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VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES TRAN THI HAI BINH CONSTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON VOCABULARY UNITS IN THE FIELD OF ‘EYE’ IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH Major: Code: Contrastive analysis 9.22.20.24 SUMMARY OF DOCTORAL THESIS ON LINGUISTICS HÀ NỘI - 2019 Completed at: VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Supervisor: Prof Dr Nguyễn Văn Khang Reviewer 1: Prof Dr Do Viet Hung Reviewer 2: Prof Dr Lam Quang Dong Reviewer 3: Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien The Thesis was protected at Academy-level Council at Graduate Academy of Social Sciences, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, No 477 Nguyen Trai st., Thanh Xuan, Hanoi At … The thesis is available at: - Vietnam National Library - Library of Graduate Academy of Social and Sciences PREAMBLE Reason to choose the topic Semantic fields are not new in the theory of linguistics The issues of the semantic field have been studied for a long time and are traditional The study of semantic fields in the direction of contrastive analysis helps to detect similar and different characteristics, especially differences; then point out the characteristics in national thinking and culture However, there have been no in-depth contrastive studies on the group of words indicating human visual organs in Vietnamese and English Therefore, we have studied units in the „eye‟ field to figure out the characteristics in thinking and culture of Vietnamese and English people, as well as to explore the development of new meanings and their participation in phrases, idioms basing on the people‟s ideological thinking when studying this lexical group Research purposes and missions 2.1 Research purposes The thesis research, survey units in „eye‟ field in Vietnamese and English: figure out semantic characteristics of groups of lexical units indicating the visual organ and its parts, activities of the visual organ and characteristics of the visual organs; unravel the semantic development and the possibilities these groups of lexical units are combined with others according to the ideological thinking of each people 2.2 Research missions The tasks of the research are: an overview of the research situation, building a theoretical basis, establishing a set of lexical units of „eye‟ field in Vietnamese and English, indicating similarities and differences between the two languages, surveying semantic characteristics, studying the possibilities for these units to participate in idioms as a constituent element of phrases; identifying similarities and differences between the two languages Research subjects, scope and resources 3.1 Research subject The subject of the study is the units of „eye‟ field in Vietnamese and English, semantic structure of these units in Vietnamese, the method of semantic change, field transfer; detecting typical features of this lexical group, and at the same time studying these units in phrases and idioms On the basis of the results obtained in the Vietnamese language, a contrastive analysis with the English word group is carried out 3.2 Research scope The research scope is the lexical units of „eye‟ field in Vietnamese and English Because the number of words in the „eye‟ field is quite big, we would like to focus on studying 24 Vietnamese lexical units, from which to compare - compare to the corresponding units in the in English 3.3 Research resources The source of the thesis is a group of lexical units in „eye‟ field, they are classified and studied basing mainly on Vietnamese dictionaries, English dictionaries, Vietnamese – English dictionaries, English Vietnamese dictionaries, Vietnamese and English idioms dictionaries by reputable publishers Research methodology The thesis has used some main methods and tactics such as method of semantic element analysis, description method, contrastive method, statistical tactics The new of the research The thesis is a systematic contrastive research on lexical units of „eye‟ field in English and Vietnamese, including nouns, verbs and adjectives, pointing out the similarities and differences in structure characteristics and method of semantic change, studying semantics of this lexical group Vietnamese and English idioms to figure out the similarities and differences in thinking and culture of the two peoples Scientific significance of the thesis 6.1 Theoretical significance The thesis has researched in detail and systematically the „eye‟ field in Vietnamese by the methods of linguistics and linguistic - cultural studies The results of the thesis partly contribute to the theory of semantics and the relationship between language and culture, creating theoretical as well as practical basis for the studies in semantic field in general and Vietnamese semantic field in particular in comparison with English 6.2 Practical significance The results of the thesis will help to study and teach „eye‟ field vocabulary in Vietnamese and English more effectively, and can also be used as a document to support dictionary compilation Thesis structure Beside Introduction, Conclusion, References, Appendix, the thesis is structured into chapters: Chapter Literature review and theoretical basis, Chapter Contrastive analysis on semantic characteristic of the units in „eye‟ field in Vietnamese and English, Chapter Contrastive analysis on units in „eye‟ field participating in Vietnamese and English idioms Chapter LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETIAL BASIS 1.1 Literature review 1.1.1 Research on semantic field and ‘eye’ field Semantic field has been studied in the world for long, applying the theory of semantic field indicating animals A Lehrer and L.P Battan (1945) studied the semantic field of animals and the common metaphorical semantic change basing on American Heritage Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary With the purpose of studying synonym pairs and in syntax relation, Li-li Chang, Keh-jiann Chen, Chu-Ren Huang (1999) studied the semantic field of popular emotional verbs in Chinese In the direction of applying semantic field in reality, Chunming Gao and Bin Xu (2013) focused on phrases, synonyms and antonyms, thereby proposing a method of teaching this group of words in English Brother Similar research approach has been applied by Ali N H Mansouri (1985), Guo Changhong (2010) and many other researchers Comparing the vocabulary of two or more languages has led to both theoretical and practical results Ali Mansouri (2007) solved the problem of translation by filling in gaps in semantic field of two languages: Arabic and English Mary K Bolin (2015) carried out the contrastive analysis on semantic field of grace in English, German, Hebrew, Greek and Latin with sources from bibles Asifa Majid (2009) gave scientific evidences relating to two fields: the cognitive field and the body field to demonstrate the similarities and