FEATURES OF SET EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING WORDS “RED” AND “BLACK” IN ENGLISH AND THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NGUYỄN THỊ NGÂN FEATURES OF SET EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING WORDS “RED” AND “BLACK” IN ENGLISH AND THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS ĐẶC ĐIỂM CỦA NHỮNG CỤM T

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

NGUYỄN THỊ NGÂN

FEATURES OF SET EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING WORDS

“RED” AND “BLACK” IN ENGLISH AND THE

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (ĐẶC ĐIỂM CỦA NHỮNG CỤM TỪ CỐ ĐỊNH CÓ CHỨA TỪ “RED” VÀ

“BLACK” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG

TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A THESIS Field: English Language Code: 8220201

Hanoi, 2018

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

NGUYỄN THỊ NGÂN

FEATURES OF SET EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING WORDS

“RED” AND “BLACK” IN ENGLISH AND THE

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (ĐẶC ĐIỂM CỦA NHỮNG CỤM TỪ CỐ ĐỊNH CÓ CHỨA TỪ “RED”

VÀ“BLACK” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG

TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

Field: English Language Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Phan Văn Quế

Hanoi, 2018

Hanoi, 2018

Nguyễn Thị Ngân

Approve by SUPERVISOR

Phan Văn Quế Date: ………

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

a number of people

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Phan Van Que, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

A special word of thanks goes to my friends and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my husband for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

ABSTRACT The title of my thesis is Features of set expressions containing words

“RED” and “BLACK” in English and the Vietnamese equivalents The aim of this paper is to show the features of set expressions containing words red and black in English and the Vietnamese equivalents This study helps students be aware of the necessity in using idioms both in English and Vietnamese With the method of describing, comparing, analyzing and contrasting, this paper will give learners crucial information to help them gain knowledge and improve their study After collecting 337 set expressions containing words red and black in English; đỏ and đen in Vietnamese idioms and proverbs dictionaries The study is carried out basing on the quantitative and qualitative approach in order to show some features

of English set expressions containing words “Red” and “Black” and their Vietnamese equivalents As a result, some similarities and dissimilarities between English set expressions containing words “Red” and “Black” and Vietnamese ones have gained through finding process Moreover, implications for learning and teaching set expressions containing words red and black are also mentioned in this thesis

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: Syntactic features of RED set expressions in English 32

Table 4.2: Syntactic features of ĐỎ set expressions in Vietnamese 32

Table 4.3: Syntactic features of BLACK set expressions in English 33

Table4.4: Syntactic features of ĐEN set expressions in Vietnamese 34

Table 4.5: Semantic features of “Red” set expressions in English 41

Table 4.6: Semantic features of “Đỏ” set expressions in Vietnamese 41

Table 4.7: Semantic features of “Black” set expressions in English 48

Table 4.8: Semantic features of “Đen” set expressions in Vietnamese 48

Table 4.9: Syntactic features of “RED” and “ĐỎ” set expressions 49

Table 4.10: Syntactic features of “BLACK” and “ĐEN” set expressions 50

Table 4.11: Semantic features of “RED” in English and “ĐỎ” in Vietnamese set expressions 51

Table 4.12: Semantic features of “BLACK” in English and “ĐEN” in Vietnamese set expressions 52

2.6 Semantic features of idioms

2.7 Theory of syntax and semantics

CONTAINING WORDS “RED” AND “BLACK” IN ENGLISH

AND THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

31

4.1 Syntactic features of “red” and “ black” set expressions in

English and “ đỏ” and “đen” in Vietnamese

English and in Vietnamese

4.3 A comparison between the semantic and syntactic features of

the word “RED” and “BLACK” in English and “ĐỎ” and “ĐEN” in

Vietnamese

49

4.4 Implications and suggestions for teaching and learning

English RED and BLACK set expressions in English and

Vietnamese

53

expressions in English and Vietnamese

4.4.2 Suggestions for learning English RED and BLACK set

expressions in English and Vietnamese

54

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the globalization has become a wide-spread trend in the world, therefore, communication with high requirements has become an urgent trend in the world than ever That is the reason why English is the most popular and flexible language in the world

In studying English, especially for the Vietnamese, it is really a shortcoming

if we do not take into consideration of set expressions in English, especially set expressions containing words color English expressions are not only a part of language, but also one of the components creating traditional culture of each nation Through expressions, we can learn more clearly and deeply about English people, their country as well as their culture As we know, because of specific characteristics

of culture, so each color English expression has its own features It lies in the fact that, colors have taken an important role in the living and each color also has its own meaning

Theoretically, many relevant studies on color in English and in Vietnamese have been done so far According to Rod Ellis, one way to help foreign learners of English overcome their language-related problems is to teach them formulaic and figurative set expressions such as proverbs, idioms, metaphors, phrasal verbs etc which are a crucial part of natural language production (Rod Ellis, 2008) Therefore, set expressions containing words “red’ and “black" are selected as the focus of this study because it is seen those specific characteristics of culture, and each color English expression has its own features

It lies in the fact that, colors have taken an important role in the living and each color also has its own meaning Therefore, there have been a lot of studies involved

in the meaning of colors set expressions in order to know how to use them As for Berlin and Kay, the “color terms" has been used to show differences in color of each language on over the world While we might readily expect differences for words relating to things in the environment such as animal and plants, or for a cultural system like governance or kinship terms, it might seem surprising that terms for colors should vary The investigation claims that languages vary in the number and range of their basic color terms (Berlin and Kay, 1969) As a result, knowledge of color set expressions can increase comprehension of texts and using them can make learners ‘verbal and written communication more effective (Irujo, 1986;

Vanyushkina-Holt, 2005)

However, researches on features of set expressions containing word “red” and

“black" in English and their Vietnamese equivalents to find out their similarities and differences between the two languages have not been carried out Being aware of the importance of color set expressions in daily interaction as well as in learning language, I decided to choose the thesis entitled “Features of set expressions containing words “red” and “black" in English and the Vietnamese equivalents”

as the topic of the master graduation thesis; thus, this thesis can help Vietnamese learners of English understand more clearly about the way of using and translating them from English to Vietnamese and vice-versa Hopefully, it will somehow help Vietnamese learners enrich their knowledge and have a deeper insight into English color set expressions As for the learners of English or Vietnamese, a contrastive analysis of semantic and syntactic features of color set expressions in this thesis will help them improve the ability to use and understanding Especially, the study of all kinds of color set expressions containing words “red” and “black” are expected to provide the translators with fresh thinking of culture, lifestyle, and custom, notions, which brings their works to perfection to some extent

This study is carried out with the hope to reach some aims at finding out the typical features of English colors expressions, especially investigating RED and BLACK set expressions in English and the Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features, thus help learners of English to have better understanding of these expressions, enable to use them effectively in daily communication

With a view to achieving the mentioned – above aims, some specific objectives have been put forward like the following:

- Identify, describe the syntactic, semantic features of English colors expressions and the RED and BLACK set expressions in English and in Vietnamese

- Identify the similarities and differences of these English expressions containing the word RED and BLACK and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features

- Make some suggested implications for teaching and learning English expression containing words RED and BLACK in English and the Vietnamese

equivalents

The research plans to address the following questions:

- What are the syntactic and semantic features of set expressions containing words RED and BLACK in English and the Vietnamese equivalents?

