A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese

Finding the similarities and differences between the verb ‘run’ in English and the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese mainly in terms of MiCA and briefly in term of MaCA;

1 PART I INTRODUCTION Rationale In Vietnamese, the verb ‘chạy’ does not only indicate a physical activity only but also imply other situations in real life communication To some extent, it is not too difficult to find such circumstances in which people use the verb ‘chạy’: ‘chạy ăn bữa tốt mồ hơi’, ‘chạy làng’, ‘chạy triện đồng’ etc Especially, modern Vietnamese language, which has developed and reflected the life in its own way, has been supplemented with many new words, or new interpretations to the existing words such as ‘chạy điểm’, ‘chạy trường’, ‘chạy án’, ‘chạy thận, ‘chạy sô’, etc The verb ‘run’ in English, similarly, is rich in meaning which can be listed some expressions like ‘run in the race’, ‘run a company’, ‘run a risk’, ‘run a temperature’, ‘run the risk’ etc How English people find equivalents for such expressions like ‘chạy tang’, ‘chạy làng’, ‘chạy mả’, etc in their language, and how Vietnamese people translate such expressions like ‘run guns’, ‘hit and run’, etc? This is the very question that seriously runs in the author’s mind Language is widely accepted as the reflection of life By comparing languages, the similarities and differences not only between the languages but also between the speakers of the languages as well as their cultures can be revealed R.J D Pietro (1971:12), a French educational linguist, believed that CA was founded on the foreign language teaching experiences Each language has its own phonological, morphological and syntactical features that could present difficulties for language learners To help overcome specific teaching and learning predicaments, this thesis has been made with an attempt to create a definite pedagogical value with its presentation of effective teaching strategies On these points of departure, the author has conducted the study entitled “A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese” Aims of the Study The study is aimed at: * Finding the similarities and differences between the verb ‘run’ in English and the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese mainly in terms of MiCA and briefly in term of MaCA; * Providing recommendations for the teaching and learning as well as some tips when translating ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ into the target language To fully achieve these aims, the study should answer the following questions: • What are the grammatical and semantic features of each verb and how are they similar and different in terms of these features? • What are their synonyms and idioms? • What are the implications of the study for EFL teaching/learning and translation? Scope of the Study This is a minor thesis Consequently, it is unfeasible to discuss both the verbs in terms of MiCA and MaCA in details Therefore, within this study, the author focuses on analyzing and contrasting them in terms of MiCA (concerning grammatical and semantic features of the two verbs), and just briefs the similarities and differences between them concerned with MaCA The verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ have numerous synonyms and are used in relevant idioms Thus, after an overview on them is given, some most common ones shall be introduced Methods of the Study The study has been carried out based on a combination of different methods as follow: - Document; - Synthesize and; - Analyze and contrast; The procedures of the study are: - To synthesize meanings of ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ as well as examples to illustrate from different sources such as from dictionaries, literary works, newspapers, magazines, films, native speakers and websites - To collect synonyms of each verb as well as idioms in which they are used - To analyze and contrast each verb in terms of MiCA and MaCA respectively to make clear the similarities and differences between them - To suggest how to apply these findings to the language teaching/learning and translation Design of the Study The study consists of three parts organized as follows: Part I entitled “INTRODUCTION” outlining the background of the study in which a brief account of relevant information such as the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study are provided Part II, the “INVESTIGATION”, is subdivided into two chapters The first Chapter is discussed the “THEORETICAL BACKGROUND” which provides necessary and relevant theoretical concepts for the main contents of the study, covering a series of concepts ranging from CA, contrasts between MiCA and MaCA, verbs in English and in Vietnamese, a brief introduction of synonyms, and idioms Chapter 2: “A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN THE VERB ‘RUN’ IN ENGLISH AND THE VERB ‘CHẠY’ IN VIETNAMESE” discusses the two verbs in terms of MiCA and MaCA in succession Each chapter ends with some concluding remarks Part III, the “CONCLUSION”, which provides recapitulation, implications of the study for EFL teaching and learning and to translation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa, and recommendations for further research The “REFERENCES” and “SOURCES OF THE DATA” mark the end of the thesis PART II CHAPTER INVESTIGATION THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 An Overview on Contrastive Analysis 1.1.1 Definition The modern foreign language teaching tendency requires the teachers not only to teach their learners about the language but also how to use the language To a certain extent, CA was established to meet that requirement According to Richards, J.C et al (1992), CA is “the comparison of the linguistic systems of two languages, for example the sound system or the grammatical system,” From Carl James’ view (1980:2) CA is “a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted (i.e contrastive, not comparative) two values typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the assumption that languages can be compared.” CA describes similarities and differences among two or more languages at such levels as phonology, grammar, pragmatics, and semantics According to Carl James (1980), CA is both a form of pure linguistics and applied linguistics However, CA is only a peripheral enterprise in pure linguistics CA is central concern of applied linguistics So the term CA we use within this study intends “Applied CA” 1.1.2 CA and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Charles Fries (1945:9) wrote: “The most efficient materials are those that are based upon a scientific description of letthe language to be learned, carefully compared with a parallel description of the native language of the learner” Robert Lado (1957) thought: “Individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture- both productively and when attempting to speak the language and to act in the culture and receptively when attempting to grasp and understand the language and culture as practiced by natives.” Then Lado made a conclusion that “those elements which are similar to the learner's native language will be simple for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult" Obviously, teachers can make use of CA to minimize the effects of that interference Contrastive Analysis is not merely relevant for second language teaching and learning but it can also make useful contributions to machine translating and linguistics typology It is relevant to the designing of teaching materials for use in all age groups Le Quang Thiem (2004:69) confirmed that CA helps to find out the root of mistakes that language learners may make 1.1.3 MiCA versus MaCA MiCA and MaCA are broad terms, which refer to two major types of linguistics Microlinguistics refers to phonetics, phonology, grammar and semantics, whereas Macrolinguistics covers sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and other related disciplines In sociolinguistics, the micro level is often equated with variation and face-to-face communication, whereas macro sociolinguistics involves language planning and sociology of language In microlinguistics’ view, languages should be analyzed for their own sake and without reference to their social function, to the manner in which they are acquired by children, to the psychological mechanisms that underlie the production and reception of speech, to the literary and the aesthetic or communicative function of language, and so on For example, a study of this kind often finds out what the consonant phonemes in languages X and Y are, how they differ in inventory, realization and distribution; what the tense system of language X and Y, etc The main aim of MiCA is a formal description of the language system based on the interrelationships and independencies of its elements without any recourse to external factors Obviously, the translation situation which involves equivalent messages, that is speech units or texts, in two different languages is not part of the system of either of these languages and can not be studied and described in terms of microlinguistics Macolinguistics is the term that Yngve (1975) calls ‘broad’ or ‘human’ linguistics aiming at achieving a scientific understanding of how people communicate or we may define macrolinguistics as a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense and including cultural and behavioral features associated with language Carl James (1980) suggested that “the communicating individual must be able to identify the situational constraints to which speech events are subjects and produce utterances that conform to them.” Hymes (1974) identifies six variables which he suggests the ethnographer of speaking must refer to in characterizing any particular event, they are setting, participants, purpose, key, content, and channel Whereas, Carl James (1980:101) simplified these six variables in to “who says what to whom, where and when, how and why” 1.2 A Brief Description of Verbs In most languages, verbs are part of speech expressing existence, action, or occurrence According to Jack C Richards et al (1992:398), a word is a verb when it satisfies these following criteria: - Occurs as part of the predicate of a sentence; - Caries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, person, number, and mood; and - Refers to an action or state Generally in English, the verb tense shows the time of the action or state; the aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state In English, for example, the past-tense sentences ‘I swam’ and ‘I was swimming’ differ in aspect (the first sentence is in what is called the perfective or completive aspect, and the second in what is called the imperfective or durative aspect); voice is used to show relationships between the action and the people affected by it; mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal modality It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English To some extent, the same word patterns are used to express more than one of these concepts at the same time, mood shows the attitude of the speaker about the verb currently identified moods include conditional, imperative, indicative, injunctive, optative, potential, subjunctive, and more Verbs can be affected by person and number to show agreement with the subject Some English verblike forms have properties of two parts of speech (e.g., participles may be used as adjectives and gerunds as nouns) On the contrary, verbs in Vietnamese not have the concord with other parts of speech In other words, they are not affected by number, person, gender, mood, voice, and tense In Vietnamese, “A sentence refers to the basic time of the context—that is the time which has been made clear in the context up to that point." (Thompson 