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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY - SUMMARY OF DOCTORAL THESIS NGUYỄN ĐÔNG PHƯƠNG TIÊN PROTOTYPES OF BASIC COLOUR TERMS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FROM A COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE (TÍNH ĐIỂN DẠNG CỦA MÀU CƠ BẢN TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT DƯỚI GĨC ĐỘ NGƠN NGỮ HỌC TRI NHẬN) MAJOR: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 22 02 01 Hà Nội, 2021 RATIONALE Colour term has been studied in various research aspects as follows: In terms of lexical aspect, in English, many researches have included the role of culture factor in researching colour terminologies, rather researching colour terminologies in separation Researches by Geiger (1869); Conklin (1955); Lakoff (1987); Kay and Maffi (1999) have influenced this current dissertation since cultural element used to be ignored in considering the connection between colour terminologies and their adoption In Vietnamese, Trịnh Thị Minh Hương (1999) paid more attention to lexical aspect, mainly towards one colour term or some basic colour terms in Vietnamese language In terms of semantic viewpoint, in English, Kövecses (1986) and Lucy (1992) lay the foundation for colour categories issue developed into colour prototypes that must be performed based on the semantic features of colour category In Vietnamese, Hoàng Văn Hành (1982), Nguyễn Hoàng Phương Linh (2014) and Lê Phương Thảo (2018) compare and contrast the semantic values and meanings between colour terms in Vietnamese and English In terms of culture factor, in English, Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1997); Wierzbicka (2006) provide further information and knowledge in connection with the role of culture factor on the interestingly diverse international system of colour symbols around the world In Vietnamese researches, Nguyễn Khánh Hà (1995) confirms the existence of the parallel connection between one particular linguistic expression (a lexical word unit) and its associated typical cultural national characteristics In terms of cognitive viewpoint, in English, this research direction based on cognition element has been more popular and widely applied Rivers (1897); Brown and Lenneberg (1954); Berlin and Kay (1969); Heider (1971, 1972); Rosch (1973, 1974, 1975) have been more aware of the fact that colour categories should be represented in cognition in terms of a prototype (as the most salient object referent) of the category surrounded by less-similarity object referents In Vietnamese, Lê Văn Thanh (2014); Hoàng Tuyết Minh and Nguyễn Văn Quang (2015) identify the connection between the prototypes of one basic colour and the associated objects in daily real-life situations close to one community members’ life culture and cognition related to the similarities and differences between Vietnamese and English culture and cognition system The researches above, concentrating one single colour term or some specific colour terms in one language only, does not provide the most wideranging general picture with further detailed explanations with the subject of linguistic and cognitive system within one native community Therefore, a research on basic colour terms from a different theoretical framework (prototype theory) with a broader research scope must be conducted as soon as possible with the hope to discover basic colour prototypes between English and Vietnamese languages together with further explanations based on cultural and cognitive perspectives for better understanding with reference to similarities and differences between these two systems AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The ultimate aim of this dissertation is to distinguish the prototypes and the categories of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data from the cognitive and cultural perspectives The following objectives are put forward for the detailed insight: - Identifying the prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data based on prototype theory - Classifying the classes and categories of object referents of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data based on classes and categories of object referents functioning as colour-term referents - Pointing out the similarities and the differences of the prototypes and of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data from cognitive and cultural perspectives RESEARCH QUESTIONS In order to gain the aims of the study, this dissertation sets out the following research questions with the hope to provide the insight into the following concerns: - What are the classes and the categories of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data? - What are the prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data? - What are the similarities and the differences of the prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data from cognitive and cultural perspectives? SCOPE OF THE STUDY 4.1 Research subjects Based on Berlin & Kay’s linguistic criteria, black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey colour terms in English and đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms in Vietnamese have been asserted as the official research colour terms targets in this dissertation Prototypes of basic colour terms in English and those in Vietnamese are identified through comparative idioms formatted as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure in the study scope in English and Vietnamese data Idioms with comparative structures accumulated are from literary works in English and Vietnamese data 4.2 Data criteria Dissertation data is analyzed based on the following criteria: Basic colour terms in English black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey colour terms and đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms in Vietnamese are the research colour terms Comparative idioms comprise