A study on syntactic and semantic features of english physical appearance adjectives with reference to their vietnamese equivalents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH PHYSICAL APPEARANCE ADJECTIVES WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (Nghiên cứu đặc điểm cú pháp ngữ nghĩa nhóm tính từ tiếng Anh miêu tả diện mạo tương đương tiếng Việt) NGUYEN MINH PHUONG Field: English language Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2017 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH PHYSICAL APPEARANCE ADJECTIVES WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (Nghiên cứu đặc điểm cú pháp ngữ nghĩa nhóm tính từ tiếng Anh miêu tả diện mạo tương đương tiếng Việt) NGUYEN MINH PHUONG Field: English language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr Trần Thị Thu Hiền Hanoi, 2017 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTICS FEATURES OF ENGLISH PHYSICAL APPEARANCE ADJECTIVES WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2017 Nguyen Minh Phuong Approved by SUPERVISOR Dr Trần Thị Thu Hiền Trần Thị Thu Hiền 08 /12 / 2017 i 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 Dr Tran Thi Thu Hien, 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 Secondly, I would like to give my thanks to all lecturers of Postgraduate Faculty at Hanoi Open University for their valuable teaching and tremendous assistant throught my study path A special word of thanks goes to the teachers and students at Hanoi Technology and Business University, without their 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 friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work ii ABSTRACT The present thesis has been carried out on the background of the achievement and deficiencies in the existing studies on English adjectives with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents The thesis, as mentined in its name, “ A study on syntactic and semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents”, is an investigation of the syntactic and semantics features of English physical adjectives, and from that results, the auhor refers these characteristics to their Vietnamese equivalents The thesis fills a gap in the system of language works as there hasnot got a study working on the syntactic and semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives before With the aim of providing a general and deeper view of English physical appearance adjectives for English learners as a foreign language in Vietnam, the thesis is carried out The author employs some methods during the process of studying Descriptive method seems to be the major with others as the quanlitative analysis, comparative and contrastive methods are the supporting methods The English data source of the study is from the books “Andersen’s fairy tales” of H.C Andersen (1993) and “100 selected stories” of O Henry (2012) The Vietnamese data source used in the thesis is from the book “100 truyen ngan hay Viet Nam the ky 20” of Literature Punlishing House(2014) The result of the thesis finds out similarities and differences in terms of syntactic features; and similarities and differences in terms of semantic features From that result, the author suggests some implications using in teaching English adjectives denoting people appearance iii ABBREVIATIONS N : Noun Adj : Adjective ~ : equivalent to ≁ : non-equivalent to >< : Opposite meaning with [] : phonetics transcription * : Wrong sentence ∅ : Without verb iv LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 Engish idioms using simile with their Vietnamese equivalence 44 Table 4.2 Engish idioms using metaphor with their Vietnamese equivalence 45 v TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .ii ASTRACT iii ABBREVIATIONS iv TABLE OF CONTENTS vi Chapter INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the research 1.3 Objectives of the research 1.4 Scope of the research 1.5 Significance of the research 1.6 Structural organization of the research Chapter LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies 2.2 An overview of syntax and semantics 2.2.1 Syntax 2.2.2 Semantics 2.3 An overview of English and Vietnamese adjectives 10 2.3.1 A brief description of English adjectives 10 2.3.1.1 What is an adjective? 11 2.3.1.2 Syntactic functions of English adjectives 12 2.3.1.3 Syntactic subclassification of English adjectives 14 2.3.1.4 Semantic subclassification of English adjectives 17 2.3.1.5 Semantic functions of English adjectives 19 2.2.1.6 Classification of English adjectives in terms of their usage 21 2.3.2 A brief description of Vietnamese adjectives 21 2.3.2.1 Definition of Vietnamese adjectives 22 2.3.2.2 Classification of Vietnamese adjectives 22 2.4 English physical appearance adjectives 26 2.5 Chapter summary 26 Chapter RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 27 3.1 Research-governing orientation 27 3.1.1 Research questions 27 3.1.2 Research settings 27 3.1.3 Research approach 28 3.1.4 Principle/ criteria for intended data collection and data analysis 28 3.2 Research