1965:209), in addition, when functioning as central component of a verb phrase, verb can combine with other modal auxiliary components before it to indicate scope of the action or activity such as ‘cũng’, ‘đều’, ‘cứ’, etc to indicate continuation like ‘còn’, ‘vẫn’, etc.; to indicate tense, aspect such as ‘sắp’, ‘đang’, ‘sẽ’, ‘đã’, etc.; to refer to negative meaning, for example: ‘chưa’, ‘không’, ‘chẳng’, etc.; to indicate advice or prohibit such as: ‘hãy’, ‘đừng’, ‘chớ’, and so on However, as Cao Xuan Hao suggested, such auxiliary components, especially ‘sắp’, ‘đang’, ‘sẽ’, ‘đã’ should be used with great care because in some cases these auxiliaries not at all indicate the tense For instances, a soldier reunited with his family for five days, and the next day when he had to come back to his military unit His wife said to him: “Ngày mai anh à?”, “đã” here does not indicate tense, it just helps to show regret Obviously, in Vietnamese, context holds the key factor to define tense of the verbs In each language, there are different ways to classify verbs, however, in this thesis, the classification of which verbs are divided into transitive and intransitive verbs shal be applied, which would be convenient to compare the two verbs ‘run’ in English and ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese According to Diệp Quang Ban and Hoàng Văn Thung, intransitive verb does not need a direct object to function, for examples: Dung chạy tung tăng công viên (Dung is running here and there in the park); Bé Ball ngủ say vòng tay mẹ (Little Ball is fast sleeping in her mother’s arms), He is running in a park near by, etc., transitive verbs, in contrast, can not stand alone, they need help from other words to complete their meaning as in: Anh ta bán cổ phần cho tơi (He sold me his stocks); Họ soạn thảo lại hợp đồng (They redrafted the contract); Chị ta bàn giao sổ sách cho người kế nhiệm (She is handing over the records for the successor); or They ran their own company for years In both languages, verbs indicating movement can combine with words of directions For example: run upstairs; come down; go over; or chạy lên; xuống, etc However, in Vietnamese, there exist directional verbs in their own sense such as: ‘ra’, ‘vào’/‘vô’, ‘lên’, ‘xuống’, ‘qua’, and so on as in: - “Đường vô xứ Nghệ quanh quanh Non xanh nước biếc tranh họa đồ” (Vietnamese proverb) 1.3 Meanings of Meaning Meaning refers to what a language expresses about the world we live in or any possible or imaginary world The theories of meaning and its types can be found in the literature of Leech (1974), Lyon (1977), (1995), Palmer (1981), and Crystal (1995) There are two types of meanings: grammatical meaning and lexical meaning According to Lyons (1995:52) a lexeme may have different word-forms which will generally differ in their grammatical meaning For example, the forms of ‘teacher’ and ‘teachers’ differ in respect of their grammatical meaning ‘Teacher’ is singular form (of a noun of a particular class), and ‘teachers’ is plural form (of a noun of a particular class); and the difference between singular forms and plural form is semantically relevant: it affects sentence meaning The meaning of a sentence is determined partly by the meaning of the words of which it consists and partly by its grammatical meaning Baker (1992:12) stated that lexical meaning of a word may be viewed as the specific value it has in a particular linguistic system It is the most outstanding individual property of words, and in contrast with grammatical meaning, it can stand on its own Different types of lexical meaning as recognized by Leech (1974) are: (1) Conceptual meaning: Logical, cognitive, or denotative content (2) Associative meaning - Connotative meaning: What is communicated in terms of what language refers to - Social meaning: What is communicated of the social circumstances of language use - Affective meaning: What is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer - Reflected meaning: What is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression - Collocative meaning: What is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word (3) Thematic meaning: What is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis Do Huu Chau (1999:111-130) uses the terms ‘ý nghĩa biểu vật’ (denotational meaning) and ‘ý nghĩa biểu niệm’ (connotational meaning) to generalize the meanings of words in Vietnamese According to him, entities and phenomenon in the objective world are reflected in the mind as the concepts and reflected in the language as the denotational meanings which lead to the relevant connotational meanings Therefore, to some extent, in terms of lexical meaning, verbs in English and in Vietnamese are similar However, they differ in respect of grammatical meaning English verbs carry two kinds of meanings; meanwhile, Vietnamese verbs themselves not carry grammatical meaning such as tense, aspect, etc 1.4 Synonyms Synonyms are different words with identical or very similar meanings Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy Synonymy is a kind of sense relation or more specifically, one of the substitutional sense relations Jack C Richards et al (1992:368) defined synonym as a word which has the same or nearly the same meaning as another word It should be noted that two words which are synonymous must belong to the same part of speech Lyon (1995:60) divides synonyms into three kinds: absolute synonyms, near synonyms and partial synonyms However, some linguists such as Jack C Richards et al (1992:368), Palmer (1981:88) argue that no two words have exactly the same meaning (denotational and connotational meanings) Absolute synonyms, according to Lyon (1995:61), must satisfy three conditions: (i) all their meanings are identical; (ii) they are synonymous in all contexts; (iii) they are semantically equivalent (i.e their meaning or meanings are identical) on all dimensions of meaning, descriptive