- What are the similarities and differences of the RED and BLACK set expressions in English and “đỏ” and “đen” in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features?

- What are the implications for teaching and learning set expressions?

1.4 Methods of the study

This study is planned to identify and describe some syntactic and semantic features of the English color expressions RED and BLACK with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents, from these finding, some similarities and differences would

be shown To gain this purpose, a large number of color expressions, RED and BLACK color has been collected and treated differently at the various time After that, the data has been collected and analyzed in a careful consideration with the combinations of contrastive analysis in qualitative and quantitative approaches, which are used in the arguments and discussions

Comparative and contrastive methods are used to show the similarities and differences in the way of using color expressions by English and Vietnamese people

in both spoken and written language

Furthermore, descriptive, analysis and contrastive methods are used as the major methodology of this study The methods are also used to describe the syntactic and semantic features of words Red and Black Some typical examples and statistic tables are given to make a clearance

Last but not least, some of the research techniques are used and combined such

as statistics and observation method to draw out necessary findings

1.5 The scope of the study

Words denoting color is a very large topic, so this study only focuses on set expressions containing words red and black in English and the Vietnamese equivalents

Set expression includes fixed phrases, sentences, proverbs and idioms which contain words red and black in both languages, English and Vietnamese But in this study, we only study the scope of set expressions containing words red and black in

English and the Vietnamese equivalents

Amount set expressions containing words red and black in English and đỏ and đen in Vietnamese in this study with 197 set expressions in English and 140 set expressions in Vietnamese The data are taken from 8 dictionaries in English and Vietnamese (see references)

This study focuses mainly on semantic and syntactic features of idioms containing words “red” and “black” and the Vietnamese equivalents Comparison and contrasting syntactic and semantic features are to point out the similarities and differences between English culture in using set expressions containing word red and black and their Vietnamese equivalents

1.6 The significance of the study

Theoretically, there are many authors studied about the set expressions and color set expressions such as Kay and McDaniel (1978), Wierzbicka (1996), Goddard (1998) ,Guimei(2009, Francis M Adams and Charles E Osgood (2011), Huei-Ling Lai and Shu-chen Lu (2012), Berlin and Paul Kay (1969) as well as Trương Thanh Ngọc (2003), Nguyễn Mai Diệu Khoa (2003), Lê Thị Thanh Thủy(2009), Trịnh Thị Minh Hương, Phan Lê Thị Huyền (2011) However, Bùi Thị Thanh Hiền (2011), studies the metaphor related to Red in English and Vietnamese in her and no one studies about “ red” and “black” features in English and Vietnamese so this thesis studies the features of set expressions containing words red and black in English and the Vietnamese equivalents to supply deeper understanding of set expressions containing words red and black in English and their equivalents in Vietnamese in terms of their syntactic and semantic features for learners and teachers

Practically, idioms and proverbs are large parts in English and Vietnamese They are used in daily life and in communication so the study points out the similarities and differences about the features of set expressions containing words red and black

to learners to improve their use of language skills when using set expressions containing words red and black in English and their equivalents in Vietnamese 1.7 Design of the study

The thesis consists of five chapters as bellows:

Chapter 1, Introductions, presents an overview of the thesis including rationale, aims, objectives, scope, research methods, and significance, well as the design of the study

Chapter 2, Literature review, overview the previous studies and build up the theoretical background in the study

Chapter 3, Methodology, focuses on a set of the study, research questions, research methods, instruments, data collection, and data analysis and summary

Chapter 4, Finding and discussion, point out the syntactic and semantic features of

“red” and “black” set expressions in English and the Vietnamese equivalents

Chapter 5, Conclusions, summaries the major findings recorded during the making

of the thesis presents the limitations of the study

References and Appendix come at the end of the study

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies

In English, there have been many authors carrying out studies on color, culture

in using of colors However, their approaches are different in some ways

Kay and McDaniel (1978) present the existence of biologically based semantic universals about color terms Wierzbicka (1996) and Goddard (1998) maintain that visual and environmental things should be referred to as common reference points for color meanings Guimei (2009) mentions the cultural connotation

in the color words between Chinese and English languages is very abundant Francis

M Adams and Charles E Osgood (2011), also studies the affective meanings of color

in cross-cultural It is also another study, Huei-Ling Lai and Shu-chen Lu (2012), mentions and shows the similarities and variations in the meaning extensions of black and white, and further to find the cultural factors behind them but it only mentions in Taiwanese Languages Hui-Chih Yu (2014), shows the differences and similarities of symbolic meanings of color in English and Chinese in his study

After that, Brown and Lenneberg (1954) published “A Study in Language and Cognition” they discussed the effect of codability on recognition Brown and Lenneberg attributed this effect to the property of codability Linguistic codability is the ease with which people can name things and the effects of naming on cognition and behavior In their experiment, they used a series of Munsell chips to test color recall and recognition in English speakers Their findings suggested that the availability of a basic color term in a given language affected the retention of that color in recall testing In other words, Brown and Lenneberg linked their study to Lenneberg and Roberts' 1953 findings on color recall in Zuni speakers

Berlin and Paul Kay (1969) carried out a research named “Basic color terms: their universality and evolution” (published by University of California Press) This

is one important area of discussion has been the differences in color terms in languages and raised a new theory of differences for words relating to things in the environment such as animals and plants, or for cultural systems like governance or kinship terms, it might be surprising that terms for colors should vary Berlin and Kay investigated the fact that languages vary in the number and range of their basic color terms

