SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS DENOTING HEALTH IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

THESIS SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS DENOTING HEALTH IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA THÀNH NGỮ VỀ SỨC KHỎE TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT KIEU THU HIEN

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS DENOTING

HEALTH IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA THÀNH NGỮ VỀ SỨC KHỎE

TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

KIEU THU HIEN

Field: English Language Code: 8220201

Hanoi, 2018

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS DENOTING

HEALTH IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA THÀNH NGỮ VỀ SỨC KHỎE

TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

KIEU THU HIEN

Field: English Language Code: 8220201

Supervisor name: Dr Mai Thi Loan

Hanoi, 2018

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “Syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting health 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, 2018

Kieu Thu Hien

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Dr Mai Thi Loan

Date:………

Additionally, I am also grateful to all of the teachers of Foreign Language Department of Hanoi Open University for their enthusiastic assistance during the time I studied at the university

I wish to forward my special thanks to my family and my friends for whatever they support and encourage me both mentally and physically at this time

I am fully aware that shortcomings and mistakes are inevitable in my research Any comments and suggestions would be highly appreciated for the perfectness of my own research

Hanoi, October, 2018

Kieu Thu Hien

ABSTRACT

One of the most effective and colorful ways to transfer culture is the use of idioms which, however cause several troubles for English learners because of their confusing meanings To help learners have a better understanding of idioms, particularly idioms denoting health, this thesis conducts a study of syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese Basing on the description and analysis of distinguishing features, the similarities and differences of idioms in the two languages are presented In addition, both the descriptive and contrastive methods are used in combination with the qualitative and quantitative approach The investigation is based on 109 samples of English idioms and 109 Vietnamese idioms denoting health from a wide variety of dictionaries and books about idioms These findings also aim at offering some practical implications for teaching and learning English

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

A: Adverb C: Complement IH: Idioms denoting health MA: Master thesis

O: Object S: Subject V: Verb

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 : Types of sentence structures 13

Table 4.1 : English idioms denoting health with phrase structures 36

Table 4.2 : English idioms denoting health with clause structures 37

Table 4.3 : English idioms denoting health with sentence structures 38

Table 4.4 : Syntactic features of English idioms denoting health 38

Table 4.5: Semantic features of English idioms denoting health 41

Table 4.6 : Syntactic features of Vietnamese idioms denoting health 43

Table 4.7: Semantic features of Vietnamese idioms denoting health 46

Table 4.8: Statistical analysis of syntactic features of English and Vietnamese IH 47

Chart 4.1: Rate of syntactic features of English and Vietnamese IH 47

Table 4.9: Statistical analysis of semantic features of English and Vietnamese IH 49

Chart 4.2: Rate of semantic features of English and Vietnamese IH 49

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Structure of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Previous studies 5

2.1.1 Previous studies oversea 5

2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam 7

2.2 Overview of phrases, clauses and sentences 9

2.2.1 Phrase structures 9

2.2.2 Clause structures 11

2.2.3 Sentence structures 12

2.3 Overview of idioms 13

2.3.1 Definition of idioms 14

2.3.2 Features of idioms 15

2.3.3 Classification of idioms 19

2.3.4 Idioms and other language units 20

2.3.5 Idioms denoting health 23

2.4 English and Vietnamese cultural features 23

2.5 Summary 25

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 27

3.1 Context of the study 27

3.2 Instruments 27

3.3 Procedures 28

3.4 Statistical analysis 28

3.5 Summary 29

CHAPTER 4: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS DENOTING HEALTH IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 30

4.1 Syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting health in English 30

4.1.1 Syntactic features 30

4.1.2 Semantic features 39

4.2 Syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting health in Vietnam 41

4.2.1 Syntactic features 41

4.2.2 Semantic features 44

4.3 A comparison of idioms denoting health in English with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents 46

4.3.1 In terms of the syntactic features 46

4.3.2 In terms of the semantic features 49

4.4 Implications for teaching and learning English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health 53

4.4.1 For teaching 53

4.4.2 For learning 56

4.5 Summary 58

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 59

5.1 Recapitulation 59

5.2 Concluding remarks 59

5.3 Limitations of the study 60

5.4 Recommendations for further study 61

REFERENCES 62

APPENDIXES 67

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for the study

Nowadays, together with growth of global connection, English language has become more and more important Especially in Vietnam, learning English seems to

be one of main tasks of students In this process, they encounter a large number of difficulties, among which is understanding idioms Every country has got their own idioms that are specific to their own culture Learning the specific idioms related to a certain culture helps you learn more about the history, customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of it

Idioms appear in every language, and English has thousand of them Today, most linguists would agree that the traditional definition of idioms as “dead-metaphor” fails to capture the different classes of metaphoric expressions There is body of evidence that suggests that the meaning of many idioms is at least partly defined by the meaning of the component words Wasow, Sag and Numberg (1983) claimed that individual parts of idiomatic expressions have identifiable meanings from which the figurative meanings of phrases as a whole are derived, and that the mapping between the two levels of meanings takes place in conventionalized rather than arbitrary ways Gluckberg (2001) also observes that while some idiomatic

phrases are non-compositional (e g spic and span), others are fully compositional,

with clear semantic mapping between the constituent words and their idiomatic

referents For example, in the idiom pop in the question, pop can be mapped onto

“suddenly ask” and the question can be mapped onto “marriage proposal” In

compositional phrase, idiom constituents constrain both idiom interpretation and

use For instance, the verb kick implies a discrete, swift action making it impossible

to say he kicked the bucket all week, while one could say he lay dying all week

Up to now, a lot of studies have been done on analyzing and categorizing idioms according to alphabetical arrangement Others concentrate on analyzing their semantic, structural and cultural features in number of idioms denoting color, anger, human body part, outward and appearance, richness and poverty, water, number or symbols of animals, comparison, causes and results, etc Nevertheless, an investigation into English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health in terms of syntactic and semantic has not been dealt deeply with so far

Those are the reasons for the topic “Syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese” is chosen to do research

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study is basically aimed at finding out the semantic and syntactic features of English idioms denoting health in comparison with their Vietnamese equivalents to help learners of English master the features of this kind of idioms in English

The study is intended to gain at the following objectives:

1 To identify and describe syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health

2 To find out the differences and similarities of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health in term of syntactic and semantic features

3 To give some suggestions for teaching and learning English idioms denoting health

1.3 Research questions

The study attempts to answer the following questions:

1 What are syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health?

2 What are similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health in terms of syntactic and semantic features?

3 What are the suggested implications for teaching and learning English idioms denoting health?

1.4 Methods of the study

In order to complete this study, some different research methods will be applied In this study, the descriptive, contrastive, deductive and inductive methods are used for finding out the syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health

Firstly, descriptive method is applied to describe in details syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms through examples of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health The descriptive method is used in the study to describe and interpret English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health with the help of a powerful source of dictionaries and lexicons to obtain their syntactic and semantic features

