A contrastive analysis of idioms containing the parts of animals in english and vietnamese

LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 Noun Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 26 Table 4.2 Verb Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 28 Table 4.3 Adjective Phrases of the idioms containing Tp

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

VÕ THỊ NGỌC LIÊN

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

Supervisor: TRUONG VAN DINH, Ph.D

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify that all work in this thesis is my original work and the substance of this thesis has not been submitted to any other university or institution Therefore, I am fully responsible for the contents of the thesis

The research reported in this thesis was approved by The Department

of Foreign Languages, Quy Nhon University

Binh Dinh, August 30 th , 2021

VO THI NGOC LIEN

Secondly, I would also like to show my gratitude to all the teachers of the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, Department of foreign languages, Quy Nhon University, whose lectures and guidance have helped me so much while carrying out this study

Thirdly, my deepest thanks are for my lovely colleagues and my friends have helped and encouraged me during my preparation until I complete my study

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the considerate support and indispensable assistance of my parents, my husband and my children while the work was being done

One more thing I would like to say is that despite all the efforts, I have made and the advice and assistance I have received, I am sure my minor thesis is far from perfect Therefore, there are a lot of inadequacies and shortcomings that are unavoidable in my minor thesis, which is my responsibility

iii

ABSTRACT

One of the most important elements in implication of culture and language is the use of idioms In daily communication, both English and Vietnamese people often utilize a large number of idioms However, learners

in both languages have a lot of difficulties in using them Therefore, English teachers have to teach the students not only the knowledge of language but also that of culture, which enable them to communicate languages proficiently

Animals plays an integrate role in both English and Vietnamese culture There are a huge number of idioms relating to animals in both languages However, the number of idioms containing the parts of animals is quite small and the study of them is rare Therefore, the study of idioms relating to the parts of animals will contribute to the full collection of works on animal idioms Moreover, this study clarifies the syntactic and semantic features in both languages, which help learners to use them more easily and effectively

Finally, the findings analyzed in the study reveal that there are some similarities and differences about structural and semantic peculiarities of idioms containing the parts of animals in English and Vietnamese In respect

of syntactic features, both languages have idioms under a variety of phrase and sentence structures Semantically, there are more idioms containing the parts of animals implicating human than non - human in both languages

TABLES OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT Error! Bookmark not defined.iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Error! Bookmark not defined.iv ABBREVIATIONS Error! Bookmark not defined.v LIST OF TABLES Error! Bookmark not defined.vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Significance of the study 2

1.3 Aim and objectives of the study 2

1.3.1 Aim of the study 2

1.3.2 Objectives of the study 3

1.4 Research questions 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Organization of study 4

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 PREVIOUS STUDIES 5

2.2 Theoretical background 6

2.2.1 Definitions of idioms 6

2.2.2 Idioms and Other Language Units 8

2.2.3 Idiom relation to Language and Culture 9

2.2.4 Characteristics of idioms 11

2.2.5 Overview of Phrase and Sentence Structures 18

3.1 Research Methods 23

3.2 Data collection 23

3.3 Data analysis 23

v

3.4 Procedures 24

3.5 Validity and Reliability 24

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 26

4.1 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 26

4.1.1 Phrase Structures 26

4.1.2 English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals of Sentence and clause Patterns 34

4.2 Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the parts of animals in English and IN Vietnamese 36

4.2.1 Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the parts of animals in English 38

4.2.2 Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the parts of animals in Vietnamese 39

4.3 SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 41

4.3.1 Idioms having Human Implication 41

4.3.2 Idioms having non-human implications 53

4.4 SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING TpsOAs IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 57

4.4.1 Similarities 57

4.4.2 Differences 59

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 63

5.1 Conclusion 63

5.2 Implications 64

5.2.1 Implication for learning idioms contaning TpsOAs 64

5.2.2 Implication for teaching idioms contaning TpsOAs 65

5.2.3 Implication for translating idioms contaning TpsOAs………61

5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 67

5.3.1 Limitations of the study……… ……… 67

5.3.2 Suggestions for Further Research 67

REFERENCES 69 APPENDIX

TOPIC ASSIGNING CERTIFICATE

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1 Noun Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 26 Table 4.2 Verb Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 28 Table 4.3 Adjective Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 31 Table 4.4 Preposition Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 32 Table 4.5 Phrase Structures of the idioms TpsOAs 33 Table 4.6 Sentences of the idioms containing TpsOAs 34

