Idioms about appearance and personality in english and vietnamese

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH - CODE : 22 GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES IDIOMS ABOUT APPEARANCE AND PERSONALITY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Supervisor : NGUYỄN THẾ HÓA Student : NGUYỄN THÙY LINH Date of birth : 04/09/1994 Course : K19A06 (2012-2016) HANOI, 2016 HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH - CODE : 22 GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES IDIOMS ABOUT APPEARANCE AND PERSONALITY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Supervisor : NGUYỄN THẾ HÓA Student : NGUYỄN THÙY LINH Date of birth : 04/09/1994 Course : K19A06 (2012-2016) HANOI, 2016 DECLARATION I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor Hanoi, 28th April, 2016 Student Supervisor signature signature ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The graduation paper is written under the supervisor of Mr The Hoa Nguyen, the senior lecturer of the Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University First of all, my profound gratitude would be expressed to my supervisor, Mr The Hoa Nguyen, for his precious advice, suggestion and inspiration Secondly, my sincere thanks go to all my teacher in the Faculty of English for their lectures and instructions which definitely are useful for my research I also would like to express my gratefulness to my peers, my friends for their encouragement and help to complete the graduation paper Finally, my heartfelt thanks are to my family for their unconditional support and love Hanoi, 28th April, 2016 Nguyen Thuy Linh DECLARATION ACKOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES PART A – INTRODUCTION……………………………………………1 Rationale…………………………………………………………1 Aims of the study…………………………………………….… Scope of the study…………………………………………… Methods of the study…………………………………………… Design of the study……………………………………………….3 PART B – DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………… CHAPTER – LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………… 1.1 Literature review…………………………………………………4 1.2 Definition of idioms………………………………………… ….5 1.2.1 Definition of English idioms…………… …….….… … 1.2.2 Definition of Vietnamese idioms…………………… ……8 1.3 The importance of idioms for English language learners .9 1.4 What is meant by “idiomatic variants”? .14 1.5 What is meant by “synonymous idioms”? 15 1.6 Classification of idioms……………………………………… 15 1.7 Main features of idioms in English and Vietnamese………… 19 1.7.1 Semantic features…………………………………….….…19 1.7.2 Structural features………………………………… …… 21 1.8 Functions of idioms………………………………… …… … 23 1.9 Major functions of idioms in human discourse………………….26 CHAPTER – IDIOMS ABOUT HUMAN APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE………………… 28 2.1 Comparison idioms…………………………………………… 28 2.1.1 Introduction…………….……………… ………………28 2.1.2 Idioms of comparison…………………………………….29 a Concepts of idioms of comparison in English and Vietnamese… ………………………………………… 29 b Forms/structures of idioms of comparison in English and Vietnamese………………………………………… … 30 2.2 Idioms of comparison referring to human interior qualities (characteristics)…… 33 2.2.1 Idioms of comparison which denote human good interior qualities… ………………………………………………34 2.2.2 Idioms of comparison which denote human bad interior qualities… ……………………………………….………38 2.3 Idioms of comparison referring to human character and appearance (behaviors and conditions………………………………………42 2.4 Similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese idioms of comparison referring to human appearance and personality… 50 2.5 Summary…………………………………… …………….… 53 CHAPTER – SOLUTIONS FOR BETTER TRANSLATION AND SOME TEACHING IMPLICATIONS…………………………………….…….54 3.1 Implications for translation…………………………………… 54 3.2 Implications for language teaching…………………………… 56 PART C – CONCLUSION……………………………………………….58 REFERENCE…………………………………………………………… 60 PART A : INTRODUCTION Rationale The most important purpose of studying one language would be how to use the language like native speakers Idiom could be one of the aspect would make a language learner speak more naturally Idiom is often used flexibly in daily life or even in literature The more idioms a learner knows, the more native sound-alike conversations he could make Idioms make a language sound more creative, and can also get others to think and figure out what the person who is using the idiom might mean Using the literal language (as in saying things directly without any creativity) sounds very common, and it seems quite boring when they are used in story books Idioms in a context makes the context nicely and creatively Good writers often use idiomatic expressions, and sometimes they have a different meaning It’s mostly a challenging thing, and using idioms in essay might earn more marks and make a better impression Therefore, learning idioms is important Every country or nation has got their own idioms that are specific to their culture, while many idioms have synonyms in several countries which refer to the