CHAPTER THREE: IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING THE WORD „EYE‟ IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ……… 3.1 Idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English ……….... • Explore the similari
Trang 1FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
M.A MINOR THESIS
FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTIC CODE: 60 22 15
HA NOI - 2010
Trang 2FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
M.A MINOR THESIS
FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTIC CODE: 60 22 15
SUPERVISOR: ĐỖ TUẤN MINH , Ph.D
HA NOI - 2010
Trang 3Table of contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ………
ABSTRACT ………
TABLE OF CONTENT ………
INTRODUCTION ………
1 Rationale ………
2 Aims of the study ………
3 Scopes of the study ………
4 Methods of the study ………
5 Design of the study ………
DEVELOPMENT ………
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ………
1.1 Definition of Idioms ………
1.2 Some Features of Idioms ………
1.3 Types of idioms ………
1.4 The relationship between idioms and culture ………
1.5 The differences between idioms and proverbs ………
CHAPTER TWO: “EYE” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ………
2.1 Literal and figurative meanings of the word “eye” in English and Vietnamese … 2.2 Idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ ………
CHAPTER THREE: IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING THE WORD „EYE‟ IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ………
3.1 Idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English ………
3.1.1 Expressing good points ………
3.1.1.1 Positive looks ………
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Trang 43.1.1.2 Describing people and their abilities ………
3.1.1.3 Describing appearances ………
3.1.2 Expressing bad points ………
3.1.2.1 Negative looks ………
3.1.2.2 Describing people and their negative actions ………
3.1.3 Expressing neutral points ………
3.1.3.1 Neutral looks ………
3.1.3.2 Describing people ………
3.1.3.2 Describing views and appearance ………
3.2 Idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in Vietnamese ………
3.2.1 Expressing good points ………
3.2.1.1 Positive looks ………
3.2.1.2 Describing people and their abilities ………
3.2.1.3 Describing appearance ………
3.2.2 Expressing bad points ………
3.2.2.1 Negative looks ………
3.2.2.2 Describing people and their negative actions ………
3.2.2.3 Describing appearance ………
3.2.3 Expressing neutral points ………
3.3 A comparative analysis between idiomatic expressions containing the word “eye” in English and Vietnamese equivalents ………
CHAPTER FOUR: IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATION AND LANGUAGE TEACHING
4.1 Implications for English language teaching to Vietnamese learners ………
4.2 Implications for English – Vietnamese translation and vice versa ………
CONCLUSION ………
REFERENCES ………
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Trang 5INTRODUCTION
1 Rationale
In Vietnam, nowadays, English has been widely used You can see it in billboards, ads, signs, banks, offices,… It is also one of the important subjects in many schools, colleges and universities And most of all, it is used in communication with foreigners coming to Vietnam more and more, many of whom speak English Learning English therefore is necessary
In learning English today, besides the emphasis on four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening, vocabulary also plays an important role More and more translators and communicators admit that to master English, vocabulary should be paid much attention to Words, however, do not just come individually, they also come in expressions - in groups
Idioms are among the most common of these expressions There are thousands of them in
English:
I could eat a horse
His eyes are bigger than his stomach
It's not up to scratch
I got there in the nick of time
Idioms are considered an interesting area of English, which make English more attractive and colourful And nobody can deny that idioms are really important in communication
Firstly, idioms are important because they are very common It is impossible to speak, read, or listen to English without meeting idiomatic language This is not something you can leave until you reach an advanced level
Secondly, language is literal and metaphorical In communication, however, the metaphorical
use of a word is more common today than its literal use For example, we know that catch a ball is an example of the literal use of catch, nevertheless, catch is more used in a metaphorical way: you can catch the bus; you can catch my attention; you can also catch the sun; or you can
Trang 6catch what I said If we just learn the literal meaning of the word catch, we cannot use it in a
variety of communicative situations
Finally, idioms are important because it is fun to learn and to use Because there is so much to learn, anything which helps you to remember things is important and if the language you are learning is more colorful and interesting, there is more chance that you will remember it You will also sound more natural if your English contains more idioms.( Wright 1999:9)
Being interested in idioms, I choose idioms as my thesis topic Due to the limited time and knowledge, I have conducted the study on a very small part of the huge idiomatic treasure, “A comparative study of idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English and Vietnamese equivalents”
There are two research questions for the study:
1/ How should learners use English idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘eye’ effectively?
2/ Are there any Vietnamese equivalents for them?
Hopefully, the study may help learners, teachers, and translators of English avoid difficulties
in realizing and translating English idioms into Vietnamese and vice versa
2 Aims of the study
The study aims to:
• Study idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English and compare with those in Vietnamese
• Explore the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟
• Provide some suggestions for the teaching/ learning and translation of idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English
Trang 73 Scope of the study
• In this study, idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in both English and Vietnamese are extensively discussed; cultural features are analyzed when English idioms are compared with Vietnamese ones
• The study focuses only on the English idiomatic expressions containing the
word „eye‟ and a comparison between them and Vietnamese ones
• The English and Vietnamese idioms in this study are collected from dictionaries and the Internet, therefore this research may not cover all idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟
4 Methods of the study
Here are two languages namely English and Vietnamese are compared and contrasted In the contrastive analysis, English is treated as the instrumental language and Vietnamese is the target language Hence, idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English collected will be mentioned and analyzed first and then they will be compared and contrasted with Vietnamese to find the similarities and differences between the two languages The steps of the study are order as follows:
• Collect English and Vietnamese idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ from several dictionaries and from the Internet, and then sort them out
• Analyze the cultural features of idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in both English and Vietnamese
• Compare and find the differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟
5 Design of the study
The study consists of three parts The first part „INTRODUCTION‟ provides the rationale, aims, scopes, method and design of the study
Part II is DEVELOPMENT, the body of the thesis, including three chapters
Trang 8Chapter 1 is concerned with the theoretical background for the study It consists of definitions
of idioms, some features and some types of idioms, the relationship between idioms and culture, and the differences between idioms and proverbs
Chapter 2 is designed to present the literal and figurative meanings of the word „eye‟ in English and Vietnamese and give the general introduction about idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟
Chapter 3 which is the main focus of the thesis gives us a comparative analysis of idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English and Vietnamese equivalents to find out the differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟
Chapter 4 provides some suggested ideas that will be helpful to teachers of language in their language teaching job as well as translators in the process of translating things dealing with this subject
The CONCLUSION summaries the issues discussed in the thesis
Trang 9idioms.(Fromkin & Rodman 1998:189)
According to McCarthy (2002: 6), idioms are expressions which have a meaning that is not
obvious from the individual words For example, the idiom drive somebody round the
bend means make somebody angry or frustrated, but we cannot know this just by looking at
the words The best way to understand an idiom is to see it in context If someone says:
„This tin opener's driving me round the bend!‟ I think I'll throw it away and get a new one
next time I'm in town Then the context and common sense tells us that drive round the bend means something different from driving a car round a curve in the road The context
tells us the tin opener is not working properly and that it's having an effect on the person using it
Another definition is taken from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idioms):
“An idiom is a phrase whose meaning cannot be determined by the literal definition of the
phrase itself, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through common
Trang 10use.” In linguistics, idioms are widely assumed to be figures of speech that contradict the principle of compositionality; however, this has shown to be a subject of debate
John Saeed (2003: 60) defines an idiom as words collocated together happen to become fossilized, becoming fixed over time.This collocation words commonly used in a group - changes the definition of each of the words that exist As an expression, the word-group becomes a team, so to speak That is, the collocated words develop a specialized meaning as a whole and an idiom is born An idiom is a word or phrase that means something different to what the words imply if interpreted literally When a person uses an idiom, the listener might take the actual meaning wrong if he or she has not heard this figure of speech before