as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure in the study scope in English and Vietnamese data The prototype of one basic colour term is identified based on the highest percentage; in other words, the object referent associated with one basic colour term obtains the highest percentage is affirmed as the prototype of this basic colour term On the subject of category classification from the total object referents of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data, the following 06 classes, namely: Flora, Fauna, Inanimate nature, Food and beverages, Man-made objects, Body and bodily products have been the official classifying criterion in this dissertation (Griber YA, Mylonas D, Paramei GV, 2018: 958-975) The following criteria towards the comparing-contrastive procedure, with reference to the categories of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data, must be satisfied: (i) Comparing colour classes and categories in terms of percentage in English and Vietnamese data It should be noted that colour class classification and category sub-classification is completely based on the article by Briber et al (2018) (ii) Comparing in terms of symbolic meaning of each colour prototype in English and Vietnamese data (iii) Comparing in terms of cognitive and cultural features of each prototype of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data 4.3 Methods of the study This thesis is designed as a contrastive study using the mixed method comprising both quantitative method and qualitative method: Qualitative method and quantitative method, with bilateral relationships, are inter-twined in analyzing prototypes of basic colour terms Mixed research methods are applied in the following means: identification of appearance percentage of object referents is based on quantitative method whereas further explanations for the distinctive features between English and Vietnamese languages depend on qualitative method as well as the similarities and the differences among these prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese count on contrastive method The comparison of the prototypes of basic colour terms in these two languages help gain more fine-grained insights the similarities and differences associated with basic colour terms in two cultures THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK The first concentration is on the empirical studies on the subject of studies on colour terms from the multi-aspect research orientation (particularly, from lexical, semantic, cultural and cognitive perspectives) performed in English and Vietnamese data From this synthesized collection, the gap that these researches have ignored or mentioned not as deeply as it could be should be the potential research idea for further exploitation in this dissertation That is to say, this research is principally inspired by the unavailability of scholarly studies exploring prototypes of basic colour terms based on cognitive and cultural explanations for the identification of the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese data The difference between this dissertation research orientation compared to other previous performances is the combination of prototype theory (in which prototypes of basic colour terms are defined based on the highest percentage of the most salient object referent associated with one basic colour term) and colour class classification (namely, Flora, Fauna, Inanimate nature, Man-made object, Food and Beverage, Body and bodily product) (based on the shared attributes among these object referents attached to basic colour terms) accompanied by further explanations from cognitive and cultural characteristics for the obvious picture sketching the similarities and the differences between English and Vietnamese data on the subject of prototypes of basic colour terms What is more, the theoretical background of the core elements forming mainline research spine is explored, listing as prototype theory, naming theory, categories, cognition and culture elements Particularly, more knowledge related to prototype theory (definitions of prototype term, developing stages of prototype term and that of prototype theory) as well as categories (definition, multi-aspect viewpoints, development history, classifying criteria) is another focus of this theoretical section Additionally, knowledge concerning cognition and culture elements, the explanatory roles in this dissertation for the similarities and the differences, are provided in terms of definitions from multiaspect perspectives besides distinctive national English and Vietnamese cultural features For a more detailed description on the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese nations towards prototypes of basic colour terms, more information on the subject of language-cognition-culture relation is also supplied, in which the intertwined connection among these components is additionally clarified for illustrating this complicated but interdependent connection In terms of target research subjects, particular basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data (the specific basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese, linguistic and physical features) as well as the overview on idioms (definitions of general idioms, classification, details on comparative idioms, researches on the subject of comparative idioms, distinctive national values achieved from comparative idioms) together with explanations for languageculture-cognition relation are 03 other additional issues that are well paid attention to in this section Last but not least, all of these descriptions as regards literature review are expressed in the theoretical framework for a more visual demonstration The outcome that this overview of theoretical framework provides is later paid attention to and succinctly elaborated in great details in the up-coming chapters concentrating on describing and comparison-contrast parts In short, in order to obtain the goals