A contrastive study on metonymy in english and vietnamese

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A CONTRASTVE STUDY ON METONYMY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU VỀ HOÁN DỤ TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) TRẦN PHƯƠNG THANH Hanoi, 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A CONTRASTIVE STUDY ON METONYMY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU VỀ HOÁN DỤ TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) TRẦN PHƯƠNG THANH Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang Hanoi, 2016 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A CONTRASTIVE STUDY ON METONYMY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2016 Tran Phuong Thanh Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang Date: 22/12/2016 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have completed this thesis with the help and support from the following people First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me during the process of conducting study and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions are very helpful for my academic research I would like to acknowledge a special word of thanks to Mrs Van Anh, an English lecturer of Hanoi College of Pharmacy and many others If there were not their support and encouragement, it would be impossible for me to complete the thesis Last but not least, I am grateful to my family, my colleagues for the sacrifice they have devoted to the accomplishment of this academic research ii ABSTRACT This study provides a contrastive analysis of metonymy in English and Vietnamese Theoretically, this is a systematic study on the metonymy as a transference mode of meaning in English Furthermore, it is aimed at finding the similarities and differences in the ways of using metonymy in English and Vietnamese Practically, this study is intended to help Vietnamese learners of English to have more knowledge of metonymy as a transference mode of meaning in English and Vietnamese Therefore, they will get use of the knowledge of metonymy to enhance their vocabulary Contrastive analysis is the main method based on the data collected from many books, websites and previous studies The findings of the study provide evidence that metonymy is very widely used in both spoken and written language Using this mode of transference of meaning brings more rhetorical color for the language English and Vietnamese share some similarities and differences in using metonymy The differences in the ways of using metonymy between English and Vietnamese are based on the different culture and history The results of the study are significant because they enrich the knowledge of metonymy As a result, learners, teachers or translators can apply this knowledge for their career iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BofE.: Bank of English BNC.: British National Corpus OALDCE: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English ICM.: Idealized Cognitive Model S.: Same D.: Different iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table Features of Metonymy and Metaphor 11 Table Similarities and differences of metonymy in English and 41 Vietnamese v TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of abbreviations iv List of tables and figures v Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research 1.2 Aims of the research 1.3 Objectives of the research 1.4 Scope of the research 1.5 Significance of the research 1.6 Structural organization of the thesis Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies 2.2 Review of theoretical background 2.2.1Theoretical framework 2.2.1.1 Word meaning 2.2.1.2 Transference of meaning 2.2.1.2.1 Definition of transference of meaning 2.2.1.2.2 Means of meaning transference 2.2.2 Theoretical background 2.2.2.1 Metonymy as a means of meaning transference 2.2.2.2 Metonymy and metaphor 10 vi 2.2.2.3.The contiguity notion of metonymy 11 2.2.2.4 Types of metonymy in English 13 2.2.2.5 Types of metonymy in Vietnamese 24 2.3 Summary 34 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 35 3.1 Research- governing orientations 35 3.1.1 Research Questions 35 3.1.2 Research Setting 35 3.1.3 Research Approaches 35 3.1.4 Principles for data collection and data analysis 36 3.2 Research methods 37 3.2.1 Major methods and supporting methods 37 3.2.2 Data collection instruments 38 3.2.3 Data analysis techniques 39 3.3 Summary 40 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 41 4.1.Similarities and differences of metonymy in English and 41 Vietnamese 4.1.1 The similarities of metonymy in English and Vietnamese 45 4.1.1.1 In terms of their definition 46 4.1.1.2 In terms of their function 46 4.1.1.3 In terms of classification of metonymy 46 4.1.2 The differences between metonymy in English and Vietnamese 49 4.1.2.1 In terms of classification of metonymy 50 4.1.2.2 In terms of the logical thinking 50 4.1.2.3 In terms of cultural features 52 4.2 Implications in teaching and learning and translating English as a 53 foreign language vii 4.2.1 Implications in teaching and learning English as a foreign 53 language 4.2.2 Implications in English- Vietnamese