Idioms don't usually cross language boundaries In some cases, when an idiom is translated into another language, the meaning of the idiom is changed or does not make any sense as it once did in another language Idioms are probably the hardest thing for a person to learn in the process of learning a new language This is because most people grow up using idioms as if their true meanings actually make sense
1.2 Some Features of Idioms
Idioms, grammatically as well as semantically, have special features They must be entered into the lexicon or mental dictionary as single items with their meanings specified, and speakers must learn the special restrictions on their use in sentences Many idioms may have originated as metaphorical expressions that established themselves in the language and became frozen in their form and meaning
Femado, C (1996: 3) gives three most frequently mentioned features of idioms:
1 Compositeness: idioms are commonly accepted as a type of multiword expression (red
herring, make up, smell a rat, the coast is clear, etc.) accept even single words as idioms
2 Institutionalization: idioms are conventionalized expressions, conventionalization being
the end result of initially ad hoc, and in this sense novel, expressions
Trang 113 Semantic opacity: the meaning of an idiom is not the sum of its constituents In other
words, an idiom is often non-literal
The widespread occurrence of these three features in common word combinations has resulted
in many types of multiword expressions identified by some other term such as slang, proverbs, allusions, similes, dead metaphors, social formulae, and collocations also being identified as idioms
According to Wright, J (1999), an idiom has the following features:
1 It is fixed and is recognised by native speakers You cannot make up your own!
2 It uses language in a non-literal - metaphorical way
Idioms are similar in structure to ordinary phrases except that they tend to be frozen in form and do not readily enter into other combinations or allow the word order to change Thus
(a) She put her foot in her mouth
has the same structure as
(b) She put her bracelet in her drawer
but
The drawer in which she put her bracelet was hers Her bracelet was put in her drawer
are sentences related to sentence (b)
The mouth in which she put her foot was hers Her foot was put in her mouth
do not have the idiomatic sense of sentence (a)
On the other hand, the words of some idioms can be moved without affecting the idiomatic sense:
The FBI kept tabs on radicals
Tabs were kept on radicals by the FBI
Radicals were kept tabs on by the FBI
Idioms can break the rules on combining semantic properties The object of eat must usually
be something with the semantic property "edible," but in
He ate his hat
Trang 12Eat your heart out
this restriction is violated
Idioms often lead to humor:
What did the doctor tell the vegetarian about his surgically implanted heart valve from a pig?
That it was okay as long as he didn't "eat his heart out." (Fromkin, V & Rodman, R 1998:190)
1.3 Types of idioms
In terms of structure, McCarthy (2002: 6) indicates types of idioms by showing this table:
prepositional phrase in the blink of an eye in an extremely short time
compound a bone of contention something which people argue
and disagree over simile /'simili/ (as + adjective
+ as, or like + noun)
as dry as a bone very dry indeed
binomial (word + and + word) rough and ready crude and lacking sophistication
trinomial (word + word + and
+ word)
cool, calm and collected relaxed, in control, not nervous
whole clause or sentence to cut a long story short to tell the main points, but not all
the fine details
In terms of semantics, Fernado, C (1996: 36) divides idioms into three types: pure idioms, semi-idioms, and literal idioms
Trang 13A pure idiom is known as 'a type of conventionalized, non-literal multiword expression' Spill the beans, for example, has nothing to do with beans In contrast to its literal counterpart
meaning 'letting fall leguminous seeds', a non-literal meaning is imposed on the idiom as a whole: 'commit an indiscretion'
A semi-idiom has one or more literal constituents and at least one with a non-literal subsense, usually special to that co-occurrence relation and no other: drop has the meaning 'overuse'
only when it co-occurs with names Other examples are catch one's breath 'check', foot the bill
'pay', etc Some of these semi-idioms, like their kin, restricted collocations with specialized
subsenses, permit lexical variation, for example, blue 'obscene' film/joke/gag/story/comedian Literal idioms (on foot, tall, dark and handsome, waste not, want not, on the contrary, a (very) happy birthday, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, etc.) meet the salient criterion for
idioms: invariance or restricted variation They are, however, less semantically complex then pure and semi-idioms
1.4 The relationship between idioms and culture
As we all know, language is closely related to culture and can be said as a part of culture From a dynamic view, language and culture interact with each other and shape each other Language is the carrier of culture, which in turn is the content of language We can dig out cultural features from language and explain language phenomena with culture.
