A study of idioms by food in english and vietnamese from a perspective of components

ABSTRACT An investigation of idioms by food in English and Vietnamese in terms of structural and semantic components is carried out in the present study.. Several attempts have been made

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

KHƯƠNG THỊ THỦY

A STUDY OF IDIOMS BY FOOD IN ENGLISH AND

VIETNAMESE FROM A PERSPECTIVE OF COMPONENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU THÀNH NGỮ THUỘC CHỦ ĐỀ THỰC PHẨM TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT TỪ BÌNH DIỆN HỢP PHẦN)

M.A THESIS Field: English Language Code: 8220201

Hanoi, 2018

` MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

KHƯƠNG THỊ THỦY

A STUDY OF IDIOMS BY FOOD IN ENGLISH AND

VIETNAMESE FROM A PERSPECTIVE OF COMPONENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU THÀNH NGỮ THUỘC CHỦ ĐỀ THỰC PHẨM TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT TỪ BÌNH DIỆN HỢP PHẦN)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Language Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2018

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report

entitled “A Study of Idioms by Food in English and Vietnamese from a Perspective

of Components” 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

Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph D

Date:………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from

my suppervisor, teachers and closest relatives

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mr Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph D, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported

me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

Many thanks go to my colleagues and many others whose support and encouragement help me to have this thesis accomplished

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for their patience, endless love, and devotion Whatever choices I have made, they have always stood

by me and believed in me I am immensely thankful for all the assistance they have given me

It is the support of all of the above that has enabled the completion of this study, and for this I remain eternally grateful

ABSTRACT

An investigation of idioms by food in English and Vietnamese in terms of structural and semantic components is carried out in the present study The study is done in the hope to reach the three objectives: (1) uncovering how the components

of idioms by food are organized structurally and semantically in English and Vietnamese, (2) finding out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms by food in terms of structural and semantic components, (3) giving some implications for teaching and learning idioms by food through component analysis The study also uses the componential analysis and descriptive methods to describe in details structural and semantic components of idioms by food in English and Vietnamese Besides, the contrastive analysis will be used to identify the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms by food in terms of structural and semantic components The findings of the study are concerned with the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms by food in terms of (1) structural components and (2) semantic components

In order to collect the data, a hand search approach of the dictionaries in both languages has been conducted, which helps to establish a corpus of 162 idioms by food in English and 167 idioms by food in Vietnamese The collected data forms a corpus under three categories: symmetrical idioms by food (11 for English and 79 for Vietnamese), similized idioms by food (42 for English and 45 for Vietnamese), and non-symmetrical idioms by food (109 for English and 43 for Vietnamese).The findings of the current study also reveal that most of the idioms in both English and Vietnamese are analyzable and have meanings that are at least partly motivated The thesis also presents the implications for idiom teaching and learning

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Classification of symmetrical figurative idioms in Vietnamese

(Hoàng Văn Hành 2008: 76)

Figure 2.2: Classification of non-symmetrical figurative idioms in

Vietnamese (Hoàng Văn Hành 2008: 100)

Figure 2.3: Classification of similized idioms in Vietnamese (Hoàng Văn

Hành 2008: 115)

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4.1 Structural Components of Idioms by Food in English and Vietnamese 37

4.2.4 Composition of Semantic Components of Idioms by Food in English and

4.3 English and Vietnamse Idioms by Food Compared in Terms of Structural and

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

In Vietnam, English has long been regarded as a tool of international communication, and together with its rising importance, the need of learning English is becoming more and more urgent It can't be denied that all foreign learners in general and Vietnamese learners in particular desire to master English as the native speakers; however, they usually face a lot of difficulties that prevent them from gaining successful conversations One of the reasons for these problems lies in the way people perceive and use idioms

Idiom is often defined as “a group of words which have a different meaning when used together from the one it would have if the meaning of each word was taken individually” In fact, idioms are frequently heard and read in everyday speech and in literature thanks to their succinctness, vividness and especially quintessence in every language Idioms in this way bear the cultural features of a country in which they are used In order to understand as well as translate idioms from a language into another one, knowledge of not only linguistic aspects but also

of cultural reality has to be involved Therefore, there may be nothing strange in the fact that gaining an insight into English idioms is not only a wish but also a necessity to any English learners

Actually, studying idioms is not new; nonetheless, it has never been old In Vietnam, there exist three approaches in studying idioms: etymology, synchronic evolution, and comparison and contrastive analysis (Hoàng Văn Hành, 2008) Firstly, the investigations on idioms under etymology go into macro field These studies focus on the formation and transformation of each idiom during its existence It is hard work taking a lot of time and energy The method mainly used

in these studies is the etymologizing, i.e the origins of idioms are recovered in order to make the forms and the idiomatic meanings transparent Hoàng Văn Hành

(2002) and Tiêu Hà Minh (2007) are the typical authors who pay attention to this area The second approach in studying idioms is synchronic evolution Descriptive method is used in these studies from which the underlying cultural factors behind the idioms are partly interpretable This area of study attracts a lot of authors such

as Trương Đông San (1974), Nguyễn Lực & Lương Văn Đang (1978), Nguyễn Công Đức (1995), Hoàng Văn Hành (2008), etc Studying idioms under comparison and contrastive analysis is the third approach The studies under original recovery and synchronic evolution are the backgrounds for comparison and contrastive works Several attempts have been made to work out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in terms of emotion expressing idioms (Nguyễn Văn Trào, 2009), idiomatic verb phrases (Nguyễn Văn Long, 2010), idiom translation (Nguyễn Thị Lan, 2001; Hoàng Thị Minh Phúc, 2009), structural and semantic components of idioms (Đặng Nguyên Giang, 2014), etc

There have been so far studies on idioms such terms as colors, geography, animals, time and so on from different perspectives However, there have not been any studies investigating idioms related to food in English and Vietnamese from a

perspective of components As a result, the present study is carried out to find out

the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in terms of idioms

by food from the perspective of components

1.2 Aims of the Study

The study is conducted to improve the English teaching and learning in general and idiom teaching and learning in particular The findings of the study, to some extent, help the teachers and the learners have a better way to improve English and Vietnamese idioms The present study is done in the hope to reach the following objectives:

