straightforwardly connected to its

meaning, without much semantic re-elaboration, for example mind/ watch your language!

can easily bring out the meaning “be careful about what you say in order not to upset or offend someone” at first sight At the contrary level to transparence is opacity when there

is arbitrariness between the idiom‟s expression and its meaning, for example, “call the shots” has nothing to do with “be in control” since the relationship between them is

unmotivated and the product of conventionalization In the view of Gill Philip, it is not easy to decide whether the idiom is transparent or not, as “it is affected by the individual‟s real-world knowledge, awareness of cultural norms, and general familiarity with the phrase”

Sharing the same points of view with Gill Philip in Idioms, but Fernando makes it

more concrete by classifying idioms and bringing out necessary criteria accompanied with

According to Fernando, in her book Idioms and Idiomaticity (1996), the degree of

literalness leads to the classification of idioms into pure idioms, semi-idioms and literal idioms

 Pure idioms are non-literal and conventionalized, therefore invariant, which means that the meaning is completely figurative The only way to deduce the meaning of

a pure idiom is to learn and memorize

Consider:

Dog-eat-dog (a situation in business, politics, etc where there is a lot of

competition and people are willing to harm each other in order to

succeed)

Get down to the nitty-gritty (start discussing the basic, especially the practical

aspects of a matter or decision)

 Semi-idioms have at least one literal constituent sense and at least one non-literal

constituent sense Thus invariance or permission of restricted variance in the

structure occurs in this kind of idioms There will be a part of the idiom whose

meaning can be referred

Consider:

A necessary evil (a thing that is unpleasant or even harmful, but which must be

accepted because it brings some benefit)

“necessary” is the part that have the literal meaning “must be”

A new man (a man who shares the work in the home that is traditionally done by

women, such as cleaning, cooking and taking care of the children)

 Literal idioms have non-literal element in their meaning, are hence less complicated

than pure idioms and semi-idioms Which means that the meaning will

immediately be deduced from the meanings of every word Invariance and

restriction on variance are found in literal idioms

Consider:

Take your chances (make as much use as you can or your opportunities)

In every nook and cranny (everywhere; all part of a place)

Most English idioms are based on conceptual metaphor or metonymy, which is

another salient feature of idioms and known as metaphoricity This feature explains for the

case why the idiom is difficult to be controlled and mastered The idiom cock-and-bull

story is based on metaphor, denoting a story that is unlikely to be true but is used as an

explanation or excuse Sense of “a/ per head” is based on the metonymy, denoting “for

each person”

1.1.2.3 Cultural features of English idioms

Levorato (1993, p.126) assumes that the reason why idioms are so intriguing is that

they engage imagination, can transform abstract meanings into more concrete ones and

enrich the meaning of simple concepts Idiomatic expressions are not a restricted part of

the language of popular culture but they exist in every area of human communication That

is easy to make sense when idioms are the product of human interaction in communication

The differences in geography, environment, means of production, national character, and

national psychology, in other words, the culture bring out the variety of languages in

general and distinctions of the idiom in particular The distinctions of culture explain for figurativeness of idioms Without some foundational knowledge, information, or experience and sharing common cultural references of conversational parties, the communication must be a failure as the native speaker applies a great number of idioms in his discourse, which has been so deeply integrated into the speaker's culture

For example the idiom according to Hoyle, it never causes any difficulties for the

native speakers because they share the same culture, therefore knows who Hoyle is and immediately decode the meaning A non-native speaker of English is in completely contrary situation if he encounters it for the first time This idiom is concerned with a fact

on an English astronomer named Fred Hoyleand his book Short Treatise on the Game of Whist The rules and the hints to win the game that were given in the book were so popular and used for long time that the idiom according to Hoyle was formed but the meaning is

beyond the expression itself, denoting “in accord with the highest authority; in accord with

a strict set of rules” “Achilles‘ heel”, “feather in one‘s cap”, “fishing for information” and

so on are the products of the British culture

Language is embedded with culture, hence the unchangeablity of idioms through the passage of time is straightforward Some idioms may gain or lose the favor with the popularity, they still exist as the way culture does and there are new idioms to occur by accident the same way new factors integrate into culture

Take some idioms into consideration to explore how the British culture gave birth

to English idioms or in other words, to find out the sources of and for English idioms

“Bigwig” means “an important person” This idiom originates from the fact on the

Bourbon kings of France, Louis XIII (1601 - 1643) who went prematurely bald and took to wearing a wig Thus, historical events are a huge source for English Idioms Other

examples are “according to Hoyle”, “armed to the teeth” or “go AWOL”

