Nghiên cứu đối chiếu cách tri nhận thời gian trong những thành ngữ, tục ngữ chỉ thời gian tiếng anh và tiếng việt

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ******************* PHẠM THỊ THÚY CHINH A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF THE PERCEPTION OF TIME IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TEMPORAL IDIOMS AND PROVERBS (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁCH TRI NHẬN THỜI GIAN TRONG NHỮNG THÀNH NGỮ, TỤC NGỮ CHỈ THỜI GIAN TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI - 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ******************* PHẠM THỊ THÚY CHINH A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF THE PERCEPTION OF TIME IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TEMPORAL IDIOMS AND PROVERBS (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁCH TRI NHẬN THỜI GIAN TRONG NHỮNG THÀNH NGỮ, TỤC NGỮ CHỈ THỜI GIAN TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr Huynh Anh Tuan HANOI - 2017 DECLARATION I declare that the thesis titled A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF THE PERCEPTION OF TIME IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TEMPORAL IDIOMS AND PROVERBS has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification at this or any other university and that it is entirely my work I agree that the Library may lend or copy this thesis on request Hanoi, 2017 Phạm Thị Thúy Chinh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this study could not have been possible without the support of the people I would like to acknowledge as follow First of all, I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Huynh Anh Tuan for his enthusiastic support, encouragement and profound guidance he gave me during the time of conducting research I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to all my lecturers in Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable instruction and assistance throughout the realization of this thesis Last but not least, I am indebted to my beloved family and friends who have always inspired me to complete this study ii ABSTRACT This study is conducted to investigate how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs is perceived, from which the similarities and differences in how English and Vietnamese people perceive the concept of time are uncovered Data for this study are 50 English and 50 Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time selected from three idioms and proverbs dictionaries, Oxford dictionary of idioms (2004), Oxford dictionary of proverbs (2004), Vietnamese idioms and proverbs dictionary (Nguyen Lan 2011) The idioms and proverbs are classified and grouped based on the similar source domains The study adopts the Conceptual Metaphor Theory as its approach and contrastive analysis as the research method The findings suggest that the similarities in how English and Vietnamese people perceive time are they both think of time as space, motion, a person, a thing that one can qualify The prominent difference is that whereas English people tend to conceptualize time in terms of the tangibles such as a person, a container, an object, Vietnamese people have the tendency to perceive time as an abstract concept such as farming seasons, weather and the limit of human existence iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Research questions Significance of the research Scope of the research Organization of the thesis PART I DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Idioms and Proverbs 1.1.1 Idioms 1.1.2 Proverbs 1.1.3 Distinction between Idioms and Proverbs 1.1.4 Idioms and proverbs about time 1.2 Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics 1.2.1 Cognitive Linguistics 1.2.2 Cognitive semantics 1.3 Contrastive analysis 13 1.3.1 Definitions 13 1.3.2 Guiding principles of Contrastive analysis .14 1.4 Previous studies related to the research 15 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 18 2.1 Research questions 18 2.2 Research approach 18 2.3 Data 19 2.4 Research method 19 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 21 3.1 How the English people perceive through their idioms and proverbs about time 21 3.1.1 Time is perceived as space 21 iv 3.1.2 Time is perceived as motion 23 3.1.4 Time is perceived as container 25 3.1.5 Time is perceived as a person 26 3.1.6 Time is perceived as an object 27 3.1.7 Summary 29 3.2 How the Vietnamese people perceive time through their idioms and proverbs about time 29 3.2.1 Time is perceived as space 29 3.2.2 Time is perceived as motion 30 3.2.3 Time is perceived based on the continuity of action 31 3.2.4 Time is perceived based on the relationship between human and production 32 3.2.5 Time is perceived as the limit of human existence 34 3.2.6 Time is perceived as an object that one can qualify 35 3.2.7 Time is perceived as a person 36 3.2.8 Summary 36 3.3 Similarities and differences in how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs is perceived 37 3.3.1 Similarities 37 3.3.2 Differences 38 PART III CONCLUSION 43 Recapitulation 43 Pedagogical implications 44 Limitations and suggestions for further researches 45 REFERENCES 46 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1: LIST OF ENGLISH IDIOMS/PROVERBS ABOUT TIME I APPENDIX 2: LIST OF VIETNAMESE IDIOMS/PROVERBS ABOUT TIME VI APPENDIX 3: FREQUENCY AND PERCENTAGE OF TIME PERCEPTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS AND PROVERBS ABOUT TIME .IX v PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale Time is an abstract concept that belongs to the natural world Human beings are born and develop depending completely on the nature so it is apparent that they must have a close relationship with nature in general and with