- to uncover how the components of idioms by food are organized structurally and semantically in English and Vietnamese;

- to find out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms by food in terms of structural and semantic components;

- to give some implications for teaching and learning idioms by food through component analysis

1.4 Methods of the Study

Due to the main aims and objectives of the study, description, componential analysis and contrastive exploitation would be mainly carried out throughout the process Also, the thesis makes use of the English language as the target and the Vietnamese one as the source language (the base language)

Componential analysis and descriptive methods are used to describe in details structural and semantic components of idioms by food in English and Vietnamese

Contrastive analysis will be used to identify the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms by food in terms of structural and semantic components

1.5 Scope of the Study

Due to the duration of time and length as well as the reference available, this thesis does focus on the idioms by food in both English and Vietnamese from structural and semantic component perspective selected from recently published dictionaries All the authors of these works affirm that the idioms in their books are both current and used, or at least understood, by most native speakers It means that

the study is deliberately limited to idioms by food usually used in daily

conversations

1.6 Significance of the Study

Theoretically, the findings of the study, to some extent, prove that the components forming idioms can be analyzed from both structural and semantic perspectives The idioms by food are quite popular in both English and Vietnamese; therefore, the investigation is highly reliable in terms of theoretical framework

suggested

Practically, with the purpose of making a study on the components of idioms

by food in English and Vietnamese, the study will be able to provide Vietnamese learners of English with better mastering how to apply this kind of idioms in sensible ways and how to understand the meanings of idioms thoroughly, effectively and naturally Besides, the findings of the study, to some extent, will also help the students improve their idioms in general and idioms by food in particular

1.7 Design of the study

The study is divided into five chapters namely: Introduction, Literature review, Methodology, Finding discussion, and Conclusion, of which major contents consists of five chapters are as follows:

Chapter 1 presents the rationale for the research, the aims and the objectives

of the study, the research questions, the scope of the research, the significances of research as well as design of the study

Chapter 2 discusses some previous studies on different kinds of idioms by

food in English and Vietnamese and the theoretical background about idioms by food

Chapter 3 discusses issues of methodology and outline subjects, data

collection instruments, procedure of data collection, statistical analysis and summary content of this chapter

Chapter 4 presents the studying idioms by food under comparison and

contrastive analysis, identify the similarities and differencies between English and Vietnamese idioms by food in term of structural and semantic components The pedagogical implication of the study as well as summary content of this chapter are also presented

Chapter 5 makes conclusions on each of the research objectives,

implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for further research References come at the end of the study

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical Background

2.1.1 Idioms Defined

Words have their own meanings They, however, do not just come individually; they also come in expressions or in groups Idioms are among the most common of these expressions And it seems impossible to master a language without learning idioms – a very important part of the language What is an idiom?

The question may have several answers

Many linguists such as Robins (1989), Palmer (1981) and others regard idioms as a special kind of collocation The meaning of an idiom, however, cannot

be deduced from the meaning of its constituents An idiom is distinguished from a collocation, for a collocation is a sequence of lexical items which habitually co-occur and each lexical constituent of a collocation is a semantic component Hornby (1995) argued in his Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, an idiom is “a phrase

or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit” Sharing the same point of view, Seidl and Mordie (1988) defined “an idiom is a number of words which, taken together, mean something different from the individual words of the idiom when they stand

alone” For instance, the collocation of kick and the bucket forms an idiom meaning die, which is not systematically determinable from the meanings of kick and the bucket This idiom or phrasal lexeme is formally identical with the phrase kick the bucket whose meaning is systematically determinable on the basis of the meaning of the lexemes of which it is composed – hit a certain type of container for liquids with their foot

Nguyễn Công Đức (1995) studies Vietnamese idioms from formal-semantic perspectives It can be said that it is a research investigating idioms quite systematically from both structural and semantic perspectives Based on the forms,

he divides Vietnamese idioms into three categories: symmetrical idioms, similized

idioms and ordinary idioms For symmetrical idioms, the most important characteristic is the reciprocal or contrast of meaning of the two parts of idioms, i.e

it is the relation of symmetrical contents From this relation, symmetrical idioms form other relations such as the relation of symmetrical words, i.e symmetry or repetition between components Like other linguists, he supposes that similized

idioms are formed according a general formula A như B (e.g đẹp như tiên (very beautiful), trắng như ngà (very white), nhảy như choi choi (jump continuously), etc) Ordinary idioms are generally formed by phrases, especially verb phrases: gửi trứng cho ác (believe in wicked people), nói toạc móng heo (speak out one‟s mind), đánh bùn sang ao (do something with no results), etc Additionally, this kind of idioms also has subject – predicate pattern: chuột sa chĩnh gạo (be very lucky to have a comfortable life), ếch ngồi đáy giếng (have limited knowledge), chó ngáp phải ruồi (be in luck), etc The meaning formation process of idioms consists of

three stages: creating constituent parts including explicit and implicit components, establishing the meanings through the internal relations among components, generalizing and identifying the idiomatic meanings with things and concepts in everyday life He also comments that the meanings of idioms are generally formed according to symmetrical, contrastive, harmonious, convergent and sudden relations

Hoàng Văn Hành (2008, p 31) states that an idiom is a fixed group of words which is firm in terms of structure, complete and figurative in terms of meaning, and is widely used in daily speaking The fixed properties of an idiom can be realized as follows: (i) the words of an idiom are generally fixed It means that the components forming an idiom are unchanged in using; (ii) the fixed characteristic of the structure of an idiom is expressed by the fixed order of the components forming

an idiom

As can be seen from the above definitions, there are different ways of defining an idiom In general, most of the linguists share the same point that an

idiom is a fixed expression whose meaning can not be worked out by looking at the meaning of its individual words