equal shared human nature in many cultures Learning the specific idioms related to a certain culture helps you learn more about the history, customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of it Idioms also refect accumulated human experiences and are built on frequently occurring situations, that demonstrate human behavior, social traits, certain habits or tradition in a country So are Vietnamese idioms They represent life lessons and are a heritage of those accumulated events that make up the conscious of a nation or humankind in general They also are treasure of older generations Besides using in daily life conversation, Vietnamese idioms also appear through songs and literature which help to build and conserve the national identity Using idioms competently in both English and Vietnamese could be a advantage pushing in improving language skills and have a deep understanding about culture Aims and objectives of the study This paper aims to detect wide and full definition of idioms, types of it and to point out similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idiom in term of appearance and personality Besides, this will show difficulties in translating English into Vietnamese and provide some solutions to cope with them Scope of the study This study will focus on English and Vietnamese idioms of appearance and personality Methods of the study This paper uses constrating analysis to make English and Vietnamese idioms clearer The sources for the analysis are from materials and references written by linguists in English and in Vietnamese as well as some bilingual reference books available in Vietnam This will help to make clear both the similarities and the differences between the idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms in English and those in Vietnamese Techniques for analyzing materials: - English and Vietnamese idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms are investigated in many of their aspects such as appearances, forms, component orders, characteristics, meaning colors, figurative styles etc Basing on this, the author has tried to find out the similarities and differences between English idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms and Vietnamese ones - Description and comparison are carried in the order of different groups of subjects by using some techniques such as contrastive analysis, componential analysis, transformable analysis and statistics Moreover, frequent talks with the supervisor, lecturers and experts on the field have proved to be a very useful method for the completion of the study Also, the study is carried out on the basis of the author’s personal experience Design of the study This paper has three main parts Part A is the introduction about the rationale, aim and objectives of the study, scope of the study, methods and the design of the study Part B mentions the development for this paper and consists of three chapters Chapter talks about literature reviews, chapter states idioms about human appearance and character in English and Vietnamese , and chapter shows the contributions and solutions Part C is conclusion and recommendation The end of the study is the references PART B : DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Literature review In “Essential Idioms in English” (2003), idioms are listed and have their meaning explained with illustrating examples Palmer clearly states some restrictions in syntactic as well as semantic features in idioms In “An Introduction to Functional Grammar”(1985) by Halliday, there has been the explanation of structural grammar, the relationship between grammar and semantic, and especially in the light of Halliday’s view, idioms are regarded as a class of group Seidl and McMordie write “English Idioms and How to Use Them” (1954) Besides, in “Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners of English” (2007) , there is a wide range of idioms, from expressions used in business and newspapers to very up-to-date informal English and slang expressions Concerning Vietnamese idioms, there have been a lot of studies by various linguists such as “Từ điển thành ngữ tục ngữ Việt – Anh tường giải” by Bùi Phụng (2000), “Từ điển giải thích thành ngữ tiếng Việt” by Nguyễn Như Ý (1995) , “Từ điển thành ngữ tục ngữ ca dao Việt Nam” by Việt Chương (1995) , “Từ điển thành ngữ Việt- Anh” by Trần Phong Giao (2010) In addition, there have been so far some master theses in English on idioms carried out by many Vietnamese researchers Nguyen Van Long has done As mad as a March hare alludes to abnormal and eccentric behavior In England, March is the season when hares mate At this time, male hares sometimes jump about uncontrollably The expression has been used continuously since the 16th century in a number of literature works such as: - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carrol: “The March Hare as this is May, it won’t be raving mad- at least not as mad as it was in March.” - Blowbol’s Test reprinted by W.C Hazlitt in Remains Early Popular Poetry of England, (1864): “Thanne