methods 29 3.2.1 Major methods versus supporting methods 29 vi 3.2.2 Data collection techniques 30 3.2.3 Data analysis techniques 30 3.3 Chapter summary 30 Chapter THE SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH PHYSICAL APPEARANCE ADJECTIVES WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 32 4.1 The syntactic features of English physical appearance adjectives 32 4.2 The semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives 34 4.3 The comparison between English physical appearance adjectives and Vietnamese physical appearance adjectives 35 4.3.1 In terms of syntactic features 35 4.3.2 In terms of semantic features 42 4.4 Implications for teaching 47 4.5 Chapter summary 49 Chapter CONCLUSIONS 50 5.1 Recapitulation 50 5.2 Concluding remarks 51 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 52 5.3.1 Limitations 52 5.3.2 Suggestions for further studies 52 REFERENCES 54 APPENDIX A 56 APPENDIX B 58 vii Chapter INTRODUCTION This introductory chapter of the thesis introduces the research with detail information of the reasons to choose the topic; the aim and objectives of the author through the process of doing the thesis; the scopes that limit the study; the significance from cerrying out the thesis; and the structural organization of the whole research 1.1 Rationale In our modern life today, as in a “global village”, English plays the role of an international language, a very important international means of communication for people all over the world in almost fields of life such as economy, politics, culture and education Consequently, mastering English has been the desire and need of people who need to join the international community in order to broaden their knowledge, promote their professional career and have a wider network of relationships As other languages, to master English, learners need to obtain the basic knowledge of grammar and a certainly number of vocabularies as well as skills such as listening, speaking, etc Having a wide range of vocabularies helps learners gain the effect in writing and speaking as well as in communication Having the basis knowledge of grammar helps learners communicate effectively, avoids the misunderstanding in communication And adjective is a part of grammar Along with noun, verb, adjective is one of three main parts of speech in English grammar Adjective is the specific device used in describing people Describing people is one of the very first topics for language learners And describing people is also a functional requirement in daily life From the beginners to the advanced learners, they sometimes still need to describe someone for some purposes And in my process of working, I sometimes see the sentences written by my students: I love my mother She is skinny with her black long hair and red lips With me, “Ông già” is meaningful But “Hãy già” is not natural In terms of inherent and non-inherent, English people physical appearance adjectives are divided into inherent and non-inherent in which, most of them are inherent The group of people physical appearance adjectives is inherent Whereas, Vietnamese people physical appearance adjectives are not divided into inherent and non-inherent 4.4 Implications for teaching In Vietnam, children have to learning English a lot, from the grade of three until university The exercise of describing someone is sometimes given to children to speak or write about, but in real life, they always have to describe someone’s appearance In this thesis, the author recommends some applications for teaching the students of 1st year at Hanoi University of Business and Technology The subjects of this survey are the first year non-major students of English at Hanoi University of Business and Technology Most of them are at the age of eighteen In reality, they come from different areas in Vietnam with different level of English proficiency Most of them had never used English idioms before entering the College The freshman at Hanoi University of Business and Technology are often given a exercise of describing people (your best/close friend, mother, etc) as the first exercise of writing or at the end-of-term speaking test As the author observes, the students only use a small number of adjectives as: beautiful, handsome, good-looking and so on It seems that they are lack of vocabulary to express their ideas Besides, they tend to use common words as pretty/beautiful, etc that makes their speaking become common So, first of all, teachers need to enlarge the vocabulary for students Teachers can provide a number of vocabularies that they think the vocabularies are useful and necessary for students at the opening of the lesson Or they can provide a few common adjectives and then add more later as the requirements of students 47 In terms of helping students understand the knowledge of syntactic features of adjectives, teacher can emphasize the different characteristics of English adjectives in relationship with Vietnamese adjectives It is easy for students to gain the characteristics that English