translation and vice versa 55 4.3 Summary 56 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 57 5.1 Recapitulation 57 5.2 Concluding remarks 57 5.3 Limitation of the research 60 5.4 Recommendations/Suggestions for a further research 60 REFERENCES 62 viii 4.1.2.1 In terms of classification There are some types of metonymy which are used widely in English but rarely or hardly used in Vietnamese We can list out these types of metonymy: Salient Property for category, Cause for effect metonymy, Effect for cause, Possessor for Possessed metonymy, Possessed for Possessor, Event for place, Inhabitant for Place metonymy, Institution for place metonymy, Content for the container The table has shown very clearly the metonymic relations with examples in both English and Vietnamese We can take some example of metonymy in the two languages as following Some metonymies are popularly used in English For example: rubber is the material but also used as a metonymy to refer to the thing made of rubber; glass is also the material and used to refer to the container made of glass However, in Vietnamese, we rarely find out examples of metonymy The equivalent of rubber in Vietnamese is tẩy The equivalent of glass in Vietnamese is cốc Tẩy and cốc in Vietnamese not have any metonymic sense Tẩy and cốc are just the name of things, not the material 4.1.2.2 In terms of the logical thinking The logical thinking of Vietnamese and English are different As the result, the way of conceptualizing phenomenon are different When they conceptualize the phenomenon, people of both two languages use different process Therefore, they use different things to express their ideas Some metonymies belong to the same type of metonymy but their meanings are different 50 For example, Vietnamese and English people use different things to denote language In English, the organ of speech tongue is used to refer to language In Vietnamese, the sound of speech tiếng stands for language The differences between English and Vietnamese in term of metonymy can be found in some particular cases We will take an example of using metonymy in the part- whole relation Vietnamese and English choose different parts to stand for the whole The following example is extracted from the study of Phạm Thị Hoài Thu (2007: 33) (77) In English: There are about three thousand trunks in that forest (78) In Vietnamese: Có khoảng ba ngàn ngọn/ gốc (cây) khu rừng In this case, Vietnamese and English have different choice of using what part of tree to refer to the whole tree English people often use the main woody part of a tree while Vietnamese people have a tendency of using the top or foot of the tree to conceptualize the tree In addition, the both speaking communities also use the same things to refer to the different things This examples are drawn from the study of Pham Thi Hoai Thu (2007: 32) Example: (79) In English: Can I have some sweets, please? (sweets mean candies, biscuit and other things in a sweet shop) 51 (80) In Vietnamese: Chọn (quả) vào nhé! (ngọtrefers to fruits which are sweet) As we can see, sweets have different meaning in the two sentences This is examples of using the same things to refer to the different things 4.1.2.3 In terms of the cultural feature Vietnamese and English are used by people of different culture The different culture is reflected very clearly in language Vietnam is a developing country and the economy of Vietnam is an agriculture one.Vietnamese people’s lives are related to the nature Therefore, we can find many natural factors in Vietnamese language and Vietnamese metonymy Examples: Lúa ngô refers to food; Xuân, hạ, thu, đông…refers to year; gốc cam refers to some orange trees The following example is draw the thesis of Phạm Thị Hoài Thu (2007: 32) (81) In English: He is always running after the skirt (82) In Vietnamese: Bóng hồng nhác thấy nẻo xa Xuân lan, thu cúc, mặn mà hai (Nguyễn Du 2011:26) In the above examples, the authors use the same metonymic relation between two objects that is the relation between the clothes and the owers However, each language use different kind of clothes to refer a girl or a woman In English, the skirt becomes the image of woman and girl Meanwhile, 52 Vietnamese women often wear áo hồng (four-panel dress) Hence, áo hồng becomes the image of Vietnamese girls or women and is used as a metonymy in literary works or everyday conversations In conclusion, the differences in logical thinking and culture features results in those differences between English and Vietnamese metonymy 4.2 Implications in teaching and learning and translating English as a foreign language 4.2.1 Implications in teaching and learning English as a foreign language I hope that the contrastive study of metonymy in English and Vietnamese presented here is a modest contribution to the field of linguistics in general and the theoretical background of metonymy in particular Metonymy is not just a figure of speech, but is the reflection of how people normally conceptualize themselves, events, and the daily life Hence, in the process of teaching English especially English vocabulary, teaching metonymy plays an essential role Mastering the meaning and use of metonymy will help students enrich their vocabulary in order to succeed in communication and learning English The importance things need to be solved is how to help students overcome the difficulties in learning of metonymy and find out the effective method for it Firstly, the teachers of English should make full use of metonymy to teach students more effectively Making use of metonymy helps enhance the rhetorical effect for the sentences Furthermore, it also make the expressions interesting Therefore, students will be deeply aware of metonymy and 53 interested in learning English After understanding about the conception of metonymy, the students will know how metonymy is used and what types of metonymy in different contexts They will learn that metonymy is a figure of speech which not only appears in literature works but also in everyday life Teachers should try to choose the suitable metonymy to teach students In the process of English teaching, when students come across the sentence such as “The White House is not saying anything”, teachers should explain to students about the original meaning and metonymic sense of the words “the White House” After that, teachers should ask students to produce another metonymy, such as “Beijing is not saying anything” or “Russia is not saying anything” Then, teachers should divide class into groups to some tasks Each group will be asked to choose some objects and create some metonymy expressions with the chosen objects and give the explanation about why they produce these expressions This activity is quite challenging but very effective in improve students’ critical thinking Secondly, on the aspect of cultural teaching, there will be three stages including the beginning stage, the intermediate stage and the advance stage In the beginning stage, teachers will tell students about the cultural background and meanings of the vocabulary Teachers ask students to study of use of metonymy In the intermediate stage, students will concentrate on the study of cultures and conventions In this stage, students will get be aware of cultural difference of metonymies In the advanced stage, students should get to know the relationship between the metonymy and thought or metonymy and culture Moreover, teachers should combine cultural teaching of metonymy and language teaching Teachers not only explain clearly the cultures in the 54 metonymy but also improve students’ skills such as listening, reading, speaking and writing By combining culture teaching of metonymy with language teaching, teachers will help students understand and remember the words easily and vividly Moreover, the teachers should train the students on metonymy competence The students should read more poems to improve their literary accomplishment The more poems students recite the higher metonymy competence they get Reading more poems helps enrich students’ expression in English Teachers should require their students to collect expression on metonymy and find out the metonymy used in these expressions Moreover, the students should make use of Internet to understand the meanings of the metonymy The data base is essential to improve the students’ metonymy competence It is advisable for students to take a metonymy as a core Then they should search on the Internet or dictionaries the other similar metonymies This activity help students understand clearly about the metonymy in a sentences and the variety of metonymies in different languages I have tried some of the above suggested activities in my own teaching context and find it very effective for students I hope that these suggestions will be a good reference for teachers and learners of English to apply in their own teaching and learning environment 4.2.2 Implications in English- Vietnamese translation and vice versa As we have discussed, the use of metonymy is always in a relationship with cultural environment We could not translate effectively without any understanding about both English and Vietnamese culture 55 In the process of translating the translator should understand the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese with regard to metonymy The effective solution for the translators in the process of translating is finding the equivalents in the target language compared with the source language For examples: The pen is mightier than the sword => Ngọn bút sắc bén gươm giáo However, no equivalents can be found in many cases Therefore, the translators should find other suitable words in target language Examples: Yoko had a separate closet just for her furs => Yoko có phòng riêng để quần áo lông thú cô This example tells us not to use word- by- word translation because the use of these words are different in each language 4.3 Summary This chapter has given out the main types of metonymy in both two languages All of data used in this chapter was analyzed and discussed carefully The author points out the similarities and differences of metonymy in English and Vietnamese based on the result of the data analysis 56 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation There was a famous saying “You can not