In Vietnamese, there have also been many authors carrying out studies on color, culture in using of colors, set expression such as Trương Thanh Ngọc (2003),

she mentions semantic features of word denoting colors in English and Vietnamese: black, white, green, red, yellow, blue, brown, grey, orange, pink and purple However, in another study by Nguyễn Mai Diệu Khoa (2003), she focuses her attention on the study of the metaphoric meaning of words denoting color which includes six main colors Nguyễn Thị Diệu Hảo (2005) finds that people tend to use idioms denoting color words in daily communication Lê Thị Thanh Thủy (2009), points out connotation meanings of white, red, blue in both languages English and Vietnamese Another study is "Tính biểu trưng cuả từ ngữ chỉ màu sắc strong Tiếng Việt" by Trịnh Thị Minh Hương at Ho Chi Minh Pedagogical University (2009) Phan Lê Thị Huyền (2011) based on a new trend with contrastive analysis on both semantic and pragmatic features of the adjective Black in English and Ðen in Vietnamese in compound words, collocation, and idiomatic phrases Bùi Thị Thanh Hiền (2011), studies the metaphor related to Red in English and Vietnamese in her study Phạm Thị Kim Chuyên (2012), shows the similarities and differences of the semantic features of the word Green in English and Xanh (lá cây) in Vietnamese

However, there has not been so far a study on features of two colors red and black in English and Vietnamese Therefore, it is necessary to do research on this matter to hit the target

2.2 An overview of set expressions

2.2.1 Definition of set expressions

As many languages English and Vietnamese, set expressions are own phrases and sentences that used daily in communication, in speech as well as in writing Set expressions required of fixed phrases, sentences, idioms, and proverbs

According to Nguyễn Hòa (2001), Set expressions are word-groups consisting

of two or more words whose combinations are integrated as a specialized meaning

of the whole such as to see the red light, to give one a big hand, etc

Besides, John Lyons (1995) posited that expression of a language falls into two sets There are the expressions that one would expect to find listed in a dictionary: they are vocabulary-units of a language, out of which the members of the second set, lexically composite expression, are constructed by means of grammatical (i.e syntactic and morphological) rules of the language

Not all the expressions listed in a dictionary, however, are words Some of them are what traditionally called phrases; and phrasal expressions, like word-expressions

Furthermore, Đặng Trần Cường (2001) denoted that “phraseology unit is the study of set expressions called phraseological units These set expressions are completely or particularly idiomatic in speech as a ready-made unit.”

Set expressions have been sometimes called word equivalents, and they have been postulated that the vocabulary of a language consists of words and word equivalents (word group), similar to a word in so far as they are not created in speech but introduced into the act of communication ready-made If substitution is only pronominal or restricted to a few synonyms for one of the only, or impossible, i.e if the elements of the phrase are always the same and make a fixed context for each other, the word-group is a set expression In this study, set expressions include proverbs and idioms

2.2.2 Types of set expressions

2.2.2.1 Idioms

There are many definitions about idioms:

In English, Hornby (1995) states in his Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary that an idiom is “a phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learned as a whole unit” In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionry (2006), Hornby changes the definition a little bit, noting that an idiom is “a group of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of the individual words”

J Seidl and W McMordie (1998) concept "An idioms can be defined as a number of words which, when taken together, have a different meaning from the individual meanings of each "

The number of idioms in English is considerable Some interesting examples are: It was for the birds (means: It’s is really meaningless and uninteresting), or to bury the hatchet (to make peace), to call it a day (to stop doing something), to paint the town red (to carouse and have a good time)

In Vietnamese, it also carries the same basic point English particular idioms and idiomatic language of the world in general Hồ Lê (1976) refers an idiom is a word combination which has a stable structure and figurative meaning and is used

to describe an image, a phenomenon, a characteristic, or a state Ðái Xuân Ninh (1978) defines an idiom is a set expression whose constituents lose their independence to some extent and combine into rather complete and stable units

According to Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (1985), Idiom is a phrase whose meaning it

is not made up of the meaning of the words composing it Even if the meaning of all words which cannot yet guess idiom meaning of that phrase Idioms with the completeness of meaning but secluded nature of the elements in the structure, so its activities in question as equivalent to an individual from

Hoàng Văn Thành (1997), the idiom is a combination of fixed and sustainability of the morphology, structure, complete and polished on the meaning to

be widely used in daily communication, especially in the oral

To build a foundational definition for the study, we base on the above features

as well as our own observation, then apply the following definition as the major concept for our research working: An idiom is a fixed phrase which has integrity of meaning, making a complete referential unit whose meaning is different from the total meanings of its components, it is non-literal and works as a single word or a phrase

We also possess a lot of idioms such as Nghèo rớt mồng tơi, Chọc gậy bánh xe; Cao chạy xa bay; ném đá dấu tay; etc,

There are many different definitions of idioms but we can find some similarities between them After survey and study, we found idioms have some common features the following:

- An idiom is a multiword expression Individual components of an idiom can often be inflected in the same way individual words in a phrase can be inflected This inflection usually follows the same pattern of inflection as the idiom's literal counterpart For example: have a bee in one's bonnet = feeling anxiously

- An idiom behaves as a single semantic unit

- It tends to have some measure of internal cohesion such that a literal counterpart that is made up of a single word can often replace it, for example: kick the bucket = die

- It resists interruption by other words whether they are semantically compatible or not, for example: do a bunk = do a bunk with sb or be sulky as a bear

eat one's words = eat one's sentence

- It is syntactic anomalous It has an unusual grammatical structure, for example: by and large

2.2.2.2 Proverbs

There are many definitions about proverbs:

According to Oxford Advanced, Learner's Dictionary (Hornby, 2006, p.1238) has given a definition proverb is a well-known phrase or sentence that gives advice or says something that is generally true, for example, Waste not, want not

Or according to Linda and Roger Flavell (1994, p.24), Proverbs can be defined as

“memorable short sayings of the people, containing wise words of advice or warning”

Mieder (1993, p.5) defines that “ A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in metaphorical, fixed, and memorable form and which is handed down from generation

to generation.”

Alan Dundes (1978) standing on the concept defined structure: A proverb is a traditional propositional statement consisting of at least one descriptive element, a descriptive element consisting of a topic and a comment

However, Barley (1972, p.714) said that “A proverb is a standard statement

of moral and colloquial imperatives in fixed metaphorical paradigmatic form; it deals with fundamental logical relationships.”