and non-descriptive Some lexicographers claim that in English, no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc make them unique Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long and extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm is not the same as an extended arm) Therefore, in this study, only partial synonyms of “run” are dealt with However, absolute synonyms can be found in Vietnamese as in: ‘sân bay’ and ‘phi trường’; ‘ti vi’ and ‘máy vô tuyến’, ‘bóng đá’ and ‘túc cầu’, etc 1.5 Idioms Idioms are widely defined as words collocated together that happen to become fossilized, becoming fixed over time This collocation words commonly used in a group and changes the definition of each of the words that exist The collocated words develop a specialized meaning as a whole and an idiom is born An expression is an idiom, described by Jon Wright (1999:7), when it carries the following features: 10 It is fixed and it is recognized by native speakers You cannot make up your own! It uses language in a non-literal-metaphorical-way According to Jack C Richards et al (1992:172), idiom is an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from its separate parts This view is shared by Robins (1989), Palmer (1981), Jackson and Evenla (2000), Seidle (1978), Jack C Richards et al (1992:172), and Cruse (1986) For example, ‘Still waters run deep’ - the collocation of ‘still’, ‘water’, ‘run’ and ‘deep’ is an idiom meaning ‘something thay you say which means people who say very little often have very interesting and complicated personalities’ (suggested Vietnamese equivalent idiom is ‘thẩm lẩm, thầm lầm mà đấm chết voi’ which is not systematically determinable from the meaning of its constituents Palmer (1981) states that an idiom is semantically like a word but it does not function like a word For example, if an idiom may be inflected, the inflectional affixes are carried by the grammatical appropriate elements within the idioms whether or not they are semantic constituents To put in a nutshell, discussion on idioms explains one of the reason why we conduct this thesis which help to reduce difficulties that learners of the second language may face when dealing with idioms with “run” and “chạy” 1.6 Concluding Remarks Theoretical background for the contrastive analysis between the verb “run” in English and the verb “chạy” in Vietnamese in terms of Mic and Mac has been introduced in this chapter Readers are provided with an overview on CA, brieft contrasts between MiCA and MaCA, and between verbs in English and verbs in Vietnamese Moreover, different kinds of meaning, synonyms and idioms are also discussed Based on this theoretical foundation, we will commence chapter “A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese” 38 Idiomatically, ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ may have some meanings to coincide which means that the idioms contain both ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ using the same expression to actually indicating hides behind their appearances Therefore, these idioms are not difficult for the users of both languages to recognize and interpret Below, we list some equivalences of the idioms derived from ‘run’ and ‘chạy’: - Run like the wind  - Learn to creep before you run Chạy nhanh gió  Chưa học bị lo học chạy - The last drop makes the cup run over  Giọt nước tràn ly - Run out of time  Hết giờ/thời gian - Run away with  Chạy trốn (cùng ai) - Run for one’s life  Chạy thục mạng/chạy bán sống bán chết - Run around in circles  Chạy loăng quăng - Run out of steam Chạy hết  - Run the show  Chạy sô - Run errands  Chạy việc lặt vặt - Run like hell  - Run in place  Chạy chỗ - Eat and run  Vừa ăn vừa chạy - Run kite  Chạy diều Chạy ma đuổi 2.1.3.2.2 Differences In terms of denotational meanings, we are able to state that the verb ‘run’ is richer than the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese language However, ‘chạy’ is more original with some special usage For example, in English, people say ‘She ran into her old friend at the party’ and if we translate this sentence word by word into Vietnamese, we may mislead like ‘Cô chạy tới cô bạn cũ bữa tiệc’ To some extent, the translators misunderstood the actual meaning of the verb ‘run’ here It should be ‘Cơ tình cờ gặp lại người bạn cũ bữa tiệc’ The example shows how mother toungue interference affects nonnative speakers and how CA really helps in this case When trying to clarify some senses that ‘run’ has but ‘chạy’ does not, we discover at least fifteen meanings which are described in the following grid: No ‘Run’s Meanings To flow(of liquid) Examples in English The river runs into the sea Possible Vietnamese equivalents Sông chảy biển 39 To spread rapidly The news of his promotion Tin anh thăng chức lan To melt To elapse; pass; go ran all over the town The sun makes the ice run Time is running out, and we tồn trấn Mặt trời làm cho đá tan chảy Khơng cịn nhiều thời gian, chùng by (of time) To get or become must hurry The well run dry ta phải nhanh lên Cái giếng cạn khô To be stated or He’s running into debt My presentation runs as Anh rơi vào cảnh nợ nần Phần trình bày sau: worded To proceed, continue follow: The story runs for eight Câu chuyện kéo dài tám To cost To have legal force pages This watch runs US$50 The contract runs to the end trang giấy Chiếc đồng hồ giá 50 USD Hợp đồng có hiệu lực đến hết năm 10 or effect (of legal) To be published of 2009 2009 The New York Times is Tờ Thời báo New York đăng running a series of Clinton’s loạt vể tự truyện 12 To convey (of 13 transportation) To smuggle autobiography I’ll run you home in my car Clinton Tớ đưa cậu nhà xe He is sentenced to 10 years tớ Gã bị kết án 10 năm tù tội imprisonment for running bn lậu vũ khí qua biên giới the company well into his cơng ty bước sang To support seventies They decided to run her for tuổi bảy mươi Họ định ủng hộ cô ta vào somebody (in