Secondly, the contrastive method is used to identify the structural similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese English idioms

denoting health in terms of syntactic and semantic features

Futhermore, the deductive method is applied to present the general features

of English and Vietnamese idioms to more specific ones In contrast, the inductive method is used for presenting the specific characteristics to more general ones

By applying these methods, it helps to find out the syntactic and semantic characteristics of English idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese

1.5 Scope of the study

In the framework of the study, this research is restricted to idioms containing words denoting health Idioms denoting health are the idioms that contain the words

about health such as die a natural death, show signs of an illness in English idioms; sức khỏe là vàng, yếu như cây sậy in Vietnamese ones or express the meaning related to health such as full of beans, black out, feel blue in English idioms; Gái 17

bẻ gãy sừng trâu; Cổ cày vai bừa; Cày sâu cuốc bẫm in Vietnamese ones The

research focuses on studying syntactic and semantic features, not on cultural features

or pragmatic features of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health

To complete the research thesis, all the collection of idioms denoting health

in English and Vietnamese are selected from some reliable dictionaries and reference books (109 English idioms denoting health and 109 Vietnamese ones) It

is hoped that the outcome of this research thesis, to some extent, would be able to make a certain contribution to enhance the quality of teaching and learning English

1.6 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the study will make clear a full description of syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health It contributes

to the theory of idioms and theory about phrase, clause and sentence structures Thus, other researchers and linguistics could take it as a reliable reference to make further studies in this field

Practically, idioms are used popularly in daily life, but so far, there have been no studies about this topic As a result, this research is conducted in an attempt

to provide Vietnamese learners with better mastering how to use syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting health From these findings, Vietnamese learners of English will enhance knowledge about idioms as well as apply this kind of idioms in sensible ways in communication The study is hoped to make a great contribution to the process of teaching and learning English

1.7 Structure of the study

The study consists of five following chapters:

Chapter I, Introduction, includes the rationale, the aim, the objectives, the

scope, the significance and the structural organization

Chapter II, Literature review, introduces previous studies related to the

thesis Also, this is an introduction to theoretical background which is designed to serve as the basic foundation of data analysis and discussion of findings in the following chapter

Chapter III, Methodology, presents the research questions and research

approach with various methods and techniques to conduct the research thesis

Chapter IV, Syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting health in

English and Vietnamese, describes and analyzes the syntactic and semantic

features of idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features, makes a comparison of idioms denoting health in English with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents and provides some possible implications for teaching and learning idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese

Chapter V, Conclusion, gives the summary of the study Furthermore, this

chapter also presents the limitations of the research and some suggestions for further studies

References and Appendixes come at the end of the thesis

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter serves two main purposes Firstly, it gives the summaries of previous researches associated with the theme of the investigation Secondly, it presents an overview of the theoretical background as well relevant knowledge

2.1 Previous studies

The prosperity of language in form and content not only brings the beauty of language but also deeply contributes to successful daily communications Every language in the world has large numbers of idioms It can be said that idioms are interesting and popular phenomenon of every language So far, there have been many investigations into idioms With the different points of view as well as different objectives, linguists and researchers have a variety of ways to interpret idioms

2.1.1 Previous studies oversea

Because of the importance and wide aspects, idioms have attracted many language researchers all over the world In the book “Idioms structure in English”

of Makkai (1972), the concept of idiomatical areas is introduced and the membership of each is illustrated with a small number of typical examples Each type of idioms in the first idiomaticity area (lexemie system) and the second idiomaticity area (semantic system) is described in the terms of its internal structure and assigned a label This discussion of the idiomacity areas and their membership

in intergrated with a general definition of the idiom in both lexicology and the simiology By describing these two idiomaticity areas, the author suggests a framework by which all types of English idioms have been mentioned

The research on “English idioms and how to use them” conducted by Seild and McMordie (1978) presented idioms with various key words or key structures They gave some keywords with idiomatic uses in some parts of speech such as adjective, adverb, nouns and miscellaneous in other chapters They also presented idioms with key structures in each individual part with some examples to illustrate such as idioms with nouns and adjective, idiomatic pairs, idioms with prepositions, phrasal verbs, vebal idioms, idioms from special subjects and idioms with key words from special categories and idioms with comparision

Mc Mordie (1983) published his book “English idioms and how to use them”, providing intermediate to advance level students with information about

over 3000 idioms Each idiom was listed, explained and presented in context to enable students to understand how and when to use it However, the above researches did not metion the syntactic and semantic features, just listed the idioms That is the reason why the author wants to study the syntactic and semantic features

of idioms

When coming to idioms in terms of syntax and semantics, Cruise (1987) mentioned the traditional definition of idioms He stated that an idiom maybe briefly characterized as a lexical complex which is semantically complex He also made the conception of idioms in his book clearer by distinguishing idioms from collocations and dead metaphor However, he did not categorize idioms by topics or keywords such as family, friends, animals, color, weather, food, etc Hence, the author wants to analyse idioms in a specific topic

In addition, Palmer (1990), the writer of “Semantics” defines idioms as consequences of words whose meanings cannot be predicted from the meaning of the words themselves Semantically, idioms are single units, but not single grammatical units like words He also brought about some restrictions in syntactic and semantic features and noted that the problems of idioms were involved with a much wider issue word formation, by which what would appear to be new and more complex lexemes can be formed from single ones However, the study did not metion the syntactic features of idioms, just focused on the semantic features

Cristina Cacciari and Patrizia Tabosski (1993) in “Idioms: processing, structure and interpretation” focus on three main points: idioms interpretation and the literal figurative distinction, acquisition and processing of idioms, and meaning and structure After reading, readers will be able to possess a wide variety of knowledge about English idioms

Cowie (1994) analyzed the way their grammar and meanings complemented each other to create idiomaticity as well as “the possibility of internal variation, or substitution of part for part” of idioms Besides, the author also suggested

“techniques” to distinguish idiomatic units from other multiword expressions More principally, the author discussed about idiom’s grammatical and lexical information clearly However, both Cristina Cacciari and Patrizia Tabosski and Cowie just dealt with the syntactic features rather than the semantic features of idioms

“Idioms and idiomaticity” by Chitra Fernando (1996) provided a comprehensive treatment of idioms and idiomaticity from functional perspective It

examined the use of idioms in discourse to combine the novel and conventional, to convey representations of the world, evaluate people and situations, signal conviviality or conflict, and creat coherent, cohesive texts This book goes on to consider implications for language learning and development

In “English idioms in use” by Michael Mc Carthy and Felicity O’s Dell (2002), there are 60 units of vocabularies references and practices including over

1000 idioms The book is divided into two parts Idioms with explanations, examples and special notes about their usages are presented on the left hand pages and exercises for practicing them are shown on the right hand page However, the above research did not metion the syntactic and semantic features, just listed the idioms That is the reason why the author wants to study the syntactic and semantic features of a specific topic of idioms in English and Vietnamese