differences of languages Beside semantic classes of lexical units in dictionaries, Sherali Shokirov (2017) was also interested in structure function of words related to the word „eye‟ in English and Uzbek Jansson Kajsa (2017) uses dictionaries: Oxford Thesaurus (1991) and Nordstedts Svenska Synonymordbok (2009) to implement contrastive analysis on semantic field of LOVE and ÄLSKA In addition to the above studies, there have been many other sttudies on semantic field like the ones conducted by Ricardo Mairal Usón (1990), Zhou and Weijie (2001), Clark E V (1972), 1.1.2 Research situation in Vietnam on semantic field and ‘eye’ field With different research methods, many semantic studies are conducted in Vietnam, contributing to theory and practice of linguistics and sematic field In the study on the field of animal names in Vietnamese and Russian, Nguyen Thuy Khanh (1996) discovered the characteristics of Vietnamese and Russian animal names and identifies the symbolic meaning in animal names in contrastive analysis on idioms With the same method, Cao Thi Thu (1996) conducted studies on field of plant names and field of animal names On the basis of functional linguistics, Hoang Thi Hoa (2007) studied the perceptive verbs in English and Vietnamese Do Minh Hung (2009) implemented a study on verbs indicating eyes‟ activities in English and Vietnamese with dictionary materials: Vietnamese Dictionary and Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, with the purpose of supporting English teaching to Vietnamese people Applying the same method - seme analysis, Tran Thi Huong (2009) researched a group of words indicating human visual activities in Vietnamese and French focusing on 12 lexical units denoting visual activity and derivatives Studying the „eye‟ semantic field in Kieu story, Tran Thi Huong (2011) has divided the field into smaller fields Many contrastive studies on semantic field of Vietnamese and other have been conducted by reseachers such as: Lai Thi Phuong Thao (2016), Le Thi Le Thanh (2001), Nguyen Thi Bao (2003), Nguyen Minh (2006), The study of the semantic field is about the field lexical units, the method of studying the semantic field depends on the purpose of each study Semantic fields are often divided into sub-fields for detailed study The sources for semantic field research are also diverse, most of the studies have used materials from dictionaries and literary works Contrastive analysis on semantic fields is quite popular all over the world as well as in Vietnam, helps clarify differences and similarities of the lexical units in the field of different languages, also contritube to the solution to semantic problems 1.2 Theoretical basis 1.2.1 Some common theoretical issues about semantic field Semantic – Lexical field The word "Field" was first used by G Ispen in the phrase "semantic filed" (bedeutungsfeld) “Semantic field” is like a mosaic with stones placed next to each other, words are placed next to the others, each word has a different shape, but has matching borders, all creating a completion in a high order J.Trier (1931) with his concept semantics has "raised semantics to a new level" with the term "language field" Unlike J Trier, W Porzig (1934) discovered an intimate semantic relationship between parts of speech, suggesting the use of a syntagmatic relationship to identify lexical fields Inheriting Trier's conception of school, L Weisgerber (1950) argued that language affects members of the linguistic community by means of fields; the feature of the word exists only in field, and proposed 3-dimensional field, radiating in many different directions and due to the difference in the semantic system of different peoples, the constituent fields are not the same F Saussure's ideology (1973) decisively promoted the formation of the theory of fields with the notion that the value of each linguistic element was determined in relation to the remained ones In Vietnam, Do Huu Chau (1998) proposed the definition of a vocabulary field as a set of lexical units based on a certain semantic identity, each word is in contrast to the rest in a lexical system and is only valid when placed in relation to other words in the system Nguyen Thien Giap (2001) considered that field means a collection of lexical units having interrelated meaning, these lexical units can be either a word or an idiomatic unit Citing Trier's point of view, he points out the mutual relationship of meaning in the lexical field definition, in the system, all receiving meaning only through the whole Sharing the same opinion with Nguyen Thien Giap, Do Viet Hung (2011) and Nguyen Tat Thang (2008) have proposed criteria to group words into different fields with central and peripheral words Vu Duc Nghieu and Nguyen Van Hiep (2009) have defined semantic fields as sub-systems, lexical organizations, in which words are systematically related The common view of the researchers is: a set of words that are related to each other in terms of meaning, forming a semantic sub-system called "lexical field", "semantic field" or "semantic-lexical field" The concept of semantic relations in the semantic field Based on the types of semantic relationships in the semantic field, linguists classify semantic fields into different categories, a field often refers to two main relationships: linear relation and association relation According to F de Saussure (1973), the association is broader than linear (syntagmatic) relation L Wesigerber (1950) and J Trier (1931) had a conception of a field in vertical relation: direct field Another trend with W Porzig (1934) as a representative suggested the concept of linear fields based on horizontal relations and distinguished central fields and semantic change fields Basing on the achievements in semantic field in the world, Do Huu Chau (1981) divided the field of semantics into categories: non-linear field, linear / combined field and interlinear / general field He proposed using the highly generalized noun as the root to put the dennotation meaning of a word into an appropriate field For example, the word eye may have the there may be denotation fields: parts of the eye, characteristics of the eye (physical features, visual abilities), eye sensations, eye diseases/problems, etc A large denotation and connotation field can be divided into small fields Meaning of words According to Do Huu Chau (1981), the meaning of a word is a collection of certain components including: denotation meaning, connotation meaning, attitude meaning and grammatical meaning; There is also general meaning In the field of semantic research, the identification of connotation and denotation is important because connotation meaning is a reflection of things, phenomena in reality in language, and the connotation meaning, through concepts, relates to objects and phenomena outside language, via denotation to relate to reality The study of semantic (semantics) needs a comprehensive view: studying both linguistic and verbal units, the