an 15 To manage or conduct 14 guns across the border Singleton continued to run Singleton tiếp tục điều hành tốt the major chức thị trưởng election) On the contrary, we also discover at least four meanings that ‘run’ can be used while ‘chạy’ cannot These meanings are looked at the following grid No Examples in Vietnamese Hắn đút lót cấp để chạy Possible English equivalents He bribed the higher to doing something ‘Chạy’s Meanings To bribe someone in chức giám đốc nhân authorities to get position of Chính tiền mà bà làm human resources manager It’s was her greed for money To socilit (to escape 40 from a legal judgment) To be advantageous chạy tội cho by money,… Waterford Glass trở thành Waterford Glass became the hãng bán đồ pha lê chạy best-seller of crystal in U.S especially in sale) To give up Mỹ… Biết Lài có bầu, tìm market… Knowing that Lài is pregnant, cách chạy làng bà lại định dùng tiền để bà she still intents to absolve him (in business, hỏng thằng trai Bây that she spoiled her son Now, he tried to quit the game In terms of the idioms derived from ‘run’ and ‘chạy’, it is noted that the misinterpretion will be happened easily if we are simply based on the nature of the mother tongue language Hereinafter, we compare some idioms included ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ to show interesting ways of using idioms with the studied verbs N0 Idioms with ‘run’ Still water runs deep (English proverb) 10 11 12 13 N0 Try to run before one can walk The course of true love never did run smooth When the tree is fallen, anyone runs to it with his axe One can runs away but one can’t hide Run the risk Run hot and cold Hold with the hare and run with the hounds Cut and run One’s blood runs cold Run like the clockwork Run into a stone wall Run riot Idioms with ‘chạy’ Chạy buồm xem gió Chạy chữa Chạy bữa Chạy đua vũ trang Chạy thầy Chạy tang Suggested Vietnamese Equivalents Tẩm ngẩm tầm ngầm mà đấm chết voi Cầm đèn chạy trước ô tô/Chưa học bắt mèo lo ẻ bếp Tình yêu chân thành chẳng êm thấm Dậu đổ bìm leo Chạy trời khơng khỏi nắng Liều mạng Đỏng đà đỏng đảnh/thất thường Giả nhân giả nghĩa/Bắt cá hai tay Đánh chuồn Sợ xanh mặt Chính xác giây Đâm đầu vào đá Phát điên, phát rồ Suggested English Equivalents To forecast before making decision Try hard to treat medically To ern for one's daily bread Arms race To go in search of a doctor To move up the date (of a wedding because 41 Chạy chợ Chạy loạn Chạy chó phải pháo someone in the family is going to die) To engage in small trade/to huckster To evacuate To run in a panic manner (like dog scares of firecracker’s noise ) 10 Chạy chọt To solicit For better illustration, we try to analyze some typical situations which ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are used to denote the different idiomatic senses In the saying ‘You've got to decide to chose between them You can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds’, if users not master the implication of the idiom ‘run with hare and hunt with the hounds’ they might translate something like ‘Bạn phải định chọn hai người Bạn chạy thỏ lại săn chó sói’ In fact, the understanding does not go too far the point, but it would be better to translate like ‘Bạn phải định chọn hai người Bạn bắt cá hai tay được’ In another example, if somebody translate ‘Kiếm tiền, tính chuyện chạy làng’ into ‘Having earn some money, he intended to run to the village’ , we can suppose that the user might not be the native speaker because he misleads ‘chạy làng’ means ‘run to the village’ but not ‘refuse to pay or give up the game’ Thus, the translation should be corrected into ‘Having earn some money, he intended to quit the game’ Therefore, to some extent, the foregoing comparison may help the users of both languages reduce the unnecessary irrelevances in interpreting when exchange the verb ‘RUN’ in English and ‘CHẠY’ in Vietnamese 2.1.4 Concluding Remarks Above, we have endeavoured to bring about the contrastive analysis of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in terms MiCA By comparing ‘run’ with ‘chạy’ and vice versa respectively in respects of grammatical features which categorised into syntactic features; morphological features; and semantic features in which we dealt with general meanings and meanings in some idioms as well as synonyms of each word, we are able to state some similarities and differences between the target verbs Accordingly, ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ share quite a lot similar syntactic features, some similar morphological features Furthermore, ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ coincide in their general meanings and meanings in some idioms Interestingly, ‘run’ is richer in meanings, consequently richer in synonyms than ‘chạy’, whereas, ‘chạy’ is better used in compounds and idioms In the coming chapter, we will discuss ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ on the ground of MaCA 42 2.2 A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘run’ in English and the Verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese in terms of Macrolinguistic Contrastive Analysis In order to achieve an overall understanding of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’, within this assignment, the author endeavoured to view ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in terms of MaCA following the approach proposed by Carl James (1980:100&101) Due to the restriction of the minor thesis, we will not study with each verb separately We will briefly work out how they are similarly and differently affected by means of participant, setting, purpose, key, content, and channel in succession Because macrolinguistic is a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense and including cultural and behavioral features associated with language or in other words, with extralinguistc factors Therefore, we narrowed the subjects and aimed at English and