2.1.2 Syntactic and Semantic Features of Idioms

i) Syntactic and Semantic Features of English Idioms

It is very easy to realize that most idioms are fixed expressions There are no

changes in structure, word order and lexicology We can take the idiom black and blue (of bruises) as an example It would sound uncanny if we changed it into blue and black It means that it wouldn‟t make sense Moreover, when an idiom is used

in a complete sentence, it is hardly change into passive voice Let us consider the

idiom to stuff one’s face in the sentence She is stuffing her face with chocolates (She is eating a lot of chocolates); It would be unnatural to say Her face is stuffed with chocolates

However, some other idioms are more flexible; we can make some changes

if they don‟t lose their idiomatic meaning This means that idioms are only fixed in some of their parts but not all The alteration of component words can help to form

a different idiom of the same or different meaning Appearing on the mass media is

in this way of using They no longer keep the full form of the idiom but add some more components to make it more vivid, particularly effective when writing articles

We can change the tense of the verb in the idiom to give someone the cold shoulder (to treat someone in a cold or unfriendly way), or the verb in to have one’s finger with to get one’s finger

In addition, idioms may take many different forms or structures Some

idioms are noun phrases such as tender age, a black sheep, forty winks, etc Some are verb phrases such as to spare one’s blushes, to do someone proud, to cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth, etc The most important thing is that an idiom can have its own regular, irregular or even incorrect grammatical structure to be at large is an example of grammatical irregularity The idiom is formed by verb + preposition + adjective In English, no structure like this is normally accepted

because an adjective doesn‟t usually come after a preposition singly However, this can be considered as an exception in language

When mentioning the semantic features of an idiom, we often talk about its meaning A linguist said “the meaning of an idiom is the special chemical mixture

of all components‟ meaning, which is completely new in quality” This means that

it is very important to understand idioms metaphorically We cannot usually discover the meanings by looking up the individual words in a dictionary when studying idioms; most of the idioms are metaphorical rather than literal For

example, in order to understand the idiom (to feel) like fish out of water, we have to consider its meaning metaphorically as to feel uncomfortable because of unfamiliar surroundings

Another feature concerning itself with semantics is that idioms can range from positive, neutral to negative meaning Some idioms have positive meanings

such as a willing horse (a keen worker), to get it into one’s head (deeply understand), or to warm the cockles of one’s heart (to make someone feel pleased or happy) Some have neutral meanings as to watch the world go by (observe the

others while doing nothing oneself), etc And many other idioms are negative For

instance, crocodile tears means insincere tears, to waste one’s breath means to talk

or give advice without having any effects, or to wash one’s dirty linen in public means to discuss or argue about one’s personal affairs in public, etc All those

examples show that the nuances of idiomatic meanings are very complicated They mainly depend on the nuances of their key components

ii) Syntactic and Semantic Features of Vietnamese Idioms

Most of Vietnamese linguists have had the same point of view about the forms of Vietnamese idioms Nguyễn Văn Tu (1976) says “Idioms are fixed expressions whose word components do not have their own individual meanings and become a solid block” He emphasizes the combination of the components forming the meaning of idioms Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (1975) does consider an idiom

as a fixed expression Although Nguyễn Đức Dân (1986) does not focus on the

forms of Vietnamese idioms, he deals with the fixation of idioms He writes

“Idioms are language units which have fixed forms” Hoàng Văn Hành (1987) attaches special importance to the components forming idioms He affirms that an idiom is a fixed group of words whose form is unchanged

It can be said that Vietnamese idioms are fixed groups of words whose forms are unchanged: the fixed combination comes from settled words and

expressions such as bắt cá hai tay (run after two hares), mèo mù vớ cá rán (The devil looks after his own), cá chậu chim lồng (behind prison bars), ăn chắc mặc bền (solidity first), chuột sa chĩnh gạo (get a windfall), etc The fixation shows that we

cannot change the order of words or use the synonyms (similar words) to replace any components of an idiom in a casual way This is a basic feature helping us to realize idioms easily However, in fact, there are some fixed expressions which are

not idioms such as bánh xe lịch sử (the wheel of history), gia đình văn hóa (good family), khoa học kỹ thuật (sciences and techniques) etc Therefore, in order to

realize an idiom correctly, we can not only look at this feature but also other ones There have been a lot of different opinions about the semantic features of Vietnamese idioms According to Nguyễn Văn Mệnh (1972), an idiom introduces

an image, a phenomenon, a state, a personality, an attitude, etc This opinion is quite simple and general In 1986, he gave his own new point of view: Idioms have their own meanings and nominative functions, and are used in daily speaking Nguyễn Văn Tú (1976) says “The meaning of an idiom does not come from individual components which may have their images or not Its meaning can be different from the meaning of each component or does come from each original word”

Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (1985) focused on the basic semantic features of idioms: Being rich in imagery is a basic feature of idioms Idioms express concepts basing

on specific images and symbols The imagery of idioms is made from its metaphor and comparison

Although there have been different ideas about the semantic features of idioms, Vietnamese linguists have all shared the same point of view as follows:

Firstly, the meaning of an idiom is a perfect whole which does not come from the meanings of individual components added

Secondly, the meaning of an idiom expresses the reflection of things or concepts

Thirdly, the meaning of an idiom is usually figurative and descriptive

Although many linguists affirm that idioms have their own figurative and imaginary meanings, we shouldn‟t consider this as an absolute fact In Vietnamese, there are also some idioms which have literal sense coming from the meanings of

their components They may be comparative idioms such as nát như tương (as pasty

as soy), đen như cột nhà cháy (as black as a sweep) and bám như đỉa đói (stick like

a limpet), whose imagery comes from the images compared with activities or properties Some Sino-Vietnamese idioms such as nhất cử lưỡng tiện (kill two birds with one stone), bán tín bán nghi (half doubtful) and bách phát bách trúng (hit the mark one hundred times out of one hundred) also have literal sense basing on the

meanings of their components

2.1.3 Idioms Classified

Nunberg et al (1994) classify English idioms into two types: idiomatically combining expressions (or idiomatic combinations) and idiomatic phrases Idiomatic combinations refer to idioms whose parts carry identifiable parts of their

idiomatic meanings The idioms like take advantage of (make good use of; profit by) and pull strings (exert influence unobtrusively), whose meanings, while

conventional, are distributed among their parts Idiomatically combining expressions differ from collocations and ordinary expressions only in that the conventional way of expressing the individual parts and the meaning is

conventional and also relatively opaque Idiomatic phrases (e.g kick the bucket

(die)) are non-compositional, i.e they do not distribute their meanings to their components (op cit Nunberg et al., 1994)