semantic relation of words to perception, present, internal structure, system and combined with the meanings of other words (Hoang Phe, 2008) A word has many meanings and each meaning is made up of smaller elements called seme Each seme can be broken down into smaller semes and can continue until the basic semantic element According to Nguyen Thien Giap (2014), the definitions of the words in dictionaries are explained in detailed description so they are often used as the basis for analyzing the semantic elements Semantic change Researchers have mentioned a mumber of sematic change devices, often focusing on: specialization, generalization, metonymy and metaphor Among these methods metonymy and metaphor are more popular, especially metaphor - considered the sweet fruit of creative imagination The semantic change of words is often governed by the laws of perception Therefore, the meanings changed are typically national Polysemy Polysemy, also known as multi-meaning phenomenon, is a universal phenomenon, originating from the needs of human communication and expressing economical law of language, expressed in terms of vocabulary: The same phonetic form can express many different contents (Nguyen Thien Giap, 2014) The denotation meanings are usually developed on the basis of one or several semes in the connotation structure which is taken as the center of denotation group Sematic change A lexical unit can have many meanings, so it can also belong to many semantic fields This is related to a common phenomenon – the shift of semantic field (phenomenon of field change) Semantic change of a word is the basis of field change which increases imaginative effect of words 1.2.2 Contrastive linguistics and language contrast Contrastive linguistics is a field in Comparative Linguistics and is growing due to the need to overcome errors in foreign language learning The contrast of languages helps to see the limits of human language Linguistic contrasts as well as other comparisons, are always implemented on a defined basis, comparative objects often belong to the same category A general contrastive process is based on common principles, including: Step 1: Describe the language that is relevant to the purpose of comparison, Step 2: Identify the factors that can be compared, Step 3: Perform a collation, find out the similarities and differences of the elements in the languages compared 1.3 Vision and ‘eye’ field 1.3.1 Thị giác Vision is visual perception, and is a process of receiving and processing information from the environment through light This process is carried out by complex visual parts, in which the eyes, also known as the visual organ, are the main part 1.3.2 ‘Eye’ field With the method of determining the semantic field proposed by researchers such as Khanegrefs (1980) and Do Huu Chau (1981), the eye noun can be used as the basis to determine the „eye‟ field because eyes are the main organ representing vision The „eye‟ field is a system of words with denotation meanings related to distinguishing light, colors and shapes; in other words, words with denotation meanings related to the eyes 1.3.3 Units in ‘eye’ field The „eye‟ field may be defined by the following groups of words: the words indicating the visual organs and parts of the visual organs (eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, eyelids, etc - mắt, lông mày, lơng mi, mí,…), the words indicating eye activities (look, watch, see, nhìn, trơng, ngó, …), words describing eyes (shape, color, visual capacity, …), words referring to senses of eyes (dazzling, light-headed, flowered, stinking, ), words relating to eye problems (blindness, nearsightedness, farsightedness, etc.) 1.3.4 Comparing lexical units in ‘eye’ field The contrast of „eye‟ field in Vietnamese and English is performed as the steps described in the previous section First of all, words are categorized into semantic fields or sub-fields The researcher then commented on: the list of lexical units, the semantic structure of each field unit, the frequency of the units in a given document (for example, Story of Kieu) or in idioms, rhetorical value of the unit Based on the comparison results, conclusions about the differences and similarities between Vietnamese and English are drawn, from which the linguistic and cultural characteristics are pointed out 1.4 Sub-conclusion The experience of previous studies, the orientation, approach and purpose of the research become clearer The theoretical basis has provided more indepth understanding of semantic fields, concepts of semantic fields and contrastive linguistics In this study, we think that the components of the semantics field (also called lexical field, semantic - lexical field) are words that are homogeneous in terms of semantics Contrastive analysis on „eye‟ field in Vietnamese and English is to compare the meaning of the units in the traditional category to find similar and different characteristics in the semantic field of the two languages, then to find the typical characteristics in Vietnamese and English culture Chapter CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON LEXICO-SEMATIC CHARACTERISTICS OF WORDS IN ‘EYE’ UNIT IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH 2.1 Research limit To identify lexical units in „eye‟ field for the research, two dictionaries have been used: Hoang Phe's Vietnamese Dictionary (2018) and Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary with Vietnamese Translation - 8th Edition) (2015) Besides, Vietnamese – English dictionary by Linguistic Institution (2018) as well as many other dictionaries have been as reference The nouns indicating the eyes and parts of the eyes, the verbs describing the activities of the eyes and the adjectives describing the eyes in the two dictionaries are listed along with explanations of related meanings to the „eye‟ field The statistical results are as follows: noun indicating eyes and parts of the eyes: Vietnamese: 32 words, English: 24 words; verbs indicating visual activity: Vietnamese: 43 words, English: 62 words, adjectives describing eye characteristics: Vietnamese: 70 words, English: 51 words 2.2 Lexical contrastive analysis on words belong to ‘eye’ field in Vietnamese and English 2.2.1 Words indicating eyes and eye parts The number of Vietnamese words (32 words) is higher than that of English (24 words), some words refer to parts of the vision that appear in the Vietnamese dictionary but not in the English dictionary and vice versa: màng, ve, tròng - cannot find corresponding words in English; rim 11 proportion of single-word words and compound ones eye field in Vietnamese is 68 - 54, English is 117 - 19 In both languages, the number of the single -word is higher than the compound, but in English, the single word account for a much bigger number This proves that Vietnamese has the tendency of using existing lexical units to create new words referring to concepts and phenomena relating to eyes, this is different in English 2.3 