Vietnamese native speakers By synthesizing different sources of documents, observing, interviewing about the subjects we drew out some findings hereinafter 2.2.1 Findings 2.1.1 In terms of Participants Participants are those who create the ingredients of communication which are: source, encoding, message, channel, receiver, decoding, receiver response and feedback Among the ingredients, encoding and decoding are of special significance Therefore, the more diversified types of speakers and listener the more different ways of decoding and encoding the source of communication We found situations in which the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are utters to convey the implication of social positions; kinship relations, age, gender, economic conditions, education, etc of the participants For examples: - A father to his son: Con chạy lên phố mua giúp bố ra-đi-ô (A son to his father: Tiện lên phố bố mua giúp ra-di-ô nhé.) - A man to his colleague (of equal status): Tớ lượn/chạy/ lên phố có tí việc - A woman to her stubborn son: Sao mày chạy rơng ngồi đường - A young man to his friend: Thơi mày lượn/phắn/biến cho yên chuyện - A policeman to a thief: Anh khơng tẩu (chạy trốn) đâu Likely, in English the verb ‘run’ is sometimes replaced with other expressions by communicators, for examples: - A manager to his staff: Run this project as soon as possible! Staff to his manager: We will implement the project as the soonest A policeman to a thief: Don’t think about fleeing No way! A man to his girlfriend: I’ll take/carry/run you home in my car 43 Therefore, the speakers and addressors must bear in mind to whom they are talking to select the appropriate words for more effective communication 2.2.1.2 In terms of Setting Setting has certain influences on what is uttered by Vietnamese and English people Carl James (1980) said “questions put to a lecturer in the bar after the plenary session will be formulated differently from those put in the conference hall” Sometimes, ‘run’ is replaced with ‘sprint, flow, flee, travel, or escape, etc’, and ‘chạy’ is replaced with ‘phi, bon bon, rầm rập, hối hả, etc’ The replacement possibly decided by the contexts Following, we analyze some cases to show how ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ is flexible in certain contexts To describe the stream of military truck runs to the front line in the wartime, we may write ‘Từng đoàn xe rầm rập đường mật trận’ To describe the quick movement of the trains, we may say ‘Từng đoàn tàu hối vể ga’ To emphasize that someone drives exeeding the limit speed, we can use ‘phóng nhanh vượt ẩu’ instead of ‘chạy tốc độ cho phép’ However, in a legal document, the expression ‘phóng nhanh vượt ẩu’ must be clarified by ‘chạy tốc độ cho phép’ Similarly, in English, the use of ‘run’ is flexible to conform to the setting For example, to describe a sportsman racing at fast speed we can say ‘He is spriting to the finish’; or in written language ‘operate’ or ‘function’ are often used to replace ‘run’ when denoting the operation of a machine 2.2.1.3 In terms of Key It is undeniable that the tone, manner or spirit in which a speech act is carried out has strong influences on what really messages by speakers It affects meaning and function of utterances For example, with the same utterance ‘Chạy đi’ or ‘Run (away)’ can imply different messeges with different tones - Chạy đi!/Run! (with fast and high tone) means a warning - Chạy đi!/Run! (with slow and high tone and grind of teeth) means a threatening - Chạy đi!/Run away! (with stresses on ‘đi’ and ‘away’) means a challenging - Chạy đi/Run! (with very high tone emphasized with the repetation of the verbs) means an encouragement 2.2.1.4 In terms of Content 44 To a certain extent, the contents of all types of communication effects on how, what and when to decode and encode the messeges For instance, in Vietnamese joking we can say ‘Anh chạy bị tào tháo đuổi’ or ‘Tôi bị chạy hậu’ (can be understood that somebody has problem with his belly and he has to run to toilet all the time.) In another case, when demonstrating the functions of a new machine, normally, Vietnamese people use ‘vận hành’; ‘hoạt động’ instead of ‘chạy’ as in: Máy hoạt động nguyên tắc cải tiến chế tự động’ or ‘Khi vận hành thiết bị, cần lưu ý bảo đảm an toàn lao động’ Interestingly, when talking about social matters informally, Vietnamese people usually use ‘chạy chọt’ rather than ‘hối lộ’ or ‘đút lót’ to mention that someone uses money or takes the advantage of power to get jobs or to have better positions For the English language, contents also have strong influence on whether people choose ‘run’ or other equivalents For examples, talking about an election, informally, we can use ‘run for the major’, but formally, we use ‘campaign for the senator’ Refferring to the topic of business, English people prefer ‘run’ than ‘manage’ when denoting that somebody sets up and controls his own organization 2.2.3 Concluding Remarks ‘Run’ and ‘chạy’, actually, are not strongly influenced by the macrolinguistic elements Both of the verbs denote physical actions more than indicate the states which closely connect to the social-cultural elements Nevertheless, serious effort has been made to analyze ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in their broadest sense and include some aspects of cultural and behavioral features associated with language Accordingly, at least the participants, setting, key and content have certain influences on the uses of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in English and Vietnamese languages 45 PART III CONCLUSIONS Recapitulation The process of contrastive analysis between the verbs ‘run’ in English and ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese their idioms has clarified almost the questions posed before doing the research To keep the right track for the study, we have made effort to find out the similarities and