of this study, the theoretical framework to conduct the dissertation is formulated on: (i) Basic colour terms as official research subjects are black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey colour terms in English and đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms in Vietnamese (ii) Comparative idioms formatted as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure in the study scope in English and Vietnamese data is collected from literary works This is to identify object referent X associated with basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese that are affirmed to express richly typical national characteristics featuring distinctive national values, from which, the hallmarks of natural world beauty, of physical and mental values and of national spirit of English and Vietnamese are reflected in the most complete way (Hoàng Văn Hành, 1976) (iii) A category of one basic colour term consists of the object referents associated with one basic colour term and basic colour categories are the object referents of basic colour terms In this dissertation, a category of a basic colour term is defined as the collection of all the object referents associated with one basic colour term withdrawn from comparative idioms that native speakers have traditionally attached these object referents to one colour term (iv) A prototype of a basic colour term is identified from the list of object referents associated with one basic colour term used by native speakers through comparative idioms based on the criterion of occupying the highest approximate percentage (v) Comparative criteria towards prototypes of basic colour terms and colour classes and categories between English and Vietnamese are classified according to the approximate percentage in identifying the prototypes of basic colour terms as well as the classification of 06 classes (Flora, Fauna, Inanimate nature object, Food and beverage, Man-made product, Body and bodily product) (vi) Explanatory tools for the similarities and differences between prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data are based on cultural element and cognitive background Comparative idioms English data: as + color term + as + object referent Vietnamese data: màu + + đối tượng so sánh chuẩn Object referents 06-Class classification Category sub-classification Prototypes of basic color terms Cognitive & cultural features Figure 1.1: Theoretical framework of dissertation METHODOLOGY Data collection of idioms in English and Vietnamese data and subsequent research steps for the identification task of prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese is performed in the following details: Dissertation data is collected from literary works in English and Vietnamese data This English and Vietnamese data as the authentic cultural source reflects the experiences from the daily life of the indigenous community and is definitely the rich source of information to identify the unique culturalethnic-thinking that creates the soul distinctiveness within one language Selecting the scope of such data sources is to have comprehensive and firm confirmation on the representation of cognition in connection to basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data The internal-feature comparative method is applied in finding out the representative examples as ‘central, salient, favorite, frequent, good, typical’ object referents to be compared to equivalent characteristics of the target colour terms In linguistic practical usage, colour terms are defined based on the comparison between colour term characteristics to the features of the typical 10 object referents or the particular representatives in the natural world In other words, colour terms are defined in the visual method: pointing out the typical objects carrying the mentioned colour terms Based on as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure in the scope of the study in English and Vietnamese data, X is considered as the object referent as the best example with the most central characteristic of this specific basic colour term The appearance percentage of the object referents is the focus during comparing processes to X object referents, in English data, in the following as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure in the scope of the study in English in order to identify the prototypes of black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey colour terms in English data Similarly, the same procedure, in Vietnamese case, is performed on as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure in the scope of the study in Vietnamese data with the purpose of identifying the prototypes of đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms in Vietnamese data 6.1 Procedures In order to fulfill the task of data collection and analysis, procedures take place in the following steps: Step 1: In linguistic practical usage, colour terms are defined based on the comparison between colour term characteristics to the features of the typical object referents or the particular representatives in the natural world Comparative idioms formatted as ‘colour terms + as/như + object referent X’ and black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey, đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms in English and Vietnamese languages are the key words to be concentrated in terms of English and Vietnamese data 11 In other words, all the tokens or examples with comparative structures and containing black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey, đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms are selected More specific comparative structures are identified as below: as black as X, as white as X, as red as X, as yellow as X, as green as X, as blue as X, as grey as X, đen X, trắng X, đỏ X, vàng X, xanh X, xám X structures in English and Vietnamese data Step 2: From these structures above, the collection associated with one specific