adjectives share the same features with Vietnamese adjectives, but they sometimes feel difficult to remember the knowledge that English adjectives are different from Vietnamese ones There are some suggestions for teaching the different features Because English is a multi-syllable language, while Vietnamese is onesyllable language, so it may be confused for students to remember the structures of english comparative and supperlative So, teacher need to make clear the forms of comparative and superlative in English adjectives Teacher can ask student to remember an example as a demonstrated sentence for the structure For example: She is taller than me for one-syllable adjectives and My mother is more beautiful than my aunt for more-than-one-syllable adjectives Sometimes, students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology confuse with the order of adjectives with nouns, so teacher can ask them to remember some simple examples as: A beautiful girl, a handsome man, or a cute baby to illustrate for the order of English adjectives stand before nouns In terms of ordering multi adjectives in a phrase, teacher can give out a trick for students to remember Teacher can ask them to remember the demonstrated sentences that have the rule of ordering adjectives as : Yesterday, I bough a beautiful small new pink French plastic hairbrush, or OpSASCOMP or Ông Sáu Ăn Súp Cua Ơng Mập Phì as an intitial letters of the adjective classification With the groups of adjectives share the same denotation but have different connotation, teachers need to highlight the differences in the style of each word Besides, teachers also need to provide some common idioms that share the same meaning with the descriptive adjectives First of all, teacher need to be the person who often use these idioms in their teaching materials Along with it, teachers need to encourage students to use the idioms to replace the samemeaning adjectives Teachers need to emphasize that using idioms in speaking has a higher evaluation than using descriptive adjectives having the same meaning There are many techniques to develop students’ skill of using idioms 48 - The followings are six typical techniques: Replace idioms in a sentence or a passage with words or phrases which have similar meanings or vice versa Translate a sentence or a paragraph from the target language into the mother tongue or vice versa, using equivalent idioms of the two languages Write a paragraph using idioms given Build dialogues on topics given (working in groups), using idioms provided Choose the most appropriate idioms to fill in the gaps from the idioms given Fill in the gaps with idioms (no prompts) 4.5 Chapter summary There are some similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese adjectives denoting people physical appearance in terms of syntactic and semantics features Having this distinction helps English learners understand thoroughly the English adjectives then using them in writing and speaking accurately and suitably Having the knowledge and usage of some idioms as well as the expressions denoting people appearance, the English learners widen their vocabulary and use adjectives and the replacing devides more accurate and flexible 49 Chapter CONCLUSIONS This chapter presents some conclusions after conducting research, the results for three objectives raised at the beginning doing the research This part also states the limitations and some suggestions for futher study 5.1 Recapitulation The focus of this study is finding out the similarities and differences on syntactic and semantics features of English and Vietnamese physical appearance adjectives The literature review of the thesis is based on the previous studies and the theoretical background of syntactic and semantics features of English and Vietnamese physical appearance adjectives The author employs the document technique to collect the data The data is analyzed by the descriptive as the major method and compare and contrast as the supporting methods The study aims to find out the similarities and differences between the English and Vietnamese adjectives denoting physical appearance As a result, there are three research questions are set up: - What are the syntactic and semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives? - What are the similarities and differences in terms of syntactic and semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents? - What are possible suggestions in teaching English physical appearance adjectives? As the requirements raising in the three questions, the author finds out the syntactic and semantic features of English adjectives denoting physical appearance Then the author compares these characteristics with the Vietnamese equivalents and finds out there are some similariries and differences in terms of syntactic and semantic features From that resul, the author suggests some implication for teaching English physical appearance adjectives 50 5.2 Concluding remarks Basing on the data analysis of document collected from books and novels, the