they begyn to swere and to stare, And be as braynles as a Marshe hare.” - Sir Thomas More’s The sypplycacyon of soulys (1529): “As mad not as a march hare, but as a madde dogge” - John Heywood included As mad as a March hare in his collection- A dialougue conteinyng the number in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue (1546) There is no Vietnamese equivalent for the English idiom As mad as a March hare, still it can be interpreted expressively as “cuồng thỏ rừng vào mùa tơ” or simply as “phát điên”,“hóa rồ” Almost every idiom of comparison referring to the mad, uncontrollable behaviors listed above does not have the Vietnamese accurate equivalents In order to express those idioms faithfully in Vietnamese, we should interpret or translate them literally with explanations In the English idiom As playful as a kitten, the kitten is taken to be as lively, bouncy, active and nearly restless This idiom is used to talk about someone, especially a child that is full of fun, and always wants to play Even 47 though Vietnamese people not often say “nghịch mèo con” or consider it as an idiom, we have another idiomatic expression which has the same meaning with As playful as a kitten that is Nghịch quỷ (literally translated into English as playful as a devil) The literal translation of a word or a phrase in one language not always make sense in the others Hence, it is advisable to inspect and consider idiomatic expressions from both their literal and figurative aspects To describe slowness, English and Vietnamese both use the pictures of a snail and a tortoise This coincidence can be attributed to the fact that a snail and a tortoise are naturally best known for their low speed A person who appears to move or to something slowly is often said to be As slow as a snail, or As slow as a tortoise These two idioms have the Vietnamese equivalents Chậm sên, Chậm rùa Apart from the two idiomatic expressions As slow as a snail, As slow as a tortoise, English language also has another idiom regarding to sluggishness, which is As slow as molasses Molasses is “a thick black sweet sticky liquid produced when sugar is refined, used in cooking” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2000) That molasses is sticky and thick makes it slow to pour This is also the reason for the idiom comes into usage Unfortunately, the idiom As slow as molasses does not have any Vietnamese exact equivalent This idiom can only be translated into Vietnamese simply as “chậm chạp”, for there is no idiom of comparison in Vietnamese which compares slow movements or actions with molasses 48 A person who looks energetic, or whose face is radiant with smile is described as fresh as a daisy in English Daisy is a kind of wild flower, and its comparable image can be discovered in a Vietnamese idiom of comparison Tươi hoa That both As fresh as a daisy and Tươi hoa stand for being happy and glowing has further implication The language users of the two languages share the same notion on the nature and the characteristic of flowers, which is being always fresh and salubrious “Fit” in English predominantly means “healthy and strong, especially because one does regular physical exercise” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2000) To be As fit as a fiddle has the meaning of to be very fit and well The reason why the condition of being fit is compared with a fiddle which is a colloquial nam of a violin has not been identified In spite of this, the idiom of comparison As fit as a fiddle is still in continuous use, and it is recorded to be first occurred in Thomas Dekker’s The batchelars banquet, 1063: “Then comes downe mistresse Nurse as fine as a farthing fiddle, in her petticoate and kertle” Soon afterwards, W Haughton’s English-men for my Money, 1616 includes the line: “This is excellent ynfayth [in faith], as fit as a fiddle” Referring to being strong and fit, Vietnamese language has an idiom of comparison which uses the familiar image of a buffalo – an animal closely attached to the agriculture-based culture of this nation That is Khỏe trâu (has the literal meaning of as strong as a buffalo in English) To speak of sickness, English language has a popular idiom of comparison As sick as a dog This idiom is usually used to refer a person who has a fever or a stomachache or looks ill There is another English idiom of comparison which has the adjective sick as well, that is As sick as a parrot Nevertheless, 49 As sick as a parrot does not have the same meaning as As sick as a dog, since As sick as a parrot designates disappointment, or depression There are different ideas about the origin of this expression The first idea comes with the assumption that parrots (especially tropical parrots) are, by nature, not suitable with the climate of Europe, which seems to e too cold for them When being captivated and brought to Europe, tropical parrots are unhappy for they have to struggle against the cold climate That is the reason for their being melancholy and even becoming sick The phrase “melancholy as a (sick) parrot” which