Idioms as a special form of language exist in both of them and carry a large amount of cultural information such as history, geography, religion, custom, nationality psychology, thought pattern and so on, and therefore are closely related to culture They are the heritage of history and product of cultural evolvement Consequently, we can know much about culture through studying idioms and in turn get better understanding of idioms by learning the cultural background behind them
Getting to the roots of idioms, we can find that they originated from historic events, customs, agriculture, daily life, animal habitual behaviors, etc, which involved every aspect of life That
Trang 14is why idioms are hard to understand The essential point of studying idioms well is to realize them through the background of the traditional culture, thought pattern, geography, religion, and custom
One nation's custom is formed through a long history and firmly rooted in people's mind It is closely related to national psychology and acts as one important source of idioms In different countries and nations customs drastically differ in various aspects Due to that, a lot of idioms turn out with varied dress.
Take food habit for example, cake has been a common food in English for a long history, so it
is understandable that they use "a piece of cake" denoting an easy-done task However, in China, cake cannot be seen until the last one hundred years So it is impossible for the same idiom to appear in Chinese On the other hand, dishes are common in China Therefore a similar idiom "a piece of cake” turned out in Chinese to express the same meaning
Another example is related to the habitual way of working in the field Vietnamese people were habituated to use the bull to plough the field before modernized agriculture was developed, while English did it with a horse Consequently, English say "eat like a horse" to describe someone who eats a lot while Vietnamese do "eat like a buffalo" in alternation.
Idiom is a part of culture You may not understand the idioms because you don‟t understand the culture behind it Thus, the study of the relationship between the idiom and culture is significant and promising (http://www.lwck.cn/Article/yingyu/yuyan/200814/2324.Html)
1.5 The differences between idioms and proverbs
It is not easy to distinguish idioms and proverbs since they have some in common and until now there have been no clear-cut borders between them However, here we venture to give some following differences between them
Trang 15
According to the Free Dictionary (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Proverbs), a proverb is a
short pithy saying in frequent and widespread use that expresses a basic truth or practical precept
Xa mặt cách lòng (Out of sight, out of mind) Walls have ears
Meanwhile, as we know above, an idiom is a phrase whose meaning cannot be determined by
the literal definition of the phrase itself, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through common use.( Wikipedia)
Eye for an eye Rán sành ra mỡ (= be very mean)
Despite of the very clear definitions, it is still confusing Consequently, basing on the opinion
of Nguyễn Đình Hùng (1999), Tuyển Tập Thành Ngữ Tục Ngữ Ca Dao Việt – Anh thông dụng,
we mention some of the following features:
A proverb is a complete sentence with a whole meaning making comments on social
relationships, imparting experience of life, giving lessons in morality or criticizing
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
An idiom is a fixed phrase but not a complete sentence, so it is considered as a word
and that‟s why you can put it in a sentence
It all happened in the blink of an eye
Both proverbs and idioms reflect people‟s knowledge about things and natural
phenomena from the world But from these knowledge people generalize concepts in
idioms, meanwhile they interpret it into judgements in term of proverbs
Idiom Dã tràng xe cát (build st on sand) Proverb Dã tràng xe cát Biển Đông
Trang 16CHAPTER TWO
“EYE” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Words themselves always contain literal and figurative meanings Therefore to master the meanings of words, it is necessary to study their literal and figurative meanings Chapter 2 is designed to present the literal and figurative meanings of the word „eye‟ in English and Vietnamese This is the basis to explain the way English and Vietnamese people refer to the word „eye‟ similarly and differently through their own idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟designed in Chapter 3
2.1 Literal and figurative meanings of the word “eye” in English and Vietnamese
shows three meanings of „eye‟ The first meaning shows that „eye‟ is an organ of sight
She closed her eyes
He lost an eye in the war
From the second meaning, „eye‟ is used to denote the power of seeing; observation
She has sharp eyes (ie very good eyesight)
„Eye‟ in the third meaning is also described a thing like an eye
The eye of a needle (ie the hole for the thread)
According to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye), Eyes are organs that
detect light, and send electrical impulses along the optic
nerve to the visual and other areas of the brain
Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (1995:428)
Trang 17In the semantic evolution, a number of meanings have been derived from the primary one of
„eye‟ From the primary meaning that denotes an organ of sight of human body, „eye‟ is
used to refer to the corresponding organ of an animal or a certain part of an object which seems to have an ability of seeing things in the way that an eye does
The little monkey looked around and winked his eye
The events of the war took place under the eye of a television camera
Also, „eye‟ denotes different smaller parts of the eye such as the eyeball, the iris or the area
around the eye including the eyelids
She has brown eyes
On the basis of organ - function relation, eye denotes the power of estimating
The mechanic looked at the car engine with a practised eye
It can be said that „eye‟ in both English and Vietnamese possess some other meanings besides their primary ones The realization of „eye‟ as polysemantic words in the English and
Vietnamese vocabulary is seen by Nguyễn Thị Yến Thoa (2005), A Contrative Analysis of Metaphors Relating to Parts of Human Body in English And Vietnamese, as below:
Similarly
As our eyes are round and small in shape, in both English and Vietnamese, the word „eye‟ and
„mắt‟ refer to the rounded and small spot on a potato from which a new plant can grow
E.g English: Eye of the potato
Vietnamese: Mắt khoai tây
On the basis of the quality of quietness and peacefulness when we see into a person‟s eyes and the central position when we see around , in both English and Vietnamese, the word „eye‟ and
„mắt‟ both figuratively refer to the calm centre of the storm or cyclone
E.g English: Eye of the storm
Trang 18Vietnamese: M¾t b·o
Differently
In Vietnamese, the word „mắt‟ is used to refer to many small and rounded-shaped things on the peel of many kinds of fruits and things
E.g Vietnamese: Mắt na, Mắt dứa, Mắt võng, Mắt lưới, ………
In English, the word „eye‟ is not used in these cases However, it is figuratively used to refer
to the eye-shape spots on the tail of the peacock
E.g English: Eye of the peacock‟s tail
Moreover, the word „eye‟ is also used to denote the eye-shape piece of metal used together with a hook for fastening clothes
E.g English: Hook and eye of the dress
There is a very interesting thing when English people use the word „eye‟ metaphorically basing on its function When we open our eyes and see, the world around us is bright and clear Similarly, when the sun rises and opens on the day, the world is also bright So English
people calls the sun “the eye of the day” in a figurative meaning In addition, as our eyes
function as organs of sight used to see or to observe, English people also call the private spy,
who has function of observing others secretly to get information, the private eye However,
Vietnamese does not share these interesting features with English
Those are just some of typical differences in meaning between „eye‟ and „mắt‟ Within the scope limit of the thesis, we cannot list out all of their differences
2.2 Idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟
There is a very interesting thing that eyes are the basis of a large number of idioms And they
are widely used in daily communication and written texts
Trang 19I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw her She was so beautiful, I just couldn't keep my
eyes off her I tried to catch her eye to say hello
[couldn't believe my eyes = couldn‟t believe what I was seeing;
keep my eyes off = couldn‟t stop looking at her;
catch her eye = get her attention; make her look at me]
As a teacher myself, I know that teaching is not easy You always have to keep an eye on the students, but sometimes you just have to turn a blind eye if they behave badly If you want to
be a teacher, you have to go into the profession with your eyes open