time in particular The relationship between human and time is clearly expressed through human beings‟ history It can be said that there is no human‟s historical event that is not involved in a concrete timeline Also, due to the involvement, people need to perceive the abstract concept and try to convey those perceptions through their own languages Therefore, language becomes one of the major devices to give expression to the time perception of human beings Time perception can be investigated into many areas of a language such as in literature or in communication However, the focus of this thesis will be English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time because idioms and proverbs are considered special linguistic units with the very long existential time in which the traditional culture, national custom, praxis of thinking are contained (Huu Dat, 2011) The consideration of idioms and proverbs as the generalization of thinking through language of a nation may be the reason why people should study on its idioms and proverbs when they want to investigate into a nation and its language On the ground of cognitive linguistics, there are many researches on time perception in English or in Vietnamese but few researches on it in both English and Vietnamese were conducted Therefore, this study is conducted to delve into the similarities and differences in how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time is perceived Research questions The purpose of this study is to investigate how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time is perceived so the findings of the research are hoped to bring some insights into cognitive process on time that occurs in English and Vietnamese people‟s mind To achieve the aim of this study, the following research questions have to be answered: How is the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time perceived? What are the similarities and differences in how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs is perceived? Significance of the research This study, to some extent, would like to shed light on the temporal cognitive mechanism happening on human mind by analyzing English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time on the basis of the conceptual metaphor theory (a subfield of cognitive semantics theory) Moreover, a contrastive analysis is conducted in this research with the aim of finding out the similarities and the differences in how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time is perceived in the two languages This thesis is also hoped to make a small contribution to the overall stock of cognitive semantic investigation into time from a cross-linguistic perspective The finding of this study will explore the way how people think of time and try to construe partially the reason why they perceive time as the way they Scope of the research This thesis is restricted to investigating the time perceptions expressed in Vietnamese and English temporal idioms and proverbs This investigation is based on my manual selection of 50 English and 50 Vietnamese idioms and proverbs related to the concept of time which are collected from three sources, viz Oxford dictionary of idioms (2004), Oxford dictionary of proverbs (2004) and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs dictionary by Nguyen Lan (2011) The conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Johnson and Lakoff (1980) are used as research approach in analyzing the time perceptions in the selected idioms and proverbs Organization of the thesis This thesis is divided into three main parts The first part is INTRODUCTION which states the rationale of the study, the research questions, significance of the research, scope of the research and the organization of the thesis The next and also most important part is DEVELOPMENT that is subdivided into three chapters: CHAPTER is the discussion on the general theoretical background of the study; CHAPTER 2, the mainstay of the research, is the presentation on the methodology in which the research questions, research method, data and analytical framework is discussed; CHAPTER presents data analysis and discussions The last part is CONCLUSION that will summarize all the major points of the thesis and also gives some implications together with limitations and suggestions for further researches As a rule, the thesis will end with REFERENCE and APPENDIX 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 IV 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 V APPENDIX 2: LIST OF VIETNAMESE IDIOMS/PROVERBS ABOUT No 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 VII 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 VIII APPENDIX 3: FREQUENCY AND PERCENTAGE OF TIME PERCEPTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS AND PROVERBS ABOUT TIME Time perception as space extension of time location of time motion valuable things container person object a possession to be impacted to be lost to be borrowed that one can qualify a living object continuity of an action farming season forecasting weather tools in relation with human a limit of existence Total IX ... VIETNAMESE TEMPORAL IDIOMS AND PROVERBS (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁCH TRI NHẬN THỜI GIAN TRONG NHỮNG THÀNH NGỮ, TỤC NGỮ CHỈ THỜI GIAN TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English... instances: (99) Thời gian có chờ đợi (Time waits for no men) (100) Thời gian hàn gắn vết thương lòng (Time heals all mental wounds) Apparently, the source domain A PERSON with attributes of human‟s... Only time will tell Time is a great healer Time and tide wait for no men Thời gian có chờ đợi (time waits for no man) 37 Thời gian hàn gắn vết thương lòng (time heals all mental wounds) The last