study now comes to review the major conclusions on the three objectives recorded from the study The objective one of the thesis is analyzing syntactic and semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives Basing on the background of the syntactic and semantic features of English adjectives, the author makes a contrast analysis then makes clear the syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese physical appearance adjectives There are syntactic functions and syntactic classification of English physical appearance are found out In terms of semantic features, there are semantic functions/classification are found out The objective two of the thesis is finding out the similarities and differences in terms of syntactic and semantic features, functions and classifications in specific, of English physical appearance adjectives with reference to Vietnemese equivalents Basing on the knowledge stated in the objective one, the author studies and finds out the similarities and differences in terms of each concrete critetion There are similarities and differences in terms of syntactic features and similarities and differences in terms of semantic features are pointed out These characteristics are presented in chapter – The syntactic and semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents The objectives three of the thesis is providing possible suggestions in teaching English physical appearance adjectives for freshman at HUBT Basing on the study results of the objectives one and two, the author reaches some conclusions for suggestion for teaching English physical appearance adjectives: There are steps for teaching English physical appearance adjectives and in terms of idioms denoting people appearance, there are tachniques for teaching them are provided as the suggestions 51 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 5.3.1 Limitations The study has some limitations that should be stated Firstly, as mentioned earlier in the scope of the study, this research is limited in the English physical appearance adjectives The findings only present the similarities and differences of English and Vietnamese adjectives denoting physical appearance, not the adjectives in general, or not other word classes Besides, the descriptive adjectives listed in the thesis are limited, not the whole range of English adjectives denoting physical appearance Secondly, in the theoretical background, the author just referred to some specific linguists, not all of the linguists who have works relating to adjectives Moreover, the chapter presents the syntactic and semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents are just a little contribution There are some limitations in the result of the thesis according to the comparison and contrast of the author Lastly, the idioms denoting human appearance are not listed fully completely because of lacking information and time of the thesis’s author 5.3.2 Suggestions for further studies From the results of the thesis, after reviewing some previous studies overseas and in Vietnam, the author recognizes there are some fields that still need futher investigation In the limitation of the thesis, the author only considers the English adjectives, not the other word classes as noun, verb, adverb, etc So, these areas may be the topic for other researchers study on Besides, the author just only focuses on the English adjectives denoting people physical appearance, not the other meaning; and only consider the denotation, not the connotation, structural or categorical meanings So, this may be the suggestions for further investigation In the scope of the thesis, the author compares and contrasts some English and Vietnamese idioms denoting the physical appearance meaning, not the idioms denoting the other meaning This may be the inspiration for other authors to 52 consider in their studies They can investigate in the adjective idioms, or the idioms denoting characteristic, or the idioms has some specific words 53 REFERENCES English Andersen, H.C (1993) Andersen’s fairy tales Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Edition Limited Alexander, L.G (1988) Longman English grammar Longman Bronte, C (1996) Jane Eyre Wordsworth Edition Limited Chomsky.N (1965) Chomsky Theory of Syntax The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Halliday M.A.K (2004) An introduction to Functional grammar Hodder Arnold Henry, O (2012) 100 selected stories Wordsworth Editions Limited Ho, T A (2010) Functions of English adjectives and their equivalents in Vietnamese language Thesis Đại học sư phạm Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh Lyons, John (2009) Linguistic semantic: An introduction Cambridge University press Nguyen, T.T.H and Nguyen, T.V.L (2008) Grammatical and semantic features of some adjectives denoting happiness – the feeling of pleasure VNU journal of Science, Foreign languages, 24, 157-166 10 Radden, Gunter and Dirven, René (2007) Cognitive English grammar John Benjamins Publishing Company 11 Randolph Quirk et