colour term from every single ‘X’ object referent from initial examples from English and Vietnamese data is determined Based on as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure in the scope of the study in English and Vietnamese data, X is considered as the object referent as the best example with the most central characteristic of this specific basic colour term On the subject of data criteria, the internal-feature comparative method is applied in finding out the representative examples as central, salient, favorite, frequent, good, typical object referents to be compared to equivalent characteristics of the target colour terms To be more specific, further outcomes regarding the total tokens and the number of associated object referents are depicted as below: - 144 and 132 tokens consisting black/đen colour terms introducing 58 and 62 object referents, respectively - 154 and 112 tokens composing white/trắng colour terms presenting 60 and 56 object referents, respectively - 55 and 106 tokens holding red/đỏ colour terms proposing 25 and 54 object referents, respectively - 27 and 34 tokens carrying yellow/vàng colour terms bringing in 20 and 26 object referents, respectively 12 - 19, 21 and 46 tokens comprising green/blue/xanh colour term suggesting 13, 20 and 25 object referents, respectively - 10 and 16 tokens including grey/xám colour terms establishing 09 and 07 object referents, respectively Step 3: The appearance percentage of the object referents is the focus during comparing process to the X object referents, in English data, in the following as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure in the scope of the study in English in order to identify the prototypes of black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey colour terms in English data These object referents are collected based on their appearance frequency and transferred into the finalized appearance percentage before concluding on the prototypes of each basic colour term in English and Vietnamese data (the most salient object referent with the highest appearance percentage) Similarly, the same procedure, in Vietnamese case, is performed on as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure in the scope of the study in Vietnamese data in order to identify the prototypes of đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms in Vietnamese data Step 4: The object referent with the highest appearance percentage as the best example or the most typical referent or the most representative object is concluded as the prototype of one specific colour term The list of object referents associated with one basic colour term is defined as comprising the list of objects having the characteristics of one colour or looking like a colour Further outcomes related to the prototypes of basic colour terms are concluded as below: - In English data, night, snow, blood/rose, corn, emerald, sapphire, 13 badger are the prototypes of black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey colour terms - In Vietnamese data, mực, ngà, son, nghệ, tàu lá, tro/gio are the prototypes of đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms Step 5: These object referents associated with one basic colour term are classified into 06-class (Flora, Fauna, Inanimate nature, Food and beverage, Man-made object, Body and bodily product) as well as category subclassification Step 6: These prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data are described (with the concentration on the gaps among these object referents in order to figure out the similarities and the differences) and explained from cultural-cognitive perspectives so as to draw the conclusions on the connection between these prototypes of basic colour terms and national linguistic and cultural characteristics 6.2 Data analysis After data collection, data analysis in the study is performed as follows: On the subject of prototype, category and class classification, object referents associated with basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data from comparative idioms are to be analyzed in the following directions: In class classification, the object referents associated with one particular basic colour term is classified into 06 categories (Flora, Fauna, Inanimate nature, Food and beverage, Man-made product, Body and bodily product) For category sub-classification, the object referents within one class classification are further sub-divided into one specific category based on the identical features Regarding prototype identification, the object referent with the highest 14 appearance percentage is concluded as the prototype of one specific basic colour term in English and Vietnamese data On the subject of comparison and contrast research objective, two specific tasks are to be performed as below: With reference to prototype comparison, the prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data are to be compared and contrasted on colour term pairs between English and Vietnamese data (black/đen, white/trắng, red/đỏ, yellow/vàng, green/blue/xanh, grey/xám) for the conclusions, based on cognitive-cultural features, on the similarities and the differences towards basic colour terms between English and Vietnamese systems, especially on the distinctive national prototype selections CONCLUSION 7.1 Recapitulation This dissertation theoretical framework has followed the currently popular research trend: Prototype theory playing the central mainline role together with category classification of the prototypes of basic colour terms formatted as + basic colour terms + object referent X structure in the scope of the study in English and Vietnamese data collected from literary works strengthened by supporting cognitive-cultural featured explanations In terms of prototype identification of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data, the outcomes are presented as follows: in English data, night as prototype of black colour term, snow as