[to keep an eye on = keep your attention on;
turn a blind eye = ignore behaviour which you know is wrong;
with your eyes open = aware of all the problems there could be]
In fact, we have found over a hundred idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English, and nearly seventy idiomatic expressions containing the word „mắt‟ in Vietnamese from dictionaries and the Internet
That is the reason why we have chosen “Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘eye’ as
the subject of my thesis
Trang 20CHAPTER THREE
Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘eye’
IN English and Vietnamese
First of all, we would like to repeat that the eyes are the basis of a large number of idioms Both English and Vietnamese people consider the eyes as an important organ of human body
They both agree that "The eyes are the windows of the soul" Precisely, the eyes reveal
emotion, mood and characters of people From that point, people use them in many idiomatic expressions However, English and Vietnamese people use them in their own way In this chapter, a comparative analysis of idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English and Vietnamese equivalents will be given to find out the differences and similarities between them But before that, we would like to present some of those in both English and Vietnamese
3.1 Idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English
3.1.1 Expressing good points
There are many idiomatic expressions containing the word „eye‟ in English expressing good points
Trang 21- With the same phrase they sometimes use a kind of eye (jealous eye, sharp eye,…)
to express the degree of that kind of look
E.g Billy keeps a jealous eye on his toys
The lion tamer keeps a sharp eye on the lions when he is in cage
- Also,to say someone who watches something or someone carefully, because they may cause trouble or they may need help, the following English idiom is often used:
Keep a weather eye on
Idiomatic meaning: Be watchful and alert in order to avoid trouble
E.g Mrs Brown kept a weather eye on the children so they wouldn’t hurt each other
3.1.1.2 Describing people and their abilities
- To describe people the English often use the word „eye‟ as an adjective A person who has bright eyes is considered healthy, so the following adjective containing the word
„eye‟ is often used to talk about people with a lot of energy
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
Idiomatic meaning: Full of energy and enthusiasm
E.g Mr Jones is seventy now but he is still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
- There is also another phrase to say someone who is pleasant to look at:
Easy on the eye
Idiomatic meaning: good looking
E.g This actress is very easy on the eyes, in my opinion
- To describe people‟s mood, the English also use the word „eye‟ in their idioms When you are happy and hopeful about something, in a way which prevents you from thinking about the bad things, there is an adjective containing the word „eye‟ as an idiom to talk about that
Starry-eyed
Idiomatic meaning: Be happy and hopeful
Trang 22 E.g The young people are often starry-eyed and eager to improve the world,
they do not know how hard it is
- To mention someone‟s ability, people often use the word „eye‟ in verb phrases The
verb phrase have an eye for implies someone who has ability to appreciate distinctions in; is
discerning or perceptive about
have an eye for
Idiomatic meaning: Be sharp-eyed, perceptive about
E.g She has an eye for color and style in clothes
Or He has an eye for good English usage
- When someone is very observant and notice everything happening around him, people often use the idiom:
Idiomatic meaning: observe everything (without seeming to do so)
E.g How did you know I was behind you? You must have eyes in the back of
your head
- You are difficult to do something with your eyes shut So to say someone who can do something easily, there is an English idiom:
Idiomatic meaning: with great ease, as a result of thorough familiarity
E.g He’s cooked that meal so often he can do it with his eyes shut
Or I could drive home with my eyes shut
3.1.1.3 Describing appearances
- From the point that views or sights are seen or watched by eyes, the English like to use the word „eye‟ in idioms to describe good views
Eye – filling
Idiomatic meaning: attractive to the eye; providing an eyeful
The mountain in the distance was an eye-filling sight
- When people want to talk about something that you are glad to see, they often use:
Sight for sore eyes