first appeared in the 17th and 18th centuries is claimed to be based on that belief Another origin could have been related to a disease called a parrot fever, a common infectious decease in cage birds which is transferable to humans In Vietnamese, to talk about someone looks sick, Vietnamese people use the expression Ốm mèo hen (as sick as a cat) which has the similar meaning as As sick as a dog in English 2.4 Similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese idioms of comparison referring to human appearance and personality Despite the differences in culture, there are still coincidences in ways of thinking and observing the world of English and Vietnamese people This undoubtedly leads to the similarities in the way of expressing ideas and concepts through idioms of comparison referring to human characteristic and appearance In fact, many English idioms of comparison referring to human characteristic and appearance have exact equivalents in Vietnamese in terms 50 of both meaning and vocabulary To make this clear, let us consider these following idioms: English idioms Vietnamese equivalents As cold as ice Lạnh đá As cunning as a fox Xảo quyệt cáo As sick as a cat Ốm mèo hen As fresh as a daisy Tươi hoa As fast as a hare Nhanh thỏ As fat as a pig Béo lợn As fierce as a tiger Dữ cọp As mum as an oyster Câm hến As silly as a calf Ngu bò 10 As slow as a snail Chậm sên Otherwise, there are also differences in English and Vietnamese idioms of comparison referring to human personality and appearance Differences in the image of idiomatic comparisons about human appearance and characteristic in English and Vietnamese are consequences of dissimilarities between two cultures.Therefore, let’s take glimpse at some outstanding cultural factors first In a broad sense, talking about culture, it is necessary to talk about the nature, and after all, culture is a mirror of the nature, in which it is being adjusted by human beings to satisfy their demands in all aspects of life Original cultural identities of a nation are naturally rooted from historical conditions It is essential to refer to their geographical features as they play a significant role in the formation and growth of the culture; its own form of the 51 economy, political institution, customs and so on Culture, first and foremost, is a respond to a community with challenges of geo – climatic condition, then a respond to that of socio – historical condition The first thing easy to be realized is that Vietnamese idioms of comparison mainly bear production agriculture while English equivalents consist of components more or less tending towards farming agriculture and industrial society Vietnamese culture is mainly based on wet rice production That is, in daily life, people deal with production tools and animals that either directly or indirectly serve their farming As a result, they often take the familiar things which regularly exist in their daily lives and their way of thinking as the images of comparison This, firstly, can be found easily in the comparison of strength There are some idioms related to buffaloes such as: Khỏe trâu (as strong as buffalo), đen trâu (as black as buffalo) Buffalos attach to a humid – warm ecological system during the whole lives Therefore, people on mentioning strength or hard work often refer to that of buffaloes It is said that the image of a buffalo is constantly connected to wet – rice civilization The above thing can explain why Vietnamese people frequently liken the strength of a person to that of a buffalo On the contrary, in nomadic culture, British people compare human strength to horses rather than buffaloes Horses can be used to pull ploughs and cards, to transport and to entertain They are energetic enough to be suitable for the life of moving from place to place of nomadic people They can carry a weight that is many times greater than their own weight If a person is compared to a horse, he must have a very good health so English has an idiom as strong as a horse The images used in idioms of comparison 52 like animal components above, obviously, not mean the horse is not strong in Vietnamese culture and the buffalo in not strong in English culture From the cross – cultural view, this different usage rooted from the difference in the way each people think, the condition they live 2.5 Summary This chapter has made an analysis on the idioms of comparison referring to human characteristic and appearance in English and Vietnamese A number of idioms have been examined to figure out the degree of correspondence of structures and the images used in English and Vietnamese idioms of comparison However, the numbers of idioms which are discussed in this graduation paper are only limited to the idioms pointed out in dictionaries It is significant to emphasize that this paper is not a comprehensive and all-embracing study of all existing idioms of comparison referring to human Such progress takes years and needs further studies and consideration Even though this paper cannot cover all the existing English and