prototype of white colour term, blood/ rose as prototypes of red colour term, corn as prototype of yellow colour term, emerald as prototype of green colour term, sapphire as prototype of blue colour term, badger as prototype of grey colour term, whereas, in Vietnamese data, mực as prototype of đen colour term, ngà as prototype of 15 trắng colour term, son as prototype of đỏ colour term, nghệ as prototype of vàng colour term, tàu as prototype of xanh colour term, tro/gio as prototype of xám colour term Regarding the class classification of these prototypes, the prototypes (night, snow, rose, blood, corn, emerald, sapphire, badger) of black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey colour terms in English data and prototypes (mực, ngà, son, nghệ, tàu lá, tro/gio) of đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng xanh, xám colour terms in Vietnamese data share no coincidence in 11 category sub-classification (Plant, Grain, Flower, Leaf, Omnivore, Fauna organ, Milieu, Precious metal, Chemical compound, Artifact, Bodily product) within 05-class classification (Flora, Fauna, Inanimate nature, Man-made object, Body and bodily product) Such findings prove that culture-specific referents of basic colour terms in English data are completely different from those in Vietnamese data Related to the new findings of this thesis, this research outcomes share some similarities in selecting the most typical object referents as prototypes towards: đen colour term by Trịnh Thị Thu Hiền (2002); white colour term by Trần Thị Lan (2001), Trịnh Thị Thu Hiền (2002), Nguyễn Văn Quang (2017); red colour term by Trịnh Thị Thu Hiền (2002), Lê Văn Thanh (2014); đỏ colour term by Trịnh Thị Thu Hiền (2002); vàng colour term by Trịnh Thị Thu Hiền (2002); xanh colour term by Trịnh Thị Thu Hiền (2002) Besides, totally new prototypes (corn, night, ngà, emerald, sapphire, badger, tro/gio) have been firgured out compared to the outcomes of previous studies In short, this dissertation has brought out the new following outcomes: night, rose, corn, emerald, sapphire, badger prototypes of black, red, yellow, green, blue, grey colour terms in English data as well as nghệ, tro/gio prototypes of vàng, xám colour terms in Vietnamese data 7.2 Concluding remarks 16 The most representative object referents associated with basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese with the highest appearance percentage are concluded as the prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data These prototypes, as the deeply underlying potentials in lexical semantic structures and expressed under the form of comparative idioms, have been constructed during thinking, cognitive procedure through time together with the development history of one certain community in terms of thinking and linguistic history that are brought to fruition in some certain contexts, especially comparative idioms These object referents (permanently, availably and readily carrying this specific colour to compare to one particular colour term) forming the prototypes of basic colour terms in one language reflect the coherent relationship between subjective reality and national cognition system as well as demonstrate each national psychological viewpoint connected to particular national events in social life, cultural history and traditional customs These prototypes, hard to be explained in terms of the original originating source, are unique and distinctive typical for national cognitive and cultural features It is surprising to recognize how English and Vietnamese peoples perceive, connect, name and select the closest, the most familiar, the most typical, the most salient object referent for each colour term This overall picture comprising similarities and differences is the distinctiveness between different cognition systems representing different social-cultural nations Every community member within personal living community shares personal experiences on the subject of the selection of object referents associated with basic colour terms and this knowledge, this habit has been spread from generations to generations in a particular living community in their daily habitual life Through historical development and changes in the new periods, more dimensions concerning this selection in terms of basic colour terms have 17 become more diverse and distinctive, even identical from one community to another From this, more information in terms of living conditions, national thinking, life perspectives are revealed From the orientaton as one intangible activity to thinking activeness, a language is valued as one unique means to encode other various aspects colsely connected to culture element, in which the prototypes of basic colour terms in one language express the most distinctive and individual national features Vietnamese and English peoples have their own similar and/or different ways to perceive and cognize colours; therefore, each national culture carries similar as well as distinctive features typical and salient for their own culture Further knowledge related to living environment, national characteristics, national thinking and social-cultiural features between English and Vietnamese nations is presented and explained in as deep details as possible From this background, world-view pictures expressed in prototypes and categories of basic colour terms bring in the different outcomes in cognitive and cultural features between English and Vietnamese data The similarities among prototypes and categories of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data further demonstrate the common features shared between English and Vietnamese communities during the mutual stable and long-term business corporation, international communication and cultural exchange and interference process From the identicalness among the object referents as representatives in categories in English and Vietnamese data, this knowledge additionally verifies the similarity between