2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam

In Vietnam, idioms have been also an interesting field for linguists Lương Văn Đang and Nguyễn Lực (1993) are the pioneers in studying idiomatic phrases in Vietnam They produced the useful book “Thành ngữ tiếng Việt” which has listed many Vietnamese idioms and their symbolic meanings and based on their books, there have been a lot of studies in idioms in Vietnam Idioms have been recognized, collected and explained systematically

Nguyễn Công Đức (1995) studied Vietnamese idioms from formal semantic perspectives It is a research investigation idioms quite systematically from both structural and semantic perspectives Based on the forms, he divided Vietnamese idioms into three categories: idioms with symmetrical structure, idioms with comparision structure and idioms with non symmetrical structure For idioms with symmetrical structure, the most important characteristic is the reciprocal or contrast

of meaning of the two parts of idioms (it is the relation of symmetrical contents) From this relation, these idioms from other relations such as the relation of symmetrical words (the symmetry or repetition between components) Like other linguists, he supposed that idioms with comparision structure are formed according

to general formular A như B (Chậm như rùa: very slow) Idioms with non symmetrical structure are formed by phrasres, especially verb phrases Bắt cá hai tay

(too greedy) Additionally, this kind of idioms also has subject-predicate pattern:

Chuột sa chĩnh gạo (be very lucky to have a comfortable life); Chó ngáp phải ruồi

(be suddenly in luck); ect 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 commented that the meanings of idioms are generally formed according to symmetrical, contrastive, harmonious, convergent and random relations

Hoàng Văn Hành (2008) also stated that the general pattern of similized

idioms (A như B) given by the previous authors is right but reducted It does not

reflect the nature of comparision in terms of both logic and language According to

him, in any case the logical structure of comparision is At1 như Bt2 (t1 is the

attribute of A; t2 is the attribute of B) Based on that general model, he conducted

an analysis to find out the structure of idiomatic meanings In addition, he does not only focus on the idioms structures but also their usage and values From cultural perspective, he supposed that underlying cultural factors behind the idioms need uncovering Although he himself realized that this approach of studying Vietnamese idioms is still open, we can find his contribution in this aspect through his works on idioms

Besides, there have also been a lot of authors whose studies are generally related to idioms Nguyễn Hoàng Trà My (2011) is the first example The study is basically aimed at finding out the semantic, syntactic and cultural features of idioms denoting life and death in English and Vietnamese to provide language learners with the basic knowledge of this field and help them master the meaning of idioms With this aim, several methods are simultaneously employed such as the descriptive, the analytic and contrastive methods, among which the dominant ones are the descriptive and contrastive ones

Nguyễn Thị Vinh explored the syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting sadness and its Vietnamese equivalents in a contrastive analysis so

as to find out similarities and differences between them The second aim is to provide the fundamental understandings about idioms in general and idioms denoting sadness in particular Finally, the study achieved the above aims

Another M.A thesis is “Syntactic ansd semantic features of idioms expressing anger in English and Vietnamese” of Nguyễn Thị Thu Hiền (2013) In the research paper, the author analysis 400 idioms denoting anger in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features, and indicates the distinction

between idioms meanings by native speakers of English and Vietnamese Syntactically, the classification of the data is mainly based on the different structural categories, namedly noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases and adverb phrases The study focuses on the basic of typical semantic and syntactic features of idioms expressing anger in both languages With regard to the semantic results, the data reveal that the meanings of all the collected anger idioms in English and Vietnamese could be expressed through such means as metaphor, metonymy and symmetry Based on the functional grammar viewpoint, the author has investigated each semantic field based on superficial grammatical structures In the light of this approach, idioms are analyzed in forms of phrasal structures and clause structures in relation to their semantic features The phrasal structures could be categorized into noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases and adverbial phrased Besides, idioms are also structured by clauses

Trần Ngọc Quế Châu (2011) with the M.A thesis “A study of idioms denoting family in English and Vietnamese” compares and contrasts idioms denoting family in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features In the syntactic aspects, idioms in English and Vietnamese are analyzed under phrasal structures These structures are categorized into noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases and adverb phrases Semantically, English and Vietnamese idioms denoting family in the study express their meaning through such means as metaphor, metonymy, heperhole and symmetry

The above M.A theses analysed the syntactic and semantic features of idioms

in some specific topics such as idioms denoting family, idioms expressing anger, idioms denoting sadness, etc Up to now, syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese have not been carried out yet This is the reason why this study comes into being investigated in an attempt to focus on semantic and syntactic features of idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese

2.2 Overview of phrases, clauses and sentences

contain a finite verb and does not have a subject- predicate structure” A phrase is

a part of a sentence It is a group of words within a sentence that does not contain both subject and verb and does not express a complete idea

Here is the example: He was a bag of bones

The part of above sentence “bag of bones” is a phrase because it does not

contain a subject or verb and does not express a complete idea A phrase does not include both subject and verb at the same time and does not make a complete sense, hence a phrase can not stand as a sentence on its own

In a phrase, the main word, or the word that is what the phrase is about, is called the head The other words in the phrase do the work of modifying the head According to Quirk and Greenbaum (1987), the common structure of phrases:

(Pre – Modifier) + Head + (Post – Modifier)

A modifier is an optional element in phrase structure A modifier is said

to modify (change the meaning of) another element in the structure, on which it is dependent Modifiers may come before or after the modified element (the head), depending on the type of modifier and the rules of syntax for the language in question A modifier placed before the head is called a premodifier, one placed after the head is called a postmodifier

In English, there are five different kinds of phrase structures: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases and adverbial phrases Randolph Quirk (1985) stated:

He defined that: “A noun phrase consists of head, which is typically a noun and of elements which (either obligatorily or optionally) determine the head and (optionally) modify the head, or complement another element in the phrase.” From

this definition, it is clear that a noun phrase is a word group with a noun or pronoun

as its head The noun head can be accompanied by determiners such as the, a/an,

his, their…) and modifiers complements Here are the examples: a land of the living, couch doctor, one foot in the grave, picture of health, hair of the dog …

According to Quirk (1985), “A verb phrase consists of a verb which either stands alone as the entire verb phrase, or is preceded by up to auxiliaries.” There

are two types of verb phrase: Simple verb phrase (consists of a main verb) and complex verb phrase (may include one modal verb and one or more auxiliary verb before the main verb)

Here are the examples: meet your maker, show signs of an illness, drop like

flies, have one foot in the grave …

He also defined “An adjective phrase consists of an adjective as head, optionally preceded and followed by modifying elements” An adjective phrase is a

group of words that describes a noun or pronoun in a sentence The adjective in an adjective phrase can appear at the start, end or in the middle of the phrase The adjective phrase can be placed before, or after the noun or pronoun in the sentence

Here are the examples: as pale as a ghost, black and blue, racked with pain, full of beans, blue around the gills…

Quirk (1985) said that: “A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition followed

by a prepositional complement, which is normally a noun phrase” Every prepositional

phrase which functions as an adjective or adverb is a series of words made up of a preposition and its object The object may be a noun, pronoun, gerund or clause

Here are the examples: in bad shape, in the pink of health, up and about, under the weather, out of shape, in labor …

He also stated that: “An adverb phrase consists of an adverb as head, optionally preceded and followed by modifying elements” It can be said that an

adverb phrase is a group of words that refines the meaning of a verb, adjective or

adverb Here are the examples: once in blue moon, at your earliest convenience, in the long run, to date, etc

From the author’s point of view, a phrase may not always consist of only one word, it may be one-word phrase in cases of basic phrase There is no subject-predicate structure exists in a phrase, which includes the excluding of a finite verb This will make a phrase become a clause or a sentence Phrases are usually classified according to their head or central element and the meaning of a phrase is a sum of the individual words

2.2.2 Clause structures

According to Cambridge dictionary: “A clause is the basic unit of grammar

A clause must contain a verb Typically a clause is made up of a subject, a verb phrase and, sometimes, a complement”.

“Non-finite clauses contain a verb which does not show tense We usually use non-finite verbs only in subordinate clauses We usually understand the time referred

to from the context of the main clause We often use a non-finite clause when the subject is the same as the subject in the main clause.” (Cambridge dictionary)

According to Peter Collins and Carmella Hollo (2010), “A non-finite clause is a subodinate clause with a non-finite verb as the first or only verb: an infinitive, a present

participle or a past participle and a gerund”

Here is the example: I had something to eat before leaving

A non-finite clause is one that includes a secondary verb (a verb not inflected for tense, person or number.) The verb form is infinitival, gerundial or past participial A nonfinite clause occasionally includes a subject It is a dependent clause serving as the subject or as a complement to the verb, to a preposition or to a

noun but the meaning is incomplete

“Finite clauses must contain a verb which shows tense They can be main clauses or subordinate clauses” (Cambridge dictionary)

According to Crystal (1980), “Finite clause is a clause with a finite verb” For example: We didn’t get any food because we didn’t have enough time (main: past; subordinate: past)

A finite clause is one that includes a primary verb, a verb that can be inflected for tense, person and sometimes number A finite clause includes a subject It is an independent clause, which can serve as a stand-alone clause (sentence), a coordinate clause, a subordinate clause, or a supplementary clause and has a complete meaning

From the above definitions, the author agrees that a non-finite clause is a subodinate clause with a non-finite verb as the first or only verb: an infinitive, a present participle or a past participle and a gerund The finite clauses must contain a verb which shows tense They can be main clauses or subordinate clauses

2.2.3 Sentence structures

The sentence is probably the most familiar of all grammatical terms People are introduced to it in the early school years, and it quickly becomes part of the linguistic awareness It might therefore be thought that sentences are early things to identify and define There are different ways to define a sentence but the writer prefers a traditional grammar-based definition There are many authors giving different definitions about English sentence

According to Alice Oshima & Ann Hogue (2006), they stated that: “The subject is a word or a group of words that name the person, thing, or place that a sentence is about It is usually a noun or a pronoun The predicate makes a statement about the subject It consists of a verb and its modifiers or complements The verb is the most important point of the predicate expressing an action or a state

of being.” Normally, the subject of the sentence, in word order of a statement,

stands before its verb predicate However, the order of the sentence can vary

according to the types of sentences (statement, question, request, etc) Moreover, sentence structure (subject, verb, direct object, indirect object, adverb, subject complement, object complement) is used to form a sentence Here are the examples:

- Most people consider these books rather expensive.( In this sentence, most people

is the subject, the main verb is consider, these books is the object and rather expensive is the complement)

- You must put all the toys upstairs (In this sentence, you is the subject, the main verb is must put, allthe toys is the object and upstairs is the adverb)

In Vietnam, according to Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2008), “Sentence is the smallest unit of language being capable of conveying a thing, an idea, a feeling

or an emotion” The definition shows two characteristics of the sentence In term

of functionality, sentence is a unit being capable of declaration Thanks to this feature, it is possible to distinguish the sentences from its lower rank (words) In term of structure, sentence is the smallest language unit For example, if people consider a paragraph, or even an article, a chapter, a book are declarative units, these units are split into several smaller units while the sentence is not split any more

There are 7 different types of sentence structures According to Randolph

Quirk (1985:721), here are the examples for each type

SV The sun is shining

table

Table 2.1: Types of sentence structures

Among the above definitions, the author has the same opinion with Randolph Quirk (1985) that there are 7 different types of sentence structures: SV, SVA, SVC, SVO, SVOA, SVOC, SVOO

2.3 Overview of idioms

2.3.1 Definition of idioms

In the definition of English idioms, some scholars emphasize the quantity of structures in idioms Others emphasize the single meaning of English idioms which refers that the English idioms’ meaning is arbitrary The English idioms’ meaning can not be synthesized or cut apart Different people hold the different opinions and

focal points on the definition of English idioms In English, idioms maybe treated as

a type of collocation involving two or more words in context However, since the meaning of an idiom can not be predicted from the meaning of its constituents, idioms may be considered as a type of multi word lexeme So far, there have been several definitions of idioms

Jon Wright (2000) and Fromkin, Collin and Blair (1990) have the same ideas

that: “an idiom is an expression with the following features: It is fixed and is recognized by native speakers You cannot make up your own; it uses language in a non literal-metaphorical- way” For example the idiom meet your maker is fixed

and cannot be replaced by other verbs or phrases because this idiom is recognized

by native speakers

Idioms also have been defined by Jenifer Seild and Mordie (1988), Hornby

(1995) and Arthur (1986) as “a number of words which, when taken together, have different meanings from individual meaning of each word” Therefore, an idiom is a

multi-word construction Its semantic meaning can not be deducted from the meaning of constituents and it has a non productive syntactic structure Idioms are phrases that do not mean exactly what they say They have "hidden" meanings, like

the idiom dogs are barking really means the feet are hurting

In Vietnam, Nguyễn Văn Hằng (1999) defined that: “Idiom is a special phrase which allows very little or no variation in form; it is formed with rhythm and special phonetic elements; its meaning cannot be deduced from its individual components; it expresses figurative and general meaning and normally comes along with emotive values; it is used to denote real phenomena and it often functions as a sentence element” (Thành ngữ là một cụm từ đặc biệt có cấu trúc cố định , có vần

điệu và thành phần ngữ âm đặc biệt; có thể suy ra từ tổng số nghĩa của các yếu tố

cấu thành nó; thành ngữ có nghĩa bóng, nghĩa hình ảnh khái quát, thường kèm theo giá trị biểu cảm; thành ngữ thường dùng để định danh những hiện tượng của hiện thực và thường hoạt động trong câu với tư cách là một bộ phận cấu thành của nó)

Hoàng Văn Hành (2002) defined “Idioms are set expressions which are stable in metaphor structure, complete and figurative in meaning widely used in daily communication” (Thành ngữ là một loại tổ hợp từ cố định, bền vững về hình thái cấu trúc, hoàn chỉnh, bóng bảy về ý nghĩa, được sử dụng rộng rãi trong giao tiếp hàng ngày)

According to Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (1985), idiom is defined as “Idioms are set expressions that have both the complete in meaning and valuable description Idioms that express conceptions are usually based on specific images and symbols

(Những đơn vị định danh biểu thị khái niệm nào đó dựa trên những hình ảnh, những biểu tượng cụ thể)

Phan Văn Quế (1996) defined idioms as “A group of words combined together to express something whose meaning is different from its constituent” (Một

nhóm các từ kết hợp với nhau để diễn đạt một cái gì đó mà có ý nghĩa khác với thành phần của nó)

These different definitions above show that despite the different countries, cultures and societies, there is no argument about definition of idioms In short, the idioms consist of set phrases and short sentences, which are peculiar to the language

in question and steeped in the nation and religion, culture and ideas, thus being colorful, forcible and thought – provoking Idioms are expressions that are not readily understandable from their literal meanings of individual constituents An idiom is a fixed expression with the meaning of which could be carried out by gathering the bare meaning of its singular words

2.3.2 Features of idioms

2.3.2.1 Syntactic features

An idiom is a fixed group of words Each word is considered as a component

of an idiom and an idiom consists of at least two components In the book titled “In other words”, Baker (1992) describes “Idioms are frozen patterns of language which allow little or no variation in form and often carry meanings which can not be deducted from their individual components” Idioms are structurally and lexically restricted Hence, the components and grammatical structures of idioms cannot be changed, added, omitted or replaced They cannot be varied in the way literal

expressions are normally varied both in speech and writing In both English and Vietnamese, the stability in idioms is very high

However, according to Fraser (1970), there are specified idioms between those which are able to undergo all the grammatical changes and those which are unable to undergo the smallest grammar changes at all Thus, there are some idioms which have two or more alternative forms without losing their idiomatic meaning These different forms sometimes refect differences between British and American the same meanings to join in an activity without playing an important part in it In

many caseses, several verbs can be used in an idiom such as Go/Sell like hot cakes

(to be brought or taken quickly because of being popular or cheap) In fact, idioms are only fixed in some of their parts but not all Idioms are expressions, not subjected to analysis, only some syntactic changes may be carried out in them The idioms which can easily be subjected to syntactic changes are more flexible Tense changes within idioms can be possible made in most of idioms, so they indicate the

animation of the actions in different tenses on the person’s mind, for example catch

a cold changes to caught a cold In addition, some idioms can be broken or changed more or less in their structures, for example easy come, easy go/ light come, light

go In the same way, prepositions can vary, for example come up/out smelling like a horse (to succeed; to do better than anyone else in some situations)

Moreover, each idiom has a stable structure and meaning An idiom can have

a regular structure, an irregular or even a grammatical incorrect structure First, idioms which have a regular structure have common forms but there is no combination between the meaning of each component and that of the whole unit, for example come along way (to make a lot of progress and improvement) Secondly, the idioms can be groups of words which have unconventional forms but their

meaning can be worked out through the meaning of individual words such as make you enemy your friend In accordance with the rule of grammar, the structures of the verb make are make somebody do something and make somebody/something + Adjective However, in this case, the idiom does not need to obey grammatical rule

to make sense, it can still be understood that make you enemy become your friend Finally, the idioms can be group of words which both grammartically inaccurate and the meaning is not precisely expressed by gathering the meaning of each

member word such as: go over big (with someone) (to be very much appreciated by

someone) The structure of the above idioms is written as V + Preposition +

Adjective Although in English grammar prepositions are never followed by adjectives In this case, the idiom is acceptable It can be considered as an expression in language

According to Bell (1974), some of structural features which are crucial in the recognition of idioms are as follows

 Alteration of grammatical rules: The idiom is not always grammatical but it is instituted, accepted and used by native speakers of the language with a

fixed structure and meaning Here is the example: She had several goes at the high

jump before he succeeded in clearing it (singular with plural noun)

 Conventional phrases: The idiomatic expressions are special expressions which are almost known and agreed by all the members of a particular

community such as At one go (at once)

 Alteration of word order: Idiomatic expressions in English usually do

not respect the English word order such as Go as red as beet (normal word order) or

Go beet red (probably)

 Figurativeness: The fundamental characteristic of idiomatic expressions is that the words are used metaphorically Therefore, the surface structure has a little role to play inunderstanding the meaning of the whole

expression For example, in the idiom go to the dogs (to become less successful or efficient than before) The meaning of the words to go and the dog are different

from the meaning of the whole expression

 Phrasal verb is the most common type of idioms in English Many of them carry idiomatic meanings that cannot be inferred from the form, unless the

phrase is already known For example, I will go along with you on that matter (to agree) or The patient who’d been knocked out finally came around (to regain

consciousness)

According to the author of Oxford dictionary of English idioms such as Cowie; Martin and McCaig (1994), there are enormous structural varieties of English idioms, which can be classified under two general headings: phrase idioms and clause idioms Besides these two main types, there are also other types of idioms, that is sentence idioms

 Phrase idioms: Noun phrase (land of living); Verb phrase (meet your marker); Adjective phrase (blue around the gills), Prepositional phrase (in the pink

of health) and Adverbial phrase (At one go)

 Clause idioms: Verb + Complement (go berseck); Verb + Direct object (control one’s anger); Verb + Direct object + Complement (go beet red); Verb + Indirect object (go home to mama); Verb + Indirect object + Adjunct (go home in a box)

 Sentence idioms: Sentence idioms may be simple or complex sentences (Dreams go by contraries; Tomorrow never comes; He that goes a borrowing, goes a sorrowing, etc)

To sum up, in terms of structural features, idioms may take a variety of forms or structures such as clause, phrase and sentence In relation with structures, idioms can have a regular, irregular or even incorrect grammatical structure Briefly, the author decided to use the theory of Cowie; Martin and McCaig because their theory is suitable to investigate the syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health

2.3.2.2 Semantic features

Idioms are composed of words which often contain images These hidden images can be either or difficult to imagine Thus, the surface structure has a little role to play in understanding the meaning of the whole expression It is the figurativeness of idioms that makes the expressions lively, impressive and deep in the meaning The meaning is the most important aspect when discussing semantic features of idioms The basic characteristic of idioms is figurative meaning which helps to distinguish whether a fixed expression is an idiom or not For example,

Read somebody like a book (to understand someone very well, you can know

exactly what they are feeling or thinking without having to ask) and its Vietnamese

translation equivalents in Đi guốc trong bụng

In some cases, the meaning of an idiom can be guessed because the image

created is already quite obvious, for example go like the wind (nhanh như gió)