However, in Vietnamese, the concept of the proverb is a bit different Vietnamese dictionary defines proverb as short statements, often expressed with rhythm, which sum up knowledge, life experience and moral lessons of people

According to Pham Văn Bình (1993), A proverb is a complete sentence expressing an idea or comment, of experience, of morality, of justice or of criticism drawn from human life

Vũ Ngọc Phan (2000), particularly considered a proverb as a complete saying expressing one idea of comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism Nguyễn Thái Hòa (2009) was conceived: A proverb is a mouthpiece formed in everyday speech Those are the words but units exist in the memories of the community as a unit of language For example Ngọt mật chết ruồi, con có cha như nhà có nóc, phép vua thua lệ làng, …

In short, in the opinion of many researchers, although few short ways, the

proverb is also a sentence express a full meaning, the meaning of the proverb is that

a combination of each of its constituent The meaning of the proverb may be a comment, an experience, a moral, or a word of advice, a word of judgment, criticism

We also can indicate some following common features of proverb according to Obeng (1996):

- Proverbs are passed down through time with little change in form

- Proverbs are often used metaphorically and it is understanding their metaphorical nature that we can unravel their meaning

For example, a stitch in time saves nine, don't count your chickens before they've hatched, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

- Proverbs often make use of grammatical and theoretical devices that help

to make them memorable, including alliteration, rhyme, parallel structure, repetition

of keywords or phrases, and strong

2.3 An overview of Culture

2.3.1 Definition of culture

Culture is an integral part of every society It is a learned pattern of behavior and the ways in which a person lives his or her life Culture is essential for the existence of a society because it blinds people together In the explicit sense of the term, culture constitutes the music, food, art and literature of a society However, these are only the products of culture followed by society and cannot be defined as culture Various definitions of cultures have been given by scholars from different points of view

Being taken as "socially acquired knowledge" (Hudson, 1980) culture is classified by some scholars into cultural knowledge information and cultural communication information The former refers to the factual information which does not exert a direct influence on cross-cultural communication, including a nation’s history, geography and so on The later points to the socio-pragmatic rules in daily communication which entail not only ways of greeting, thanking, apologizing and addressing, but also attention to taboos, euphemism, modesty and polite formula in use, and so forth

Culture is necessary to establish an order and discipline in the society It is not only a means of communication between people but also creates a feeling of belonging and togetherness among people in society

2.3.2 Characteristics of culture

Culture, argued by many anthropologists, most notably Clifford Geertz (1973),

is a symbolic meaning system It is a semiotic system in which symbols function to communicate meaning from one mind to another Cultural symbols encode a connection between a signifying form and signaled to mean From the standpoint of contemporary cultural anthropologists, culture is characterized by the following four basic features:

- Culture is a kind of social inheritance instead of biological heritage

- Culture is shared by the whole community, not belonging to any particular individual

- Culture is a symbolic meaning system in which language is one of the most important ones

- Culture is a unified system, the integral parts of which are closely related to one another Above are four principal features of culture

Added to this, culture, in general, has some more important characteristics as following:

- Culture is selective

- Culture is not innate; it is learned

- Culture is transmissible

- Culture is not static

2.3.3 Characteristics of English culture

Western culture, English culture is a typical cultural nomad original culture Living environment in the West is a cold, dry climate makes up the vast grasslands, vegetation growth difficult, suitable for herd livestock That's why in the west breeds mainly sheep In England and the West, livestock breeding is mainly up to the nomadic people They do not respect nature, aspiring to conquer nature In community organizations is seriously powerful, respected individual roles, the behavior occurs on the principle

According to David Marsland (1995), three primary English cultural values and characteristics are freedom, the work ethic (i.e., the commitment to hard work) and the family

- Freedom

- Work and the work ethic

- The family

2.3.4 Characteristics of Vietnamese culture

According to Trần Ngọc Thêm (1995), the culture of Vietnam is primarily based

on wet rice production In Vietnam, agriculture has always been of great importance

in the economy There are a plenty of agriculture products, such as rice, fruits, groundnut trees, vegetables, various husbandry products, and industrial trees Vietnamese people usually raise and breed buffaloes, pigs, poultry,

Vietnamese cultural characteristics describe abstract ideas about what Vietnamese society believes to be good, right, and desirable Vietnamese cultural values and characteristics emphasize the importance of family and community “Its core values, which embrace the principles of Confucianism, are harmony, duty, and honor, respect, education, and allegiance to the family" (Shapiro M E, 2004) Also, according to Hunt P C (2002), these values and characteristics are represented as the following:

Figure 1: Order of appearance of the basic color terms (Berlin/Kay 1969, p.4) Berlin and Kay (1969), shows that all of the languages have at least two colors They are always black and white If a language has three colors, the one added is red;

if a fourth is added, it will be either green or yellow; when a fifth is added, it will then

include both green and yellow; the sixth added is blue; the seventh added is brown; and if an eighth or more terms are added, it or they will be purple, pink, orange, or gray

In fact, English has a self-contained set of eleven words that can be described

as basic color words, such as black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, brown, pink, orange, purple and gray In Vietnam, there are nine words denoting color such as đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, nâu, hồng, tím và xám All of two languages English and Vietnamese have both black and white colors to be basic colors

in more detail) around the world

Berlin and Kay (1969) once address the relationship between color lexicons and cultural and technological development as follows: “Color lexicons with few terms tend to occur in association with relatively simple cultures and simple technologies, while color lexicons with many terms tend to occur in association with complex cultures and complex technologies”

In other words, the number of color lexicons proportionally indicates the complexity of cultural and technological developments From our data analysis, it has the widest distributions of black and red Each different culture will use black and red colors differently in the way of expressions

The symbolism of color in different cultures tends to have the common identification of color names through cultural exchange Jung (1964) defined symbols

“terms, names, or even pictures that may be familiar in daily life, yet that possess Light enters the eye and hits the retina, where it is absorbed by rod and cone cells These cells transmit the signals that light triggers via the optic nerve, directly to the visual center at the back of the brain: color is truly “in the mind of the beholder” See Alison Cole (1993), specific connotations in addition to their convention and obvious meanings They imply something vague, hidden, and unknown to us” Fontana (1994), building on the work of Jung, pointed out that certain kinds of symbolism constitute a universal language The images and their meanings occur in similar forms and carry similar power across cultures and centuries The symbolism that makes up

this language in Jung’s theory is “the natural expression of inner psychological forces” However, Jung’s ideas on symbolism go only part of the way in accounting for the rich and varied symbolic vocabularies of different cultures