English and Vietnamese nations towards basic colour terms; in other words, universal thinking trend has been introduced and imported from English culture to Vietnamese culture and vice versa In other words, due to the social developing trend, the cultural exchange absolutely brings in new introduction, in terms of linguistic contact-transfer methods towards cognitive viewpoints of basic colour terms 18 On the other hand, the differences in the prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese comparative idioms originate from the difference in viewing the world due to the different national viewpoints This distinction or distinctiveness among the two nations results from the nonsimilarity in meaning quantity or abstractness and specificity or the distinctive symbolic guidance originated from the individually distinguished national features and values in historical, geographical, lifestyle, habits and rituals, customs, regional, religious, economic development and growth aspects The differences between English and Vietnamese data reflect the completely typical for English and Vietnamese thinkings towards the same physical subject nature world, originating from psychological features, local regulations among native speakers as well as the overwhelming dominance from natural contexts, socialcultural features in individual nation Through this study on prototypes and categories of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data, it can be concluded that the following elements (living conditions, national features, cultural-cognitive thinking) are deeply impacted, especially due to the language-cognition-culture relation Besides obvious differences between the two systems, some identical similarities, regarding special and unique connections between object referents and basic colour terms, are typically distinctive for English and Vietnamese systems that reflect the special vision towards the world in different ways In short, the knowledge from the prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data reflects human beings’ viewpoint, thinking and description towards this physical world through languages Therefore, thanks to languages, different ways describing this world can be introduced, resulting in a more lively and vivid linguistic meaning but also strengthening and restructuring human beings’ thinking and awareness 7.3 Implications 19 The rich and diverse source of cultural-historical idioms in English and Vietnamese nations is expressed through the use of basic colour terms, in which, the use of basic colour terms in comparative idioms is not simply fixed word collocations; rather, new symbols, new meanings, new viewpoints have been attached through the use of various object referents classified in various categories, various classes associated to each basic colour term in idioms The linguistic meaning of basic colour terms, in addition to the general experiencehistorical element, is comprised of other elements typical for English and Vietnamese cultures As a result, basic colour terms carry both connotative meaning and expressive meanings that have always been rich in cultural and national characteristics typical for English and Vietnamese nations; in which, expressive meanings are greatly affected from national features in geography, culture, religion, general worldview and personal outlooks on life and the physical world around The findings from this study further consolidate the fact that each prototype and 06-category classification of one basic colour term does manifest one distinctive national cultural signal towards reflecting a certain way of experiencing and constructing the world or a linguistic picture of the physical world The differences from cultures to cultures are affirmed to result in communication misunderstanding To communicate and to interpret from one language to another is not an easy task since this academic fluency requires, besides phonetic systemic production and facial and bodily language network, the certain understanding of the complicated culture-language-cognition relation Consequently, it is advised to acquire more cultural values of one linguistic community in order to master one foreign language From the background that linguistic use results in one certain cultural framework decides the way language learners arrange word order for a meaningful sentence as well as the way to think and to assess the objective physical world reality, teachers 20 and learners of English and Vietnamese languages can understand the prototypes and categories of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese in particular and raise their awareness related to the potential similarities and differences in the other language in general What is more, native and/or non-native speakers are facilitated with deeper knowledge of the cognitive and cultural characteristics between the two communities, especially for the benefit of cultural shock avoidance To be able to use a foreign language, the learner should be knowledgeable in history and culture of the target language Currently, the process of cultural exchange among nations is taking place strongly that can only take place when the speaker and the listener be equipped with history length and cultural features of the target community The knowledge of the enriching cultural and national distinctive features being presented through prototypes of basic colour terms helps readers understand the similarities and distinguish the differences so as to grasp the underlying messages conveyed when reading literature works or national idioms Concerning the possibility of applying this research outcomes into the practical teaching and translation contexts, the condensed and synthesized knowledge on the subject of prototypes and category classification of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data can be used as beneficial teaching material with the hope of discovering more deeply the diverse semantic meaning