Table 4.7

Table 4.7 Frequency of the Parts of animals in English

Table 4.8 Frequency of Semantic Features of Idioms containing

Summers (2001), “idiom is a phrase that has a meaning different from the meanings of its individual parts” This helps to explain why it is often

difficult to translate an idiom from one language to another without incurring some change in meaning or usage

Additionally, there are many interesting things when we discover the different cultures in both languages to know the idioms containing the images

of animals clearly According to Judith Siefring (2005), each idiom has a

story or a cultural feature besides their meaning For example, the idiom “in the catbird seat” is said to have originally referred to baseball player in the fortunate position of having no strikes and therefore three balls still to play (a reference made in James Thurber‘s short story The Catbird Seat)

In Vietnamese culture, a culture of distinctive community characteristic, caring for the idioms containing the images of animals which have a close-knit with people‟s life For instance, while Vietnamese people

tell about pets like dog with both positive and negative meaning (“Mèo đến

nhà thì khó, chó đến nhà thì sang‖- It's difficult for a cat to come home, but for a dog to come home) and ―thằng chó chết‖ (a dead dog), the English people consider it as a loving or appreciation in the idiom “a lucky dog”

However, there have been many theses relating to analysing idioms containing the images of animals before The idioms containing the parts of the animals have not been mentioned and researched deeply on their structures and meanings in both English and Vietnamese

In this thesis, I have decided to choose the topic “A contrastive analysis of the parts of animal idioms in English and Vietnamese”

1.2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Our thesis on study idioms containing the parts of animals has the following importance:

Theoretically, this study provides a better insight into analysing the semantic and syntactic features of English and Vietnamese idioms The findings of the research can contribute to explaining the linguistic similarities

as well as differences between the two languages

Practically, thanks to this study, Vietnamese learners can not only realize how to use the idioms containing the parts of animals appropriately but also have a clear insight into the custom and the social behaviour of native speakers in both languages from the result found in the study What

is more, learners can master a source of English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals (TpsOAs) to use them in reality

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1.3.1 Aim of the study

The study aims to make a comparison between English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals on the basis of the analysis of their semantic and syntactic features in order to find their similarities and

3

differences ones between the two languages

1.3.2 Objectives of the study

To achieve the aim of the study, the researcher tried to fulfill two following objectives:

+ To study the semantic and syntactic features of idioms containing the parts of animals in both English and Vietnamese

+ To compare and contrast the semantic and syntactic features of idioms containing the parts of animals in both English and Vietnamese

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Idioms have become an attractive subject of many recent researches in various languages Therefore, the similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic features extracted from the study of idioms containing the parts of animals could be explained on the basis of cultural features of the language in comparison Especially, with the aspect of semantic features, the author does not aim at finding the equivalents of all English animal idioms

in Vietnamese, but focuses only on analysing idioms containing the parts of animals having human implications or not For instance, idioms having human implications often show human‟s characteristics, emotion, or appearance, etc and idioms having non- human implications are like quantity, size, or opinion etc

Last but not least, the study is concerned with idioms and proverbs containing the parts of animals, but not with all animal idioms because some previous thesis mentioned idioms relating animals in general

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF STUDY

The thesis is divided into five chapters

Chapter 1, THE INTRODUCTION, presents rationale which paves the way for the next aims, objectives of the research, research questions, scope of the study, along with the organization of the study

Chapter 2, THE LITERATURE REVIEW, introduces theory of syntactic and semantic features of idioms containing the parts of animals, and the prior researches related to this study so that the author can find out their research gaps

Chapter 3, RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY, is the description of the research method, the data collection and data analysis

Chapter 4, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION, is related to our Findings and Discussion on the similarities and differences about syntactic and semantic features expressed in idioms containing the parts of animal between English and Vietnamese

Chapter 5, CONCLUSION, summarizes the conclusions drawn out from the study and some suggestions for further study

of English Idioms by Fergusson, R., From the Horse‟s Mouse: Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms by Ayto, J Besides, there are a lot of works on

it such as “Essential Idioms in English Phrasal Verbs and Collocations by Robert J Dixson”, or “Idioms for Everyday Use” by Broukai, M etc…

Vietnamese linguists are also concerned about idiomaticity, which plays an important role in studying and developing Vietnamese language The pioneers are Nguyễn Lực and Lương Văn Đang Nguyễn Lực published a

useful book “Thành Ngữ Việt Nam”