2.4.3 The meaning of the color red and black in English

 The meaning of color “red” in English

According to Hornby (2015, p1290), Red is the color of blood or fire: a red c

In English, Red symbolizes the power and strength; however, it is symbols of different objects, things in some extents

In the past, Red color is not only connected with the death, blood, secrets but also a symbol of the bravery of Britain and the royal family: the red Tudor rose is a symbol of Lanchester family and the famous three lions on the national badge Scarlet is the color of the mystery, negative things, so the executioner worn red clothes to imply that he is the person who is the first person to touch the secret of life The dark Red is represented as the power In Rome, it belonged to the chief leaders, the emperor: the Justinian law give a death penalty for anyone dare to buy or sell cloth of dark red

The red color is considered hot since it is affiliated with warfare, violence, and fire and at the same time, it is also attached with passion and love During the ancient times, the red color was affiliated with cupid and devil This color can really have a physical reaction towards people by increasing the heart rate or the blood pressure It has also been proved that red color enhances the metabolism of human beings At times, this color is also connected with anger and simultaneously attached with one's prestige (for example – red carpet at celebrity shows and award shows) The color also signifies danger due to which the traffic stop lights and many warning signs and symbols are red in color)

The red color has various alliances in the western countries For instance, the red color is considered as lucky color and is associated with happiness and good fortune In the eastern countries, this color is used in the weddings for the dress of the brides At the same time, the red color is a symbol of the morning in South Africa and is also affiliated with communism In the African continent, because of the RED campaign, this color is attached to the awareness of AIDS

Red is the color of positive things, time of day That’s the image of enthusiastic, youth, good health and rich: the native people in America often anoint red color on their faces to strengthen health and sexuality, in some countries such as Russia, Japan,

and China red is used in festivals, marriage weddings, and birthday anniversaries…

 The meaning of color “black” in English

The black color is the absence of color It is a mysterious color that is typically associated with the unknown or the negative The color black is a symbol of strength, seriousness, power, and authority It is a formal, elegant, and prestigious color Authoritative and powerful, the color black can evoke strong emotions and too much black can be overwhelming

In Western countries, black is the color of mourning, death, and sadness It often represents the emotions and actions of rebellion in teenagers and youth The color black can represent both the positive and the negative As the opposite of white, movies, books, print media and television typically depict the good guy in white and the bad guy in black In recent times, the good guy is shown in black to create mystery around the character’s identity

Moreover, black is the symbol of grief The color black can be serious, professional, and conventional, but it can also represent the mysterious, sexy, and sophisticated It is a visually slimming color for clothing and like other dark colors, in interior design, it can make a room appear to shrink in size The color black affects the mind and body by helping to create an inconspicuous feeling, boosting confidence in appearance, increasing the sense of potential and possibility, or producing feelings of emptiness, gloom, or sadness

Nowadays, Black is not used for dying the tooth, but the black color on the dress clothes still favored Black clothes are used more in the funerals, in the important events such as birthdays, weddings, cocktail parties, evenings Black clothes create the misery, sadness, grief in funerals However, black clothes make a polite, formal; black has also suggested wealth, power, easy to attract people's curiosity Most of the fat women prefer wearing black because black makes them feel thin, not fat, and also

to provide for them the discreet, polite and grave

2.4.4 Features of color set expressions

Each language has its own features, and these features have made the face, the cultural components of that language As we know, the English language is more various and flexible than any other ones Especially, English has been a global language and called by an exact name “a living language” Therefore, English has much more outstanding and individual characteristics than other languages in the world

Together with these features, English also has other characteristics which create

a cultural and traditional treasure of language, which include color set expressions Because of the own meaning of each color in the living of English people, each color expression also play a special role in the English language as well as daily life

It lies in the fact that there are some typical features of color set expressions as follows

First of all, concerning to semantics, like many others English expression, one

of the most outstanding features of English color set expressions is that their meanings could be ranged into the three groups: positive, negative, and neutral meaning

The second feature of English color set expressions is that the structures have

no grammatical rules at all With the viewing from a syntactic aspect, color set expressions usually have short and fixed forms and they form a complete utterance (Norrick, 2007)

For example, “Green around the gills” means that looking sickly, let’s see the following example:

My friend green around the gills after being heard the news

As we know, colors are very important for the users to express their feelings so they are frequently associated with various moods or emotional states Then, color set expressions are built up by using the name of colors – and most of them are metaphorical when considering from a literary aspect They contain various figures

of speech and thus, they are part of figurative language; prosody is a typical feature

of color set expressions (Norrick, 2007) as they include such stylistic markers as rhyme, alliteration etc

For example, “To be green with envy” means being so envious that it almost turn one’s skin to green or sickly: Daisy was green with envy when she knew you have been promoted

Or the expression “Make somebody see red” means making somebody so angry that his/her face turn to red for example:

You made him see red with your criticism

Another feature of English color set expressions is that each English color expression usually contains only one color However, some set expressions can contain a pair of colors and those ones are used in popularity with such set expressions are White, Black, and Blue

For example, the set expression “In black and white” means that it is easy to see what is right and wrong, or another example is the set expression “Black and blue (all over)” whose meaning are the bruises from appearance Thus, considering from a semantic aspect, color set expressions express wisdom, general truths, morals, traditional views, experiences, observations, social norms, human nature and behavior accepted by the majority in the society

Lastly, considering from a cultural aspect, color set expressions are a part of traditional and cultural literacy They represent values and norms of the society (Morris, 2003) and their origin is rooted from the cultural history of a nation or an ethnic

In sum, after taking the features of color expression in consideration carefully, one remarkable has emerged that not only these different aspects have no clear-cut distinctions or the overlaps between them but also all complementary to each other 2.5 Structures of idioms

2.5.1 Phrases

According to Hornby, A.S (2015,p1154) Phrase is a small group of words without a finite verb that together have a particular meaning and that typically form part of a sentence

In Oxford English Dictionary “A phrase is a small group of words that form

a meaningful unit within a clause.”