Nunberg et al.‟s distinction between idiomatically combining expressions and idiomatic phrases, as discussed earlier, corresponds quite closely to Fillmore et

al.‟s first feature: distinction of encoding and decoding idioms (Croft & Cruse 2004) However, the idiomatically combining expression/idiomatic phrase distinction is not completely the same as the encoding/decoding distinction (Croft &

Cruse 2004) For instance, spill the beans (give away information) is an encoding

idiom though it is an idiomatically combining expression Fillmore et al.‟s encoding/decoding distinction is not very clearly defined The distinction involves the language user‟s capacity in parsing or decoding an expression

Nunberg et al.‟s distinction appears to put idiomatically combining expressions under transparent idioms and idiomatic phrases under opaque idioms It

is the semantic opaqueness (or transparency) of an idiom, which has been based as a criterion in Nunberg et al.‟s taxonomy, yields a small class of idioms Consequently,

it may leave out of account an important group of expressions which have figurative

meanings, but which also preserve a current literal interpretation (e.g hit the jackpot (have a big success), beat one’s breast (show grief or sorrow)) The literal meanings

of the words making up these idioms „are still partly operative, though the idiomatic

meaning is the dominant one‟ (Fernando & Flavell 1981: 77) For instance, red carpet can either convey „the especially good treatment/give an impressive welcome‟, or „the red colour of the carpet‟ Slap someone on the back could signify

both „strike on rear upper vertical surface of the human body‟ and a sign „to show cordiality‟

Compared with Makkai‟s categorization, Fernando‟s (1996) classification seems much simpler (Liu, 2008) However, problems can be seen in the examples

she gives in her categorization For instance, she labels chin-wag a pure idiom, while foot the bill is semi-literal However, for many people, chin-wag is perhaps more literal than foot the bill Similarly, on foot is labeled as literal and good morning semi-literal, but many people would probably consider that on foot is as literal as good morning (Liu, 2008) Then, Fernando‟s judgment about where

examples belong seems to be fuzzy Admittedly, this seems to be unavoidable for any classification Such fuzziness „afflicts taxonomies in every area of language‟

(Fernando, 1996, p 37)

In Vietnamese, Nguyễn Lực and Lương Văn Đang (1978) classify Vietnamese idioms basing on the number of words forming idioms as well as their structures:

- Idioms with three single words or more: bạn nối khố (a bosom friend), bở hơi tai (fagged out), treo đầu dê bán thịt chó (play a confidence trick on), trẻ không tha già không thương (wicked), etc

- Idioms with a single word and a compound word: bé hạt tiêu (small but spirited), câm miệng hến (keep silence), có máu mặt (rich), etc

- Idioms with two compound words: buôn gian bán lận (cheat), nhắm mắt xuôi tay (die), năm xung tháng hạn (an unpropitious period of time), etc

- Idioms as simple sentences: châu chấu đá xe (unequal), êch ngồi đáy giếng (have limited knowledge), mèo mù vớ cá rán (be in luck), etc

- Idioms with alliterations or compound words: hì hà hì hục (be completely engrossed in), lảm nhảm lảm nhàm (drivel), ăn bớt ăn xén (dishonest), etc

- Idioms with symmetrical comparisons: nát như tương (crushed), đen như mực (very dark), nặng như chì (very heavy), nguây nguẩy như mẹ quẩy tôm (turn

away in anger), etc

- Idioms with summary comparisons: như cá gặp nước (feel comfortable), như đỉa phải vôi (react immediately), như nước đổ đầu vịt (useless and ineffective), etc

However, the common structures of Vietnamese idioms are the structures which have two symmetrical parts Idioms are also formed by joining rhymes

(usually interior rhymes) such as bóc ngắn cắn dài (earning less than spending), bé

xé ra to (make it more complex), etc These structures do not only make idioms

easy to say and remember, but they also keep the fixation and unshakeable characteristics of idioms

According to Nguyễn Công Đức (1995), Vietnamese idioms can be divided into three main groups:

Idioms with symmetrical structures

Symmetrical structures consist of two parts which have the same forms and harmonious balanced contents (opposite or supplement of each other) These structures form a large number of idioms in general and idioms showing speaking activities in particular They are concretized by the following expressions:

- AxAy (A: verb; x, y: combinative words): buôn gian bán lận (cheat), ăn không nói có (dishonest), ăn thật làm giả (work perfunctorily), etc

- BxBy (B: noun; x, y: combinative words): điều ong tiếng ve (unfavourable reputation), mồm năm miệng mười (sharp-tongued), mồm loa mép dải

((sharp-tongued), etc

- CxCy (C: adjective; x, y: combinative words): dại mồm dại miệng (make a slip of the tongue), vụng ăn vụng nói (be bad in speech), vụng chèo khéo chống (bad in doing but clever in speech), etc

- DxDy (D: numeral; x, y: combinative words): nửa nạc nửa mỡ (ambiguous): nửa đùa nửa thật (tell the truth in a joky way), nửa úp nửa mở (ambiguous),

etc

Idioms with symmetrical structures can be compound sentences; for

example, có mồm thì cắp, có nắp thì đậy (keeping silence is good)

Idioms with similized structures

These are the common structures of Vietnamese idioms A như B is considered

as the comprehensive form of similized idioms The words such as như, bằng, tày

are usually between A and B, and they are concretized by the following expressions:

- A như B (A: verb or adjective; B: noun): nói như vẹt (parrot), ngang như cua (utterly nonsensical), chua như dấm (sour), etc