Vietnamese idioms of comparison related to human (including informal idioms, colloquialisms, and slang), it still touches on some of the most frequently used idioms, and provides an overview about the differences and similarities in the images which appear in English and Vietnamese idiomatic expressions of comparison 53 CHAPTER : SOLUTIONS FOR BETTER TRANSLATION AND SOME TEACHING IMPLICATIONS This part provides some implications, suggestions that my be especially useful for language teachers and those who work on translation 3.1 Implications for Translation As we can see, although idioms about human appearance and character are just a small part of language, there are lots of things for us to pay attention Besides some certain similarities, coincidences which make translation a bit easier, idioms of comparison in English and those in Vietnamese have many striking dissimilarities The same comparative images can lead to different meanings and vice versa, the same meanings can be expressed by various images Human-related components in comparative idioms which carry with them distinct and national identities are also daunting impediments to interpretation and translation Obviously, we can not translate “Harry is as good as gold today” into Vietnamese as “Hôm nay, Harry tốt vàng vậy” It’s just “not right” and meaningless to Vietnamese people Similarly, “as easy as ABC” shouldn’t be translated as “dễ ABC” or “as strong as a horse” as “ khỏe ngựa” ,…Those clumsy and unnatural translations need to be avoided at all cost To make better translations, especially when it comes to idioms of comparison, there are some points that should be taken into consideration Firstly, since each country has its own culture and differences in language are usually caused by unalike cultures, a translator need to keep in mind that 54 a good understanding of culture is a must if he/she wants to make proper translation Mastering other cultures is indisputably strenuous and timeconsuming In fact, the most important thing is that we should foster a general and keen awareness of cultural differences, which will in some ways help us to avoid such unnatural and maladroit translating works and improve ourselves in translation Additionally, encountering some unfamiliar concepts, exceptionally different viewpoints or some idioms as well as expressions that appear hard to understand is something we can’t help shunning in translation It’s of paramount significance to have an open-minded view to accept the thought and belief of oversea people, to feel what they feel and to say what they say It’s also necessary to “think twice” and base on the context, the circumstances or the situations in order to deduce, render the exact meanings Never should we firmly cling to word-by-word translation, especially when it comes to idioms since they are separate semantic units whose meanings generally can not be elucidated by translating all of the component words Moreover, we need to be flexible when translating In many cases, a translator has to carefully make a decision on whether he/she should keep the literal denotation or change it if necessary to make better and the most satisfactory translations Last but not least, idioms as well as idioms of comparison can be seen as a hugely intriguing and challenging part in language In fact, they are utilized very frequently and effectively not only in spoken but also in written forms Thus, to develop or advance translation ability, one should spend time investigating and enhancing his/her knowledge of idioms, especially paying 55 close attention to those remarkably noteworthy dissimilarities resulting from different languages and cultures The more properly one can translate idiomatic expressions and structures, the better he/she is as a skilful and competent translator 3.2 Implications for Language Teaching It’s obvious that in many cases, to learn a foreign language effectively, one should have good knowledge of his/her own mother tongue Therefore, ameliorating native language’s competence of students is such a significant thing to However, knowledge of the first language can sometimes interfere with the foreign language acquisition of students In reality, they tend to make generalization or translate language items word by word from their mother tongue into the target language without sufficient understanding and awareness of the dissimilarities between them, which often results in misinterpretation and clumsy rendering Moreover, as a matter of fact, especially when it comes to idioms and idioms of comparison, differences in culture viewpoints as well as concepts usually cause considerable difficulties in learning and hinder students’ understanding Therefore, besides teaching linguistic knowledge, which is always necessary, teachers should “equip” students with general understanding of culture in the target languagespeaking country Moreover, it’s of paramount importance to regularly raise students’ awareness of the cultural and social dissimilarities between the two languages and nations 56 In language