[123doc] - nghien-cuu-ve-thanh-ngu-co-chua-cac-tu-chi-thoi-tiet-trong-tieng-anh-va-tieng-viet-nhin-tu-goc-doc-van-hoa

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the completion of this work, I have been fortunate to receive inestimable support from many people First of all, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof.Dr Vu Ngoc Tu for his indispensable assistance, valuable suggestions, expert advice and detailed critical comments I am also grateful to all my lecturers at the University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their constant help and encouragement Finally, my thanks go to my family and friends who are always by my side to give the unconditional financial and spiritual support during the process of accomplishing the thesis i ABSTRACT Learning a foreign language is not simply to interpret and communicate but brings learners more than they can see Each language has its own particular features and values among which idioms are mentionable Idiomatic expressions are undoubtedly encountered in almost every day conversations, newspapers, magazines, TVs or radios Recognizing the importance of idioms as well as satisfying her own ambition, the author tries to figure out the features of idioms, specifically the idioms containing words denoting weather, one of the respects familiar to everyone Moreover, it is believed that idioms are always associated with culture; hence, a cultural view on this type of idioms might be helpful and interesting In this thesis, the author focuses on the importance of cultural awareness in understanding idioms; thence shows the necessary of cultural knowledge in learning and teaching English in general and weather idioms in particular ii TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale .1 Aims of the study Objectives .2 Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study .2 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Culture and the relationship between language and culture .4 1.1.1 Culture and some characteristics of culture 1.1.2 Relationship between language and culture 1.2 Idioms 10 1.2.1 Definition 10 1.2.2 Types of idioms 11 1.2.3 Main features of idioms in English and Vietnamese .13 1.2.4 Idioms versus proverbs and slang 16 1.2.5 Culture in idiom .19 1.3 Weather definition .20 CHAPTER TWO: ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS CONTAINING WORDS DENOTING WEATHER 2.1 Syntactic features of EIWW and VIWW 22 2.2 Semantic features of EIWW and VIWW 26 CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Some characteristics of Vietnamese and English people, culture and weather conditions 33 3.2 Comparison of syntactic features between EIWW and VIWW from the cultural perspectives 35 iii 3.3 Comparison of semantic features between EIWW and VIWW from the cultural perspectives 37 PART 3: CONCLUSION Review of the study 43 Implications 44 Suggestions for further studies .45 REFERENCES 46 APPENDIX I iv PART 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale Nowadays, English is obviously considered as the international language that is a tool for global connection and development Idioms, a special part of languages in general and English in particular, seem to be the familiar element which occurs not only in daily conversations but also in literature works People are likely familiar with idioms which are used to express ideas in an attractive and figurative way Therefore, understanding the meaning of idiomatic expressions is essential and useful for English users However, understanding an idiom by understanding its components is not enough because the meanings of idioms are unpredictable, which derive from unusual forms, stylistic devices and knowledge on culture Although idioms are not easy to comprehend, it is necessary for learners not to disregard idioms in studying languages because idioms are an unseparated element of languages and so common in daily use As a second language teacher, this urges me to conduct the thesis entitled “A study on idiomatic expressions containing words denoting weather in English and Vietnamese from cultural perspective” to find out the similarities and differences between English idioms containing the words denoting weather (EIWW) and Vietnamese idioms containing the words denoting weather (VIWW) mainly from the cultural view Moreover, despite being considered as the most important second language in Vietnam, English brings various challenges for learners One of the reasons for this problem is the dissimilarities in the way of living and thinking or the differences of culture The result of the study, to some extent, is hoped to help Vietnamese learners of English use EIWW and VIWW effectively in communication so that their speech is more adequate, natural, interesting and imaginative Aims of the study The thesis is conducted in attempt to: - Explore the English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather, with the main focus on the cultural point of view - Point out the similarities and differences between these two languages in this particular aspect - Motivate students to obtain the insight of Vietnamese and English idioms containing words denoting weather Objectives The objectives of the study are: - Investigate Vietnamese and English idioms consisting weather words - Clarify the cultural intension inside the idioms - Suggest some ideas for teaching idioms The study will try to answer the questions bellows: - What are similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather from the cultural perspective? - What cultural aspects influence the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather? Scope of the study This study focuses on English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather from the cultural perspective These idioms are listed in the appendix Because of some limitation of time, not all idioms are covered Methods of the study In this study, both qualitative and quantitative methods are used It is carried out by carefully collecting materials from numerous sources in both English and Vietnamese including books, websites, newspapers and from observation in daily life Then, the data are analyzed and synthesized to find out the similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather Design of the study The thesis is divided into three main parts: - The first part is the Introduction, which includes rationale, aim, scope, methods and design of the study - Part is the Development, which comprises three chapters Chapter one, as implied by the title “Theoretical background”, reviews the literature related to language, culture and idioms in general Chapter