Idioms referring to head in english and vietnamese a contrastive analysis from cultural perspectives

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG VÂN IDIOMS REFERRING TO “HEAD” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS FROM CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁC CÂU THÀNH NGỮ CÓ CHỨA THÀNH TỐ “HEAD” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ VĂN HÓA M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI - 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG VÂN IDIOMS REFERRING TO “HEAD” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS FROM CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁC CÂU THÀNH NGỮ CÓ CHỨA THÀNH TỐ “HEAD” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ VĂN HÓA M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr Đỗ Tuấn Minh HANOI - 2017 CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT ***** -I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled IDIOMS REFERRING TO “HEAD” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS FROM CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master Degree at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted to any degree at any other universities or institutions 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 Nguyêñ Thi Hồngg̣ Vân i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT On completing this study, I owe a profound indebtedness to many people for their invaluable help during the conduct of my research First of all, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to Dr Do Tuan Minh, my supervisor for his useful and critical comments and continual guidance My appreciation is also offered to my lecturers and my friends of Postgraduate studies for their valuable lessons and precious helps Finally, I would like to express my profound gratitude towards my parents for their continual encouragement and immeasurable support ii ABSTRACT There is a close relationship between Language and culture Culture has a strong influence on language and vice versa, language reflects culture One of the most effective ways to transfer cultures is utilizing idioms which may be a hindrance for English learners in the process of mastering a foreign language Hence, in order to help learners have a better understanding of idioms, the researcher decided to conduct “Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese: A contrastive analysis from cultural perspectives.” This research aims to explore the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms containing the word “Head” in terms of syntactic, semantic and especially cultural features At the end of the study, some educational implications for English teachers, learners and translators are offered to make teaching, learning and translating more effective Hopefully, this paper will increase the knowledge of idioms referring to “Head” and enhance cultural understanding of Vietnamese and English people to a great extent iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE‟S STATEMENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study Objective of the Study Research questions Scope of the Study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical Background 1.1.1 Idioms 1.1.2 Cultural and the Relationship between Language and Culture 1.2 Previous Studies CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES 2.1 Research Design 2.2 Research Methods 2.3 Research Procedures 2.4 Data Collection CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1.2 Sentence structures 3.1.3 Similarities and Differences of Syntactic features of Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese 3.2 Semantic features of Idioms referring to “Head” in English & Viet 3.2.1 Similarities 3.2.2 Differences iv 3.3 Cultural Features in Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese 31 PART C: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 35 Conclusion 35 Implications for Learning, Teaching and Translation Idioms 37 2.1 Implications for Learning 37 2.2 Implications for Teaching 38 2.3 Implications for Translation 39 2.4 Limitations and Suggestion for Further Research 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX I v LIST OF TABLES Table Table Table Table Table Table vi PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study English is an interesting language to learn, however, to master English is not easy One of the phenomenons that make English learners find difficult is idiom whose meaning cannot be always inferred from the meaning of its parts because they contain not only the literal meanings but also the figurative ones For example, when we say “He is big-headed”, we not mean that the man‟s head is big but a man who is very conservative There are a large number of idioms in English as well as in other languages like Vietnamese Idioms can be seen everywhere, in newspapers, novels, short stories, and in our daily conversation In addition, idioms make a language more interesting, vibrant and colorful This is the reason why language learners should learn about idioms in order to make their own communications and writings livelier and to avoid misunderstanding the meaning of speakers or documents that use idioms I am attracted by idioms, especially idioms referring to “Head” which is one of the most important parts in human body The researcher found many idioms denoting “Head” in both English and Vietnamese whose meanings are extremely interesting For example: “fall head over heels” means to be in love with someone very much; and “đầu tắt mặt tối” which means very busy In fact, English and Vietnamese idioms referring to “Head” share the similarities and differences in the light of culture From all these reasons above, the researcher decided to choose the topic Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese: A contrastive analysis from cultural perspectives to take detailed exploration Hopefully, the study can enlarge writer‟s knowledge about idioms referring to “Head” from cultural perspective and contribute a small part of learning and teaching idioms Objective of the Study The purpose of this study is to supply learners of English a basic knowledge about syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting “Head” in comparison with Vietnamese ones Moreover, this study is carried out with the aim to explore the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms which denote “Head” in term of culture In addition, some implications for teaching, learning and translating will be explored at the end of the study in order to provide readers useful resources of idioms Finally, the study is implemented to satisfy researcher‟s interest in idioms Research questions In accordance with the objectives of the study, the research is conducted to find out answers to the following research questions: What syntactic and semantic features are reflected in the “Head” idioms in both English and Vietnamese? What are cultural features of idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese? Scope of the Study It is impossible to cover all English and Vietnamese idioms in general and human body idioms in particular in a scope of a minor study Therefore, I would like to focus on idioms referring to “Head” to get deeper analysis Idioms denoting “Head” in English and Vietnamese are collected from many reliable dictionaries The study would investigate the following points: - General view of idioms in English and Vietnamese - Syntactic and semantic features of “Head” idioms in English and Vietnamese - A contrastive analysis of head-based idioms in English and Vietnamese in the light of culture - Some pedagogical implications for teaching, learning and translating Numbe r 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 III Numbe r 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 IV Numbe r 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 V Numbe r 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 VI Numbe r 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 VII Numbe r 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 VIII Number 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 IX Number 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 X Number 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 XI ... is attached with meaning and examples In the third place, to learn idioms in general and idioms referring to ? ?Head? ?? in particular, learners ought to pay attention to the syntactic and semantic... Culture and Language Language and culture have an inextricable and dialectical relationship According to Brown (1994), “language is a part of a culture and a culture is a part of a language, the... carefulness and “pissed out of your head? ?? indicating the state of being drunk 3.3 Cultural Features in Idioms referring to ? ?Head? ?? in English and Vietnamese As mentioned above, language and culture are intimately