walk through the same stream twice” The world is always moving and changing everyday, every hour Language in both spoken and written form is also changing for the purpose of communication As a figure of speech, metonymy is widely used It is used not only in everyday life but also in written language such as newspaper, journals, especially in literature for rhetorical purpose Metonymy is used in developing literary symbolism By using metonymy, the meanings of words are more profound Metonymy is widely used in many languages with different typologies Metonymy used in different language has different features and cases However, there are also similarities in metonymy of different languages This study has given out the use of metonymy in English and Vietnamese In this study, a description of metonymy in English and Vietnamese is presented concisely A contrastive analysis of metonymy between two languages is also presented Therefore, the similarities and differences between these two languages can be demonstrated quite clearly Although this study is the result of great effort and time, there are still unavoidable mistakes This is because of the limited knowledge and time of the author Hence, comments and suggestions from readers are very valuable to help complete the study 5.2 Concluding remarks The findings of this study have answered the research questions in chapter of this research: 57 (i) What are the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese with regard to metonymy? The study points out the similarities and differences of metonymy in English and Vietnamese based on the result of the statistics and data analysis It can be concluded that English and Vietnamese share some surprising similarities of metonymy in terms of definition, function and classification The two languages share the same definition and the same relations as the means of metonymy We will list the types of metonymy used widely in both two language: Behavioral reactions –Emotion, Controller-Controlled, Institutionfor-people-responsible, Object used-user, Part – Whole, Whole-Part, a Place – event, a Producer-for-product, Author name – his works, Concrete- abstract, Container- contained, Parts of body as symbol, Material-for thing made of – material, a Place-for-institution On the other hand, the use of metonymy in the two countries has shown differences influenced by the two cultures The differences of metonymy between English and Vietnamese are in terms of the classification, the logical thinking and the cultural feature There are some types of metonymy which are used widely in English but rarely or hardly used in Vietnamese We can list out these types of metonymy: Salient Property for category, Cause for effect metonymy, Effect for cause, Possessor for Possessed metonymy, Possessed for Possessor, Event for place, Inhabitant for Place metonymy, Institution for place metonymy, Content for the container In some certain cases, Vietnamese and English sometime use different things to substitute for the same things in the 58 same relation of metonymy There are also more different types of metonymy in English than in Vietnamese (ii)What are some suggestions for teaching, learning and translating English into Vietnamese? The study gives some suggestions for teaching and learning English Hopefully, my research may help learners of English to have a better understanding of metonymy in English and Vietnamese Then they will find out the best way of learning English in general and English vocabulary in particular Besides, teachers of English can get benefits from this research In the process of teaching English especially English vocabulary, teaching metonymy plays an essential role Mastering the meaning and use of metonymy will help students enrich their vocabulary in order to get better results in communication and learning English The important problem needed to solve is to how to help students overcome the difficulties in learning of metonymy and find out the effective method for it Teaching vocabulary and teaching metonymy does not mean giving students an English word, its metonymic sense and its equivalent in Vietnamese The role of a teacher is to help students find out the connection between the word’s original use and metonymic sense It is advisable for teachers to provide their students some relations which can help them understand metonymic sense For more challenging activity, teacher should ask students to choose some objects and create some metonymy expressions with the chosen objects and give the explanation about why they produce these expressions 59 Besides providing some suggestions for teaching and learning English, this thesis also provide some implications for translating The use of metonymy is put in its cultural environment The translator should understand about both English and Vietnamese cultures to have better translation The translator should be aware of the similarities and differences between the uses of metonymy in English and Vietnamese During the process of translating from source language to target language, the translator should avoid word-by-word translation 5.3 Limitations of the study Despite the researcher’s great effort, this study still has some limitations Firstly, the research has been conducted in a very small scope The number of sentences collected in the study is still limited, not cover all the cases As a result, the results may not be generalized Secondly, the target subjects of the study just focus on some main types of metonymy in English and Vietnamese There are still some types of metonymy which haven’t found out The researcher hopes that in the future research, these limitations will be solved to have a better result 5.4 Suggestions for further study For the purpose of promoting understanding of metonymy in both English and Vietnamese, the contrastive study of metonymy presented here is only a modest contribution The author is aware that there are still some important 60 questions that remain unanswered From the findings and limitations of the study, the author makes following recommendations for further research: First, data of the study were only some examples withdrawn from everyday communications, literary works and previous studies Therefore, the results cannot be generalized The results would be more exact if the study on metonymy is conducted with larger amounts of sentences from both daily communications and literary works Second, the subjects of the study just focus on some main types of metonymy not mention to other types of metonymy which are less used in both two languages These other types which are not investigated in this study are available data sources for other future researches 61 REFERENCES In English Barcelona et al (2011) Defining Metonymy in Cognitive Linguistics: Towards a Consensus View Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company Blank, A (1999) Co-presence and succession: A cognitive typology of metonymy In K Panther & G Radden (Ed.), Metonymy in Language and Thought (PP.169-191) Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company Croft, W (1993) The role of domains in the interpretation of metaphors and metonymies Cognitive Linguistics, 4, 335-370 Jakobson, R (2002), Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Disturbances, in Linda Waugh and Monique Monville- Burston, On Language, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Jialing,G (2009).The cognitive Nature of Metonymy and Its Implications for English Vocabulary Teaching Vol No.4 Kövecses, Z (2002) Metaphor New York: Oxford University Press Lakoff, G (1987) Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind Chicago: University of Chicago Press Lakoff, G and Johnson, M (1980) Metaphors We Live By Chicago: University of Chicago Press Lakoff, G and Turner, M (1989) More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor Chicago: Chicago University Press 62 10.Littlemore, J (2015) Metonymy: Hidden shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 11.Panther, K and Radden, G (1999) Metonymy in Language and Thought Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company 12.Panther, K & Thornburg, L (1999) The potentiality for actuality metonymy in English and Hungarian In Panther, K and Radden, G (Ed.), Metonymy in Language and Thought Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company 13.Bank of English 14.British National Corpus 15 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English 16 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In Vietnamese 17.Diệp Quang Ban (1998) Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt Hà Nội: Nxb Giáo dục 18.Đinh Trọng Lạc, (1997) Phong cách học Tiếng Việt Hà Nội: Nxb Giáo dục 19.Hoài Thanh- Hoài Chân, (2005) Thi nhân Việt Nam Hà Nội: Nxb Văn học 20.Lê Bá Hán, (2005) Tinh hoa Thơ Hà Nội: Nxb Giáo dục 21.Lê Hạnh (2005) Ca dao tục ngữ Việt Nam Hà Nội: Nxb Lao động 22.Lịch sử triều đại phong kiến Việt Nam Nxb Giáo dục 23.Nguyễn Du, (2011) Truyện Kiều Hà Nội: Nxb Văn hóa –Thơng tin 24.Nguyễn Hòa (2000) An introduction to Semantics Nxb Đại học Quốc gia 63 25.Phạm Thị Hoài Thu, (2007) Metonymy as the transferences of meaning: a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese Trường ĐHNNĐHQGHN 26.Tố Hữu, (2005) Thơ Tố Hữu Hà Nội: Nxb Văn học 27.Trịnh Minh Hải, (2003) Metonymy in English and Vietnamese – A contrastive analysis Trường ĐH Vinh 28.http://www.baomoi.com/bo-y-te-va-vietinbank-ky-thoa-thuan-hop-tac30-000-ty-dong-tiep-suc-cho-nganh-y/c/17530435.epi 29.http://www.baovanhoa.vn/VANHOAVANNGHE/print-85692.vho 30.http://nld.com.vn/thoi-su-trong-nuoc/bien-hoa-cho-hoc-sinh-nghi-somde-tranh-mua-ngap-ket-xe-20160929181436384.htm 64 ... English as a 53 foreign language vii 4.2.1 Implications in teaching and learning English as a foreign 53 language 4.2.2 Implications in English- Vietnamese translation and vice versa 55 4.3 Summary... the study and the method to collect and analyze the data Chapter with the title FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS summarizes the findings in metonymy in English and Vietnamese Chapter – CONCLUSION points... and Vietnamese: A contrastive analysis ( Trịnh Minh Hải, 2003) and Metonymy as the transferences of meaning: a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese (Phạm Thị Hoài Thu, 2007) These authors