teaching, it’s essential to pay attention to idioms of comparison and similes as they can be utilized to better students’ language, kindle their creativity and create funny, interesting activities as well as add humor to the lessons Using comparative idioms in teaching grammar (comparison, for instant) will surely make grammar periods more exciting, intriguing and easier to understand It can even foster students’ vocabulary as well as structures Actually, learning idioms and idioms of comparison is very important step on the arduous road to master English Beyond doubt, teachers should help students to acquire idioms, especially comparative ones so that they can confidently and properly utilize them in the learning process as well as in daily life When it comes to teaching idioms of comparison, there are some key points that should be taken into consideration Firstly, teachers need to draw students’ attention and increase their awareness of the similarities and differences between Vietnamese and English idioms of comparison It’s advisable to teach exactly identical comparative idioms first, then move on to those which are quite similar and lastly, different ones For each idiom, teachers should let students guess, then find the differences (if there are any) and try explaining That way of teaching will enhance students’ knowledge, interest and help them have a better memorization Secondly, because the number of idioms of comparison in both English and Vietnamese is very enormous, we can not teach students all, it is necessary to choose the appropriate ones to present, especially those comparative idioms which are frequently utilized in English and not contain puzzling problems with grammatical structures or so enigmatic vocabulary Thirdly, to make it easier 57 for the learning of idioms, teachers can divide, classify them into many distinct categories, for example: comparative idioms with verbs and those with adjectives, or idioms concerning appearance, quality, actions,… Besides the teaching of idioms of comparison, we need to encourage students to use them in conversations as well as in writing Teachers should be the ones who that first With figurative and symbolic meanings, idioms and comparative idioms, as we have discussed above, usually add vividness, emphasis and “life” to the language, making every conversation more exciting and engaging PART C : CONCLUSION We cannot deny that culture plays a crucial role in the process of learning a new language There are a lot of similarities as well as differences between English and Vietnamese due to cultural distinction, especially idioms After studying a lot of idioms, we came to the conclusion that idiomatic expressions play an important role in describing appearance and character of people Turning back to history we can see that many of poets and novelists used idioms to beautify their language and make it melodious Nowadays 58 people began to use idioms in increasing frequency Idioms are often used by both journalists and politicians as short hand ways of expressing opinion or conveying ready- made evaluations Idioms add spice to the communication discourse thus making it more palatable It became an integral part of oral speech As a result translation is becoming more and more complicated That is why the main aim of the translator is not to translate word by word but to use his inspiration and imagination Studying about these will not only help to enhance the knowledge about language skills, especially about metaphor and figurative meaning of phrases but also give students confidence and motivation in their learning process After the study, there are also many good aspects that we gain to improve language translating and teaching Despite my considerable efforts, certain limitations could be detected in this study due to time constraint and other unexpected factors That is the number of idioms conveyed human personality and appearance in English idioms and Vietnamese in the study remained relatively low in comparison with the enormous number of English and Vietnamese idioms However, I hope that the serious work had well served as a contribution to the rich collection of other previous studies on the same area 59 REFERENCE Đỗ Hữu Châu, 1981, Từ vựng ngữ nghĩa tiếng Việt, , nxb Giáo dục, Hà Nội 1995, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English ,Oxford University Press Gibbs, R.W, 2007, Idioms and formulaic language, Oxford University Press Cooper Th., 1999, Processing of Idioms by L2 Learners of English TESOL Quarterly Izotova A , 1988, English Idiomatic Phraseology М., Филология Việt Chương, 1995, Từ điển thành ngữ tục ngữ ca dao Việt Nam, nxb Đồng Nai Moon R., 1998, Fixed Expressions and Idioms in English A Corpus-based Approach Oxford Nguyễn Văn Long, Semantic Features of English and Vietnamese Idiomatic Verb Phrases, 2010 Halliday, 1985, An Introduction to Functional Grammar, London: Edward Arnold 10 Seidl and McMordie, 1954, English Idioms and How to Use Them, Oxford University Press 11 Cooper Th , 1998, Teaching idioms Foreign language