The metaphoric meanings of words denoting names of human body parts in english and vietnamese

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY VŨ THỊ THANH MIỀN THE METAPHORIC MEANINGS OF WORDS DENOTING NAMES OF HUMAN BODY PARTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (NGHĨA ẨN DỤ CỦA CÁC TỪ CHỈ BỘ PHẬN CƠ THỂ NGƯỜI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M.A THESIS Field: English Language Code: 8220201 Hanoi, 2018 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY VŨ THỊ THANH MIỀN THE METAPHORIC MEANINGS OF WORDS DENOTING NAMES OF HUMAN BODY PARTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (NGHĨA ẨN DỤ CỦA CÁC TỪ CHỈ BỘ PHẬN CƠ THỂ NGƯỜI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M.A THESIS Field: English Language Code: 8220201 Supervisor : Dr Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông Hanoi, 2018 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “The metaphoric meanings of words denoting names of human body parts 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, 8th November, 2018 Vũ Thị Thanh Miền i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông for her great patience, encouragement, ceaseless academic support and insightful comments Without her guidance and contributions, the present study would have never seen the light My great thankfulness is also given to all my lecturers of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies for their ideas to my paper and many thanks to all my friends who have been always willing to help and give their best suggestions during the time of collecting necessary data and information for the study Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge and extend my heartfelt gratitude to my whole family who were always supporting me and encouraging me with their best wishes Hanoi, 8th November 2018 Vũ Thị Thanh Miền ii ABSTRACT This study focuses on the metaphoric meanings of words denoting names of human body parts in English and Vietnamese It is investigated with the hope of finding out the similarities and differences between the metaphoric meanings of words denoting names of human body parts “head, hand/arm, leg/foot, eye” in English and “đầu, tay, chân, mắt” in Vietnamese and suggesting practical implications to the learning and teaching English as a foreign language in Vietnam Data used for analysis in this study were mainly collected through dictionaries and the Internet To carry out this research, the writer used descriptive, comparative and contrastive methods The result of the study illustrates the fact that there exist both similarities and differences in the metaphoric meanings of the words denoting names of human body parts in two languages This reflects the way English and Vietnamese people view the world and the way they use language Hopefully, this study will help students of English widen their understanding of the metaphoric meanings of words and get better results in reading comprehension as well as in everyday language iii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Table 1: Metaphoric meanings of “head” in English and “đầu” in Vietnamese 34 Table 2: Metaphoric meanings of “head” in English and “đầu” in Vietnamese 35 Table 3: Metaphoric meanings of “head” in English and “đầu” in Vietnamese 36 Table 4: Metaphoric meanings of “head” in English and “đầu” in Vietnamese 37 Table 5: Metaphoric meanings of “hand” in English and “tay” in Vietnamese 39 Table 6: Metaphoric meanings of “arm” in English and “tay” in Vietnamese 39 Table 7: Metaphoric meanings of “arm” in English and “tay” in Vietnamese 41 Table 8: Metaphoric meanings of “leg” in English and “chân” in Vietnamese 42 Table 9: Metaphoric meanings of “leg” in English and “chân” in Vietnamese 43 Table 10: Metaphoric meanings of “foot” in Englishand “chân” in Vietnamese 43 Table 11: Metaphoric meanings of “foot” in English and “chân” in Vietnamese 45 Table 12: Metaphoric meanings of “eye” in English and “mắt” in Vietnamese 46 Chart 1: Words denoting names of human body parts “head, hand/arm, foot/leg, eye” in English and “đầu, tay, chân, mắt” in Vietnamese 31 Chart 2: Metaphoric meanings of “head” in English and “đầu” in Vietnamese 38 Chart 3: Metaphoric meanings of “arm /hand” in English and “tay/cánh tay” in Vietnamese 41 Chart 4: Metaphoric meanings of “leg/foot” in English and “chân” in Vietnamese 45 Chart 5: Metaphoric meanings of “eye” in English and “mắt” in Vietnamese 48 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Ferrando’s definition of culture 19 Figure 2: Sikkema and Niyekawa’s definition of culture 20 v TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS iv LIST OF FIGURES