However, in other cases, it is nearly impossible to do so because the meaning of idioms must be explained by referring to historical and cultural knowledge

Kunin (2006) stated that the meaning of an idiom is either partly (motivated idioms) or completely different from the meaning of all components (non-mativated idioms) The meaning of idioms cannot be guessed from the meaning of their components In some cases of partial difference, the figurative meaning is not quite

different from the literal one For example, What comes, will come (Việc gì đến sẽ đến); Go in one ear and out the other (Nói vào tai này ra tai kia); Easy come, easy

go (Dễ đến thì dễ đi); etc All these idioms are symbolized with metaphorical

expressions and understood metaphorically

Accroding to the authors such as Hopper; Knapp and Scott (1981), idioms can convey positive, neutral or negative meanings Some idioms have positive

meaning like look the picture of health (look extremely healthy) As for idioms conveying negative meaning, some typical examples of idioms are dead as a doornail (a person is definitely dead) and ready to drop (too exhausted to stay

standing) With regard to neutral meaning, some examples of idioms are shown:

going on (happenings, events) and come after (to occur the following something)

To sum up, idioms can be motivated, partially-motivated and non-motivated

In addition, idioms can convey positive, negative and neutral meanings Idiomatic expressions have high remissiscence because the conversation, utterances are usually used to express the speakers’s attitude or emotion Briely, the theory of Kunin (2006) is the most suitable in order to carry out the thesis

2.3.3 Classification of idioms

Idioms are classified in different ways in dictionaries and reference books They are classified either alphabetically in their meaning, by theme (animals, body parts, emotions, colors, etc) or under common words (cat, hand, blue, water, etc) According to Cowie (1983), the categories idiomatic expressions are based on their

degree of fixity and figurativeness He says that “There is no clear dividing – line between idioms and non idioms, they form the points of continuum” According to

Glucksberg (2001), his categorization is similar to Cowie’s in a way that the categories from a continuum going from petrified , opaque expressions to those that allow some variations and whose meaning can be arrived though semantic analysis Tkachuk (2005) also provides the division with idiomatic classes in terms of

grammatical characteristics of phrases, namely sentiential such as: Misfortunes never come singly, and non – sentential Non – sentential idioms can be verbal Order something to go or verbless In verbless idioms, there can be nominal Beauty

in the eye of beholder, adjective slow and sure, or adverbial phrase once in a blue moon

Classification of idioms depends on the linguist’s point of view Idioms are chosen to take it one step further and classify more specifically: structural and semantic classification of idioms According to Gramley and Pathold (2004), idioms are categorized on the base of the “image or picture they evoke” and divided into

four distinct groups:

 Idioms with a focus on individual ( run in the family)

 Idioms with a focus on the world ( right as rain)

 Idioms that refer to the interaction of individuals (nurse someone back to health)

 Idioms which express the interaction between an individual and the world

(living on borrowed time )

However, it is impossible to cover all criteria for classification of idioms Due to the framework of the thesis, the classification in terms of syntactic and semantic classification of idioms is the most suitable

2.3.4 Idioms and other language units

2.3.4.1 Idioms and proverbs

Proverbs are considered as “memorable short sayings of the people, containing wise words of advice or warning” by Flavell (1994) Also, the Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary (1994) defined a proverb as “a well-known phrase or sentence that gives advice or says something that generally true”

It is necessary to distinguish idioms and proverbs although it is not an easy task because of their same short sentence nature and the usage in expressions Basically, proverbs and idioms have something in common such as both of them are ready-made linguistic units The use of fixed expression is abused in these two types of language units so they tend to become cliches The national characteristics are often expressed in both proverbs and idioms For example, to talk about the

slowness, English people use the image of the snail in the idiom as slow as a snail while Vietnamese people use the image of the tortoise in the idiom chậm như rùa

With reference to proveb, the national characteristics and be recognized in some

proverbs such as Đàn ông chớ kể Phan Trần, đàn bà chớ kể Thúy Vân, Thúy Kiều in Vietnamese or Every Jack has a Jill in English It is easy to see from above examples, such proper names as Phan Trần, Thúy Vân, Thúy Kiều in the former and Jack and Jill in the latter are a part of culture of naming in acommunity

In addition, idioms and proverbs are fairly common in some other ways The lexical items are permanent, moreover their meanings are conventional and largely metaphorical In contrast to free expression in which the member words may differ according to the needs of conversation, the lexical components in proverbs and idioms are consistently presented as single unchangcable collocations or cannot be

substituted by others As the above idiom Một quả cà bằng ba thang thuốc, the

number một is fixed and unchangcable An example of proverb is out of sight out of mind The collocations of the phrases in this proverb are not permutable or changeable The proverb will not make sense if it is modified as out of sight, out of mind Due to the permanence of member words in idioms and proverbs, therefore, it

is out of the question to make any changes in them, even when it is merely an inconsiderable change

One more similarity is that the meanings of idioms and proverbs are understood figuratively other than literally Moreover, in many cases, idioms are

formed from the basics of proverbs For example, rooten apple (one bad person who has a bad effect on others in a group) is the basics to form the proverb the rooten apple injures its neighbors (con sâu làm rầu nồi canh), or the case of the idioms put all your eggs in one basket or the idioms có vay có trả originates from the proverb

có vay có trả mới thỏa lòng nhau

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 term of syntactic structures, idioms are phrases which are parts of sentences, thus they are equivalent to words In contrast, proverbs are mostly the 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 Its perceptive function is to make people aware that it is not easy to change one’s own characteristic 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, gives 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 can be

considered as a language unit only The idiom to eat like a horse illustrate that

idioms own only aesthetic function since it merely describes the ability of eating strongly of someone because of great hunger in figurative way as well as it does not offer any moral lessons or experience of life

2.3.4.2 Idioms and collocations

Cruise (1987) defines collocation as “sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur, but which are nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a semantic constituent” The term collocation in linguistics is used to refer to sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur, but which are nevertheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent

is also a semantic constituent From Cowie’s viewpoint (1994), words which combine with other words, or with idioms in particular grammatical constructions are said to collocate with those words or idioms Collocations are of two kinds: restricted collocations and open collocations

Collocations share several common features with idioms Restricted collocations are sometimes referred to as semi-idiom In such combination, one word has a figurative sense not found outside that limited context The other

elements appears in a familiar and literal sense (the verb and noun in to jog one’s memory, and the adjective and noun in a blind alley) Some collocations allow a degree of lexicon variation, for instance to have a cardinal error/sin/virtue/grace

and in this respite, restricted collocations resemble open ones Another point of similarity is that the literal element is sometimes replaced by a pronoun, or deleted altogether, in sentence where there is an earlier use of the full expression, for

example The Board didn’t entertain the idea, and the Senate wouldn’t entertain it either However, restricted collocations are idiom-like