“Achilles’ heel” (a weak or a vulnerable feature) based on the legend of a hero in

the Greek mythology named Achilles The mythology (especially the Greek mythology)

can be counted as another source “Dressed to the nines‖, “Trojan Horse”, or “between Scylla and Charybdis” are of the type

“One fell swoop” (all at the same time; in a single action, especially a sudden or

violent one) comes from the play Macbeth by Shakespeare The quotation from literature is

also a popular way to create idioms William Shakespeare is supposed to be the writer who

adds several hundred to the English language and idioms as well “Salad days‖, ―absence makes the heart grow fonder‖,

“Break a leg” (a wish of good luck, do well) is sourced from a superstition The

same type could be found in “to have an itchy palm”, “knock on wood”, so on

“Blow off some steam” (to enjoy oneself by relaxing normal formalities) is based

on some principles in science. “Brand Spanking New” belongs to this case of idioms origin

“Chew the fat” (to talk about unimportant things) is originated from culture of

other countries, namely, from the Inuit “Armed to the teeth” is such kind of idioms

“Don't look a gift horse in the mouth” (do not be critical of a gift) is based on

some experience in choosing horses Therefore, practices are a source of idioms

“Face the music‖, ―bleed like a stuck pig‖, “blowing smoke‖, ―back handed compliment‖

are other instances

“For the love of Pete” (be frustrated with this situation) has a reference to the

catholic Saint Peter Therefore, religion is also a source from which several English idioms

come from Most of this kind of idioms is from Christianity “If Mohammed won't come to

the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed‖, “ninth circle of hell‖, ―practise

what you preach‖ belong to such type of idioms

“Pushing up daisies” (to be dead) is sourced from the custom of growing flowers

or grass over a grave Basing on folklore to create idioms is one of the sources “Know (on)

which side one‘s bread is buttered”, “baker‘s dozen” or “beer or skittles” are of this type

These examples show that many idioms are based on cultural knowledge that a

speech community shares

1.1.3 Distinction between idioms, proverbs and some other terms: sayings, phrasal

verbs, colloquialisms.

In terms of idioms‟ definition, there are some similarities between idioms and other

terms such as proverbs, phrasal verbs, colloquialisms, sayings, slangs and clichés Idioms

and proverbs gain most resemblance Phrasal verbs own some characteristics of idioms

with regard to syntactic and semantic inspects Clichés, slangs and colloquialisms are

necessary to be distinguished to avoid misunderstanding

It is better to make sense of saying before analyzing other terms because saying is

the general term that can partly sump up other ones Saying is “a well-known phrase or

statement that expresses something about life that most people believe is wise or true.”

(Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 7th edition) A saying also refers to “something

that is said, notable in one respect or another, to be ‗a pithy expression of wisdom or

truth‘” (Wikipedia.com) It must be said that sayings are conventionalized by the

popularity There are several kinds of sayings such as aphorism, adage, cliché, epigram,

epithet, gnome, aphorism, maxim, idiom, mantra, maxim, motto, platitude, proverb, quip,

saw, witticism Of the sayings, idioms and proverbs are popular

The idiom is a fixed expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from the meanings of its components and must be learnt as a whole, any occurrence to the fixed expressions will not be considered as idioms

A proverb is "a short well-known sentence that states a general truth about life and gives advice" (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 7th edition) The proverb is deduced from practical experience of humanity, in other words, common sense, therefore, it can be understood literally, that means the meaning could be obtained from the meanings of

individual words, such as like father like son, nobody‘s perfect, or practice makes perfect

Some properties are frequently found in proverbs Firstly, it is their simple rhyme and

elegant balance, consider: all‘s well that ends well and slow but sure wins the race” Secondly, proverbs are expressed in homely and concrete terms as in closed mouth catches

no flies Literal meaning, rhythm, balance, and homely expression are key points that make

proverbs popular and memorable Notably, proverbs can be products of other sayings A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim If a proverb

is distinguished by particularly good phrasing, it may be known as an aphorism

A phrasal verb is “the combination of a verb and an adverb or a preposition, or sometimes both, to give a new meaning‖ (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 7th

edition), it is used like a verb In respect of meaning, there is seemingly not much difference between a phrasal verb and an idiom, sometimes they are considered to be identical Both idioms and phrasal verbs share the common feature that is the non-compositionality, which means the overall meaning of the phrase is not the sum of its constituents‟ meanings However, idioms are not identical to phrasal verbs for their visual differences between them, structure and meaning as well In consideration of the syntactic structure, the first distinction is that the idiom does not follow any fixed structures Its structure is varied Some of which have the correctly grammatical one but some are wrong and illogical in terms of grammatical structure Meanwhile, the phrasal verb carries one stable structure That is the verb is combined with one or two particles (a preposition

and/or an adverb) For example come through, build up, or wear off Secondly, the phrasal

verb takes a small number of verbs and a small number of particles to build up its form such as