v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Structure of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous study 2.2 An overview of metaphor and human body 2.2.1 Metaphor 2.2.2 Human body .14 2.3 An overview of language, thought and culture 14 2.3.1 Language and thought 14 2.3.2 Culture 19 2.4 An overview of word and its meaning 23 2.4.1 What is the word? .23 2.4.2 Types of word meaning 24 2.4.3 Semes and Componential Analysis 27 2.5 Summary 28 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 29 3.1 Subjects 29 3.2 Instruments 29 3.3 Procedures 30 3.4 Statistical analysis 30 vi 3.5 Summary 31 CHAPTER 4: THE METAPHORIC MEANINGS OF WORDS DENOTING NAMES OF HUMAN BODY PARTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 32 4.1 Metaphoric meanings of “head” in English and “đầu” in Vietnamese 32 4.2 Metaphoric meanings of “hand/arm” in English and “tay” in Vietnamese 38 4.2.1 Metaphoric meanings of “hand” in English and “tay” in Vietnamese 38 4.2.2 Metaphoric meanings of “arm” in English and “tay/cánh tay” in Vietnamese 39 4.3 Metaphoric meanings of “leg/foot” in English and “chân” in Vietnamese 42 4.3.1 Metaphoric meanings of “leg” in English and “chân” in Vietnamese 42 4.3.2 Metaphoric meanings of “foot” in English and “chân” in Vietnamese 43 4.4 Metaphoric meanings of “eye” in English and “mắt” in Vietnamese 45 4.5 The similarities and differences in the metaphoric meanings of words denoting names of human body parts in English and Vietnamese 48 4.5.1 The similarities 48 4.5.2 The differences 49 4.6 Implications for teaching and learning metaphors denoting names of human body parts for Vietnamese students 50 4.6.1 Implications for teaching and learning metaphors in general 50 4.6.2 Implications for teaching and learning metaphors denoting names of human body parts in particular .50 4.7 Summary 51 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 53 5.1 Summary of findings 53 5.2 Concluding remarks 53 5.3 Limitations of the study 55 5.4 Recommendations for further study 55 REFERENCES 56 APPENDIXES vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study It is common knowledge that one of the most important functions of language is to name the world or express human thoughts through a system of concepts However, the concepts expressed through language not exist in isolation from each other Rather, they exist associatively in the language and make up a giant network with many interconnections and associations among various subparts A good example of these interconnections involves metaphor, the understanding of one concept in terms of another There is often a misbelief that metaphor is used in the literary or poetic language, but it is indeed widely used in everyday conversational language It is obvious that metaphor is utilized to express ideas sensibly and vividly as it has great expressive power It is capable of conveying more of the human feeling, emotion or attitude towards what is said rather than the non-metaphorical or direct way of expression One interesting idea in the language use is that the human beings, first of all, got to know their own body and gave names to its parts Later in the process of cognition of the world they began comparing the surrounding objects with their own body and finding common features Hence the names of parts of human body are transferred to denote many other things or parts of things in the real world In such a way, things or parts of things in the real world are personified to possess the same name with the parts of human body For example in English, the word “foot” refers to the lowest part of the human being and later on it is metaphorically used to refer to the lowest part of many things, for instance, “the foot of the mountain/ hill” Not only English but many other languages also make use of metaphors in such a way In Vietnamese, many words denoting parts of human body are also used metaphorically For example, the word “chân”, equivalent to the word “foot” in English is also used as a metaphor to refer to the lowest parts of the mountain or hill: “Chân núi / Chân đồi” differences in the metaphorical use of the words denoting parts of human body in two languages This reflects the way English and Vietnamese people view the world and relate parts of their body to name things in the world as well as their habit of using the language they possess 52 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS This chapter, the author presents a brief review of what has been studied Then, the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further studies will also be mentioned 5.1 Summary of findings The study, so far, has fulfilled its