Besides the similarities, both idioms and collocations have their own typical features that distinguish one from another Open collocations are most sharply and

easily distinguished from idioms in the strict sense are combinations such as to fill the sink and a broken window The use of the term “open”, “free” or “loose” to refer

to such collocation reflects the fact, in each case, both elements (verb and object, or

adjective and noun) are freely recombinable, as for example in to fill/empty the sink and to fill the sink/ basin Typically, also, in open collocations, each element is used

in a common literal sense It is easy to distinguish from idioms, nonetheless, they have a kind of semantic cohesion The semantic cohesion of a collocation is the more marked if the meaning is carried by one (or more) of its constituent elements which is highly restricted contextually, and different from its meaning in more neutral contexts

To sum up, idioms and collocations share with each other several common features Both of them are fixed groups of words, highly restricted in a given

context, and have arbitrary limitation in use An idiom is a lexical complex which semantically simplex while each lexical constituent is also a semantic constituent in collocation A collocation maybe idiom-like in respect of constraints on the combinability of constituents, but the phrase is like in semantic structures

2.3.5 Idioms denoting health

According to the Cambridge dictionary (2008), “health” is “the condition

of the body or mind and the degree to which it is free from illness, or the state of being well”, for example: Her health was much improved after she started doing exercise

According to the Oxford dictionary (2013), “health” is the state of being free

from illness or injury For example, Her concerns include possible health risks to children and the blight on her property

As defined in the Business dictionary (2013), “health” is the "State of complete physical, mental, and social well being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" Health is a dynamic condition resulting from a body's constant

adjustment and adaptation in response to stresses and changes in the environment for maintaining an inner equilibrium called homeostasis

Health is a very popular topic in our lives because health is always important

to people There are many idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese Idioms denoting health is a part of idiom treasure; therefore they have features, functions like idiom in general An idiom is a fixed expression with the meaning of which could be carried out by gathering the bare meaning of its singular words Idioms denoting health have semantic features of literal meaning and figurative meaning, syntactic feature of stability Idioms denoting health are the idioms that

contain the words about health such as die a natural death, show signs of an illness

in English idioms; sức khỏe là vàng, yếu như cây sậy in Vietnamese ones or express the meaning related to health such as full of beans, black out, feel blue in English idioms; Gái 17 bẻ gãy sừng trâu, cổ cày vai bừa, cày sâu cuốc bẫm in Vietnamese

ones

2.4 English and Vietnamese cultural features

Language cannot exist without culture as its component Linguists have different definitions of culture as follows According to Taylor (1974), “Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which

includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”

Trần Ngọc Thêm (1993) defined “Culture includes all things that make this

nation different from other ones” (Văn hóa bao gồm tất cả những gì làm cho dân tộc này khác với dân tộc kia) In fact, Vietnamese and English people have different

cultural tradition, cultural backgrounds, customs, religious belief and different geography environment Therefore, the language that Vietnamese and English people use reflects their different lifestyles and thought

In the book “Cross-cultural communication”, Nguyễn Quang (1998) defined culture as “a share background (for example, national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language and communication style, custom, beliefs, attitudes, and values Culture in this text does not refer to art, music, literature, food, clothing styles, and so on It refers to the informal and often hidden patterns of human interactions, expressions, and viewpoints that people in one culture share The hidden nature of culture has been compared to an iceberg, most of which is hidden underwater! Like the iceberg most of the influence of culture on an individual cannot be seen The part of culture that is exposed is not always that which creates cross-cultural difficulties; the hidden aspects of culture have significant effects on behavior and on interactions with others”

In “Notes toward the definition of culture”, Eliot, Thomas Stearns (2010) stated that “The culture will appear to be the product of the religion, or the product

of the culture”

According to Kim Ann Zimmermann (2013), “Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, emcompasing language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts” It defined culture as share patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive construcs and understanding that are learned

by socialization Thus, it can be seen as the growth of a group identify fostered by social patterns unique to the group

Based on theoretical perspectives and the cultural realities of English and Vietnamese one, it is easy to see that culture is different from society to society and even from individual to individual What is right in one culture may not be right in another culture England belongs to the Western country while Vietnam belongs to the Eastern one, so there are some differences of the culture between two countries Firstly, the difference of geography environment makes different cultures The West with the dry, cold climate and vast grasslands is suitable for animals, husbandry and

it establishes the trend of nomadic life Therefore, Westerners in general and

English people in particular, appreciate individualism and have ambition to conquer the nature Meanwhile, the East has the hot, humid climate and lot of delta which are good condition for cultivation Due to the influence of Eastern culture, Vietnamese people tend to live in harmony with their environment They have the great respect for their communication which leads a flexible and harmonious life for them Therefore, in communication, Vietnamese people do not want to trouble anyone They always keep their inner feelings to remain a peaceful coexistence In England, they have a tendency to speak out nearly all personal problems and criticize frankly

Secondly, Vietnamese civilization is considered “plant civilization” Among the countries in Southeast Asian region, Vietnam is believed to be the cradle of agricultural civilization Also, natural history surrounding the society forms Vietnamese cultural characteristics For these reasons, Vietnamese products contain

a various kinds of tropical agricultural products such as: sắn dây, lá vông, cùm cụm, hắc hương, gừng, trần bì, đu đủ, khoai lang, cà, kinh giới, rau sam, ầu tầu, khoai môn, chuối tiêu, hang mận, chuối hột, rau dền, cam quýt, dưa, củ cải, quả lê, giá

đỗ, ngô, khoai, ect

In addition, one further different characteristic between English and Vietnamese is their traditional religion English people are Christians who believe

in God In Vietnam, Buddhism is considered the most common religion The philosophies of Buddhism have affected Vietnamese people’s thought

English people, with the origin of nomadic culture, have individual features that give them the will of independence and determination They are willing to face their failure and try to get another opportunity Nevertheless, Vietnamese people, with the origin of agricultural culture, usually have the enduring and stable life

In short, this part has described cultural features of English and Vietnamese The two patterns indicated above can show that the English culture is significantly different from Vietnamese one These two types of culture are almost contradictory Therefore, we can see that English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health have different national cultural characteristics

2.5 Summary

In conclusion, this chapter has reviewed previous related studies, the theory about phrase, clause and sentence structures, some specific characteristics of idioms, which will be the foundation for the following chapter in finding the syntactic and semantic features Besides, distinguishing idioms and other language

units is a good way to help the author avoid mistakes while collecting and sorting them Finally, English and Vietnamese cultural features are also metioned This is the basics to explain the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health for the following chapter

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This chapter will present about the context of the study, the instrumentation, the procedure and the statistical analysis

3.1 Context of the study

Firstly, a large number of idioms denoting health were collected in order to make corpus of this thesis In order to have idioms and knowledge supporting for the study, the author has read many linguistic books and reliable dictionaries for example: “English idioms in use” by Michael McCarthy, Felicity O'Dell (2002);

“Oxford dictionary of idiom” by Judith Siefring (2004)

Besides, the Vietnamese idioms have been selected from some reference books such as: “Từ điển thành ngữ Việt Nam” by Nguyễn Như Ý, Nguyễn Văn Khang, Phạm Xuân Thành (1993); “Từ điển thành ngữ Anh-Việt” by Mai Lan Hương, Nguyễn Thanh Loan, Lý Thanh Trúc, Trần Lan Anh, Phan Thị Mai Hương,

Hà Thanh Uyên (2008); “Từ điển thành ngữ tục ngữ Việt Nam” by Nguyễn Lân (2015)

After the data of idioms denoting health are collected, there are 109 English idioms denoting health and 109 Vietnamese ones They are the idioms that contain

the words denoting health such as die a natural death, show signs of an illness in English idioms; sức khỏe là vàng, yếu như cây sậy in Vietnamese ones as well as the idioms that express the meanings related to health such as full of beans, black out, feel blue in English idioms; Gái 17 bẻ gãy sừng trâu, cổ cày vai bừa, cày sâu cuốc bẫm in Vietnamese ones

The data used for analysis of this thesis, as mentioned above, are collected from dictionaries and books The dictionaries and books are chosen with names of authors, names of publishers, time and place of publication In addition, the results

of the research are withdrawn from analysis of evidence, statistics with a thorough consideration Therefore, the thesis is totally reliable and valid

After collecting the data from reliable sources, the author classifies and analyzes them into syntactic and semantic fields in order to find out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health

3.2 Instruments

This study is designed to investigate the idioms denoting health in English

and Vietnamese, so the descriptive and comparative methods have been chosen as major ones

First, the descriptive method is utilized in order to give a full account of syntactic and semantic features of the idioms denoting health in English Second, the comparative method is applied to identify the similarities and differences in term of syntactic and semantic features of the idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese

Some other methods such as analytical, synthetic methods have also been used as supporting ones Furthermore, to investigate in details the syntactic features

of the idioms denoting health in English with their different components and semantic features with various nuances of meanings, analytical method is also employed, and then the synthetical method is used for grouping them on the basics

of certain criteria according to syntactic and semantic features Moreover, quite a few of research techniques have been combined, such as statistics, componential analysis and contrastive analysis

Last but not least, setting up a regular consultancy with supervisor for a guidance and academic exchange is a critical technique to find out a right direction for doing the research successfully

3.3 Procedures

This study is conducted by the following steps Firstly, the author collected English and Vietnamese idioms from reliable sources such as books, dictionaries After that, statisticalizing the data that was collected is also an important step

denoting health according to their syntactic and semantic features based on their meanings, theoretical background in chapter 2 and some printed medicine books The next step is that figuring out the similarities and the differences in terms of the syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting health Finally, the author put forward some implications for teaching and learning idioms

as well as making some suggestions for further research

and semantics

Syntactically, the analysis and classification are mainly based on the different structural categories of idioms such as noun phrase, verb phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases, adverb phrases From which, we find out the similarities and differences in idioms denoting health s’ structure

Semantically, the classification is carried out on the basic typical semantic features of idioms denoting health in two languages

From the results of the analysis, we also suggest the ways to handle idioms in general and some effective ways for language users in teaching and learning idioms

in general and idioms denoting health in particular

3.5 Summary

This chapter gave an overview of the research design The descriptive and contrastive ones were mainly used for the findings of the study Books, dictionaries, and tables are useful instruments for data collection and analysis Besides, it mentioned how detailed the data for this study were collected and analysed After that, it pointed out the research procedures following with the aim of guaranteeing the research schedule Finally, it further emphasized the importance of validity and reliability in doing research

CHAPTER 4 SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS DENOTING

HEALTH IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

In this chapter, the findings of syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting health will be presented The author will conduct a combined analysis of idioms denoting health in English and Vietnamese Also, to clarify the findings, a detailed discussion and examples from the data collection will be presented

4.1 Syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting health in English

4.1.1 Syntactic features

4.1.1.1 Phrase structures

Based on the statistical results, the author has found 96 idioms have the phrases structures out of 109 English idioms making up 88 % of English idioms denoting health Based on the theoretical background, idioms can be divided into 4 groups: idioms in a structure of a noun phrase, idioms in a structure of a verb phrase, idioms in a structure of an adjective phrase, and idioms in a structure of a prepositional phrase

4.1.1.1.1 Noun phrase

There are 21 idioms making up 19,3% of English idioms denoting health The idiomatic noun phrases are classified into these following patterns:

(Article) + Adjective + Noun:

4 English idioms which account for 19% out of 21 ones in total are under

this pattern such as: couch doctor, junk food, spare tyre, verbal diarrhoea

Here are the examples:

- The man was sent to see a couch doctor because of his many problems (Doctor is the noun and couch is the adjective that supplies the meaning for doctor)

- I’d better go on a diet, I’m getting a spare tyre

(Tyre is the noun and spare is the adjective that supplies the meaning for tyre)

- Junk food is bad for us because it contains large amount of harmful substances (Food is the noun and junk is the adjective that supplies the meaning for food)

-If someone has verbal diarrhoea, they can not stop talking

(Diarrhoea is the noun and verbal is the adjective that supplies the meaning for diarrhoea)

(Article) + Noun/ Noun phrase + Prepositional phrase:

This kind of pattern can be found in 10 idioms occupy 47,7% out of 21 ones

in total such as: bag of bones, new lease of life, bundle of nerves, kink in one’s neck, picture of health, frog in one’s throat, hair of the dog, land of the living, a pain in the neck, a shot in the arm

The following examples hold the idioms with patterns:

- The woman is bundle of nerves after looking after her three children

(Bundle is the noun and of nerves is the prepositional phrase that supplies the meaning for bundle)

- Teaching was difficult today because I had a frog in my throat all morning (Frog is the noun and in my throat is the prepositional phrase that supplies the meaning for frog)

- Moving closer to his children has given him a new lease of life

(New lease is a noun phrase and of life is the prepositional phrase that supplies the meaning for new lease)

Noun + Noun

This kind of pattern can be found in 5 idioms account for 23,8% out of 21

ones in total: head shrinker,cast- iron stomach, death warmed-up, etc

Here are the examples:

-The man went to see a head shrinker after his recent problems at work (Shrinker is the head noun and head is a noun that supplies the meaning for shrinker like an adjective)

-My boss told me to go home He said that I looked like death warmed-up (Warmed-up is the head noun and death is a noun that supplies the meaning for warmed-up)

-I donot know how you can eat that spicy food, you must have a cast- iron stomach

(Iron stomach is the head noun phrase and cast is a noun that supplies the meaning for iron stomach)

V ed / V ing + Noun

This kind of pattern can be found in one idiom accupies 4,8% out of 21 ones

in total: splitting headache

Here is the example:

-I have been suffering from a splitting headache all morning

(Headache is the head noun and splitting is the “ing” form that supplies the