- Ax như B (Ax: verb-adjective phrase; B: noun): nói dối như cuội (tell a lie), nói ngọt như đường (use honeyed words), nói dẻo như kẹo (smooth-

tongued), etc

- A như Bx (A: usually verb; Bx: phrase expressing activity): dỗ như dỗ vong

(soothe), chửi như vặn thịt (abuse someone regularly), chửi như hát hay

to reach the better thing), etc

- Verb phrase: gửi trứng cho ác (believe in wicked people), há miệng chờ sung (lazy), khen phò mã tốt áo (do something unnecessary), etc

- Noun, adjective phrase: đòn xóc hai đầu (perfidious), hai tay buông xuôi (die), kẻ cắp già mồm (it was wrong but an argument is still given), etc

- Noun + noun pattern: mạt cưa mướp đắng (thieves), lá mặt lá trái

(double-tongued), etc

Hoàng Văn Hành (2008) classifies Vietnamese idioms into 3 main categories according to their structures and formation of meanings: symmetrical figurative, non-symmetrical figurative and similized Each main category is divided into smaller categories (see Figure 2.1; 2.2; 2.3)

Figure 2.1: Classification of symmetrical figurative idioms in Vietnamese

(Hoàng Văn Hành 2008: 76)

SYMMETRICAL FIGURATIVE IDIOMS

meeting

and effect

action of purpose

action of manner

out of phase

in phase

Figure 2.2: Classification of non-symmetrical figurative idioms in Vietnamese (Hoàng Văn

Hành 2008: 100)

Figure 2.3: Classification of similized idioms in Vietnamese (Hành 2008: 115)

NON-SYMMETRICAL FIGURATIVE IDIOMS

noun

phrase

verb phrase

adjective phrase

nhƣ B indicates the attribute of A

In the present study, the structural components of idioms in both English and Vietnamese are classified due to the idiom classification of Nguyễn Công Đức (1995) and Hoàng Văn Hành (2008) The idiom classification of Fernando & Flavell (1981) and Fernando (1996) is applied to semantic components of idioms

2.1.4 Idioms and other Language Units

That idioms share some common syntactic and semantic features with other phraseology units in the language makes it difficult for learners to distinguish The confusion often occurs between idioms and words, idioms and proverbs or idioms and slangs

i) Idioms versus Words

“Words are the smallest language units having their own meanings and fixed forms, and are used to build sentences” (Institute of linguistics, 2004) According to this definition, words have the following features:

- Words are independent language units and have their own meanings

- Words are available language units and have their own fixed forms

- Words usually have nominative functions It means that they are the names

of things, phenomena, activities, properties, states, etc

- Words are basic language units used to build sentences

The biggest difference between idioms and words is that they are compared with single words: The smallest idioms consist of at least two single words

Moreover, the determination of words closely connects concepts For example, hẻo lánh (out of the way) is a word and khỉ ho cò gáy (out of the way) is an idiom Both

of these semantically express the same meaning However, hẻo lánh (out of the way) has literal meaning which is quite objective and neutral; khỉ ho cò gáy (out of the way) has figurative meaning containing the speaker‟s emotional colorings and

comments: It is a boring hard place to live and work

Words are the smallest language units which are independent and have their

own meanings The meanings of compound words such as rain coat, coffee table and pocket dictionary are usually clear and easy to deduce by looking at the literal

sense of their components However, it is impossible to understand the meanings of idioms by doing like that (except comparative idioms in Vietnamese) because idioms have figurative meanings

ii) Idioms versus Proverbs

According to Hornby (1995), a proverb is defined as „a short well-known

sentence or phrase that states a general truth about life or gives advice, e.g Better safe than sorry or Don’t put all your eggs in one basket‟ More particularly, Vũ

Ngọc Phan (2000, p 39) regards a proverb as „a complete saying expressing one idea of comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism‟

It is obvious that idioms and proverbs share some common features and it is necessary to put them side by side to distinguish First of all, both idioms and proverbs are ready-made units which are mainly orally transmitted from generation

to generation and naturally accepted in daily life Secondly, both of them are expressions whose components are stable and not able to be substituted It is nearly impossible to add, omit or replace any components of an idiom or a proverb because

set-it will make them lose their figurative meanings In addset-ition, the meaning of most idioms and proverbs is understood metaphorically rather than literally This is the reason why it is arduous to discover their true meaning just by looking up the individual words in a normal dictionary Finally, some proverbs originate from

idioms An example of this is the proverb keep something under your hat (a person who always keep someone‟s secrets) which contains the idiom under your hat (keep

secrets in someone‟s mind)

Besides the similarities, both idioms and proverbs have their own typical features that distinguish one from another The first and most obvious difference lies

in their syntactic structures In terms of syntactic structures, idioms are phrases which are parts of sentences; thus, they are equivalent to words In contrast, proverbs are complete sentences or phrases which can express the whole idea by themselves What

is more, idioms and proverbs are also different in terms of their functions Proverbs are short well-known sentences or phrases that express a judgment, general truth

about life, advice or moral lesson They contain three main literature functions namely perceptive, aesthetic and educational functions Therefore, a proverb can be

considered as a perfect literature work The Congolese proverb A pretty face and fine clothes do not make character illustrates this point clearly Its perceptive function is

to make people aware that clothes is not much effect to sb‟s character Moreover, the proverb is expressed in a figurative and picturesque way which helps readers understand the proverb easily then be deeply convinced On the contrary, idioms do not express judgments; give advice or state general truth about life, which means they

do not have functions of perception and education but only aesthetic function Lacking these two functions, idioms cannot be considered as a literature work, but as

a language unit only The idiom eat my hat illustrates that a person saying this when

he doesn‟t belive that something is going to happen

iii) Idioms versus Slang

Slang, as defined in Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (1995), is “very informal words and expressions that are more common in spoken language, especially used by a particular group of people, for example, children, criminals, soldiers, etc.” Slang is firstly created only to satisfy the need of secret-keeping, or it can be the signs to recognize people of the same group Slang can appear as a brand new word, a new meaning for an existing word, an abbreviation for a word, or a word that becomes more generalized than its former, narrow meaning Though both idioms and slangs are almost fixed in structure and meaning, they differ from each other in some aspects