two is concerned with “English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather” in which syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather are investigated The last chapter in this part deals with “Findings and discussion” with the analysis of similarities and differences between EIWW and VIWW from the cultural view - Part is the Conclusion and Implications for teaching and learning as well as some suggestions for further study The thesis is concluded by the appendix and references PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Languages and cultures are closely related Hence, to study any phenomenon of any language, it is of utmost importance to consider the culture of the people who speak that language and to compare English idioms containing the words denoting weather (EIWW) and Vietnamese idioms containing the words denoting weather (VIWW) is no exception This chapter will present a brief theoretical introduction about culture, language, and idioms, which will lay essential foundations for what is being analyzed in the next two chapters 1.1 Culture and the relationship between language and culture 1.1.1 Culture and some characteristics of culture The term “culture” is undoubtedly familiar with many people, yet it is not really simple to define it Many linguists have spent a lot of efforts on working out the definitions of culture Hence, in this paper, the writer will introduce some in attempt to provide a general view for the readers following easily Following are some of them: Hofstede (1980, pp 21-23) defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group from another”, which is passed from generation to generation, it is changing all the time because each generation adds something of its own before passing it on It is usual that one’s culture is taken for granted and assumed to be correct because it is the only one, or at least the first, to be learned Samovar & Porter (2003) gives a typical definition on culture as follows: “The deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving” (Samovar & Porter, 2003, p 8) Sharing the same opinion, Edward Tylor, a famous British anthropologist, notes in his book “Primitive Culture” (1871), culture “is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, custom and any other capacities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”(p 1) In the book “Language and Culture: Global flows and local complexity”, Risager (2005) considers culture from three dimensions of concept including hierarchical, differential and generic concept As regards to hierarchical concept, culture means “something that the individual human being or individual society either ‘has’ or ‘does not has’ at a higher or lower level” (p.32) Meanwhile, culture is thought as the thing that can distinguish one society from others from, differential concept The generic concept of culture focuses on what to distinguish humanity from nature and other living creatures Also, Kramsch (1998) examines culture by comparing it to nature and showing its development through social activities “One way of thinking about culture is to contrast it with nature Nature refers to what is born and grows organically (from the Latin nascere: to be born); culture refers to what has been grown and groomed (from Latin colere: to cultivate)” (Kramsch, 1998:4) According to Goodenough (1957), culture is defined as the thing that people in each particular community must know and possess to run their activities “A society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves.” (Goodenough,1957:167) Subjective elements of culture may be the elements such as “values, attitudes, beliefs, orientations, and underlying assumptions prevalent among people in a society” (Harrison and Huntington, 2000:xv) One more definition that should also be mentioned is the one of Triandis (1994:23) cited in Porter, Samovar and McDaniel (2007): “Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants in an ecological niche, and thus became share among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they lived in the same time and place” In short, culture is defined in various ways as Harrison and Huntington (2000) note, “The term ‘culture’, of course, has had multiple meanings in different disciplines and different contexts” (p xv) Thus, culture undeniably has many definitions but generally affects nearly everything people in their society because of their ideas, values, attitudes, and normative or expected patterns of behavior Culture is not genetically inherited, and cannot exist on its own, but is always shared by members of a society (Hall 1976, p 16) Culture is a complex concept, and no single definition of it has achieved consensus in the literature Regardless of dozens of definitions, it is necessary to examine characteristics of culture because through them, one can see the connection between culture and other elements including language As Huntington (1996) notes, “The heart of culture involves language, religion, values, traditions, and customs.” Porter, Samovar and McDaniel (2007:21-30) point out six features of culture as follows: Firstly, culture is obtained from people’s birth to the end of their life through learning which means that it is learned but not innate Learning here is understood both formal and informal Informal learning normally takes place through interaction, observation, and imitation The formal learning of culture is far more structured and often left to the institutions of the culture such as schools and churches Because culture influences you from the instant you are born, you are rarely aware of many of the messages that it sends Therefore, studying is considered as an essential process in one’s person’s whole life Secondly, culture is shared The means of transmitting the culture can take a variety forms (proverbs, stories, art) and can have numerous carriers (family, peers, church, schools, media), but the key elements of culture (values, ideas, perception) must be shared by other members of the culture ... consisting weather words - Clarify the cultural intension inside the idioms - Suggest some ideas for teaching idioms The study will try to answer the questions bellows: - What are similarities... this particular aspect - Motivate students to obtain the insight of Vietnamese and English idioms containing words denoting weather Objectives The objectives of the study are: - Investigate Vietnamese... thesis is conducted in attempt to: - Explore the English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting weather, with the main focus on the cultural point of view - Point out the similarities and