differences between the studied objects in terms of MiCA and MaCA basing on the theoretical background As far as MiCA was concerned, these two verbs are analyzed and contrasted in respects of grammatical features, semantic features, their synonyms as well as idioms with them which were the focus of the study The findings can be summarized as follow: • ‘Run’ and ‘chạy’ share quite a lot of similar syntactic features such as they have different functions in a sentence such as predicate, subject, complement, or object • They also share some similar morphological features • ‘Run’ carries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspects, person, number and mood while ‘chạy’ does not • In terms of semantic features, the verb ‘run’ is found at least twenty-three groups of general meanings, ten popular run’s idioms are deeply discussed, hundreds of run’s synonyms are introduced with careful quotations from different sources of data Similarly, at least fifteen general meanings the verb ‘chạy’ are listed, further discussion about ten typical chạy’s idioms, many chạy’s synonyms are also mentioned Basing on the results of studying the two verbs separately, we run to the following findings: + ‘Run’ and ‘chạy’ share at least thirteen similar general meanings + ‘Run’ has at least fifteen items of meanings differing from ‘chạy’ + ‘Chạy’ is found at least four items of meanings differing from ‘run’ + At least fifteen pairs of idioms derived from‘run’ and ‘chạy’ have the same expressions + ‘Chạy’ is more flexible than ‘run’ in compounding abitily; therefore, ‘chạy’ is richer than ‘run’ in terms of idioms In terms of MaCA, basing on Hymes (1974) and Carl James (1980) suggestions, we figure out that such social-cultural elements as participant setting, key and content differently affects the uses of ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ and their equivalents 46 To put in a nutshell, this study is conducted with the hope of providing an overall understanding about the verb ‘run’ in English and the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese in respects of both MiCA and MaCA We wish to highlight the awareness of EFL teachers and learners about the similarities and differences between them to avoid their mother tongue interference when dealing with these two verbs as well as their idioms Implication of the Study 2.1 For EFL Teaching and Learning The final aim of language teaching is to develop learners’ communicative competence as well as linguistic competence Knowing a language is not only knowing the grammatical rules, but also knowing when and where it is appropriate to use, how to use, and to what people Teaching vocabulary also means providing learners with an increasing number of words and their equivalents in the target language which help them choose what to use with ease and interpret accurately in different contexts Therefore, not only is it important to provide grammatical meaning and lexical meaning of a word, but also to provide their sense relations such as its synonyms or antonyms, etc Being aware of its importance, we have endeavoured to provide a contrastive analysis between the verb ‘run’ in English and the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese Ur (1996:63) suggested different ways of presenting meaning of new items such as concise definition, detailed description, illustration, demonstration, contextualization, examples, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, translation and associated ideas or collocations When teaching ‘run’, ‘chạy’ and their idioms, we should combine some methods rather than use only one To avoid monotonous traditional way of introducing idioms, EFL teachers can use games with idioms which now available at many websites on the Internet There are very few absolute synonyms, thus, the teaching ‘run’, ‘chạy’ and idioms with them should not be isolated from their contexts During learning and teaching processes, both EFL teachers and learners should be aware of the similarities and differences, particularly the differences between them which will restrict the mother tounge interference at the maximum This helps to avoid culture shocks or “stupid” mistakes in communication That is what a contrastive analysis aims at 2.2 For Translation from English to Vietnamese and Vice Versa 47 Translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text that communicates the same message from the source text to the target language Translation must take into account the constraints that include context, the rules of grammar of the two languages, their writing conventions, and their idioms Therefore, there exists a common misconception when newcomers of translation interpret word-for-word correspondence between any two languages This translation is like a straightforward mechanical process; such a word-for-word translation, however, cannot take into account context, grammar, conventions, and idioms Therefore, to find the best equivalents for ‘run’ or ‘chạy’, translators should master all semantic features of all lexical items and take the contexts as well as other macrolinguistic factors in to account It is hoped that the study can help the translators when working with the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in their general meanings, their idioms, their synonyms and other microlinguistic factors that effect the uses of the two verbs The findings of the study on the ground of general meanings may help the translators to find the appropriate expressions when dealing with the specific situations where the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are used The findings of the contrastive analysis on the idioms in which ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are used may help the users over come possible difficulties when translating the contexts in which the idioms are used For example, it is possible for the users to translate such idioms