There have been a plenty of contrastive studies on idioms in Vietnamese and other languages with many kinds of idioms Here are some

studies relating to the field of the study: “A Contrastive study of connotation

of Vietnamese Zodiac Animal in English and Vietnamese Idioms and Proverbs”; ―Thành ngữ chứa từ gọi tên Ðộng vật trong tiếng Việt‖; ―Đối chiếu thành ngữ trên báo chí Tiếng Trung và Tiếng Việt‖; ―Attitudes toward idioms and idiom learning strategies‖; and ―Ngữ Nghĩa của từ ngữ chỉ động vật trong thành ngữ Tiếng Việt so sánh với thành ngữ Tiếng Anh‖

Nguyen Quoc Toan (2011) focused on researching connotation of

Vietnamese Zodiac Animal based on the contrastive methods so as to realize the similarities and differences meanings of English and Vietnamese idioms

and proverbs, but only related to twelve animals

Nguyen Thi Trung Anh (2019) made a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese idioms about dogs in terms of syntactic and semantic aspects The findings obtained from the data analysis of 110 English and Vietnamese idioms related to dogs show that syntactically, there are a variety of phrasal structures and sentence structures appearing English and Vietnamese idioms about dogs, and semantically, the data was studied and analyzed positive, negative and neutral meanings about human characters, luck and life conditions

Ho Thi Thuc Nhi (2020) showed the metaphorical meaning of animal idioms in relation between human beings and animals

Moreover, the above-mentioned studies focus only on the meaning of the animal idioms or the statistics about the number of idioms containing names of animals Not many studies analyzed animal idioms and proverbs, especially idioms containing the parts of animals under the aspects of semantic and syntactic features That is the reason why the author chooses this topic The researcher can make a contrastive analysis on semantic and syntactic characteristics of English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals

7

configuration.” For example: Vietnamese idiom has a sentence “Mẹ tròn con vuông”, but we cannot turn it into “Mẹ vuông con tròn”

Additionally, according to the Oxford English Dictionary and the

Longman Dictionary of Idioms, ―the idiom originates from an ancient method for slaughtering pigs Before being killed, the pigs‘ feet were tied to a beam – the bucket – to prevent them from kicking out and to hang them up by the heels after being killed At the moment the pigs were killed, they kicked the bucket for a last time Therefore, this movement was seen as an indicator of their death.” (cited in “Idiom creativity” by Langlotz (2006, p.134))

Many Vietnamese linguists also have the same concepts of idiom Hoang Van Hanh (2004) defines that idioms are a group of words in a fixed order about the characteristic structures and complete and figurative meanings which is ultilized widely in daily communication, especially in speech

Nguyễn Đức Dân (1986) states that idiom is an element in a fixed form and it reflects the notions, the ways of speech, the ways of thought and people‟s specific characteristics

Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến (1997, p.153 – 165) give the following definition “idioms are groups of words which are syntactically restricted and have particular meanings Their meanings are often imaginative and figurative”

In short, most of the linguists abroad and at home proposed that idiom

is a fixed phrase which is used commonly

2.2.1.2 Proverb in relation to idiom

Mieder (1993, p.5) has proposed the following definition, "A proverb is

a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorizable form and which is handed down from generation to generation"

According to Hornby (1995), proverb is defined as “a short well-known sentence or phrase that states a general truth about life or giving advice, ie:

“Better safe than sorry or Don‘t put all your eggs in one basket‖ Moreover, according to Vu Ngoc Phan (2000), proverb was known as “a complete saying expressing one idea of comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism”

It can be seen from the above-mentioned researchers‟ notions that idioms and proverbs have many similar characteristics and that is why researchers usually study together First of all, both idioms and proverbs are ready-made They are made from human‟s thought, cultures and processes of hard working and studying They are orally passed from generation to generation and naturally accepted in public Secondly, in the aspect of structural features, both of them are fixed expressions and their components are not substituted Therefore, people cannot infer from individual words, which must be understood as a whole In addition, most of idioms and proverbs, whose unaccepted changes in the meaning of whole group make them nonsensical, are often discovered metaphorically

However, there are some differences between idiom and proverb The proverb is a complete sentence with a firm structure that is based on an unchangeable foundation In contrast, idioms are not syntactically independent because they cannot always occur as full sentences, but as a part

of a sentence Therefore, people said that the differences between idiom and proverb are structure, form and function

2.2.2 Idioms and Other Language Units

2.2.2.1 Idioms and phrases

People might misunderstand some idioms as phrases and vice versa

Fromkin, Rodman, Collins and Blair state that “Idioms are similar to ordinary phrases except that they tend to be frozen in form and do not readily enter

9

into other combinations or allow the other to change”

2.2.2.2 Idioms and Collocations

Cruse (1986, p.40) found that “collocation will be used to refer to sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur, but which are not nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also

a semantic constituent”

2.2.2.3 Idioms, saying and Clichés

According to Cambridge dictionary, “a saying is a known wise statement that often has a meaning that is different from the simple meanings of the words it contains” (cited in https://dictionary.cambridge.org /vi/dictionary/English/saying) All proverbs are sayings but idioms are neither proverbs nor sayings

well-“A cliché is a phrase or idea that has been used so often that it no longer has much meaning and is not interesting.‖ (Hornby, 2000, p.218) In

spite of having some relevance to idioms, clichés are not idioms

2.2.3 Idiom relation to Language and Culture

“Idiomatic expressions offer a unique opportunity to teach and learn about the vocabulary richness of the target language as well as the cultural aspects hidden behind those fixed expressions Every culture has developed its own expressions, which second (SL) and foreign language (FL) learners should acquire if they wish to exhibit a ―native-like command‖ of the target language‖ (Wray, 2000, as cited in Asl, 2013)

In current tendencies of daily conversation, English people mostly use idioms Therefore, idioms are not separate parts of the language, which originate necessary parts of the vocabulary of English and Vietnamese language

According to Richards (1992), language often consists of three main

functions such as descriptive, expressive, and social Idioms and proverbs

have all these functions Proverb not only has descriptive function, which conveys factual information, but also has expressive function i.e to express people‟s preference, feelings, characteristics etc It implies many things such

as experience and morality Besides, it also expresses social function, which reflects people‟s relation in society For all these things above, we can conclude that language, culture and proverb and idiom are close-knit Both proverb and idiom reflect values, beliefs across culture

2.2.3.1 Characteristics of Vietnamese Culture

Vietnam is a country where there are plenty of ethnics and cultural diversity Each of the ethnic minorities has made their important contribution

to Vietnam‟s culture However, Vietnamese cultural diversity is considered to

be unity Throughout many work-hard wars, Vietnamese people has become determined, hard-working and solidary in maintaining and preserving the belief, customs and family values Therefore, we have made unique cultural identity of Vietnam

Vietnamese people work hard with their fields and raise buffaloes, pigs, cows, chickens, etc throughout the year Therefore, images of animals as well

as their parts often appear in their idioms in Vietnam in order to describe Vietnamese people‟s cultural life lively

2.2.3.2 Characteristics of English Culture

According to Jonathan Crowther and Kathryn Kavanag (1999), the British are famous for being a nation of animal lovers, and most families have

at least one pet Therefore, they are sentimental about and often treat them as

people or human‟s best friends, “a man's best friend is his dog‖ Additionally,

the British names some types of animals for competition sports such as dog races Last but not least, England, a Western country, has the nomadic culture They have different concepts about the world, especially the animal world

11

Each culture highly values the animals that have more contribution to their life, so the images of animals in idioms in England are various; mainly their pets such as dogs, cats, etc or the animals for the race or the hunt, horses, sheep and etc In short, it is those characteristics that create a unique culture

Idioms can be quite clear (Miệng hùm gan sứa, Ngồi trên lưng cọp) or slightly unclear (A flea in one‘s ear, Have eyes like a hawk, Make sheep‘s eyes at somebody) Some idioms have the comparison (Rối như ruột tằm)

The components in idioms can neither be added nor replaced They can

be unchanged or unvaried in the way that literal expressions are normally varied both in speech and in writing

Another noticeable semantic feature of idiom is affirmed by Cruse

(1986): “although idiom consists of more than one word, it displays to some extent the sort of internal cohesion that we expect of single words” In other

words, idiom may be characterized as “a lexical complex, which is semantically simplex” And this semantic integrity of idiom leads to its lexical integrity It means that idiom has a number of syntactic (grammatical) constraints:

• The first constraints are on replacements or substitutions Fernando (1996) shows that an idiom may be varied in terms of number and tense

(inflectional changes) or the replacement of one structure word like an article

by another or by zero, as in

+ “He smelt a rat and he kept mum” (past tense, past time)

(The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English 1983)

+ “Everybody smells a rat in a doctored obituary, even the window”

(Present tense indicating a timeless truth)

(The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English 1983)

However, these replacements can be only applied to a small number of idioms In general, most idioms are inseparable units whose components

can‟t be varied Some do not permit pluralization like in “kick the buckets” (kick the bucket) or ―smell the rats‖ (smell a rat); some do not permit singularization such as ―twiddle one‘s thumb‖ (twiddle one‘s thumbs) or

―rain a cat and a dog‖ (rain cats and dogs) In addition, replacement of

characteristic lexis in idiom is not possible even synonymous words For

example, in ―we look forward to meeting you‖, “look” cannot be replaced by

“see” or “watch” Hence, ―we see/watch forward to meeting you‖ is not idiomatic Similarly, in ―wash one‘s dirty linen in public‖, „linen‟ cannot be replaced by „socks‟, neither can ‗thought‘ be replaced by ‗idea‟ in „have second thoughts‟

• Idiom also resists re-ordering of its parts We consider “He would make a good politician – he could talk the hind legs off a donkey.‖ In the literal sense, this expression has a passive variant, ―The hind legs could be talked off a donkey‖ But in its idiomatic use, i.e when ―talk the hind legs off

a donkey‖ means ―talk for a long time‖, the expression does not allow the use

of the corresponding passive alternative Other changes of the order of the

words like in ―The short and the long of it‖ (The long and the short) or in

―What Peter pulled was his sister‘s leg‖ (What Peter did was pull his sister‘s

13

leg) are impossible

• Additions and deletions are also not normally permitted within idiom

Thus, we can‟t say ―To pull someone‘s left leg‖ and “To kick the large bucket”, they have no normal idiomatic interpretation because of the addition

of ‗left‘ and ‗large‘, whereas ‗straight from horse‘s mouth‘ and ‗turn a new leaf‘ are both unacceptable because ‗the‘ and ‗over‘ have been omitted

Such constraints make idiom fixed or invariant and separate them from non-idiom Cruse (1986) recognizes another feature of idiom which shows its status as phrases in a way that “if idiom may be inflected, the inflectional affixes are carried by the grammatically appropriate elements within the idiom, whether or not they are semantic constituents; that is to say, the elements of idiom retain at least some of their grammatical identity:

“John has bees-in-his bonnets about many things”; this expression is wrong because the grammatical appropriate elements “have a bee in one‘s about something‖ is invariant, it does not permit pluralization

To sum up, in terms of syntax, first of all, an idiom is a set-expression

We cannot make any changes to them without losing the idiomatic meaning Secondly, idioms may take many a variety of forms or structures In terms of structure, an idiom can have a regular structure, an irregular or even a grammatically incorrect structure

2.2.4.2 Semantic Opacity

Idioms, as means of non-literal language, have a great extent use in everyday language They contain a metaphorical sense that makes their comprehension difficult, since their meaning cannot be inferred from the meaning of their component parts Their meanings are more than simply the entirety of their individual parts

In terms of opacity, idioms are categorized in a continuum from

transparent to opaque called the spectrum of idiomaticity According to Gairin and Redman, “Semantic opacity is one of the characteristic aspects of idiom

of any given language.”

Fernando (1996) states that idiom can be divided into three sub- classes: pure idiom, semi-idiom, and literal idiom

+ A pure idiom is “a type of conventionalized, non-literal multiword expression”; that is to say the meaning of a pure idiom has nothing to do with

the meaning of its constituents Hence, ―spill the beans‖ has nothing to do with ‗beans‘ In contrast to its literal counterpart meaning, ―letting fall leguminous seeds‖, a non-literal meaning is imposed on the idiom as a whole:

Hoang Van Hanh (2002) divides idioms into three main kinds: idioms

of symmetry (idioms with two members which have the same form or

balanced contents opposite or supplement of each other): e.g “đầu voi đuôi chuột‖, idioms of comparison (thẳng như ruột ngựa) and ordinary idioms (vuốt râu hùm)

2.2.4.3 Symbolism/ Stylistic Features

+ Simile

Here are some examples:

“like a dog with two tail” : very happy

“Thẳng như ruột ngựa” : very frank

+ Metaphor

Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005, p.13) states “A metaphor consists of a

comparison between two dissimilar notion where one notion is to be understood in terms of the other notion” Đỗ Hữu Châu (1986) defines metaphor as a way of naming one object by another object based on the

similarity of properties For example, “a cunning person” is referred to as “a fox”

Metaphor may be based on a variety of types of similarity, for instance,

similarity of shape: “head of cabbage”, “the teeth of a saw”, “an eye of a needle” The similarity may be of function as in “the head of school”, “the key

of a mistery” or of position, as in “food of a page, of a mountain”

Therefore, it can be known that a large number of idioms in English have metaphorical meaning, especially those containing the parts of animals denoting people

+ Metonymy

According to Galperin (1977, p.144), “metonymy is based on a different

type of relation between the dictionary and contextual meanings, a relation based not on identification, but on some kind of association connecting the

two concepts which these meaning represent” For example, in an idiom “đầu

gà hơn đuôi trâu”, “đầu gà” implicates man who is the head of a small

organisation

+ Hyperbole

Galperin (1977, p.173) defines “Hyperbole is a highly emphatic SD

brought about extravagant to overstatement of an emotive experience It intensifies one of the features of the object to such a degree as will show it utter absurdity.”

2.2.4.4 The inseparability of culture and Idioms

The analysis of idioms identifying a person‟s character makes it possible to understand the culture and traditions of the nation internally, as well as to study the language from the linguo-culturological point of view (Angelova, 2004) Language images embodied in phraseological system, being national ways of world perception, are based on the general for all the people logical-psychological and linguistic grounds On the one hand, their explication helps to reveal the mechanism of visual thinking, and on the other hand, to discover the immanent laws of language as a system of signs, which are responsible for the internal organization of phraseological system

A.P.Cowie (1998) concludes that any language is inherently anthropocentric, since, on the one side, it describes the reality through its perception by a person, and, on the other side, the language has an extensive tool set for the description of the person (Angelova, 2004; Hellinger, 166 Motschenbacher, 2015; Krasnyh, 2002) The linguistic direction of current importance is the study of human language assessments and all the variety of its characteristics Therefore, the study of idiom implication in the language system (in our case in phraseology) is the basis of our research

While Amosova, Casares do not include proverbs and sayings into their

17

classifications, Arnold, Koonin,Vinogradov do, on the grounds that :

1) like in phraseological units their components are never changed

2) phraseological units are often formed on the basis of proverbs and sayings (A drowning man will clutch at a straw → to clutch at a straw)

(cited in phraseological-units.html)

Phraseological units can be classified as parts of speech (syntactical classification) This classification was suggested by I.V Arnold Here we have the following groups:

a) Noun phraseologisms denoting an object, a person, a living being,

for example: bullet train, lucky dog

b) Verb phraseologisms denoting an action, a state, a feeling, for

example: to eat the calf in the cow‘s belly, to get on somebody‘s coattails, to

be on the beam, to nose out, to make headlines

c) Adjective phraseologisms denoting a quality, for example: loose as a goose; dull as lead

d) Adverb phraseological units, such as: with a bump; in the soup; like

a dream; like a dog with two tails

e) Preposition phraseological units, e.g in the course of; on the stroke of

f) Interjection phraseological units, e.g ―Catch me!‖; ―Well, I never!‖ etc

I.V Arnold‟s classification includes sentence equivalents, proverbs,

sayings and quotations as well, for example: ―The sky is the limit‖, ―What makes him tick‖, ―I am easy‖ Proverbs are usually metaphorical, for example: ―Too many cooks spoil the broth‖, while sayings are as a rule non-

metaphorical, for example: ―Where there is a will there is a way‖

Through the parts compared in most of the idioms, we studies their meanings with two kinds:

- Idioms having human implications often talk about human‟s characteristics, emotion, or failure etc

For example, to denote human characteristic frankness, we have an idiom: “thẳng như ruột ngựa” in Vietnamese

- Idioms having non - human implications are usually related to

quality, quantity, size, place, development of a thing, price, etc

Here is an example:

+ “đầu voi đuôi chuột” refers to quanlity

2.2.5 Overview of Phrase and Sentence Structures

Syntax is a part of the grammar relating to the structure of the phrases and sentences A syntactic point of view in this thesis is based on the viewpoint of Greenbaum in “The Oxford English Grammar”

2.2.5.1 Noun Phrases

Greenbaum (1996, p.208) finds that “A noun phrase has as its head a noun, a pronoun, a nominal adjective, or a numeral.”

Nouns seldom stand alone so they are often accompanied by modifiers

A noun phrase is composed of a head noun and modifiers The head noun can

be a noun, a pronoun, a proper name, even an adjective Generally, the head noun be preceded or followed by its modifiers It consists of only the definite article and the head, or a pre-modifying adjective and the head, or the head and a post-modifying prepositional phrase, or a pre-modifying adjective, a head and a post-modifying relative clause The noun phrase is also consists of pronouns and numerals and of nouns with articles or other closed-system items that can occur before the noun head including pre-determiners,

determiners like these, 'ordinals' like last, and quantifiers like few

Structure of a noun phrase:

19

NP

(determiner(s)) (pre-modifier(s)) (noun head) (post-modifier(s))

Therefore, NPs can be categorized as follows:

(1) (Article)+ Adj + N e.g.1 Héo hon ruột tằm

(2) (Article) + Past Participle + Noun e.g.2 The green-eyed monster

(4) N/ NP + Pre.P e.g.4 The ass in lion‘s skin

(5) N + Sub clause e.g.5 The tail wagging the dog

2.2.5.2 Verb Phrases

Greenbaum (1996, p 246) claims that ―A verb phrase has as its head a main (or lexical) verb The main verb may be preceded by up to four auxiliaries (or auxiliary verbs).”

Verb Phrases in idioms often consist of a verb and N/NP or Prep.P Therefore they can be summarized as follow:

(1) Verb + N/ NP e.g.1 chance in the cock‘s spur (2)Verb + N/ NP + Prep.P e.g.2 take a bear by the tooth (3) Verb + Prep.P e.g.3 rush into/to the lion's

mouth (4) Verb + N/ NP + Noun e.g.4 flay a flea the hide and

tallow (5) Verb + N/ NP + Verb e.g.5 nuôi heo lấy mỡ

(6) Verb + (N/ NP) + Sub clause e.g.6 sell the bear‘s skin before

one has caught the bear (7) Verb + N/NP + Verb + N/NP e.g.7 được đầu voi đòi đầu

ngựa (8) Others

2.2.5.3 Adjective Phrases

According to Greenbaum (1996, p.288), “the adjective phrase has as its head an adjective, which may be preceded by pre-modifiers and followed by post-modifiers.”

it can analysed as follows:

(1) (CW) + Adj + CW + NP eg.1 thẳng như ruột ngựa

(2) (CW) + Adj + CW + S + V eg.2 tiu nghỉu như chó cụp đuôi 2.2.5.4 Prepositional Phrases

Greenbaum (1996, p.300) also finds that “the adverb phrase has as its head an adverb, which may be preceded by pre-modifiers and (less commonly) followed by post-modifiers.”

A prepositional phrase often consists of a preposition followed by a prepositional complement, which is characteristically a NP, an AdvP, a Wh- clause or a V-ing clause Therefore, syntactic functions of PPs include

21

adverbial, modifier in a NP and complement

Prepositional Phrase

(Pre-modifiers) (Head Adjective) (Post-modifiers)

Normally, idioms formed in PPs usually have the following structure:

Preposition + N/Np

Example 1: Like a bear with a sore head 2.2.5.5 Sentence Structures

The traditional definition of a sentence states that a sentence expresses

a complete thought In one way, a sentence defined as a group of words or even a single word which makes a complete sense

According to Greenbaum (1996), there are four kinds of sentence:

minimally a subject and a predicate In other languages, the subject is often omitted if it is retrievable from context A simple sentence usually consists of

a single finite clause with a finite verb that is independent More complex sentences may contain multiple clauses Main clause (= matrix clauses, independent clauses) are those that could stand as a sentence by themselves Subordinate clauses (= embedded clauses, dependent clauses) are those that

would be awkward or nonsensical if used alone

Here are some examples:

Example 1: “cóc mọc lông nách” is a complete sentence

23

CHAPTER3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

This chapter focuses on methods of data collection and data analysis based on theoretical foundation mentioned in the previous chapter This illustrates where the data were collected, the reasons for the choice of the data resources as well as how the data were analyzed with research methods

- Contrastive analysis is applied to compare and contrast semantic and syntactic features of idioms containing the parts of animals in both languages

- Descriptive and Interpretive methods: Descriptive and interpretive methods are highly required to characterize and interpret the findings

3.2 DATA COLLECTION

The number of samples being investigated in the paper is 50 in both English and Vietnamese The idioms containing the parts of animals are collected from some dictionaries, books and Internet in both English and Vietnamese such as “Oxford dictionary of idioms” by Judith Siefring and “Từ điển thành ngữ và tục ngữ Việt Nam” by Nguyễn Lân, etc

3.3 DATA ANALYSIS

After collecting the idioms containing the parts of animals from

bilingual dictionaries or materials of websites, the author analyses them semantically and syntactically

Semantically, the classification is carried out on the basis of distinctive features of idioms containing the parts of animals in both English and Vietnamese After that the author set a table which is divided into two kinds

of meanings implicating human and non – human Each kind of meaning is set a table to classify the specific meanings For example, idioms and proverbs with human implication express characteristics, appearance, behaviors etc

Syntactically, the classification of the data is based mainly on different structural categories such as: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases and sentences After analysing the theory of syntactic features, the author set five tables for each phrase and sentences to categorize them into their smaller types

Finally, the analysis results of syntactic and semantic peculiarities were examined and compared in each category in an attempt to find out the similarities and differences in two languages

3.4 PROCEDURES

The steps were carried out according to the below procedures:

- Idioms containing the parts of animals from books, dictionaries and the Internet were collected

- The analysis of the syntactic and semantic features of idioms containing the parts of animals in English and Vietnamese was made

- The similarities and differences between the two languages concerning idioms containing the parts of animals with regard to syntactic and semantic features were highlighted

3.5 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

The research data were collected from prestigious books and

What is more, all the research methods utilized in this study are appropriate for a study on syntactic and semantic features

All of the above-mentioned elements ensure that the findings of this study are reliable and valid

CHAPTER4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Table 4.1 Noun Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs

 (Article) + Adjective – Past Participle + Noun (N) (1)

 N + Comparison word (CW) + N (2)

Table 4.1 shows that the first two structures, which consist of only one noun phrase idiom (2%) for each type, make up a quite small part of the

(3) In English In Vietnamese

(a) Bird brain gan rồng trứng trâu, mồm chó vó ngựa, đầu gà má lợn, miệng hùm gan sứa

 Np + PrepP (4) The number of English idioms containing the parts of animals of this pattern is 3, accounting for 6% The preposition phrases in this structure consist of a noun as a head noun and are preceded by a preposition phrase The prepositional phrase functions as a post modifier of a noun before However, the modifying prepositional phrase usually begins with the comparative word (CW) “như” in Vietnamese idioms and only one idiom of this pattern (2%) can be found, as in:

(4) In English In Vietnamese

A flea in one‘s ear Mặt dài như mặt ngựa

Bird of a feather flock together…

 (Art) + N‟(s) + N/ Nph (5)

 (Art) + N/Np + Sub Clause (6)

In the structures (5) and (6), we only find in English idioms: 6 and 4 respectively, and no Vietnamese idiom are available

(5) In English In Vietnamese

Cow‘s thump, Eagle‘ eyes,… 

(6) In English In Vietnamese

Tail that wag the dog, straw that 

breaks the camel‘s back…

4.1.1.2 English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals of verb phrase patterns

Verb phrase is a popular type found in the data analyzed in both two languages There are many structures expressed under verb phrases (N = 8), but English has more idioms containing the patterns of verb phrase than Vietnamese What is more, the number of idioms containing TpsOAs in both languages is different, as in the table below

Table 4.2 Verb Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs

(1) In English In Vietnamese

cast the sheep‘s eyes, twist the nói toạc móng heo,

lion‘s tail vuốt râu hùm, …

 V + Np + Sub Clause (2)

There are only 4 English idioms of this type containing TpsOAs (4%) while none of Vietnamese idioms was found

(2) In English In Vietnamese

Sell the bear‘s skin before one 

Has caught the bear…

 V + N + Prep.P (3)

Table 4.2 shows that there is only one Vietnamese idiom containing TpsOAs of this pattern (2%) Meanwhile, a number of English idioms in this form account for 34% (N = 17)

(3) In English In Vietnamese

hold the wolf by the ears, Bắt ngựa đằng đuôi,

throw sb to the lion‘s mouth,

look a gift-horse in the mouth…

 V+ PrepP + (Sub Clause) (4)

In the structure of verb phrase, the verb is functioned as the central

component It is modified by the prepositional phrase, which is sometime

composed of a sub.clause Let‟s look at the studied sample below, it is

exciting that there is only one Vietnamese idiom (2%) in this structure and 4

English idioms (8%) containing TpsOAs can be found

(4) In English In Vietnamese

rush into/to the lion's mouth, ngồi trên lưng cọp

Jest with an ass he will flap you

in the face with his tail

 V + N + V + N (5) Table 4.2 shows that no English idioms containing TpsOAs in the

structure (5) can be found from my data collection, while 3 Vietnamese

idioms containing TpsOAs exist under this parallel structure (6%) Therefore,

it can be seen from this form that a noun can follow a verb and operates as a

direct object to modify the verb

(5) In English In Vietnamese  được đầu voi đòi đầu ngựa,

treo đầu dê bán thịt chó…

 V + N + Prep.P + V (6)

 V + N/Np + N and N (7)