 Common verbs: go, take, turn, come, make, set

 Common particles: out, up, off, at, on, away

Whereas, the idiom has a broader source to make up its form It makes use of varied verbs, different kinds of nouns, diverse adjectives, combination of these parts of speech and so

on In terms of semantics, for examples “out of frying pan and into the fire‖, “caught between the devil and the deep blue sea‖, ―after a storm come's a calm‖ or ―all roads lead

to Rome‖ In terms of semantics, both phrasal verbs and idioms can be classified in the

similar way Idioms can be pure idioms, semi-idioms, or literal idioms Phrasal verbs can

be literal meaning, non-literal meaning and semi-literal meaning Making Headway – Phrasal Verbs and Idioms Advanced by Graham Workman shares classification of phrasal

verbs into three types

 Literal meaning: the meaning of the verb and the particle do not change

e.g run up the hill (the action of running in the direction of the top of the hill)

 Non-literal meaning: the addition of the particle(s) creates a multi-word verb that has

a completely different meaning from its components It has idiomatic meaning

e.g run up a large telephone bill ( the increase of the amount of money)

 Semi-literal meaning: the basic meaning of the verb remains the sane, but the particle adds an extra meaning

e.g fly on to Los Angeles (the action of continuing to fly to Los Angeles)

One more salient characteristic of idioms is their figurativeness due to the application of metaphoricity, which phrasal verbs cannot have Underlying the literal meaning of any idioms is figurative sense that requires one‟s thought, deduction,

imagination, background knowledge and so on For instance, behind the closed doors At

the beginning, without knowing it is an idiom, the phrase just gives the idea of the relation

of position (behind) of something with closed doors However, knowledge of metaphoricity enables one to realize the phrase is an idiom “Closed doors” is associated with privacy and secrecy Behind closed doors is associated with something that is secret

and that no one is allowed to know Basing on one‟s knowledge of metaphoricity the

meaning of the idiom “behind closed doors” could partly be deduced It denotes “in

private; without the public being allowed to attend” In the mean while, the meaning of phrasal verbs is fixed As for the non-native speaker, it needs to be looked up in the dictionary and learnt by heart In fact, the form of the phrasal verb could be seen in a great number of idioms In other words, the most common pattern of idioms is phrasal verbs

such as “to go down the drain”, “to get off my back” or “to hang on somebody‘s words”

which are in the form of phrasal verbs

Colloquialisms is “a linguistic expression used exclusively in familiar, informal conversation and thus not used in formal speech, writing or paralinguistics” (Wikipedia.com) Colloquialisms can be a words such as “y‘all” („you-all‘ is used especially in the southern US to mean you when talking to more than one person (Oxford

Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 7th

edition)), “gonna” („going to‟) or “wanna” („want to‟

or „want a‟); they can be phrases such as “ain‘t nothin‘” („ain‟t can be „am not / is not / are

not‟ or „has not / have not‟; „nothin‟‟ is „nothing‟); colloquialisms can be an entire

aphorism, for example “there‘s more than one way to skin a cat” (a problem generally has

more than one solution) One remarkable of colloquialisms is their certain geographical

area For example the colloquialism “red up one‘s room” (tell one to clean up his or her

room) is used by the people in Western Pennsylvania Whereas, idioms are considered as lexical items that means their usage throughout the country

1.2 Human Feelings

1.2.1 Concepts of Human Feelings

Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (7th

edition) proposes that feelings are “a person‘s emotions rather than their thoughts or ideas” Thus, finding out the definition of

human feelings means exploration of human emotions In fact, it is not easy to define emotion specifically since emotion is the synthesis of many aspects in which the changes

in body state is the biggest obstacle as one has his own personal state Encyclopedia online

views that “the emotions are generally understood as representing a synthesis of subjective experience, expressive behavior, and neurochemical activity” Izard (1977, p.4) has the similar view but makes it detailed by giving the criteria The author proposes that “a complete definition of emotion must take into account all three of these aspects or components: (a) the experience or conscious feeling of emotion, (b) the processes that occur in the brain and nervous system, and (c) the observable expressive patterns of emotion, particularly those on the face” Of the ideas of emotion, one that briefly indicates

that "the word emotion includes a broad repertoire of perceptions, expressions of feelings

and bodily changes." (Library.thinkquest.org) is easily acceptable

1.2.2 Classifications of Human Feelings

Human emotion is an abstract field, complex and cannot be made specific as it is concerned with human state; it is thus not easy to be defined That explains for the fact that the theorists of psychology have met a great deal of difficulty to have an exact

classification of human emotions into categories Each psychologist proposes a different classification of human emotions when he considers human emotions from different perspectives Parrot (2001) classifies emotions into primary emotion, secondary emotion and tertiary emotion Noticeably, the primary emotions are subdivided into six ones Ekman, Friesen, and Ellsworth (1982) base on face expressions that are similar across cultures in order to classify human emotions into six basic ones Plutchik (1980), emotions can be classified into eight basic human emotions which have their opposite emotion and grouped into four pairs of opposites James (1884) classifies emotions into four ones which are based on the physiological response to the event While, as for Watson (1936) proposes three fundamental emotions of humans

These classifications are shown in the table by Ortony and Turner (1990), which demonstrates the theorists and their classification of the basic human emotions

ANDREW ORTONY AND TERENCE J TURNER

ANDREW ORTONY AND TERENCE J TURNER

A Selection of Lists of "Basic" Emotions

Arnold(1960)

Anger, aversion, courage, dejection,

desire, despair, fear, hate, hope, love,

sadness Ekman, Friesen, & Ellsworth

(1982)

Anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness,

surprise Frijda (personal

communication, September 8,

1986)

Desire, happiness, interest, surprise,

wonder, sorrow

Gray (1982) Rage and terror, anxiety, joy

Izard (1971) Anger, contempt, disgust, distress, fear,

guilt, interest, joy, shame, surprise James (1884) Fear, grief, love, rage

McDougall (1926) Anger, disgust, elation, fear,

subjection, tender-emotion, wonder

Oatley and Johnson-Laird

(1987)

Anger, disgust, anxiety, happiness,

sadness Panksepp (1982) Expectancy, fear, rage, panic

Plutchik (1980) Acceptance, anger, anticipation,

disgust, joy, fear, sadness, surprise

Tomkins (1984) Anger, interest, contempt, disgust,

distress, fear, joy, shame, surprise

Weiner and Graham (1984) Happiness, sadness

Figure 1. A Selection of Lists of "Basic" Emotions

Dictionary, 7th edition) To put it simply, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

defines fear as “the feeling you get when you are afraid or worried that something bad is going to happen”.

Degree of fear varies from “mild caution to extreme phobia and paranoia and is

involved in a number of additional cognitive and emotional states including worry, anxiety, terror, fright, paranoia, horror, panic, persecution complex and dread” The definition by Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English gives the idea that the states such as worry and anxiety are considered as slight degrees of fear since both the states worry (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English) “the feeling of being anxious about something” and anxiety (Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 7th edition) “the state of feeling nervous

or worried that something bad is going to happen” are to some extent involved with the emotion fear Therefore, in the study the idioms that denote the emotion fear will slide from the light level worry and anxiety to ultimate state dread

Chapter 2: Syntactic features of English idioms denoting Fear in comparison with Vietnamese

counterparts

2.1 Structural features of English idioms denoting emotion Fear

2.1.1 English idioms denoting fear have clause patterns

According to Quirk and Greenbaum (1987) as regards elements such as V(erb) and O(bject) that are constituents of sentences and clauses within sentences, there are seven distinguishable clause types They are (1) Verb _ Adverbial (V-A); (2) Verb _ Complement (V-C); (3) Verb _ Direct Object (V-O); (4) Verb _ Direct Object _ Adverbial (V-O-A); (5) Verb _ Direct Object _ Object Complement (V-O-C); (6) Verb _ Indirect Object _ Direct Object (V-O-O); (7) Verb (S-V) Besides odd cases of grammatical structures, a great number of idioms that denote fear follow the basic clause patterns:

4 Verb – Direct Object – Adverbial Scare/frighten sb out of their wits

5 Verb – Direct Object – Object Complement Make sb‟s blood run cold

6 Verb – Indirect Object – Direct Object Give sb the creeps

Figure 2: Original Clause Pattern and Examples of Idioms of Fear

It can be seen from the table that English idioms that indicates fear exist in almost

all of the clause patterns Given the statistics are summed up from the main sources: Oxford Idioms Dictionary (2006), English – English – Vietnamese Dictionary (2004), Learn-english-today.com (2010), Figurative language cross-cultural and cross-linguistics

perspective (2005), in 103 English idioms denoting fear, clause patterns make up 80.6%

with 83 idioms while the rest accounts for 19.4% with 20 ones It is noted that the pattern

that allows synonyms such as shaking for quaking but denotes the same meaning will be

regarded as the same pattern

 Verb – Adverbial pattern (V-A)

Of the clause patterns, this kind of patterns ranks third with 18 idioms accounting for

21.7% of clause patterns and 17.5% of English idioms denoting fear The following examples of English idioms of fear that illustrate the pattern

Your eyes are wide open, your heart skips a beat and you jump out of your skin

(Worldofcalvinandhobbes.blogspot.com; Retrieved on 29 July 2010)

I was scared witless of going topless in my 50s but I'm doing it

(Findarticle.com; Retrieved on 29 July 2010)

So just shake, shake, shake like a lettuce leaf

Shake it till the slugs fall off (Darkness, Shake (Like A Lettuce Leaf))

I dread to think how many words I‘ve typed this year I‘d imagine there will be

many more next year! Hope the quality remains good-ish

(Randombits.gerardmcgarry.com; Retrieved on 29 July 2010)

The prepositional phrases on his mind, out of your skin, adverb phrase witless, like a lettuce leaf, and non-finite verb clause to think function as adverbial in the pattern

 Verb – Complement pattern (V-Cs)

The modern English grammar allows adverbials to function as complement in the pattern because of their necessary clause elements, without them, the clause is

ungrammatical For example into a stew in the idiom get into a stew plays the role of

complement even though it is a prepositional phrase that performs as an adverbial The percentage of the pattern of clause ones is 24.1 and 19.4 of the English idioms denoting

fear The pattern ranks second of the clause patterns with 20 idioms

Some other idioms that denote fear belongs to the pattern

(…) And I, go to pieces and I wanna hide

Go to pieces and I almost die

(Peter & Gordon, I Go to Pieces)

(…)Hern is at his wits end after recently accepting yet another orphaned rhino calf

onto his farm after its mother was poached (…)

(News24.com; Retrieved on 30 July 2010)

(…) When Calvin was lost on a trip to the zoo, she became sick with worry, and

was thrilled when his dad brought him back (…)

(Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes)

Complement for subject is realized in varied patterns, it can be noun phrase as pieces, adverbial complement as at his wits end or adjective phrase as sick with worry

 Verb - Direct Object pattern (V-Od)

With 13 idioms the pattern makes up 15.7% of the seven clause patterns and 12.6% of

the English idioms denoting fear and ranks fourth of the clause patterns As for the pattern,

phrasal verbs such as tear out must be considered as verbs Therefore, the clause tear

somebody out belongs to the Verb - Direct Object pattern The pattern is illustrated by the

following examples

(…) Lying in the straw, next to the bodies of her grandparents and her mother, she

had torn her hair out in tufts

(En.wikipedia.org; Retrieved on 30 July 2010)

2D is worried that he'll mess up and get burned, and begins to bite his nails

(Gorillaz, Phase One: Celebrity Take Down)

He takes time out to tell Mike Smith how he‘s sweated blood and tears over the part

(Walesonline.co.uk; Retrieved on 30 July 2010)

 Verb - Direct Object – Adverbial pattern (V-Od-A)

With 22 idioms, the pattern ranks first of the clause patterns and English idioms denoting the emotion with 26.5% and 21.3% respectively Adverbial could be realized in

the form of prepositional phrases such as out of his pants, adverbs such as witless and adverbial phrases, namely down her spine Some of the phrases are demonstrated in the

following examples

Wendy, hoping to scare Peter out of his pants, decides to load the deck and enlists

Michael‘s help in creating a ghostly apparition

(En.wikipedia.org; Retrieved on 30 July 2010)

Angel scares the daylights out of the Stooges, and leads them on several chases

throughout the home

(En.wikipedia.org; Retrieved on 30 July 2010) She's horrified when Nick tells her Dotty is for sale He shows no emotion and his

evil grin sends shivers down her spine

(Thesun.co.uk; Retrieved on 30 July 2010)

 Verb - Direct Object - Object Complement pattern (V-Od-Co)

Only 6 idioms having the Verb - Direct Object - Object Complement pattern which ranks the fifth of the clause patterns with 7.2% of clause patterns and 5.8% of English

idioms denoting fear Infinitive verbs such as crawl, freeze, noun phrases such as a (merry) dance, or adjective phrases such as worried are the forms of object complement