Semantic contrastive analysis on units in ‘eye’ field in Vietnamese and English 2.3.1 Semantic contrastive analysis on units indicating eyes and parts of eyes in Vietnamese and English We have carried the analysis on 03 Vietnamese nouns: mắt, mày, mi with the equivalent in English: eye, eyebrow, eyelid, and eyelash Basing on explanation and seme analysis, it has been discovered that the seme of the words eye, eyelid, eyelash, and eyebrow all include the seme referring to the location and number of these parts The word eye has the location seme: in the face and either of, eyelid with the seme above or below and either of, eyelash with on the edge of eyelids and one of, eyebrow with above the eye and the line of hair Meanwhile, in the explanation of the Vietnamese words referring to the same eye parts, the words: mắt, mi there is no seme of location and quantity It can be said that the British are more interested in location and quantity than Vietnamese people when explaining the words indicating eyes and its parts It can be seen from the analysis on the derivative meaning of the words describing the eyes and parts of eyes that, the mắt / eye has the biggest number of derivative meanings in both languages This proves the importance of eyes in the culture of the two peoples Considering the semantic change, Vietnamese and English have the same meaning The metaphorical method creates 07 derivative meanings of the word mắt, 08 derivative meanings of the word eye, of which 06 are similar derivatives in two languages: vision, judging by appearance, observation and judgment way, the eye-shaped protrusive object and the eye-shaped object Mắt has a metaphorical meaning: Electronic devices have the shape of an eye and can recognize signals, eyes has a derivative meaning that Vietnamese does not have, that is: the position under the eye The metaphorical method creates two derivative meanings of the word mắt in combination tai mắt (the person who listens, observes then reports to someone and the person who will become important in the future), but does not create any derivative meanings for the word eye Words that describe the parts of the eye almost have no derivative meanings in either 12 language Only one word has a metaphorical meaning: mettle (man) in mày râu and 01 metaphor: the face of the person in mày mặt 2.3.2 Semantic contrastive analysis on lexical units referring to eye activities in Vietnamese and English Within the limit of the study, verbs have been investigated, including: mở (mắt), nhắm, nháy, nhìn, xem, liếc, ngó, dòm, khóc with the equivalents in English as: open (eye), close (eyes), wink, watch/see, glance, look, peep, cry Xem has equivalent words in English: watch and see The verb ngó has the same meaning as nhìn so the equivalent is look The verbs only referring to eyes are all single-word words in both Vietnamese and English Among Vietnamese verbs in the study, only mở can be used flexibly with nouns other than the eyes Among the 10 corresponding verbs in English, there are verbs that can be combined flexibly with nouns from other field rather than „eye‟ field: open and close In terms of semantic change, all words describing the operation of the eyes and parts of the eyes in Vietnamese and English have derivative meanings The special thing is that there are 06 pairs of Vietnamese and English words with the same derivative meanings: - Mở mắt/Open eyes: 01 same derivative meaning: recognize something that you have never known before - Nhắm (Nhắm mắt)/Close eyes: 01 same derivative meaning: pretend not to know some truth - Nháy (Nháy mắt)/Wink: 03 same derivative meanings: signal by winking, flash - Nhìn/Ngó/Look: 04 same derivative meanings: investigate, pay attention to, the face of a building - Xem/Watch, see: 02 same derivative meaning: rate something or somebody basing on observation, consider as - Liếc/Glance: 01 same derivative meaning: read quickly to get the main idea The equivalent derivative meanings of the two languages show the similarities in the thinking of the two peoples towards the verbs of „eye‟ field Among the same derivative meanings of word pairs, there is always meaning belonging to „cognitive‟ field: relating to the subject‟s viewpoint, perception and feeling in communication In addition to the above meanings, the studied verbs have metaphors in other meanings in 13 cognitive fields, obviously the metonymy creates more meanings than the metaphor for the studied verbs The total number of derivative meanings of verbs in „eye‟ field in Vietnamese is bigger than English (Vietnamese: 35, English: 19) Among the researched verbs, nhắm/mở mắt are two of the three words with biggest number of derivative meanings in Vietnamese, but the corresponding English words close / open eyes have only one derivative meaning In addition to relate to consciousness, the words nhắm/mở mắt are associated with the beginning and the end of life, creating new meanings, while the phrase open / close eyes refers to consciousness only 2.3.3 Semantic contrastive analysis on lexical units indicating characteristics of eyes in Vietnamese and English Within the limit of the study, 12 Vietnamese words describing characteristics of eyes are examined as in the Table 2.1 below Table Words describing characteristics of eyes in Vietnamese and English No Vietnamese English Adjectives describe the shape and size of eyes Híp Closed nearly completely Lồi Bulging Ti hí Narrow Xếch Slanting Adjectives describe the colors of eyes Đen Dark Nâu Brown Xanh Green/blue Trắng dã (White) Đỏ Red/Bloodshot Adjectives describe state of eyes 10 Chột One-eyed 11 Mù Blind 12 Sáng Clear The English equivalent of word híp cannot be found in the dictionary, to describe the eyes with this characteristic, the British uses the expression like close nearly completely In 12 Vietnamese words, there are words uniquely describing eyes: híp, ti hí, trắng dã, chột, mù - 03 single – word words (híp, chột, mù), one multi-word word (trắng dã) and 01 alterative word (ti hí); among 11 equivalent English words there are only two words uniquely describing eyes: one-eyed and blind – 01 singleword word (blind) and 01 multi-word word (one-eyed) Most adjectives describing shape and size, the color of eyes express some emotion or feeling in both languages When describing the eyes, đen/dark, nâu/brown, xanh/green are often positive; đỏ/red, ti hí/narrow, 14 xếch/slanting are often negative The eyes with color đen láy/huyền are usually used in poems and songs; mắt xanh/xanh mắt – love or fear; mắt đỏ ngầu/đỏ mắt – scaring /waiting, trắng dã –frightening Similarly, bulging eyes express surprise, narrow eyes – doubt or watching Among the words describing eye color, dark, brown, green are usually used to describe beautiful eyes, red eyes are usually related to fear The word pairs with the same derivative meaning is: mù/blind with the meaning: loss of ability to identify a certain aspect, unobservable, unclear perception / loss of insight The number of derivative meanings generated from the group of words studied in Vietnamese (11 meanings) is less than that of English (17 meanings) In which the number of meanings generated mainly from the metonymy (Vietnamese: 9, English: 10) 2.4 Sub conclusion Comparing the number of words, word structure, number of words equivalent and non-equivalent in meaning between two languages has provided a comprehensive view of the similarities and differences in vocabulary of two languages In „eye‟ field, the number of adjectives in Vietnamese is higher than the verbs, and the number of verbs in English is higher than the adjectives - this shows the different interest between Vietnamese and English in eyes Differences in the structure of Vietnamese and English words are reflected in the number of single-word words, multi-word words, and alliterative words in „eye‟ fields in Vietnamese and English This difference is clearly reflected in the relatively large number of multi-word units in Vietnamese and of single – word words in English The visual activity group has the most derivative meanings in both languages, etc A common point about the semantics of the units in „eye‟ field in Vietnamese and English is that there are always derivative meanings in the cognitive and communication field Chapter CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON LEXICAL UNITS OF ‘EYE’ FIELD PARTICIPATING IN VIETNAMSES AND ENGLISH IDIOMS 3.1 Research limit 3.1.1 Some notions of idioms The notion of idioms in Vietnamese Vietnamese researchers have given different definitions of idioms but idioms are all defined as fixed expressions and complete in meaning and have symbolic value in meaning To distinguish idioms from other fixed phrases, Do Huu Chau (1998) introduced the definition of idioms via the characteristic of being idiomatic of fixed phrases Contrastive analysis on 15 fixed expressions in general and idioms in particular and the central component of the equivalent free phrases will reveal the complexity and sophistication of fixed expressions, clarifying the characteristics of fixed expressions, including: figurative mean, ethnicity, symbolism and specificity and emotion expression According to Nguyen Thien Giap (2010), idioms are fixed phrases that are both complete and meaningful, in addition to intellectual content, idioms also have the nuance of "certain rating, emotion‟ The reflection extent of the idioms depends on the circumstances and perspectives of each ethnic group due to idioms formed by the need to express appreciation and expressiveness Vietnamese idioms mainly describe the phenomena in human life: lifestyle, personality, virtue, etc In addition, other definitions of idioms are also put forward by researchers, such as the one by Hoàng Phê (2018), by Nguyễn Như Ý (1998), by Hồ Lê (1976) … The notion of idioms in English Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (2014), the Cambridge Dictionary defines idioms as a phrase used together with meaning which cannot be guessed basing on the meaning of the individual word in the phrase English researchers have also given similar definitions, such as the ones by R LC Mitchell (2016), F O'Dell and M McCarthy (2017), Understanding the meaning of idioms is important because idioms are often used in communication and the media, and because idioms represent the specific rules and concepts of a society J Seidl and W McMordie (2017) argue that idioms with ambiguous rules and meanings are quite common in English Because there is almost no association between the meanings of each component word, the meanings of these idioms are hard to guess Stuart Redman (2011) provides a definition of idioms along with the independent relationship of idiom meaning with constituent words According to J Seidl and W McMordie, idiomatic components are usually immutable, except for idioms with some variants Gibbs (1993) points out that language in idioms is very complex and each idiom needs its own analysis of syntax, semantics, pragmatics and conceptual properties The notion of idioms for the study 16 Based on the opinions of linguists on the idiom identification factors, we have established the "idiom" limit for the research Idioms are fixed and idiomatic phrases The fixedness of idioms is expressed in morphology and structure, the characteristic of being idiomatic is expressed in meaning (meaning of idioms is not a simple addition of meaning of constituent components) 3.1.2 The limit of research source and implementation Source: Dictionaries: English – English – Vietnamese idioms by Lương Quỳnh Mai (chief editor), Vietnamese Idioms by Nguyễn Như Ý (chief editor); Vietnamese Idioms and Proverbs by Nguyễn Lân; Vietnamese Idioms Explanation by Institution of Linguistics, Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms by A.P Cowie, R Mackin and I R Caig; English Idioms by J.Seidl and W McMordie Implementation Step 1: Collect idioms containing words from „eye‟ field in the source Step 2: Classify idioms by: Idioms containing the same words in „eye‟ field Classify idioms by: Idioms describing human appearance, idioms describing the mood - emotions, idioms expressing intellect - perception, idioms describing personality, idioms describing behavior and idioms that describe other specific situations Step 3: Make a table of statistics, compare to find similarities and differences 3.2 Contrastive analysis on lexical units in ‘eye’ field in Vietnamese and English idioms 3.2.1 The general number of idioms and occurrence of ‘eye’ field words in Vietnamese and English idioms Based on the above sources, 137 Vietnamese idioms and 134 English idioms that contain units of „eye‟ field are listed The number of idioms in the two languages is almost equivalent The occurrence frequency of the word mắt in idioms is the highest with 101 times, followed by (lơng) mày (27 times), khóc (14 times), nhắm (8 times), nhìn/ngó (8 times), mù (8 times), sáng (4 times) , xem and liếc appear times, dòm, trắng dã, (mắt) đỏ with times, mở (mắt) – nháy – ti hí – (măt) xanh with time The units that not appear in idioms are mi, híp, lồi, xếch, (mắt) đen, (mắt) nâu, chột, lác The word eye has the highest occurrence frequency in idioms with 77 times, followed by watch/see (10/18 times), look (12 times), blind (10 times), wink and cry (5 times), close eyes (4 times), open eyes and read (3 times), eyebrow/brow 17 and glance (2 times), eyelid, eyelash, peep, green/blue (eyes), read/bloodshot (eyes) with times The units not appear in idioms are bulging, narrow, slanting, dark (eyes), brown (eyes), white (eyes), oneeyed, squinty and clear (eyes) 3.2.2 The number of idioms are categorized by words of ‘eye’ field in Vietnamese and English From the collected idioms, we classified idioms basing on words in the „eye‟ field, the frequency of these idioms was counted The number of idioms listed according to units in „eye‟ field is almost not equivalent to occurrence frequency of the units in idioms, the difference is revealed clearly in the Vietnamese units with high frequency of occurrence The word mắt appears in 87 idioms with the frequency of 101 times, (lông) mày in 24 idioms (27 times of occurrence), khóc in 12 idioms (14 times of occurrence), mù in idioms (8 times of occurrence), nhìn/ngó in idioms (8 times of occurrence), liếc in idioms (3 times) In English, the number of idioms listed by „eye‟ field lexical units almost corresponds to the occurrence frequency of the units in idioms, except for the two cases: eye(s) in 75 idioms with 76 times of occurrence, wink in idioms with times of occurrence 3.2.3 Comment The words mắt/eyes are most commonly used in Vietnamese and English idioms, with the corresponding number and frequency of occurrences 101/73.72% and 77/57.46% It is proven that mắt/eyes play an important role in the two people‟s communication It seems that mắt is more important for Vietnamese people as mắt is used with higher frequency than eyes used in English (lông) mày (eyebrows) has lots of meanings for the Vietnamese when the word appears in various idioms, while eyebrows appears in only 01 idiom The total times of occurrences of Vietnamese words related to visual activity (41 times) are less than that of English (63 times) The word khóc (18%) is the most expressive and used with the highest frequency compared with other verbs related to eye activities, while cry has a very frequency (3.7%) Idioms containing khóc usually describe different level of sadness and pain, such as: khóc đứng khóc ngồi, khóc mưa, khóc cha chết, khóc ri, khóc mắt; however, there are only two idioms with the word cry expressing pain/sadness: cry one’eyes out and cry someone’s heart out In Vietnamese villages, the connection with the family, clan, and residential community plays a very important role; interpersonal support and sharing become cultural characteristics In contrast, Western culture emphasizes the power of individuality, 18 autonomy and independence “Vietnamese people are always very collective, attached to the collective, mingle with the common interests of the collective, this is different from the West where people have been practicing individual awareness since as a child ” (Tran Ngoc Them, 1996) Perhaps that is why Vietnamese people have more idioms describing the suffering via the act of crying than the British The word nhắm appears with almost twice the frequency of close (eyes) in idioms The British use watch/see, look with a relatively high frequency in idioms (30%), the Vietnamese equivalent xem, nhìn/ngó have a low frequency (8.3%) Among the words describing eye colors, đỏ/red, xanh/green all have metaphor and are in both Vietnamese and English idioms though the occurrence frequency is low (đỏ/red: 2/1 time(s), xanh/green: 1/1 time) The words đen/dark, nâu/brown not appear in idioms in both languages The difference is in the color trắng/white, there is one Vietnamese idiom with trắng (mắt trắng môi thâm) but no English idioms have the word white Words that describe the eye's ability are rarely used in both Vietnamese and English idioms The words: xếch, lồi, híp, chột – not appear in Vietnamese idioms; sáng, ti hí appear once The English words that not appear in idioms are slanting, narrow, one-eyed, clear, bulging The word mù/blind is used with more frequency than any other word of its kind in the idiom British people use bind more than twice as much as Vietnamese people use blind in idioms In terms of the number of idioms classified by words in „eye‟ field, the similarities and differences between the occurrence frequency of the lexical units and the number of idioms containing that unit As mắt/eyes has a high frequency in idioms in both languages, the number of idioms with the word mắt/eyes is much bigger than of the other idioms which contain other units The same thing happens with other units and idioms that contain them The occurrences of a „eye‟ field unit in English is almost equivalent to the number of idioms containing it, but the number of idioms that contain the units in Vietnamese is much lower than the occurrences of the units The difference shows that idioms there are many repeated elements in Vietnamese, and this phenomenon is rare in English, among 134 idioms, only 02 idioms with repetition of words from „eye‟ field 3.3 Contrastive analysis on expression scope of idioms containing lexical units in ‘eye’ field 19 3.3.1 Scope After classify the idioms that contain Vietnamese lexical units of „eye‟ field by expression scope, we get the following numerical results: Scope of appearance: 21 idioms, Scope of mood - emotion: 48 idioms, Scope of intellectual - perception: 10 idioms, Scope of personality: 12 idioms Scope of behavior: 19 idioms, Other scopes: 21 idioms The numbers of idioms describing appearance and mood - emotions are much bigger than others, so we focus on studying idioms in two scopes 3.3.2 Contrastive analysis on idioms with lexical units of ‘eye’ field expressing the scope of human appearance Scope of human appearance in Vietnamese idioms The number of idioms that contain lexical units of „eye‟ field within the scope of human appearance in Vietnamese is 22 (06 idioms with positive expression, 02 idioms with neutral idioms, 14 idioms with negative expression) Among the 25 Vietnamese units studied in „eye‟ field, only units appear in idioms describing appearance: nouns, adjectives and verbs with a total number of occurrences of 32 Although the number of nouns elements is small, their occurrence frequency in idioms is quite high The elements mắt and mày has the occurrences of 17 and in the appearance idioms (accounting 53.1% and 25% the occurrence of „eye‟ field units in appearance idioms) The other elements trắng (dã), (mắt) đỏ, mù, ti hí, xem, ngó appear only once Contrastive analysis on appurtenance idioms in Vietnamese and English The number of English idioms describing people‟s appearance and containing an „eye‟ field lexical unit is 02, and both are negative idioms Comment There is a big difference between the number of idioms that contain „eye‟ field units describing people‟s appearance in Vietnamese and English, the number of elements in „eye‟ field appearing in the idioms in Vietnamese are also bigger than that in English The Vietnamese „eye‟ field elements in the idioms describing the appearance in Vietnamese are mắt, mày, trắng, đỏ, xem, ngó, ti hí, mù (8 elements), in English are: eyes (1 element) From the above differences, it can be seen that the connection between „eye‟ field units and human appearance expressed through idioms in Vietnamese is more diverse than in English The word mắt has the highest frequency in Vietnamese idioms, the word eye is present in both English idioms The relationship between the eyes and the appearance of people in idioms is similar in Vietnamese and English Although there are differences in eye-contact standards in different cultures (regarding situations, timing, views, etc.), eye contact 20 always helps understand others better and