and cognitive-cultural features as regards the prototypes and categories of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data and of transferring this to learners with limited awareness on this subject To some extent, foreign language teachers, with the fully equipped knowledge in terms of culture-cognitive explanations related to prototypes and categories of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data, are more confident in assisting learners during their acquisition of another foreign language, especially, towards 21 the achievement of cognitive-cultural characteristics for a better understanding of the similarities and the differences between the two linguistic systems Based on this foundation of the similarities and the differences between English and Vietnamese data in terms of basic colour terms, teachers and learners are able to individualize their personal methods in self-study and self-discovery of other prototypes of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data from other data sources This practical application helps introduce cognitive linguistic knowledge into the renovation mission of language teaching methodology in general In terms of the possibility of applying dissertation outcomes into the practical English-Vietnamese and/or Vietnamese-English translation subject, the analysized-described content and the finalized outcomes in this dissertation can be one reliable and beneficial reference source for the misson of designing teaching material and compiling English-Vietnamese and/or Vietnamese-English dictionaries or reference materials for advanced translation and interpretation courses From the research mission on prototypes and categories of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese data, this research orientation is expected to be expanded systemically in a more authentic and professional way at the broader data scope with the purpose of completing and supplementing teaching and reference materials for teaching and studying English and/or Vietnamese languages as well as in English-Vietnamese and/or Vietnamese-English translation practice in meeting the requirements of translation quality at the most optimal level 7.4 Limitations and suggestions for further study Were this dissertation performed in the extensive data collection, especially in literary works (always as the long-term literary source accumulated from the general cultural community as well as expressing the private individual usage of one member in this community) withdrawn from traditional folk works to modern literary works, there would be a more all-embracing and profound conclusion in 22 terms of the cultural interference and interchange between one culture to another thorugh different historical developing stages besides the adjustment within English and Vietnamese thinking All of which results in the contribution one literary interdisciplinary research direction from linguistics under the new viewpoint This must be one hard but interesting mission due to the ensured potential practical outcomes in theoretical verification This future thesis should have collected as many object referents from more resources (corpus, literary works) for more reliable and trustworthy prototype collections that are completely typical and representative for English and Vietnamese cognition systems In terms of implications for further research avenues, there should be another research at a broader scale expanding to all basic colour terms in English and the equivalent Vietnamese colour terms This expanded-scaled thesis would absolutely provide the more general and overall world-view pictures between English and Vietnamese nations Furthermore, this dissertation concentrates on basic colour terms formatted as single root words, not on derivational colour terms or colour term collocation There should be another dissertation at a broader scope concentrating on other formations of colour terms with more various and diverse lexical formations (for example, derivational words) for a more general and allembracing research scope LIST OF ARTICLES RELATED TO DISSERTATION CONTENT Nguyễn Đông Phương Tiên (2018) An overview of basic colour terms in English and Vietnamese International Research Symposium Proceedings (Linguistics Foreign Language Education Interdisciplinary Fields) ULIS, VNU (696-707) Nguyễn Đông Phương Tiên (2019) Prototypes of ‘blue’, ‘green’ and ‘xanh’ colours in English and Vietnamese literary works from cognitive 23 viewpoint International Research Symposium Proceedings (Linguistics Foreign Language Education Interdisciplinary Fields) ULIS, VNU (810-820) Nguyễn Đông Phương Tiên (2019) Prototype of white colour in English and prototype of trắng colour in Vietnamese from cognitive perspective Language and Life Journal (11), 25-30 Nguyễn Đông Phương Tiên (2020) Điển dạng màu ‘đen’ tiếng Anh tiếng Việt từ ngữ liệu số tác phẩm văn học Anh Việt Từ điển Bách khoa thư (02) 81-88 + 93 Nguyễn Đông Phương Tiên (2020) A comparison on category classification of black and đen and white and trắng colour terms in English and Vietnamese data Language and Life Journal (5B) 52-61 Nguyễn Đông Phương Tiên (2021) A comparison on category classification of green and blue and green color terms in English and Vietnamese data Journal of Science, Hanoi Open University (No 75, 01/21) 58-66 24 ... Life Journal (11), 25-30 Nguyễn Đông Phương Tiên (2020) Điển dạng màu ‘đen’ tiếng Anh tiếng Việt từ ngữ liệu số tác phẩm văn học Anh Việt Từ điển Bách khoa thư (02) 81-88 + 93 Nguyễn Đông Phương... green, blue, grey colour terms in English and đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms in Vietnamese (ii) Comparative idioms formatted as + basic colour term + as + object referent X structure... natural world Comparative idioms formatted as ‘colour terms + as/như + object referent X’ and black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, grey, đen, trắng, đỏ, vàng, xanh, xám colour terms in English