as ‘run like the wind’ in to ‘chạy nhanh gió’, or ‘learn to creep before you run’ in to ‘chưa học bò lo học chạy’, etc However, there are many expressions of both languages which are difficult for the translators The study on the synonyms of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ may help the translator decide the best word choice when working with the two verbs Finally, some aspects of cultural and behavioral features associated with the uses of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are studied to help the users avoid unnecessary misinterpretation when working with the two verbs Recommendations for Further Research The authors conducted this research with a focus on MaCA rather than MaCA due to the limitations and requirement of the M.A research To a certain extent, some matters have not 48 been thoroughly investigated We, therefore, have recommendations for further research which are surely promising, interesting and welcome: • An investigation into ‘run’ and its synonyms and antonyms • An investigation into ‘run’ and its idioms; • An investigation into ‘chạy’ and its synonyms and antonyms • An investigation into ‘chạy’ and its idioms; 49 REFERENCES In English A.P Cowie and R Mackin (1993) Oxford Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs Oxford University Press, Printed in Hong Kong Baker, M (1992) In Other Words: A Course Book on Transaltion Routledge, London & New York Charles C Fries (1945) Teaching and Learning English as foreigh language Michigan: University of Michigan Press Chaturvedi, M.G (1973) A Constrastive Study of Hindi-English Phonology National publishing House, Delhi Cruse, D.A (1986) Lexical Semantics Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York Crystal, D (1995) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language Second Edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Hymes, D (1974) Ways of Speaking Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Jackson, H & Evenla, E.Z (2000) Words, Meaning and Vocabulary Cassell, New York James, C (1980) Contrastive Analysis Longman, London 10 Lado Robert (1957) Linguistics Across Cultures University of Michgan Press Ann Arbor 11 Lado, R (1957) Linguistics across Cultures Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 12 Leech, G.N (1981) Semantics Third Second Edition Penguin, Harmonds worth, Middlessex 13 Lyon, J (1995) Linguistics Semantic: Introduction Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 14 Palmer, F.R (1981) Semantics Second Edition Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 15 R.S Di Pietro (1971) Language structures in contrast Rowley Mass: Newbury House 16 Richards, J.C et al (1992) Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics Longman Press, Malaysia 17 Seidle, J (1978) English Idioms and How to Use Them Oxford University Press, Oxford 18 Thompson, Laurence C 1965 A Vietnamese Grammar Seattle: University of Washington 19 Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory University Pres, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne Cambridge 50 20 Yngve, V.H (1975) Human Linguistics in Face-to-Face Interaction In A.Kendon et al, eds.: Organization of Behaviour in Face-to-Face Interaction, Moutan The Hague, pp.47-62 In Vietnamese 21 Cao Xuân Hạo (2007) Tiếng Việt, vấn đề ngữ âm, ngữ pháp, ngữ nghĩa Nhà xuất Giáo dục 22 Diệp Quang Ban (2005) Ngữ Pháp tiếng Việt NXB Giáo dục, Hà Nội 23 Đỗ Hữu Châu (1999) Từ vựng ngữ nghĩa tiếng Việt Nhà xuất Giáo dục 24 Hoàng Phê et al (1994) Từ Điển Tiếng Việt NXB Khoa học Xã hội Trung Tâm Từ Điển Học Hà Nội, Hà Nội 25 Lê Quang Thiêm (2004) Nghiên cứu đối chiếu ngôn ngữ Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội 26 Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977) Động từ tiếng Việt Nhà xuất Khoa học xã hội 27 Nguyễn Lân (2000) Từ điển từ ngữ Việt Nam NXB Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Hờ Chí Minh 28 Nguyễn Lực & Lương Văn Bằng (1993) Thành Ngữ Tiếng Việt NXB Khoa học Xã hội, Hà Nội 29 Nguyễn Như Ý, Nguyễn Văn Khang & Phan Xuân Thành (1993) Từ điển thành ngữ Việt Nam NXB Văn hóa Hà Nội 30 Nguyễn Như Ý, Nguyễn Văn Khang, Vũ Quang Hào (1999) Đại từ điển tiếng Việt Nhà xuất Văn hóa - Thông tin 31 Nguyễn Thiện Giáp, Đoàn Thiện Thuật & Nguyễn Minh Thuyết (1995) Dẫn luận Ngôn ngữ học NXB Giáo dục, Hà Nợi 32 Phạm Văn Tình (2006) Chạy + X = Chạy đi; Chạy + X = Chạy đến www.laodong.com.vn In Bilingual 33 Bùi Phụng (1995) Từ điển Việt Anh (Vietnamese English Dictionary) Nhà xuất giới 34 Lanba (2007) Những câu tục ngữ tiếng Việt tiếng Anh tương đương www.cotab.com 35 Nguyễn Minh Tiến (2004) Từ điển thành ngữ Anh - Việt (English - Vietnamese Idioms Dictionary) Nhà xuất Trẻ Websites and Electric Dictionaries 51 Encarta® World English Dictionary, North American Edition (www.encarta.msn.com) http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/run Lacviet Mtd 2002- EVA The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (www.bartleby.com) 5 10 The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus (www.wordsmyth.com) Wikitionary (www.wikitionary.com/run) www onlook.com/?w=run&ls=b www.answers.com/topic/run www.idioms.thefreedictionary.com/run www.thesaurus.reference.com/browse/run ... chapter ? ?A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese? ?? 11 CHAPTER A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN THE VERB ‘RUN’ IN ENGLISH AND THE VERB ‘CHẠY’ IN. .. synonyms, and idioms Chapter 2: ? ?A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN THE VERB ‘RUN’ IN ENGLISH AND THE VERB ‘CHẠY’ IN VIETNAMESE? ?? discusses the two verbs in terms of MiCA and MaCA in succession Each chapter... compounds and idioms In the coming chapter, we will discuss ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ on the ground of MaCA 42 2.2 A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘run’ in English and the Verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese in