A study on english and vietnamese metaphors of life = nghiên cứu về các ẩn dụ cuộc đời trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt

428 VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LÊ THỊ THÁI ANH A STUDY ON ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE METAPHORS OF LIFE (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC ẨN DỤ CUỘC ĐỜI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: SEMANTICS Vinh, May 2015 VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES A STUDY ON ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE METAPHORS OF LIFE (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC ẨN DỤ CUỘC ĐỜI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: SEMANTICS Student: LÊ THỊ THÁI ANH CLASS: K52B2 ENGLISH Supervisor: PHAN THỊ HƯƠNG, M.A Vinh, May 2015 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the completion of my graduation thesis, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable help from many people First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to MA, PHAN THI HUONG, my supervisor, for her wholehearted and conscientious guidance and immense encouragement, without which my assignment could not have been completed Secondly, I am extremely thankful and pay gratitude to all teachers of Foreign Languages Department, Vinh University for the helps and guidance that they have given me in completing the study I would like to show my sincere thanks to my friends who help me a lot in giving their invaluable comments and suggestions in the process of writing this assignment Last but not least, I also acknowledge with a deep sense of reverence, my gratitude towards my family members who have always supported me to complete this assignment Nghệ An, May 2015 Le Thi Thai Anh TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A INTRODUCTION Reason for choosing the study Aim of the study Scope of the study Method of the study 5 Design of the study PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Cognition and concept .7 1.1.1 Cognition .7 1.1.2 Concept 1.1.2.1 Basic concept andconceptual system 1.1.2.2 Classification of concepts 1.1.2.3 Conceptualization 1.2 Conceptual metaphor .9 1.2.1 Traditional view on metaphor 1.2.2 The essence of metaphor 10 1.2.3 Metaphor in the light of cognitive linguistics 11 1.2.4 Source-to-target Mappings .12 1.2.5 Cultural coherence 13 CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPMENT .15 2.1 Concept of Life 15 2.2 Concept of Journey 15 2.3 Mapping of Life into a journey 16 2.4 Representations of the metaphor Life is a journey 16 2.4.1 Beginning of life – Starting point of journey 17 2.4.2 Goals of life –Destination of a journey 18 2.4.3 Problems in life – Obstacles in a journey 18 2.4.4 Flow of life – Directionof a journey 19 2.4.5 The end of life – The end of journey 22 2.5 Discussion of findings 22 CHAPTER 3: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR USING LIFE METAPHOR IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENLISH 26 PART C CONCLUSION 31 REFERENCES .32 PART A INTRODUCTION Reason for choosing the Study Nowadays, in the open economy, the integration is an indispensable trend The influence and the penetration in the fields of Economics, Technological and Technical Transfer, Culture and Language have already created a very copious and complicated picture Language plays an important role in all aspects to the development process of every country Even, sometimes, language is a decisive factor ensuring the stability through keeping roles communicating factors, national unity, law, management of the State, politics Certainly, the proficiency skill of a language is very essential not only in work, but also in many fields of life Language learning requires both structural theories of language and communicative potential of language Therefore, researching a language must focus on linguistic competence, English and Vietnamese are not outside that goal In addition, language is the most precious quintessence culture of each country And metaphor often reflects a country's customs, cultural and traditional values, belief, religion It plays an important role in the spiritual life of the community Therefore, when you understand metaphors of a new language clearly that means you get into a new culture That will help you to understand more aspects of the country you are interested in Therefore, it is essential that we should learn metaphor because mastering metaphor of a country means mastering its culture Moreover, there are many metaphors of life, such as life is plant, life is a journey, life is a play, life is a stage And it is not easy to understand all of them because of its abstract domains People who are from different countries, use their own languages Certainly, they can understand the metaphors by different ways Even, sometimes, people who use the same language, can understand the metaphor differently That depends on their experiences in life As a result of various ways people use in attempt to explain and talk about their different experiences in life, plentiful metaphor expressions describing this concept appear Last but not least, the author hopes the survey results on the conceptual metaphor of life in English and Vietnamese can provide readers refined information from two languages with newer things by view of cognitive linguistics Thereby, it can be seen that conceptual metaphor is dominated by the practical experiences, country's customs, cultural and traditional values, belief, etc Aims of the study The aims of the study are as follows:  To have a brief view of metaphor from traditional view as compared to that in the light of cognitive linguistics so as to help the author understand more about metaphor;  To study how the concept „life‟ is mapped into the concept „journey‟  To study whether the metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY exists in both English and Vietnamese;  To offer some suggested activities using life metaphor in teaching and learning English To fully achieve these aims, the study has to answer the following questions:  What are the representations of the metaphor “Life is a journey” in English and Vietnamese?  Why is life metaphorically understood and talked about in such ways?  What activities can be developed for teaching and learning English? Scope of the study The study concerns about life metaphor in English and Vietnamese However, a study on English and Vietnamese metaphors of life is really a broad topic Therefore, it is impossible to cover all kinds of metaphors of life The study only focuses on the metaphor “Life is a journey” in the view of cognitive linguistics Method of the study To achieve the above referred aims, the author uses the following instruments: - Inductive investigating and analyzing methods - Collecting methods - Analysis and synthetic methods - Consulting supervisor‟s advice Design of the study There are three main parts in this graduation thesis Part A: Introduction This part deal with the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the Study Part B: Development This part consists of the three chapters: Chapter I: Theoretical background In the first chapter of this study, the author would like to briefly present some general knowledge about metaphor, source domain and target domain, metaphor in life of cognitive linguistics Chapter II: Development This chapter will present the methodology adopted to collect data for the research, which includes the description of research questions, setting, instrumentations, and data collection techniques This chapter will also present and discuss the results and findings of the study Chapter III: Some suggestions for metaphor Life is a journey in teaching and learning English This part will suggest some implications for teaching and learning English Part C: Conclusion This part will summarize what have been presented in the thesis and also offer some suggestions for further research The references and appendix are placed at the end of the study PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Cognition and concept 1.1.1 Cognition Cognition represents a process of cognition or overall psychological processes, perception, for the information processing It includes people realize and evaluate themselves in the world, and construct a special picture of world And all of things form the basis for human behavior Cognition is all processes, in which, emotional data is converted when passing into brain in the form of spiritual representations (photos, propositions, frames, scenes, ) in order to be stored in memory of human According Мaslova (Маслова 2005), cognition covers both knowledge and thought which are expressed in language, so cognition always closely relates to linguistics The first thing researchers concern about is the relationship between language and forms of activities of human Even, the researchers understand human behavior through language rather than socio - cultural activities According to Schwars 1992, cognitive process needs to be carried out the survey not only on high level of thoughts, words, but also on the level of sensory, movement, which often occur in simple contact with the world With that meaning, cognition is process relating to both the science perception of the world and the simple perception (sometimes unconscious, subconscious) surrounding human reality Sometimes cognition is defined as the computation It means that information processing in the form of symbols, transforms it from one form to another form, to the other codes, to other structures (Rickheit, Strohner 1993) 1.1.2 Concept “Concept” has existed since the Middle Ages According to Pierre Abelard [2] (1079-1142), concept was formed by speech Speech was done in the space of the soul Concept has high subjectivity Human are always towards another entity (the listener, reader) while thinking about objectives Towards the listeners that means simultaneously towards the source of the word – is God Memory and imagination are inseparable characteristics of each concept On the one hand, the concept is towards empathy On the other hand, it is the synthesis of three possibilities of the soul, such as memory, oriented concept to the past, as an act of mind imagination towards the future, and as an act of prediction towards the present Nowadays, it is not acceptable the act that creates the concept is a closer step to the thought of God The guiding ideology of cognitive linguistics is affirmed principle that human plays center role of all cultural and linguistic phenomena Human consciousness plays intermediary role between culture and language And conceptual works as a unit of potentials of psychology or spirit of human consciousness 1.1.2.1 Basic concept and conceptual system To create a conceptual system, we should assume the existence of some original concepts, or some basic concepts, and from which to develop all the rest of concepts The basic concepts organize a space of concept and act as the standard to divide the space That are objective concepts and its parts, movements, actions, location or space, time, properties, etc The combination of all concepts in mind of human is called conceptual system 1.1.2.2 Classification of concepts The cognitive linguists suggested different classification of concept based on their different perceptions  The first classification, there are groups of concepts: - Group of concept under personal history, events, organizations, nations Under each concept is a certain cognitive sense, information, the value of culturehistory - Group of concept under landmarks - Group of concept under scope of spiritual life and emotions of human, such as faith, love, knowledge, soul, spirit, Christianity, fate, hope, dream, etc  V.А Маslova (Маслова 2005) divided into kinds: - world - space, time, number, country, misty morning, winter night etc; - the nature and the natural phenomenon: water, fire, trees, flowers, etc; journey No one can get success without once experiencing difficulties, stumble in life The difficulties in life corresponds to the obstacles in a journey: (13) My life is on the rocks (14) Đi đường biết gian lao Núi cao lại núi cao trập trùng Núi cao lên đến tận Thu vào tầm mắt mn trùng nước non (“Đi đường” – Hồ Chí Minh) (15) Nước non lận đận Thân cị lên thác xuống ghềnh (16) Lên non biết non cao Nuôi biết công lao mẫu từ (Folk poem) In a journey, sometimes, the travellers may get stuck in a traffic jam or in a muddy place and they can not move In life, people may encounter a similar case, such as troubles of their mistakes, troubles of breaking promises, losing their opportunities and they can not solve them Travelers are confused and unable to find any solution That shows the stuck in life without any escape (29) Cuộc đời vào bế tắc (30) I can’t go on way or another way 2.4.4 Flow of life – Direction of a journey It is undeniable that no road is always smooth When we walk on the path, we may encounter the rugged and potholed roads We may also encounter some strange forks which make us be confused and not know where to go Sometimes, in life, we feel like we are not accomplishing anything like we are not “going anywhere”: 19 (19) My life feels like it has no direction (20) Tôi không xác định hướng cho đời (21) Bao nhiêu năm Đi đâu loanh quanh cho đời mỏi mệt (”Một cõi về” - Trịnh Công Sơn) (22) Đi lận đận Ngày xưa lận đận Không biết đâu Về đâu cuối ngõ? Về đâu cuối trời? (“Tiến thoái lưỡng nan” – Trịnh Công Sơn) (23) Ngả đời năm bảy lối (Cho ngày nắng hạ) In a journey, travellers have many options And they should choose a certain path in the Journey to come to their destination, as well as to determine their choice of life path When they make a decisive choice in moral life, love, marriage, career, etc., it is equivalent to choose the branching road in front of crossroads However, sometimes, in life, we reach a difficult decision We have two paths that we can choose In this case, we not definite their aimed destination and we not know where we are going to (24) My life is a dead – end street (25) We’ve reached a crossroads (26) Giữa đường đứt gánh tương tư (27) Đẽo cày đường 20 (28) Tôi lầm đường lạc lối Sometimes, travellers change their turn suddenly And our life may changes very suddenly (31) Những ngã rẽ đôi khi/ Trải thảm nhung rực rỡ Đôi trắc trở những/ Toan tính chẳng thể lường (Dự Cảm) (32) My life took a sudden turn (for the better or for the worse) (33) My life took me a sharp turn (34) Thật thay đổi sức tưởng tượng Certainly, all of us really want to find directions That means we can find purposes and find meaning for our lives (35) I’m gonna give my life some direction The mark in life is shown by footprints on the roads In case you followed the same “career path” that your mother took, if your mother was a teacher and you also become a teacher (36) I followed in my mother’s footsteps (37) Những đứa gia đình họ theo bước bố mẹ để làm kinh doanh Sometimes, in life, you may meet someone who are much younger than you What happens when you meet them? It is easy to understand that it starts to make you feel old It makes you feel like you are “over the hill” We can understand “over the hill” as “old” Besides, “over the hill” also means not up to date with the most recent changes, with the most recent technology in life 2.4.5 The end of life – the end of journey Life is a long journey And the journey starts when we were born, and will end when we die Completing long journey (life) that is thing every one must 21 The last correlation between journey and life is the correlation between final destination and death Because LIFE IS A JOURNEY, after a long journey, travelers feel tired and need a rest Although travellers can stop different destinations in the trip, certainly, the journey is going to be end It is the end of the line This refers to the end of a journey Sometimes it can refer to death, or the end of a period in your life (38) This is the end of the life of her (39) Ông đến nơi cuối đời (40) Mệt đôi chân này/ Tìm đến ghế nghỉ ngơi Mệt thân ta này/ Nằm xuống với đất muôn đời (Ngẫu nhiên – Trịnh Công Sơn) (41) Everything Dies That is the law of life-the bitter unchangeable law (David Clement-Davies) (42) Life is happiness and unhappiness Life is day and night, life is life and death You have to be aware of both (verybestquotes.com) 2.5 Discussion of findings: As can be seen from the expressions of this metaphor in English and Vietnamese, Life is metaphorically represented as a Journey in the aspects of purpose, progress and problems In order to make clearer how the abstract domain “life” map into other concrete domain “journey”, the source-to-target mapping in the metaphor in both languages can be summarized as followed THE SOURCE DOMAIN THE TARGET DOMAIN Journey Life Destinations Goals and Destinations Trveller Human 22 Conditions on trip Degree of hardships End of Road Death  A JOURNEY  A LIFE JOURNEY Overall, the use of the metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY in both languages are quite similar Most of them describe movement of people to talk about the life Besides, the orientation of life is understood as paths, roads, turns The favourable things of life is understood as a broad and flat road On the contrary, the difficulties are expressed by roughness and obstacles on a bad road Thus, the mapping from the source domain to the target domain which is applied fairly similar in both languages, and reflects the similar cognition of both nations According to the representations of the metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY, many of them are similar: - at a crossroads - ngã ba đường - be stuck – bị bế tắc - dead- end street – ngõ cụt - not going anywhere (go on way or another way) – chẳng biết đâu đâu - the end of line – cuối đường - where - đâu - footstepts – nối gót, tiếp bước - turn – ngã rẽ - direction – hướng Besides, there are some differences between two languages And the reason can be the fact that the culture Vietnam is tropical climate with many jungles, so travelling and transportation used to be mostly carried out by land They often had to climb hills and mountains and wade streams before Therefore Vietnamese people experienced their journeys on roads with „chông gai‟ (thorns) or “thác ghềnh” (falls and rocks) In contrary, with developed industry, English often uses modern means of transportation, so there are not these words in English In addition, Vietnamese culture attaches to rivers and everyone feels close with the rivers where they were born Therefore, Vietnamese often use the "source" the onset of a river to talk about the start place (backgrounds), the provider They always bring in their heart the wish to return to their homeland, where they were 23 born Although they travel every where in the life journey, Vietnamese always think of their root at the end of their life (43) Có xa đời quay lại Về lại nơi cuối trời Làm mây trôi (“Phôi pha” – Trịnh Công Sơn) (44) Dù ngược xuôi Nhớ ngày Giỗ Tổ mồng mười tháng ba (45) Chiều chiều đứng ngõ sau Trông quê mẹ ruột đau chín chiều (Folk poem) (46) Ngày mai tơi xa Biết trở lại Ôi thành phố yêu (“Gửi lại thành phố nắng” – Xuân Quỳnh) There are not expressions "về nguồn" as Vietnamese in English, but they have different expressions which are based on images of “homeland” or “fatherland” The characteristics of conditions of geography and ecology have formed different habits, so the cultural values of each community are different In the west, people believe that God always come along with them in life journey or in England, Christian had a great influence on the spiritual life and the spirituality of the people Therefore, death is believed to heaven, and God is heaven which always accompanies them during the journey: (47) When you look closely to the path you have travel on, you will realise that God was always with you, directing every step you took (www.goodreads.com) (48) God strengthen and brighten your paths (www.goodreads.com) 24 (49) God seeks to walk with you along the journey (www.goodreads.com) (50) May God guide you on the new travel path (www.goodreads.com) 25 CHAPTER 3: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR USING LIFE METAPHOR IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH As we know, to integrate the development trend of the world, the most essential requirement of our education is constantly innovate and modernize the teaching content and methods To this well, the question is how to create more and more new teaching methods to make students become more proactive and dynamic to positively discover knowledge on their own through the instruction of the teacher That helps learners to avoid passive learning style which has existed for a long time Nowadays, there are a lot of new and effective teaching methods One of those method is groupwork There are many advantages of this method: Groupwork method has been highly effective in the process of teaching and learning - This method promotes the interest of students in learning, avoids passive learning Help students develop problem-solving skills in a group, and build high solidarity Students cooperate together in the learning process They are in selfassessment, self-regulating knowledge capital, and discovering more relevant practical knowledge The discussion of groups are under the supervision of teachers That helps reduce a lot of bad habits, such as private conversations, lack of concentration, joking - Most of students use the deductive and thinking methods to solve problems Therefore, the scientific knowledge which they gather will be inculcated and memorable Here are some suggestions for using life metaphor for improving speaking and teamwork skills in speaking classes These activities can be used for intermediate students 3.1 - PICTURE DESCRIPTION Aim: practise retention ability and describing pictures skill 26 - Type: Teamwork - Material: some pictures - Time: - minutes Preparation: the teacher collects some pictures (from books, magazines, newspaper, ) - Procedure: + The teacher divides class into groups (seven students/one group) + Four groups are given four pictures (4 different pictures) + Each team chooses two members They go to the broad and look at and remember their picture in minute Then, they come back to their group to describe the picture for other members Then the duty of the members is draw the picture on the board in minutes + Finally, which group can draw the picture which is the most similar to the original picture will become the winner For example: Student 1: There is just a road and it is nearby a river There are two people on the road A man is walking behind a woman who is riding a bicycle They are in the sky of twilight They are on their journey - students: draw the picture 27 3.2 START WITH THE TAGS GAME - Aim: practise writing English vocabularies - Type: representative - Material: None - Time: – 10 minutes - Preparation: None - Procedure: + There are groups Each group discusses to choose the best representative to compete representatives of groups are divided into couples and compete directly + Each round: people join, then remove one to choose the best one + students have to write some words (about life and journey) on the board by chalk After teacher read one word, the first student (A) writes this word on the board Then, student behind A continues writing another word (the last letter of word of student A is the first letter of this world) Until one of them can not write any word, he/she is out Keep playing directly until choosing the best student For example: - Teacher: Birth - Student A: Human - Student B: 3.3 WHISPERING - Aim: Practise to remember English vocabularies - Type: Teamwork - Material: Some idioms with “life” - Time: 8- 10 minutes - Preparation: teacher collect some idioms with “life” - Procedure: + There are groups, members/1 group + Each group stand in one row, the order – 28 + The duty of the first member is to remember exactly the sentence in paper, then transfer to the 2nd one, then 2nd one transfers to the 3rd one And the duty of the last one is to write the sentence which he/her heard on the board (transmission only by whispering to make sure that the 2nd can hear information from only the 1st, the 3rd can hear from only the 2nd ) |+ After finishing turn 1, change position: -> 1, 1-> 2, -> 3, -> 4, -> 5, -> 6, ->7 + Finally, which group can write the most correct sentences on the board will become the winner For example: + Group 1: including: members: A, B, C, D, E, F, G + A opens paper, read by his eyes, then transfer the sentence: “Life isn‟t finding yourself, life is about creating yourself” to B + B whispers with C + C whispers with D + D whispers with E + E whispers with F + F whispers with G + F writes the sentence on the board + F continues opening paper 3.4 PRESENTATION AND INTERPRETING - Aim: Practise presentation and interpreting skills - Type: Teamwork - Procedure: + Each group prepares presentation with topic “Life is a journey” (in minutes) + While one member of group is presenting, one member of group is interpreting for whole class (group 2, group 3, group 4, group ) + After finishing presentation, other students ask some questions for not clear problems Another student continues interpreting + Finally, group will become the winner: the best presentation and the best interpreting 29 For example: + Group 1: In journey, travellers have many options And they should choose a certain path in the Journey to come to their destination, as well as to determine their choice of life path When they make a decisive choice in moral life, love, marriage, career it is equivalent to choose the branching road in front of crossroads However, sometimes, in life, we reach a difficult decision We have two paths that we can choose In this case, we not definite their aimed destination and we not know where we are going to + Group 2: Interpreting + Other students ask questions for group 30 PART C: CONCLUSION Recapitulation The thesis is a study on the metaphor Life is a journey in English and Vietnamese In chapter one, the thesis has presented a brief account of general knowledge about metaphor, source domain and target domain, metaphor in life of cognitive linguistics In chapter two, the author has studied how to express life through the metaphor Life is a journey in English and Vietnamese, and also found out the similarities and differences in the expression between the two languages.This chapter has also presented and discussed the results and findings of the study The next chapter has suggeseted some implications for teaching and learning English paying much attention to improving speaking and teamwork skills for students The survey of conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese hope to have new things to continue discussing There are basic similarities and differences in the metaphor Life is a journey between two languages It contributes to affirm that although how conceptual metaphor is understood, it exists and changes in different languages and human perception Suggestions for further studies It is common that metaphors are the complicated language phenomenon Therefore researching metaphors in common and marriage metaphor in particular is not an easy task The truth is that our paper can not deal with all aspects of life metaphor Thus the authors would like to give some suggestions for further researcher as follows: - A contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese life metaphors, - A contrastive analysis of the relationship between English Culture and English Metaphor of Life, - A Study on the Grammatical Structure of Life Metaphors in English and Vietnamese In summary, mistakes are unavoidable because of the limitation of time Therefore, the authors would be very delighted to receive all your remarks, comments as well as advice to improve this study 31 REFERENCES IN ENGLISH [1] Charteris - Black, J (2004) Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis Hamsphire, Palgrave MacMilan, New York [2] Huong, P (2011) The metaphor “love is a journey” in English and Vietnamese Vietnam National University Journal of Science, Foreign Languages [3] Kathleen, A (2009) When Love Is Not Digested: Underlying Reasons for Source to Target Domain Pairings in the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor Graduation thesis, National Taiwan University [4] Kovecses, Z (2002) Metaphor: a practical introduction Oxford: Oxford University Press [5] Kovecses, Z (2005) Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [6] Lakoff, G & Mark, J (1980) Metaphors We Live By Chicago: University of Chicago Press [7] Lakoff, G (1993) The contemporary theory of metaphor, In Metaphor and Thought Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [9] Quinn, N & Holland, D (1987) Cultural models in language and thought Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [10] Rardden,G & Divren, R (2007) Cognitive English Grammar Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing House IN VIETNAMESE: [1] Đỗ Hữu Châu, (1996), Từ vựng ngữ nghĩa tiếng Việt, NXB Đại học Quốc gia [2] Alain Gheerbrant Jean, (2002), Từ điển biểu tượng văn hoá giới, NXB Đà Nẵng [3] Lý Tồn Thắng, (2005), Ngơn ngữ học tri nhận - 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UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES A STUDY ON ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE METAPHORS OF LIFE (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC ẨN DỤ CUỘC ĐỜI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: SEMANTICS Student:... researcher as follows: - A contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese life metaphors, - A contrastive analysis of the relationship between English Culture and English Metaphor of Life, - A Study. .. are many metaphors of life, such as life is plant, life is a journey, life is a play, life is a stage And it is not easy to understand all of them because of its abstract domains People who are