It can be inferred from the definition that slang is used by only some specific communities whereas idioms are used more commonly In other words, other group people may find it difficult to understand the slang and slang is a means of identifying and reinforcing certain sub-groups in society which can be divided according to age, occupation, criminals, etc However, there is a close relationship between slang and idiom It can be said that idiom is yesterday‟s slang and slang is tomorrow‟s idiom In other words, idiom is slang that has through use and over time,

become acceptable to use in informal language Slangs are words that are usually made up and stand alone on their own, often used as euphemisms - but not always They are typically used in informal language, and are very often tied to locale, profession or cultural cliques For example: Pants the American default word for

the article of clothing that covers the legs and pelvic region seems pretty general and innocuous to English speakers in the U.S To the actual English, however,

„pants‟ is the primary word they use for „underwear.‟ And while American cinema and television typically writes the word „knickers‟ for underwear into the vocabulary of British characters that‟s probably just for comedic effect since „pants‟ wouldn‟t induce any response the most common British word for underwear really

is „pants.‟ Americans tend not to notice how often they refer to their so-called pants until someone from the U.K joins their ranks Once that happens they begin to notice restrained snickering every time „pants‟ are referenced in a polite conversation

In summary, have many things in common with words, proverbs and slangs that remind learners to take them into parallel consideration when studying language Despite these similarities among them, they are still distinguishable

2.2 Previous Research

2.2.1 Previous Research Works on Idioms Carried out in Foreign Countries

Idioms not only bring the beauty of language but also deeply contribute to successful daily communications Idioms make colour for language Idioms carry a large amount of nationally or culturally specific information It can be said that

idioms are an interesting and popular phenomenon of every language

From cognitive view, Fernando (1996) divides English idioms into three categories: pure idioms, semi-idioms and literal idioms Taylor (2002) grammatically mentions the interrelated topics of idioms and constructions The topics are interrelated in that both idioms and constructions can be regarded as symbolic units, which associate a phonological (or „formal‟) representation with a semantic representation According to his points of view, constructions, usually, are

specified at a high level of schematicity and are able to sanction an open set of expressions Nevertheless, a construction‟s usage range may not be fully predictable: constructions, in other words, display varying degrees of idiomaticity Idioms generally need to be specified at a lower level of schematicity In the limiting case, a fully specified phonological form is associated with a fixed, conventionalized meaning It is rarely the case, however, that an idiom unanalysable, whether in its formal or semantic aspects, which is tantamount to saying that even idioms can be brought under more general schemas

Makkai (1972) divides idioms into two main kinds: encoding and decoding Then, decoding idioms are subdivided into lexemic and semantic Semantic idioms consist of six categories: phrasal verbs, tournures, irreversible binomials, phrasal compounds, incorporating verbs and pseudo-idioms Seidl and Mordie (1988), Cowie, Mackin & McCaig (1993) mention the categories of idioms based on their topics and grammatical patterns From transformational grammar, Fraser (1970) regards an idiom as a constituent or a series of constituents whose meaning does not come from the meanings of individual parts He also mentions six level scales of idioms: unrestricted, reconstitution, extraction, permutation, insertion, adjunction and completely frozen

In short, idioms in English are studied in terms of several aspects such as grammar, semantics, rhetoric, pragmatics, etc which are investigated from different views However, the majority of scholars pay their attention to the two approaches Scholars who adopt the first approach are more structurally orientated They describe the idioms and their idiomaticity in terms of one or more structural properties The idiomatologists who adopt the second approach study idiomaticity

as manifesting hidden conceptual design of the language Such an approach leads to the nature of cognition itself and accordingly has valid psycholinguistic

2.2.2 Previous Research Works on Idioms Carried out in Vietnam

In Vietnamese, idioms have been also an interesting field for linguists Hoàng Văn Hành (2004) deeply analyzed structural and semantic features of idioms

as well as collected a large amount of Vietnamese idioms Additionally, Nguyễn Như Ý, Nguyễn Văn Khang, Mai Xuân Thành (2009) published a dictionary in which they classified Vietnamese idioms in the alphabetical order with their meaning and examples originally extracted from novels, newspapers, magazines and so on In “Thành Ngữ Tiếng Việt" (1978 - 2009), Nguyễn Lực and Lương Văn Đang showed a large number of idioms as well as their variants which were collected with original examples extracted from Vietnamese novels, newspapers and magazines Besides, Nguyễn Lân (2005) has also arranged idioms in the alphabetical order and explained their meanings

Some studies directly relate to the field of the study:

A study on comparative idioms from cultural perspective (Đỗ Thị Thu Trang, 2006)

In this study, the author analyzed and discussed English and Vietnamese comparative idioms in the light of culture and she found out some similarities and differences in the way and the reason why people from the two cultures convey their comparative idioms

Simile in English and Vietnamese - A contrastive analysis (Lê Thị Thu Hà, 2001)

In this paper, the author presented a contrastive analysis on the concept, formulation, cultural traditional function, syntactic function and classification of simile in English and its Vietnamese equivalents She also pointed out some common mistakes made by Vietnamese learners of English and some solutions as well as suggestions for translating simile from English into Vietnamese

A Study on Vietnamese Idioms (Hoàng Văn Hành, 2004)

Hoàng Văn Hành is a well-known Vietnamese linguist who had spent a lot of time and energy on this research This study specialized in the objectives, the aims, the tasks, the problems, etc of Vietnamese idioms The author analyzed idioms based on different aspects, synchronically and diachronically, on the view of functional and structural system as well as from cultural, social and psychological perspectives The research also introduced a systematic collection of Vietnamese idioms in forms of three main types

A Study on Structural and Semantic Components of Typical Idioms in English and Vietnamese (Đặng Nguyên Giang, 2014)

An investigation of idioms in English and Vietnamese in terms of structural and semantic components is carried out in the present study Componential analysis, describing, comparing and contrasting are regarded as the main methods used in the present thesis The findings of the study are concerned with the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms in terms of (1) structural components, and (2) semantic components and their formation In order to collect the data, a hand search approach of the dictionaries in both languages has been conducted, which helps to establish a corpus of 4,134 idioms in English and 4,053 idioms in Vietnamese