"In linguistic analysis, a phrase is a group of words (or possibly a single word) that functions as a constituent in the syntax of a sentence, a single unit within an grammatical hierarchy."- Osborne, Timothy, Michael Putnam, and Thomas Gross (2011) An idiom is a set of phrase which includes: Noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, and prepositional phrase

 Noun Phrase:

According to Hornby, A.S (2015, p1054) noun phrase is a word or group

of words in a sentence that behaves in the same ways as a noun, that is as a subject,

an object, a compliment, or as the object of a preposition: In a sentence “I spoke to the driver of the car”, “the driver of the car” is a noun phrase

A noun and any words in the sentence that modify it; words that can modify nouns include articles (a, an, the); adjectives; participles; and possessive pronouns

A noun phrase can be a single word-just the noun-or more than one word

Noun phrases can function in several different ways in a sentence Some of the most common functions of noun phrases are listed below

- Noun phrase as subject: The yellow house is for sale

- Noun phrase as direct object: I want a skateboard

- Noun phrase as object of a preposition: Jeff rode on a skateboard

- Noun phrase as an indirect object: Lisa gave the little boy a candy

E.g.: The best defense against the atom bomb is not to be there when it goes off

In the above example, there is a noun phrase within a noun phrase The noun phrase

“the atom bomb modifies defense

 Verb phrase:

According to Ronal Cater, Micheal Mc Carthy, Geraldine Mark, Anne O'Keeffe (2016) a verb phrase consists of the main verb alone, or the main verb plus any modal and/or auxiliary verbs The main verb always comes last in the verb phrase:

(mo = modal verb; aux = auxiliary verb; mv = main verb)

Tony might have been waiting outside for you

[MO] [AUX] [AUX] [MV]

 Adjective phrase:

In English Grammar, Today, Ronal Cater, Micheal Mc Carthy, Geraldine Mark, Anne O'Keeffe (2016) an adjective phrase always has an adjective acting as the head The adjective phrase may also contain words or phrases before or after the head (modifiers and complements):

Adjective (head):

That’s a lovely cake

These flowers are wonderful

Adjective preceded by a modifier (underlined):

That soup is pretty cold

Many of the exercises are fairly difficult

Adjective + a modifier after it:

The food was tasty enough

The car is economical for its size

Adjective + a word or phrase which is required to complete its meaning (a compliment):

She was aware of the danger of traveling alone

Some people weren’t willing to pay extra to book a seat on the plane

Adjective preceded by a modifier + a word or phrase which is required to complete its meaning (a compliment):

We’re not very keen on having an activity holiday

Are you really interested in rock and roll?

Some adjective phrases have more complex structures

 Prepositional phrase:

Prepositional phrases consist of a preposition and the words which follow it (a complement) The complement (underlined below) is most commonly a noun phrase

or pronoun, but it can also be, an adverb phrase (usually one of place or time), a verb

in the -ing form or, less commonly, a prepositional phrase or a wh-clause:

They first met at a party.(preposition + noun phrase)

She was taken ill during the film (Preposition + noun phrase)

Would you like to come with me please? (Preposition + pronoun)

From there, it’ll take you about half an hour to our house (Preposition + adverb) Until quite recently, no one knew about his paintings (Preposition + adverb phrase) She’s decided on doing a Chinese language course (Preposition + -ing clause) Not: … decided on to do …

It’s a machine for making ice-cream (Preposition + -ing clause)

If you can wait until after my meeting with Jack, we can talk then (Preposition + prepositional phrase)

We were really surprised at what they wrote (Preposition + wh-clause)

We can put an adverb before a preposition to modify it This applies mainly to prepositions of time or place which are gradable (above, before, far, deep, down, opposite):

They’ve moved far into the country

They left the party just before us

You can’t miss it His office is almost opposite the coffee machine

2.5.2 Clauses

According to Hornby, A.S (2015, p 270) Clause is a group of words that includes a subject and a verb, and forms a sentence or a part of sentence: In the sentence ‘they often go to Italy because they love the food’, ‘They often go to Italy’

is the main clause and ‘because they love food’ is a subordinate clause

However, Ronal Cater, Micheal Mc Carthy, Geraldine Mark, Anne O'Keeffe (2016) said that A clause is the basic unit of grammar Typically the main clause is made up of a subject (s) (a noun phrase) and a verb phrase (v) Sometimes the verb phrase is followed by other elements, e.g objects (o), complements (c), adjuncts (ad) These other elements are sometimes essential to complete the meaning of the clause: Sarah smiled

The underlined words are not essential to complete the clause:

I’ll call you later

Is it raining? (main: present)

I spoke to Joanne last night (main: past)

We didn’t get any food because we didn’t have enough time (main: past; subordinate: past)

I had something to eat before leaving (I had something to eat before I left.)

After having spent six hours at the hospital, they eventually came home

Helped by local volunteers, the staff at the museum have spent many years sorting and cataloging more than 100,000 photographs

He left the party and went home, not having anyone to talk to

The person to ask about going to New Zealand is Beck

You have to look at the picture really carefully in order to see all the detail

After, although, though, and if

We often use non-finite clauses after some subordinating conjunctions like after, although, though and if:

By the end of the day, although exhausted, Mark did not feel quite as tired as he had

in the past (Although he was exhausted)

The proposal, if accepted by Parliament, will mean fundamental changes to the education system

Hurford (1983) defines a sentence as neither a physical event nor a physical object Is, conceived abstractly, a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language A sentence can be thought of as the ideal string of words behind various realizations in utterances Thus, a given English sentence always consists of the same words in the same order

Besides, David Cristal (1995), there are three general points applying to any English sentences

- A sentence is constructed according to a system of rules, known by all the adult mother-tongue speakers of the language, and summarized in the grammar A sentence formed in this way is said to be grammatical

- Sentences are the largest constructions to which the rules of grammar apply This means that, before we can satisfactorily carry out the task of identifying sentences, we need to know something about grammatical analysis

- Sentences are constructions which can be used on their own-units of meaning which seem to make sense by themselves

Alexander (1988) cites that “a sentence is a complete unit of meaning When we speak, our sentences may be extremely involved or unfinished, yet we can still convey our meaning through intonation, gesture, facial expressions, etc when we write, these devices are not available, some sentences have to be carefully structured and punctured A written sentence must begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop (.), a question mark (?) or an exclamation (!)”

In Vietnamese, according to Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2008), the 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 terms of functionality, a sentence is a unit being capable of the declaration Thanks to this feature, it is possible to distinguish the sentences from its lower rank (words)

- In terms of structure, the sentence is the smallest language unit For example,

if we consider a paragraph, or even an article, a chapter, a book is declarative units are split into several smaller units while the sentence is not split any more

To sum up, set expressions containing words “red” and “black” usually are phrases 2.6 Semantic features of idioms

According to F.R Palmer (1995, p1) that semantic is the technical term to refer

to the study of meaning and since meaning is a part of language, semantics is a part

of linguistics It means that semantic is a science which studies meaning in language

It is undoubted that meaning is the most important factor when talking about semantic features of idioms Idioms can convey image people, conception, social life production experience, the social phenomenon and the natural phenomenon

• People images

When describing a people images we always describes about the appearance, status and mood Appearance is the way that someone or something looks, an impression given by someone or something, an act of performing or participating in

a public event In psychology, a mood is an emotional state In contrast to emotions, feelings, or affects, moods are less specific, less intense and less likely to be provoked

or instantiated by a particular stimulus or event Moods are typically described as having either a positive or negative valence In other words, people usually talk about being in a good mood or a bad mood

Mood also differs from temperament or personality traits which are even lasting Nevertheless, personality traits such as optimism and neuroticism predispose certain types of moods Long term disturbances of mood such as clinical depression and bipolar disorder are considered mood disorders Mood is an internal, subjective state but it often can be inferred from posture and other behaviors "We can be sent into a mood by an unexpected event, from the happiness of seeing an old friend to the anger of discovering betrayal by a partner We may also just fall into a mood." Research also shows that a person's mood can influence how they process advertising Mood has been found to interact with gender to affect consumer processing of information

longer-• The conception, production experience, social life

Conception is an idea of what something or someone is like, or a basic understanding of a situation or a principle:

People from different cultures have different conceptions of the world

She has a conception of people as being basically good

I thought the book's writing was dreadful, and its conception (= the ideas on which it was based) even worse

He has absolutely no conception of how a successful business should run

• The social phenomenon

Social phenomena are considered as including all behavior which influences

or is influenced by organisms sufficiently alive to respond to one another This includes influences from past generations Developments in social study which furnish a basis for this concept are the behavioristic trend and the emphasis upon the objective nature of social life, study of groups, and group life, environmental, and ecological study The validity of the concept which limits social phenomena to the

interaction of human beings is questioned The outstanding basis for this distinction

is the psychological one of the so-called "conscious" or "consciousness." Conscious activity, or consciousness used as a general term, is not limited to human organisms, and does not furnish a basis Conscious interaction, in the sense of "thinking" or conceptual activity, is questioned as a scientific basis for such limitation of the social

• The natural phenomenon

A natural phenomenon is not an engineered or orchestrated event manufactured by humans, although it may affect them (such as pathogens, aging, natural disasters, and death) Common examples of natural phenomena include sunrise, the weather, decomposition, free fall and erosion Most natural phenomena, such as fog, are relatively harmless so far as humans are concerned

Various types of natural phenomena occur, including (but not limited to) the following:

- Geological phenomena (volcanic activity and earthquakes)

- Meteorological phenomena (hurricanes, thunderstorms, and tornadoes)

- Oceanographic phenomena (tsunamis, ocean currents and breaking waves) 2.7 Theory of syntactic and semantic

Morris (1993) organized semiotics, the study of signs, into three areas: syntax (the study of the interrelation of the signs), semantics (the study of the relation between the signs and the objects to which they apply), and pragmatics (syntax is the relationship between sing system and the user) According to Moris, Syntax is the grammar, structure or order of the elements in a language statement (semantics is the meaning of these elements) Syntax applies to computer languages as well as to natural languages Usually, we think of syntax as "word order" However, the syntax

is also achieved in some languages such as Latin by inflectional case endings In computer languages, syntax can be extremely rigid as in the case of most assembler languages or less rigid in language that makes use of "keyword" parameters that can

be stated in any order

The syntax is also a set of rules in a language It dictates how a word from the different part of speech is put together in order to convey a complete thought Google Books defines syntax as the study of the rules whereby words or other elements of sentences structure are combined to form grammatical sentences

For example Subject, the predicate in the following sentences are about something or someone that the sentence is about is called the subject of the sentence which is shown

in bold type

- Mary often comes late to class

- My sister and I both have a cat named Mimi

- Many places of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in 2004 Ingo Plag (2002) defined that words are syntactic classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, etc.), which are called parts of speech, word classes or syntactic categories The position in which a given word may occur in a sentence is determined by the syntactic rules of a language The rules make reference to words and the class they belong to For example, "the” is said to belong to the class called articles, and there are rules which determine the position in a sentence such as words,

ie Articles, may occur (usually before nouns and their modifiers, as in “in the big house") We can, therefore, something is a word by checking if it belongs to such a word class If the item in the question, for example, follows the rules for nouns, it should be a noun, hence a word Or consider the fact that only words (and groups of words), but no smaller units can be moved to a different position in the sentence For examples, in "yes-no" questions, the auxiliary verb does not occur in its usual position but it moved to the beginning of the sentence (you can read my textbook vs Can you read my textbook?) Thus syntactic criteria can help to determine the word hood of a given entity

 Theory of semantics

Semantics (as the study of meaning) is central to the study of communication and as communication becomes more and more crucial factor in social organization, the need to understand it becomes more and more pressing Semantics is also at the center of the study of the human mind-up with the way in which we classify and convey out the experience of the world through language

According to Hornby (2015, p.1407), Semantics is the study of the meanings

of words or phrases

However, John Isaeed (1997) posited that Semantic is the study of meaning communicated through language and "Syntax is the study how words can be combined into a sentence; semantics is the study of the meanings of words and sentences." It could be seen that whereas syntax is the grammar, structure or order of the elements in a language statement, semantics is the meaning of these elements Semantics has a long history of researching as well as many controversies about its definition but the word "semantic" made its earliest entry into the Old English Dictionary only in the 1890s

Goddard (1998) remarks that semantics is the systematic study of meaning is

at the center of linguistic request to understand the nature of language and human language abilities for two reasons The first reason is that expressing meanings is what language is all about- everything from words to grammatical constructions and structures The second one is that semantics can shed light on the relationship between language and culture

Generally, semantics is the study of meaning It is a wide subject within the general study of language An understanding of semantics is essential to the study of acquisition and of language change It is important to understand a language in social contexts, as these are likely to effects of style It is thus one of the most fundamental concepts in linguistics The study of semantics includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, obscured, simplified, negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased

2.8 Summary

The first section of this chapter has given a brief description of previous studies related to the research area, which are in English and in Vietnam These studies are valued as a highly valuable source of reference In the second section, the review of the theoretical background concerning semantics of set expressions such as definition, types of set expressions, an overview of culture concept of color and structure of idioms to help readers have an overview of this study, which later is employed to conduct the whole research thesis, has been presented Basing on such a foundation, all the semantic and syntactic features of English set expressions containing words “Red” and “Black" with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents will be described and analyzed in chapter IV