annals, Cambridge University Press 12 2006,Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners of English, Oxford University Press 13 Nguyễn Như Ý, 1995, Từ điển giải thích thành ngữ tiếng Việt, nxb Văn hóa – Thông tin 60 14 Lennon P., 1998, Approaches to the Teaching of Idiomatic Language International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 15 Trần Phong Giao,2010, Từ điển thành ngữ Việt- Anh, nxb Giao Thông Vận Tải 16 New Webster, 1993, Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language Connecticut: Lexicon Publlishers, Inc 17 Ju.X Xtepanov, 1956, Bases of General Linguistics 18 Nguyễn Văn Long, 2010, Linguistic Features of English and Vietnamese Idioms, Lambert Academic Publishing 19 Bùi Phụng, 2000, Từ điển thành ngữ tục ngữ Việt – Anh tường giải, nxb Tri Thức 20 Wray, A., Perkins,M.R , 2000, The functions of formulaic language: an integrated model IN: Language and Communication 61 [...]...researches into “Semantic Features of English and Vietnamese Idiomatic Verb Phrases” and “Linguistic Features of English and Vietnamese Idioms (2010) Nguyen Thi Dieu Hao focuses on the study of idioms containing color words in English and Vietnamese. Vo Thanh Quyen makes a contrastive analysis of idioms denoting Human Being in English and Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Phuong Thu studies “The Syntactic and Semantic... Features of English and Vietnamese Idioms Containing Verbs of Motion” (2008) Moreover, Nguyen Thi Thu Mai investigates “The Syntactic and Semantic Features of Idioms Denoting Causes and Results (English Versus Vietnamese) ” It could be seen that the linguistic features of idioms expressing distance in English versus Vietnamese have not been so far investigated 1.2 Definition of idioms: Each word certainly... starving  In Finnish, “with long teeth” means you are doing something that you really don’t want to do  In French, “to have long teeth” means you are ambitious If it is raining in large amounts, most cultures have an interesting way of saying that:  In English, it would be “raining cats and dogs”,  In Africa, they might say “it's raining old women with clubs.” Many languages refer to heavy rain as... users to understand that idiom more easily Certain situations determine the use of an idiom and they are indispensable cues for the decoding of an idiom’s functional force It is evidently true to say that “the correct usage of English idioms is finesse, which makes the language of the speaker more vivid and exciting” 27 CHAPTER 2 : IDIOMS ABOUT HUMAN APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 2.1... The English idioms of comparison referring to human in this paper are put into analysis and consideration prior to the Vietnamese ones This part focuses only on the English idioms of comparison referring to human characteristics and appearance which are in the form of “as…as…”, then compare them to the Vietnamese ones 28 The meanings of the idioms studied in this paper are taken and collected from standard... dictionaries of idioms such as Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, Longman Dictionary of Idioms, Từ Điển Thành Ngữ Anh Việt, etc Other materials and references are also used to compare and clarify the meaning of idioms 2.1.2 Idioms of comparison a Concepts of idioms of comparison in English and Vietnamese Every language has it owns idioms And in its collection of idioms there are idioms which contain words or... Vietnamese idioms in anchored in the structures of idioms According to that method, Vietnamese idioms can be grouped into two main categories: metaphoric idioms, and idioms of comparison Metaphoric idioms are idioms which contain metaphors Metaphoric idioms are principally based on the description of certain events or phenomena The form, the constituent parts (or in general, the appearance ) of a metaphoric... led by nose - idioms without any distinctive nominative and communicative function linguists usually include here modal and interjectional idioms, or idioms which have a cohesive function, e.g like hell; what on earth; on the other hand; as well as; by the way In relation to words, within the group of idioms with a nominative function (lexemic idioms) , we can refer to idioms equivalent to single words,... of view and discourse, some linguists, including Fernando (l996) speak about: - "ideational" idioms ("the state and way of the world" idioms, expressing namely: actions, events, situation, people, things, attitudes, emotions, etc.): red herring, bury the hatchet, as white as a sheet - "interpersonal" idioms (expressing greetings, agreement, rejections, etc.): so long, never mind - "relational” idioms. .. more learners’ listening, speaking, writing and reading skills will improve “There are certain things that happen in every culture and there are idioms to deal with them.” (New Webster,1993) 11  In Norwegian and Czech, “walking around hot porridge” refers to beating around the bush, which is also an idiom meaning not getting to the point  If you are in Italy or Turkey and you say you are “as hungry