al, (1985) A comprehensive grammar of the English language Longman Vietnamese 12 Cao Xuân Hạo (1991) Tiếng Việt sơ khảo ngữ pháp chức Hà Nội: NXB Xã Hội 13 Diệp Quang Ban (1989) Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt phổ thông Hà Nội: NXB Giáo dục 54 14 Diệp Quang Ban (2009) Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Hà Nội: NXB giáo dục Việt Nam 15 Diệp Quang Ban, Hoàng Văn Thung (1991) Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt Hà Nội: NXB giáo dục Việt Nam 16 Đặng, N.H (2009) Danh ngữ tiếng Anh (trong đối chiếu với tiếng Việt) Luận văn tiến sĩ Viện ngơn ngữ học 17 Đồn V.H (2009) Đối chiếu từ loại Tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Luận văn Đại học Ngoại Ngữ – Đại học Huế 18 Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981) Từ vựng – ngữ nghĩa Tiếng Việt Hà Nội: NXB Giáo dục 19 Đỗ Hữu Châu (1987) Ngữ pháp chức ánh sáng dụng học Ngôn ngữ số & 20 Lê Quang Thiêm (2006) Ngữ nghĩa học Hà Nội: NXB Giáo dục Việt Nam 21 Nguyễn Hòa (2004) Understanding English Semantics Hà Nội: NXB Đại học quốc gia Hà Nội 22 Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh, (2001) Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Hà Nội: NXB từ điển bách khoa 23 Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (1999) Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Hà Nội: NXB Đại học quốc gia 24 Tập thể tác giả (2014) 100 truyện ngắn hay Việt Nam kỷ 20 Hà Nội: NXB Văn học Internet sources 25 https://www.macmillandictionary.com/opendictionary/latestEntries.html 26 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ 27 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/ 55 APPENDIX A THE GROUP OF PHYSICAL APPEARANCE ENGLISH ADJECTIVE The adjectives denoting people appearance are numerous but under the limitation of time and knowledge, the author of the thesis has considered and chosen a group of words that are common used according to the personal idea The group of this physical appearance English adjective is divided into groups behind: General appearance pretty/handsome, cute, attractive, elegant, beautiful/gorgeous, ugly, goodlooking, plain/ordinary/homely, nice, lovely, Face a pretty/ beautiful/ ugly/ intelligent face; regular/delicate features; round/ oval/ triangular/ square// long face freckles face Dress well-dressed; nicely dressed; casually dressed; poorly dressed; elegant; fashionable; neat, clean, tidy; untidy, dirty, filthy Built Thin/ skinny/ slender/ slim; Chubby/ obese/ overweight, fat, large, plump, stout; Strong/ athletic/well-built; Weak/ feeble Muscular, thickset, stocky, broad-shouldered; delicate, Height Tall, medium height/ average height/ middle height, short Age Baby, toddler, child, teenager, young, middle-aged, old/elderly Hair 56 Dark, black, brown, chestnut, red, auburn, light, fair, white, blond/ blonde, gray/ grey, brunet/ brunette, corn-colored hair; Long, short, medium-length, shoulder-length; Straight, curly, wavy, thinning, plaits, ponytail, pig tails, spiky, part, bald Shinny, smooth, neatly combed hair, soft, silken hair, lank hair, dull hair, oily hair, greasy hair, thick, tousled hair, disheveled hair, Bang, sideburns, beard, mustache/ moustache Eyes Black, blue, gray (grey), green, brown, dark; light-blue; dark-gray; grayish-blue, hazel Bright eyes, expressive eyes, sharp eyes, near-sighted, short-sighted, blind, eyeglasses/ glasses/ spectacles Big eyes; large eyes; small eyes Oval, round eyes 57 APPENDIX B English idioms using in describing people appearance with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents To deal with describing phys ical people appearance, besides using adjectives, people can use idioms to replace There are some idioms that are useful for people when describing people appearance Some have the equivalents idioms in Vietnamese Some not (All) skin and bone: If a person is very under weight, they are all skin and bone, or bones: Da bọc xương e.g: After a month divorce, people can not recognize Tom because he looks as all skin and bone (As) ugly as sin: This expression refers to people or things that are considered to be very unattractive: xấu ma e.g: Look! You are as ugly as sin Please come home and change your clothes! Average Joe: Someone who’s just like every else; a normal person: người bình thường e.g: My friend is an average Joe He isn’t rich and famous Bag of bones: If someone is bag of bones, they are very underweight: nhúm xương e.g: This little boy looks bag of bones Bald as a coot: A person who is completely bald is as bald as a coot: Trọc sư cọ mốc e.g: This old man looks as bald as a coot Be not a hair out of place: Someone does not have a hair out of place means that their appearance is perfect: diện mạo hoàn hảo e.g: Elise is not a hair out of place in her wedding dress Be out of the ark: to be very old-fashioned: (vẻ ngoài) lỗi mốt e.g: Mrs Linda is our neighbor She always has an out of the ark appearance Be beetroot: become very red in face because of embarrassment: đỏ mặt xấu hổ 58 e.g: Peter is always beetroot when talking with Laura He seems