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY

3 1 Setting of the study

In this thesis, the process of selecting material related to English and Vietnamese color set expressions plays an important role in terms of supplement data for the study

The first step is collecting a large number of English set expressions containing words “Red” and “Black” The second step is that called the collection of essential background knowledge related to the research topic to have an understanding of concepts such as semantics, set expressions, the meaning of Red and Black colors…etc The data used in the study is collected from dictionaries; English dictionary, Vietnamese dictionary, English idioms-proverbs dictionaries, Vietnam idioms- proverbs dictionaries and in the internet

Most of set expressions used in the study come from reliable sources of such as famous dictionaries and books Besides, frequent talks with the supervisor, lecturers and experts on the field are very useful for the completion of the study with the basis

of the author’s personal experience

3.2 Research questions

This thesis consists of 3 following questions:

- What are the syntactic and semantic features of set expressions containing words RED and BLACK in English and the Vietnamese equivalents?

- What are the similarities and differences of the RED and BLACK set expressions

in English and “đỏ” and “đen” in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features?

- What are the implications for teaching and learning set expressions?

Examples and statistic tables of classification of idioms will be presented Additionally, statistical and observation methods are also applied to draw necessary findings Quantitative and qualitative methods are used as data collection and data

analysis

3.4 Instruments

In this thesis, the data is collected from dictionaries; English dictionary, Vietnamese dictionary, English idioms-proverbs dictionaries, Vietnam idioms- proverbs dictionaries and on the internet

After reading the materials collected, the study focuses on features of set expressions containing words red and black in English and the Vietnamese equivalents All of the set expression are selected from dictionaries of both English and Vietnamese; Set expressions are all of idioms and proverbs containing words red and black in two languages, so they are reliable for research results

3.5 Data collection and Data Analysis

 Data collection

The data collection is the most important step in any research This procedure consists of two main stages

Firstly, a large number of idioms and proverbs containing words red and black

in English, đỏ, and đen in Vietnamese were collected in order to make the corpus of this thesis Most of the set expressions used in the study come from reliable sources

of such as famous dictionaries and books as Thành ngữ, tục ngữ, ca Dao Việt Nam ( Việt Chương, 2003), Từ điển thành ngữ - tục ngữ Việt Nam ( Nguyễn Lân, 1993), Từ điển thành ngữ tiếng Việt Phổ thông ( Nguyễn Như Ý, 2002), Tuyển chọn thành ngữ tục ngữ Việt Nam (Du Yên, 2004), Thành ngữ trong tiếng Anh ( Lê Thành Tâm, Lê Ngọc Phương Tâm, 2004), Oxford dictionary of English idioms ( Cowie A.P, Mackin

R, Mc Caig I.R, 1994), English idioms in use (Michael McCarthy, Felicity O&Dell, 2003), English idioms ( Jennifer Seidl W.Mc Mordie, 1998) and Idioms for everyday use ( Milada Broukal, 1994)

Secondly, statistics on the number of set expressions containing words red and black in each language Classifying of idioms and proverbs into the group means, the symbol group from the words red and black And then determining the frequency of occurrence of each specific red and black in idioms and proverbs of the two languages

 Data Analysis

In this study, from 197set expressions containing words red and black in English; and 140 set expressions containing words đỏ and đen in Vietnamese, we chose the most interesting and noticeable one which can clearly illustrate cultural

features of set expressions containing words red and black in English; đỏ and đen in Vietnamese

After collecting 197 set expressions containing words red and black in English and 140 set expressions containing words đỏ and đen in Vietnamese idioms and proverbs dictionaries We categorize them into syntactic and semantic features The study is carried out basing on the qualitative and quantitative approach to find down the similarities and differences in between set expressions containing words red and black in English and the Vietnamese equivalents ; to point out some implications for teaching and learning English with set expressions containing words red and black in English, and giving suggestions for further researches

3.6 Summary

A brief description of the method is presented in this chapter and this also shows the way we reach the aim of the study The features of set expressions containing words red and black in English and the Vietnamese equivalents will be pointed out This study also uses quantitative research design and analytical method to collect data

as well as analyze them The combination of these methods will be the best tool to reach the goal of the research

To sum up, in this chapter, the thesis gives an overview of the setting of the study, research questions, research methods, instruments, data collections, and data analysis

Chapter 4: FEATURES OF SET EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING WORDS

“RED” AND “BLACK” IN ENGLISH AND THE VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS 4.1 Syntactic features of “red” and “black” set expressions in English and

“đỏ” and “đen” in Vietnamese

4.1.1 Syntactic features of “red” set expressions in English and “đỏ” in

Vietnamese

In English "red" set expressions are made by noun phrases, verb phrase, adjective phrases, and prepositional phrases These are the phrases contains a noun- name, place or things and at least one modifier associated with the noun The modifier can prefix or suffix the noun The entire phrase will act as a noun for that particular sentence Here are some noun phrases examples in English: A red letter day, Red alert, Redcap, Red light, Red light-district, Red-top, Rad tape, etc

“Đỏ” In Vietnamese consists of many noun phrases for example:,cuộc đỏ đen, đỏ con mắt, đỏ như gà chọi, etc

Besides noun phrases, verb phrases is an important factor to make a set expression specially “red” set expressions in English and in Vietnamese, let’s see the following examples: Paint the town, to be in the red, to see red, catch someone red-handed,

be out of the red, roll out the carpet, etc

But in Vietnamese, verb phrases are used less than in English, for example, Giàu

ăn ba bữa, khó cũng đỏ lửa ba lần

Adjective phrases are used to make set expressions in English and in Vietnamese such as Beet red, red as fire, as red as cherry, As red as rubies, red in the face, etc

In Vietnamese “đỏ” adjective phrases are more than “red” in English: Đỏ gay đỏ gắt, đỏ lòm lòm.đỏ lòe loẹt, đỏ như hoa vông, đỏ đòng đọc, đỏ hon hỏn, etc

Prepositional phrases are also used to make “red” set expressions not in Vietnamese for instance: in the red, out of the red, etc…

To sum up after studying 87 “red” expressions in English and 65 “đỏ” set expressions in Vietnamese The thesis gives the tables summarized the syntactic features of “red” and “đỏ” set expressions in English and in Vietnamese Let’s see the following table 4.1 and table 4.2:

Table 4.1: Syntactic features of “RED” set expressions in English