communicate more effectively, mắt / eye are the visual organ, and also means judging by appearance to make assessment Therefore, the word mắt / eye has much higher occurrence frequency compared to other words in the field in appearance Idioms In 14 negative idioms, 12 idioms has the word mắt Both the English appearance idioms have eye and are negative The idioms that describe negative appearance almost all have metaphorical meanings: express one‟s personality, behavior This has clarified the concept “đôi mắt cửa sổ tâm hồn/ The eyes are windows to the soul” of two peoples The two idioms that contain „eye‟ field vocabulary describing the appearance in English have equivalent Vietnamese idioms: Have eyes like a hawk = Mắt diều hâu and an eye candy = Xem tướng ngó rạng anh hào, suy nét khác tiểu nhân Thus the association thinking of Vietnamese and British people is similar in that it connects the eyes with the shape, personality, manners of a person 3.3.3 Contrastive analysis on idioms with ‘eye’ field units expressing mood – emotion Mood-emotion in Vietnamese idioms According to statistics, there are 46 idioms within the range of human expression in Vietnamese (03 idioms with positive expressions, 02 neutral idioms and 41 negative idioms) There are vocabulary units in the visual field that appear in these idioms, including: mắt, mày, khóc, (mắt) đỏ, (mắt) xanh The occurrence frequency of the words mắt, mày and khóc is the highest with the occurrences of 26, 12 and in the total 55 times As in the appearance idioms, (lông) mày has the 2nd highest occurrence of frequency in mood – emotion idioms Khóc is the only verb which appears in this kind of idioms, but it has a high occurrence frequency with 12 times Color adjectives describing eyes đỏ and xanh appears only once The negative mood – emotion idioms with „eye‟ field units express the mood of anger, suffering, depression, shame, fear, anticipation, regret, discomfort Mood-emotion in English idioms We have found 17 idioms expressing mood, emotion containing „eye‟ field lexical units in English (02 positive idioms, 03 neutral idioms and 12 negative idioms) There are „eye‟ field lexical units that appear in idioms describing mood and emotions, including verbs (look, cry, close eyes, glance, watch, see), nouns (eye, eyebrow), adjective (green) Eyes appear more frequently than other elements (8/19 times); look, cry and eyebrow (brow) appear twice and the remaining words appear only once in idioms indicating mood, emotions in English Most of the idioms 21 that describe mood and emotions are negative These idioms are divided into different groups in accordance with negative moods as: anger, suffering, depression, shame, jealousy, anxiety and discomfort Comment The number of idioms that contain units of „eye‟ field expressing mood and emotion in Vietnamese is bigger than that in English Vietnamese people‟s association between the „eye‟ field units and emotions - moods is more diverse than the British‟s The number of idioms expressing negative moods and emotions in both languages is greater than that of positive and neutral idioms It seems that negative emotions can hardly be expressed directly, so idioms are created, through metaphorical form of words, to help easily express a variety of negative emotions and moods with different levels in the two languages The number of verbs in English idioms is higher than Vietnamese, which means that verbs in „eye‟ field in English have more association value when expressing moods and emotions Nouns and adjectives belonging to the Vietnamese „eye‟ field have more association value with more frequency in idioms Facial expressions: eyebrows and eyes are more noticeable by Vietnamese people Idioms that contain words from „eye‟ field and describe moods and emotions in Vietnamese are more diverse than in English, this is reflected in the number of idioms in each category: positive, neutral, negative Considering the scope of idioms describing negative moods, Vietnamese idioms describe 08 mood types, English idioms describe only 07 types of mood In addition to expressing the same moods and emotions (anger, suffering, shame, depression, anxiety, and discomfort), the idioms containing „eye‟ units in Vietnamese expressed expectant and regretful mood, and English idioms express jealousy The similarity in thinking of two peoples in the association of „eye‟ field lexical units and emotional is that there are idioms expressing the same moods: anger, suffering, depression, shame and discomfort – and the mood of suffering has the biggest number of idioms As the number of Vietnamese lexical units in „eye‟ field in this kind of idioms is smaller than that of English, but the number of the Vietnamese idioms is higher and these idioms indicate more moods than that of English idioms, the „eye‟ field units in Vietnamese have more symbols than in English Idioms describing mood-emotion in Vietnamese and English some similar symbolic image (though very little) and most are different The idioms showing surprise are: không tin vào mắt and not believe one’s eyes Referring to the same color, xanh in “sợ xanh mắt” 22 indicates great fear, and in “a green-eyed monster” green indicates jealousy The word đỏ refers to anticipation in mong đỏ mắt, but red represents anger in see red The words cry and khóc are used in many expressions to describe suffering, along with various levels of heartbreak Having the inner same feeling of suffering that cannot be exposed to the outside, Vietnamese people seem to care more about how people around react rather than emotions as in the idioms: khóc hổ ngươi, cười nước mắt (suffer but have to hide the feeling because it is a shame to cry); the British have the idiom close your eyes and think of England (close eyes to endure and endure by thinking about the good) 3.4 Sub conclusion The research results show that the occurrences and occurrence frequencies of idioms with „eye‟ field units in Vietnamese and English represent some cultural characteristics of the two peoples In both communities, eyes plays an equally important role, so the numbers of idioms that contain „eye‟ field unit in two languages are approximately equal The difference in the number of occurrences and frequency of the units in idioms expresses specific concerns of each people about the linguistic unit, and about objective reality in general The frequency of occurrence of the units and the number of idioms containing these unit expresses the characteristic component structure of idioms containing the „eye‟ field unit in Vietnamese and English The unique of Vietnamese idioms is that many of them contain repeated „eye‟ field lexical units The cultural and ethnic characteristics of the Vietnamese and the British are also expressed through the expressive scope of idioms containing the lexical units in „eye‟ field The scope describing the appearance and the mood-emotion are the two domains with the highest number of idioms containing „eye‟ field units CONCLUSION