initial aims Theoretically, it has provided a systematic and clear view on metaphors relating to parts of human body in English and Vietnamese The first point to be concluded here is that in both English and Vietnamese, words denoting parts of human body are popularly used in metaphor Second, in most cases, the metaphors relating to them are based on the similar associations of their semantic features However, the referents they are used to denote in specific cases are not always similar This shows the common features as well as the distinguished features in the metaphorical use of the words denoting parts of human body in two languages Third, it can be seen that the more frequently the words are used in metaphors, the more similar features metaphors relating to them in two languages share For example, in the metaphorical use of the words denoting the foot, there are many similarities between two languages partially because they are very popular in two languages Conversely, the less often words are used, the fewer common features the metaphors in two languages share, for example, the metaphorical use of the words “hand” and “tay” It should also be concluded that most metaphors discussed in this study are conventional and faded metaphors that become parcels of everyday language in both countries So they are very familiar and understandable to ordinary people 5.2 Concluding remarks With the aim of investigating the metaphoric meanings of words denoting names of human body parts in English and Vietnamese, we have already done such a careful investigation into metaphoric meanings of six words relating to parts of human body such as “head, hand/arm, foot/leg, eye” in English and four words such as “đầu, tay, chân, mắt” in Vietnamese 53 On the whole, the findings about the similarities and differences in the metaphors relating to parts of human body has clearly shown the common and distinguished features in the way in which English and Vietnamese people think and view the world surrounding them In both nations, people all understand parts of their body well in shape, position, function etc and then relate these features to the features of things in the world to name them by using the names of parts of the body However, the specific cases they use a certain word about a part of human body to denote things are not always the same as they think and view the world differently Additionally, people in each nation have their own way and habit of using the language creatively so this leads to the differences in the metaphors in the two languages For these reasons, the existence of similarities and differences in the metaphors relating to parts of human body in English and Vietnamese are reasonable and understandable Additionally, it can be inferred that metaphors relating to parts of human body are a very productive means of creating new meanings that enrich the vocabulary in both languages The interesting thing is that so many parts of human body and parts of things in the world can share the same names This inspires a Vietnamese linguist, Dr Nguyễn Văn Chiến, to state that: “Metaphor is one kind of personification” because everything in the world is not viewed in isolation but in the association with human beings That is, things in the world are always seen in the associative eye of the human beings It is hoped that with the findings or discoveries about the basic metaphors relating to parts of human body, this study will, to some extent, be a contribution to the present knowledge in the field of metaphor The result of the study will be another illustration for the beauty of language, especially when it is under the observation of metaphor Moreover, the deep investigation will help students of English not only to acquire this interesting and popular use of the words, which is helpful to them in their language use but also motivate them in their further language study 54 5.3 Limitations of the study Due to the limitations of time and sources of materials, shortcomings are inevitable in this study Firstly, the different metaphorical uses of the words denoting part of human body when they function in other parts of speech such as verbs and adjectives have not been described and analyzed in this study Secondly, not all parts of human body have not been mentioned in this study Thirdly, transitivity of words denoting names of human body parts have not been presented and analyzed thoroughly 5.4 Recommendations for further study Due to the shortage of reference materials related to the thesis, the study has only covered a very small scope within a vast area of research and has not reached a satisfactory depth as it