In the present study, a common theoretical framework on idioms is applied to both English and Vietnamese The canonical structural and semantic components involve three types of idioms existing in our data: symmetrical, similized, and non-symmetrical (Nguyễn Công Đức, 1995; Hoàng Văn Hành, 2008) The canonical structural components of each idiom type are realized, described and analyzed according to grammatical rules suggested by Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik (1985) The non-canonical structural components involve two types of idioms: idiom variants and synonymous idioms

The semantic components of each idiom type involve the motivation degrees (transparent, semi-transparent, semi-opaque, and opaque) (Fernando & Flavell 1981; Fernando 1996), the association between the literal readings and the idiomatic meanings (Langlotz, 2006), and the semantic composition of component parts (Hoàng Văn Hành, 2008) The findings of the current study also reveal that most of the idioms in both English and Vietnamese are analyzable and have meanings that are at least partly motivated (Geeraets, 1995; Gibbs, 1990/1995; Kövecses & Szabo, 1996; Nunberg et al., 1994; Fernando, 1996; Langlotz, 2006; etc) The formation mechanism of the semantic components of idioms is motivated by external semantic cognition including metaphors, metonymies and conventional knowledge (Gibbs,

1990/1995) It is a natural process implicitly affected by several different factors such as living circumstance (geographical environment, climate), historical allusion (historical events, fables and mythologies, literary works), religions and beliefs, and traditions and customs (food and cooking, animals) This leads to a fact that the component parts forming idioms in the two languages are different although they denote similar concepts The thesis also presents the implications for idiom teaching and translation

These books and research papers provide many idioms and explanations of meaning with illustrative examples It makes the reader have a lot more aware of the meaning of each idiom From there, they can apply flexibly and skillfully to communication

2.3 Summary

In the present study, a common theoretical framework on idioms is applied to both English and Vietnamese The canonical structural and semantic components involve three types of idioms existing in our data: symmetrical, similized, and non-symmetrical (Nguyễn Công Đức, 1995; Hoàng Văn Hành, 2008) The canonical structural components of each idiom type are realized, described and analyzed according to grammatical rules suggested by Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik (1985) The non-canonical structural components involve two types of idioms: idiom variants and synonymous idioms

The semantic components of each idiom type involve the motivation degrees (transparent, semi-transparent, semi-opaque, and opaque) (Fernando & Flavell 1981; Fernando 1996), the association between the literal readings and the idiomatic meanings (Langlotz, 2006), and the semantic composition of component parts (Hoàng Văn Hành, 2008) The non-canonical structural and semantic components of idioms are established due to two types of idioms: idiom variants and synonymous idioms (Giang 2009)

The findings of the current study reveal that most of the idioms in both English and Vietnamese are analyzable and have meanings that are at least partly

motivated (Geeraets, 1995; Gibbs, 1990/1995; Kövecses & Szabo, 1996; Nunberg

et al., 1994; Fernando, 1996; Langlotz, 2006; etc) The formation mechanism of the semantic components of idioms is motivated by external semantic cognition including metaphors, metonymies and conventional knowledge (Gibbs, 1990/1995)

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes in details about the method of investigation It consists of 5 parts namely subject of the study, instrumentation, procedures, statistical analysis and summary

3.1 Subjects

In order to collect the idioms by food both in English and in Vietnamese, a working definition of an idiom has been established in the present study (see Section 2.1.1) Any idiom selected in both English and Vietnamese satisfies the criteria the definition for working involves

162 idioms by food in Englins and 167 idioms by food in Vietnamese are mainly collected from the following dictionaries :

English

Bình, P V (1999)

Cambridge Idioms Dictionary (2006)

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary (2002)

Cowie, A P., Mackin, R., & McCaig, I R (1993)

because the examples for illustrations are mostly from literal works, magazines and newspapers The collected data forms a corpus under three categories: symmetrical idioms by food (11 for English and 79 for Vietnamese), similized idioms by food (42 for English and 45 for Vietnamese), and non-symmetrical idioms by food (109 for English and 43 for Vietnamese)

The data in the present thesis are also published or submitted data which are

available in books and PhD theses such as On Idiom: Critical Views and Perspectives by Fernando and Flavell (1981), Idioms and Idiomaticity by Fernando (1996), Bình diện cấu trúc hình thái-ngữ nghĩa của thành ngữ tiếng Việt

[Vietnamese Idioms from Formal-semantic Perspectives] by Nguyễn Công Đức

(1995), Thành ngữ học tiếng Việt [Vietnamese Idiom Studies] by Hoàng Văn Hành (2008), Seeking the Nature of Idioms: A Study in Idiomatic Structure by Tim (2002), Structural and Semantic Components of Typical Idioms in English and Vietnamese by Đặng Nguyên Giang (2013), Emotion Expressing Idioms in English and Vietnamese: A Contrastive Analysis by Nguyễn Văn Trào (2009), etc The

sources of these data are believed to be reliable, suitable and adequate because they are all published, submitted and related to the area of the study

3.2 Instruments

After finishing the collection of data, they are qualitatively described and analyzed in terms of the structural and semantic components to create a full picture of English and Vietnamese idioms by food In the present study, the data profiling technique is used in this research thesis to track the frequency, distribution and characteristics of the values that populate the columns of a data set; they then present the statistical results for review and drill-down analysis The selective idioms by food are carefully sorted out together with illustrated examples of the above-mentioned features to find out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms by food

Checklists and statistical techniques are utilized to quantitatively show the frequency and distribution of English and Vietnamese idioms by food Statistic tables

for generalization, comparison and contrastive analysis are used with the purpose of making the investigation clear for discussion and interpretation

3.3 Procedures

Due to the main aims and objectives and the scope of the study, componential analysis, describing, comparing and contrasting are regarded as the main methods used in the present study The first step in the process which lasts two months and then a material selection from different sources related to main topic of the paper is implemented After gathering useful materials, the needed data will be sorted out This step is a long process which takes more than three months The last step is implemented for analyzing and discussing the results

First of all, the researcher investigates and collect the idioms that focus on the idioms by food The researcher has carefully read many books such as:

"Vietnamese Idioms" by Hoàng Văn Hành, and "Vietnamese Idioms Dictionary" by Nguyễn Lực and Lương Văn Đang to find out the number of idioms that have relates to idioms by food

The next step, the componential analysis and descriptive methods are chosen

to describe and classify the structural and semantic components of idioms by food under their motivation degrees and composition The motivation degree of semantic components is divided into transparent (all the components are explicit), semi-transparent (some components are explicit, and others are implicit), semi-opaque (all the components are implicit but possibly interpretable), and opaque (all the components are implicit) (Fernando & Flavell, 1981) These motivation degrees are applied to three types of idioms: symmetrical, similized, and non-symmetrical (Nguyễn Công Đức (1995), Hoàng Văn Hành (2008))

Symmetrical idioms by food are generally regarded as ones with two

symmetrical component parts which are usually parallel

Similized idioms by food are regarded as fixed groups of words which are

formed by their specific comparative means such as as….as, like in English and như

in Vietnamese

Idioms which do not contain two symmetrical parts or are not formed by

specific comparative means such as as… as, like in English and như in Vietnamese

are called non-symmetrical idioms by food

Studying idioms by food under comparison and contrastive analysis is the third step in the present study to identify the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms by food in term of structural and semantic components

Finally, from the study of idioms by food in English and Vietnamese from perspective of component, it is necessary that applying idioms in the lessons in the process of teaching and learning English should be based on In fact, idioms are widely used in books, magazines, newspapers, poetry as well as daily speaking Thus, idioms is an effective language tool for teachers to teach vocabulary in the collocation of word and idiom provides students with the possibility of understanding one concept in terms of another From a domain, they can refer to many various domains by the idioms expressions As a result, they will broaden their vocabulary and make them more productive When studying one language, it

is necessary not only to study vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, speaking or listening, but also to know how to use language in natural way

In conclution, since vocabulary and culture are intertwined, speakers can gain more vocabulary through idioms and conversely, can learn more about idioms from being exposed to the target culture The more comprehensible input there is, the more learners‟ listening, speaking, writing and reading skills will improve

3.4 Data Analysis

Idioms in the present study are investigated from both structural and semantic perspectives According to Katz & Fodor (1963, p 170), „a full synchronic description of a language is a grammatical and semantic characterization of that language‟ The term „grammatical‟ refers to the description of phonology, phonemics, morphology, and syntax „Semantic‟ belongs to a theory which must be constructed „to have whatever properties are demanded by its role in linguistic

description‟ (Katz & Fodor 1963, p 171)

Structurally, idioms are generally described and analyzed according to typical grammarical rules In fact, there are different kinds of grammars Fromkin (1998)

mentions three types of grammars: descriptive, prescriptive and teaching The

descriptive grammar involves the description of what the speakers of a language do when they speak their language That certain language uses are categorized as acceptable or unacceptable according to a standard form of the language is called prescriptive grammar The teaching grammar is used to learn a foreign language or

a dialect

The models of Immediate Constituent Analysis suggested by Bloomfield

(1933) are used in the present study These models are then principally developed

by Wells (1947), Harris (1957) and Chomsky (1957) The central issue underlying these models is that the structure of an expression can be presented by dividing the expression into parts (immediate constituents), which are then further divided into smaller parts until syntactically indivisible units are obtained

Specifically, the structural components of an idiom are exhibited by dividing the idiom into successive layers or constituent parts The constituent parts can be labelled as belonging to different grammatical constituents like noun phrase, verb phrase, prepositional phrase, etc which can be further divided into categories such

as noun, adjective, verb, etc (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik 1985) This can

be shown by taking a simple example of the idiom body and soul (completely) This

idiom is divided into two parts which are connected by a coordinator (and) The first part (body) and the second one (soul) are both nouns

The semantic components of idioms in the current study are analyzed

according to Katz & Fodor‟s (1963) componential theory According to Katz &

Fodor (1963), „semantic components may be combined in various ways in different languages yet they would be identifiable as the „same‟ component in the vocabularies of all languages‟ Generally, this theory determines how expressed signs, usually vocabulary items called lexemes, in a language are related to the

perceptions and thoughts of the people who speak the language In this theory, word meanings are broken down into semantic features and their specifications In other words, the meanings of lexemes are analyzed into components, which can then be compared across lexemes or groups of lexemes Since idioms are regarded as special linguistic units functioning as words (Fernando & Flavell (1981), Fernando (1996), Nguyễn Công Đức (1995), Hoàng Văn Hành (2008), etc), they can be analyzed in this way

The structural and semantic components of idioms in the present study are formally established according to three types of idioms: symmetrical, similized, and non-symmetrical (Nguyễn Công Đức (1995), Hoàng Văn Hành (2008)) The structural components of each idiom type are coded in separate component parts, which are then realized, described and analyzed according to grammatical rules suggested by Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik (1985) It is noteworthy that the component parts are realized under words, phrases and clauses The canonical semantic components of idioms are analyzed according to the transparent-opaque axis introduced by Fernando & Flavell (1981) and Fernando (1996) and the association between the literal reading and idiomatic meaning suggested by Langlotz (2006) The transparent-opaque axis involves the different motivation degrees of each idiom type: transparent, semi-transparent, semi-opaque, and opaque The association between the literal reading and idiomatic meaning refers to the possible analyzability of each idiom type

The theoretical framework is used for the present study for several specific reasons First of all, the components are regarded as the criteria to classify idioms from both structural and semantic perspectives For example, similized idioms are structurally realized through the components as comparative means (Nguyễn Công Đức (1995), Hoàng Văn Hành (2008)), and these idioms are also semantically classified due to the explicitness and implicitness of their components (Fernando & Flavell (1981), Fernando (1996)) Second, this theoretical framework can be applied

to a large number of idioms belonging to different types in both English and