On the basis of literature review on the contrastive studies in „eye‟ field, along with the theoretical basis including the content of semantic field, contrastive language and „eye‟ field, the study has compared the lexical units of „eye‟ field in Vietnamese and English in traditional direction to discover the similar and different characteristics in vocabulary and semantics in two languages, comparing words in „eye‟ field participating in idioms to clarify cultural characteristics of the two peoples Using statistics from two prestigious dictionaries, the comparison of the number of words, word structure, numbers of corresponding and noncorrespondent words in meaning between the two languages has provided a comprehensive view of similarities and differences in vocabulary of two 23 languages The interest of Vietnamese and English people is different when the number of verbs is higher than that of the adjectives in English and the number of adjectives is higher than that of the verbs in Vietnamese The differences in the structure of words in „eye‟ field in particular and vocabulary in general of the two languages are reflected in the bigger number of compound words in Vietnamese and the bigger number of single words in English Some words refer to some categories of „eye‟ field in Vietnamese not have corresponding word in English and vice versa, there are words each of which indicates a category of eyes in Vietnamese but is equivalent to more than one word in English and vice versa These differences represent difference in the two peoples‟ way to divide objective realities The „eye‟ field is subdivided into sub-fields in the study: (1) indicating eyes and the parts of eyes (2) indicating activities by eyes, (3) indicating eye shape and size, (4) indicating eye color, (5) eye states The meanings of words in each sub-field are separated into semes, on the basis of linguistic theory and cultural studies, the methods and mechanism of semantic change determined From this result, the semes, the derivative of the lexical units in Vietnamese and English are compared The results have revealed the similarities and differences in the semantic structure and the flow of semantics change of lexical units I two languages In both languages, words referring to eye activities have the biggest number of derivative meanings The words referring to eyes and parts of eyes, especially the words referring to eye characteristics have smaller number of derivative meaning The similarity in the method of semantic change of lexical units in „eye‟ field of the two languages is that metaphoric method is applied more than the metonymy, creating more metaphors for the lexical units; and with these metaphorical meanings, most of the units tend to change the field: from „eye‟ field to the cognitive field Differences in semantic structure and the direction of semantic change in English and Vietnamese in the research are also detailed to help identify cultural and national characteristics The results of the contrastive analysis on 137 Vietnamese idioms and 134 English idioms containing units of „eye‟ field have strengthened cultural and national characteristics through idioms Through the occurrence frequency of „eye‟ field units in Vietnamese and English, the meanings of the idioms, the expression ranges of idioms, the meanings of component lexical units in the idioms are determined Eyes are the organ that expresses emotions and is associated with the association of thoughts so mắt / eye (s) appears with the highest frequency among „eye‟ field 24 lexical units in idioms Some Vietnamese words and their equivalent in English, especially words indicating eye characteristics, not appear in idioms, showing limited association for these units in the thinking of the two peoples The difference in each people‟s interest is expressed in the linguistic unit of the „eye‟ field, and in objective reality in general through the occurrence frequency of the words in the idiom Repeating „eye‟ field units in Vietnamese idioms is a distinct feature The number of idioms describing appearance and mood, emotion with „eye‟ field units in Vietnamese is higher than in English, especially the number of idioms describing appearance The relationship between lexical units of „eye‟ field and appearance and mood-emotions in Vietnamese is more diverse than in English The mắt / eye (s) element both appear at high frequency in two languages, expressing the similar association between eyes and the appearance, mood and emotions of the two peoples The negative idioms that contain „eye‟ field vocabulary account for a much higher number than the positive and neutral in both languages Lexical units of „eye‟ field make it easier to express negative feelings, moods or emotions via metaphorical method The same negative moods and emotions expressed through idioms in both languages express similar thinking Regarding the research content, the thesis can be studied further and broader For example, this topic may be expanded to the study of other vocabulary units at the same sub-field or belonging to other sub-field in „eye‟ field The number of words in the field is very big, one Vietnamese word can have more than one corresponding English words but the study was unable to fully investigate all corresponding words The study has only researched two of the many expression areas of idioms containing lexical units of „eye‟ field, so the areas that have not been studied will probably be the subject for future studies The structure of idioms, or the repetition of lexical units or the appearance of more than one lexical unit in „eye‟ field in many Vietnamese idioms undoubtedly have a certain meaning, expressing special characteristics in languages as well as ethnicity - Hopefully this is also an interesting topic for future research LIST OF WORKS RELATED TO THE THESIS BY AUTHOR Trần Thị Hải Bình (2016), Idioms containing basic eye activities in Vietnamese and English, Language & Life Magazine, No 2, p.73-76 Trần Thị Hải Bình (2019), Meanings of the word mắt/eyes‟ in Vietnamese and English, Language & Life Magazine, No 2, p 47-50 Trần Thị Hải Bình (2019), A Study on lexical units in „eye‟ field, Lexicology and Encyclopedia Magazine, No 2, p 48 – 53 Trần Thị Hải Bình (2019), Lexical units in „eye‟ field in Vỉetnamese and English idioms expressing mood and emotion, Language & Life Magazine, No 12 ... nâu/brown, xanh/green are often positive; đỏ/red, ti hí/narrow, 14 xếch/slanting are often negative The eyes with color đen láy/huyền are usually used in poems and songs; mắt xanh/xanh mắt – love... are different The idioms showing surprise are: không tin vào mắt and not believe one’s eyes Referring to the same color, xanh in “sợ xanh mắt” 22 indicates great fear, and in “a green-eyed monster”... describing eye colors, đỏ/red, xanh/green all have metaphor and are in both Vietnamese and English idioms though the occurrence frequency is low (đỏ/red: 2/1 time(s), xanh/green: 1/1 time) The words