should For these reasons, there are some other aspects that need to be further investigated The words denoting names of parts of human body in the fields of syntactic features, pragmatics, or function in other parts of speech such as verbs and adjectives… should be studied more Especially, the metaphoric meanings of words denoting parts of human body can be investigated under the theory of cognition 55 REFERENCES ENGLISH: Block & Trager (1942), Outline of Linguistic Analysis Crowther J (1995), Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Oxford University Press Cruse D.A (1997), Lexical Semantics Cambridge University Press Dirk Geeraerts and Caroline Gevaert (2008), Heart and (angry) minds in Old English Edward Finegan (1994), Language - its structure and use Elaine S Andersen (1978), Lexical Universal of 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Anh, Trung tâm khoa học xã hội nhân văn quốc gia 20 Viện ngôn ngữ học (2003), Từ điển tiếng Việt, Trung tâm từ điển ngôn ngữ, Hà Nội, Việt Nam 21 Võ Đại Quang (2003), Semantics Vietnam National University, College of 58 Foreign Languages * Websites: http://en.wikipedia.org http://ww.oxford dictionary of English com 59 APPENDIXES With the below table, I will supplement all words denoting names of human body parts “head, hand/arm, foot/leg, eye” in English and “đầu, tay, chân, mắt” in Vietnamese 1/ In English 1.1 Head head of the class head of the department head of the school head of the college/ university head of the company/ factory head of the delegation head of the government head of the state/ country head of the mountain 10 head of the flower 11 head of the cabbage 12 head of the family 13 head of the lake 14 head of the page 15 head of the stair 16 head of the bed 17 head of the table 18 head of the train 19 head of the lake 20 head of the river 21 head of the valley 22 head of the village 23 head of the queue 24 head of the procession 25 head of the column 26 head of the line 27 head of the bridge 28 head of the street 29 writing head 30 head of a pin/pinhead 31 head of plant 32 head on beer 33 head of spot 34 head of steam 35 head of state 36 head of cattle 37 head of the regiment 38 head of the family 39 head of the government 40 head waiter 41 head office 1.2 Arm/ Hand hand in the factory hand of the clock/watch hand of bananas hand of tobacco leaves hand of poker arm of a chair/ sofa arm of the record player arm of a company/ bank arm of clothing 10 arm of machinery 11 arm of water/land 12 arm of organization 13 arm of the river/sea 14 arm of a tree 15 arm of a record player 16 (long) arm of the law 1.3 Leg/ Foot leg of a table/ chair leg of a lamp leg of a tripod leg of the bed leg of trousers/pants leg of journey/race/trip/flight leg of pork foot of the mountain / hill foot of the stair 10 foot of the wall 11 foot of the page 12 foot of the bed 1.4 Eye eye of the potato eye of the peacock’s tail hook and eye of the dress eye of the storm eye of the wind eye of the day the private eye In Vietnamese 2.1 Đầu đầu đàn đầu nguồn hồ đầu trang sách đầu cầu thang đầu giường đầu bàn đầu tàu đầu nguồn hồ đầu sông 10 đầu thung lũng 11 đầu làng 12 đầu hàng 13 đoạn đầu đám rước 14 đầu cột 15 đầu dòng 16 đầu cầu 17 đầu phố 18 đầu ghi 19 đầu kim 20 đầu xe ô tơ 21 đầu dò 22 đầu mút 23 đầu gối 24 đầu hàn 25 đầu lọc 26 đầu lưỡi 27 đầu máy 28 đầu tủ 29 đầu máy bay 30 đầu dây 31 đầu đũa 32 đầu gió 33 đầu đàn gia súc 34 hàng đầu trung đoàn 35 quan đầu não 36 đầu mùa 37 đầu tuần 38 đầu tháng 39 đầu năm 40 đầu thập kỷ 41 đầu thiên niên kỉ 42 đầu kỳ học 43 đầu tiết học 44 đầu hôm 45 lần đầu 46 đầu lòng 2.2 Tay tay ghế tay đòn cánh tay phải giám đốc tay áo 2.3 Chân chân bàn/ghế chân đèn chân kiềng chân giường chân giò chân núi/ chân đồi chân cầu thang chân tường chân 10 chân phụ việc 11 chân đèn 12 chân ruộng trũng 13 chân ma 14 chân chiêm 15 chân đất bạc màu 16 chân lông 17 chân chạy 18 chân rết 19 chân sau 20 chân cầu 21 chân dung 2.4 Mắt mắt khoai tây mắt bão mắt na mắt dứa mắt võng mắt lưới mắt rổ mắt xích mắt cá 10 mắt hột 11 mắt lưới ... OF HUMAN BODY PARTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 32 4.1 Metaphoric meanings of “head” in English and “đầu” in Vietnamese 32 4.2 Metaphoric meanings of “hand/arm” in English and “tay” in Vietnamese. .. 4.4 Metaphoric meanings of “eye” in English and “mắt” in Vietnamese 45 4.5 The similarities and differences in the metaphoric meanings of words denoting names of human body parts in English and. .. Metaphoric meanings of “hand” in English and “tay” in Vietnamese 39 Table 6: Metaphoric meanings of “arm” in English and “tay” in Vietnamese 39 Table 7: Metaphoric meanings of “arm” in English and