to falling in love with her Be as brown as a berry: to be suntanned: bị cháy nắng e.g: After the long holiday at a beautiful beach, he is as brown as a berry 10 Be the dead spirit of somebody: to look very much like someone: (có vẻ ngồi) giống e.g: Laura finds a girl who is the dead spirit of herself on her summer vacation 11 Bedroom eyes: Someone with bedroom eyes has a sexy look in their eyes: mắt đa tình e.g: David Beckham has bedroom eyes with an attractive smile 12 Behind the times: someone who is very old fashion, they won’t adopt to new ways as they are very rigid: lỗi thời e.g: This old teacher looks behind the times 13 Cut a dash: Someone who cuts a dash is a person who making a striking impression by their appearance and attractive clothes: xinh đẹp e.g: No one realizes her She cuts a dash in her lovely dress 14 Cut a fine figure (cut a dash): if someone cuts a fine figure or a dash, people admire their appearance, usually because they are wearing attractive clothes: xinh đẹp e.g: Marilyn Monroe cut a fine figure whenever she appeared 15 Deck out: If you deck out someone or something, you dress or decorate them in a special way: trang điểm cho, ăn vận cho e.g: Linda decked out her little daughter for her sister’s weeding 16 Down-at-heel” – badly dressed, untidy, or neglected because of a lack of money: ăn mặc cẩu thả e.g: The down at heel boy I first met two years ago became a successful startup 17 Dressed to kill: When someone, especially a woman, is dressed to kill, they are wearing very fashionable or glamorous clothes intended to attract attention: ăn vận hào nhoáng 59 e.g: The fashionistas often dresses to kill on the occasions of the fashion week 18 Dressed up like a dog’s dinner: wearing clothes which make you look silly when you have tried to dress for a formal occasion: ăn vận lố bịch e.g: Peter wants to be smartly dressed, but he dresses up like a dog’s dinner 19 Dressed up to the nines: Someone dresses up to the nines is the person who wears very smart or glamorous clothes: quyến rũ e.g: Celine is a celebrity She often dresses up to the nines whenever she goes to events 20 Face like a bulldog chewing a wasp: a very unattractive person because they have a screwed-up ugly expression on their face: xấu xí e.g: This man is not only rude but he also has a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp 21 Face only a mother could love: When someone has a face only a mother could love, they are ugly or unattractive: xấu xí e.g: Chi Pheo is the man who has a face only a mother could love 22 Face that would stop a clock: a shocking unattractive face: kinh dị e.g: The beast in the story “Beauty and the beast” is a person who has a face that would stop a clock 23 Five o’clock shadow: It refers to a patch of stubble on the face of a man who hasn’t shaved for at least a day: râu lởm chởm e.g: This man looks untidy He always has a five o’clock shadow 24 Four-eyes: A person who wears glasses: Bốn mắt e.g: Joe looks like a bookworm with four-eyes 25 Like death warmed up: to look very ill: ốm yếu e.g: You look like death warmed up Let’s go to the bed for a rest 26 Look a sight: if someone looks a sight, their appearance is awful, unsuitable or very untidy: luộm thuộm e.g This old woman always looks a sight 27 Look like a million dollars: to say someone looks extremely good: đẹp e.g: She looks like a million dollars in that dress 60 28 Mutton dressed as lamb: to say a middle-aged woman who tries to look younger by dressing in clothes designed for younger people: Cưa sừng làm nghé e.g: This style makes her look mutton dressed as lamb 29 Plain Jane: A plain Jane is a woman who isn’t particularly attractive: bình thường e.g: She has a plain Jane until she does their make-up 30 Pretty as a picture: to refer to a vary attractive or appealing person in their appearance: Đẹp tranh e.g: The Snow White is pretty as a picture when she is 15 31 Spitting image: If someone is the spitting image of another, they look exactly like each other: e.g: Peter is the spitting image of his father 32 Thin on the top: If someone, usually a man, is said to be thin on the top, they are losing their hair or going bald: hói e.g: My husband is not thin on the top as his father 33 Vertically challenged: This expression is used in a humoristic way of describing someone who is not very tall; short: thấp e.g: Anna becomes more vertically challenged when standing with his 2mette-height husband 61 ... The comparison between English physical appearance adjectives and Vietnamese physical appearance adjectives 4.3.1 In terms of syntactic features English and Vietnamese physical appearance adjectives. .. syntactic features of English physical appearance adjectives 32 4.2 The semantic features of English physical appearance adjectives 34 4.3 The comparison between English physical appearance adjectives. ..MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M .A THESIS A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH PHYSICAL APPEARANCE ADJECTIVES WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS