Kỷ yếu hội thảo quốc tế khoa học xã hội và nhân văn 2021

LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE 1 A contrast between the Vietnamese lexeme “nắm” indicating hand activities and its English equivalent ones in cognitive linguistic perspective Lê Minh Đạt

Social Sciences and Humanities 2021

VNU-HCMC PRESS - 2022

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President, USSH, VNU-HCM

LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

1 A contrast between the Vietnamese lexeme “nắm” indicating hand activities

and its English equivalent ones in cognitive linguistic perspective

Lê Minh Đạt

3

2 Language of love - marriage in Vietnamese fairy tales

Bùi Thị Phương Lan

15

3 Semantic analysis of “shall” in the Singapore Companies Act

Nguyễn Thị Nhật Linh

26

4 Some key terms of systemic functional linguistics

Bùi Thị Kim Loan

ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

7 Edpuzzle - a self-study tool for English listening skills

Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Dung

67

8 Using paraphrasing as a strategy in reading comprehension for EFL learners

Huỳnh Lê Mỹ Hạnh, Lưu Mỹ Linh, Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo

76

9 Students’ perception on being taught intercultural communication

through authentic video watching in English learning

Hà Thụy Vân Hy, Lưu Mỹ Linh

86

10 Teachers’ feedback on learners’ speaking performance - A case study

at Au Viet Language Center

Phạm Quỳnh Mai, Lê Thị Hồng Thủy, Tất Quỳnh Như Hảo

95

11 Common formulaic sequence errors: A pilot analysis

Trần Uyên Phương

106

12 Students’ attitudes toward project-based learning in EFL classes:

A survey at Phuoc Hoa High School

Nguyễn Thị Khả Linh, Vũ Thị Phương, Huỳnh Kim Loan, Nguyễn Thị Linh Chi

115

13 A meta-synthesis: etymological elaboration in idiom acquisition

Nguyễn Minh Quân

124

14 Analysis of intonation activities in the textbooks English 10, 11, 12

(MOET Publishing House, 2020)

Nguyễn Thị Kim Thoa, Nguyễn Thị Mạnh Hà, Bùi Thị Trúc Linh

134

of Ho Chi Minh City

Võ Huỳnh Như Hằng

16 The role of educating K-12 students on cultural behavior

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hương

157

17 Modernization of education system in Nam Ky in late XIX - early XX century

period and experiences for education development in the Southwest of Vietnam

in current time

Nguyễn Thị Quốc Minh

165

18 Position of Vietnam - Thailand relationship in the regional integration

after the Cold War

Nguyễn Ngọc Dung

177

19 Việt sử cương giám khảo lược 越史綱鑑考略 by Nguyễn Thông - an important

document to affirm Vietnam’s island and maritime sovereignty

Đoàn Lê Giang, Nguyễn Thị Phương Thúy

190

20 The economic transformation of Kien Giang province

in the international economic integration progress

Hoàng Thị Mỹ Nhân

202

21 Preservation of electronic records in the context of administrative reform

and the 4 th Industrial Revolution

Nguyễn Phạm Ngọc Hân

214

22 Increasing people’s participation in state management activities

of the commune-level governments in Ho Chi Minh City

Trần Bá Hùng

222

23 Developing strategic partnership in Vietnam-United States relations

with Wilkins’s strategic partner model

Nguyễn Thu Trang

234

24 The effects of using an information literacy model - the Big6 - on English

as a foreign language learners’ writing performance

Nguyễn Lê Ngọc Anh

27 The relationship between the theocratic power and the Neak ta belief of Khmer

people in Lộc Khánh commune, Lộc Ninh district, Bình Phước province

Phan Anh Tú

275

28 Oriental factors in Southern Vietnamese literary theories and criticism

in the first half of the twentieth century

Nguyễn Trọng Nhân

280

Hà Thị Thới

30 A proposal of expanding the Theory of Planned Behavior applied in the study

of intention to have a child among college students

Hà Trọng Nghĩa, Nguyễn Thị Hồng Xoan

299

31 Educational policy in the Meiji Japan: A synthesis review and its implications

for Vietnamese education reforms

Phan Thị Mai Trâm, Nguyễn Thị Mạnh Hà

313

32 Developing Vietnamese higher education administration

in the globalization era

34 Innovation culture - A new direction for higher education research in Vietnam

Mai Đăng Khoa

342

35 Competencies-based education: A global trend and reference to undergraduate

English language program development in Vietnam

Nguyễn Quỳnh Thy, Nguyễn Thành Nhân

353

36 Students’ self-directed learning at University of Social Sciences and

Humanities, Vietnam National University of Ho Chi Minh City

Nguyễn Văn Tường, Phan Nguyễn Đông Trường

362

37 A case study on using quizizz as a formative assessment tool in English

teaching & learning

Hồ Trúc Chi, Đỗ Kim Võ Thụy Phương Uyên

371

38 An exploration of tertiary English teachers’ challenges in shifting towards

virtual classroom teaching

40 Factors affecting the student’s motivation to study at the University of Social

Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City

Trần Thị Ngọc Nhờ, Vũ Toản

395

41 How female managers in higher education institutions cope with their career

obstacles (Case study at National Taiwan University and Vietnam National

University, Ho Chi Minh City)

Nguyễn Thị Vân Hạnh

405

LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

A CONTRAST BETWEEN THE VIETNAMESE LEXEME “NẮM”

INDICATING HAND ACTIVITIES AND ITS ENGLISH EQUIVALENT

ONES IN COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

Lê Minh Đạt *

ABSTRACT

The Vietnamese lexeme "nắm" indicating hand activity has diverse meanings in radiating phenomenon, when contrasted with its equivalent ones in English, the autonomous and generative meanings of the lexeme "nắm" and "nắm+" will be equivalent to seven verbs in English In this study, the author investigates their radiating mechanisms in cognitive linguistic perspective For that purpose, the article will pose a problem, and briefly outline the theoretical basis of cognitive linguistics directly related to the research topic In the method section, the writer will explain and give proofs for the radiating phenomenons as well as the meaning mechanisms of this group of verbs The results show the similarities and differences between the generative meaning concepts of the lexeme

"nắm" and its equivalent ones in English, thereby drawing judgments about external language and cultural society features of the two countries

Keywords: “nắm”, English equivalent meanings, radiative category, meaning transfer

mechanism, cognitive linguistics

1 INTRODUCTION

Cognition is a stage that the object acts on the subject, the process in which the brain makes adjustments and re-perceives the objective world, i.e., the human brain performs to process actions in the world and its relations such as feeling, perception, symbol, conceptualization, and categorization through which to perceive the world vividly Cognition

is also the process of organizing experiences of the objective world through the psychological activities, conceptualizations and structualizations [1] Cognitive linguistics finds similarities and differences among languages, which are not only expressed in performance language in general but also in human cognitive psychology From the time of Aristotle up to now, the metaphor, metonymy and blending theory in cognitive linguistics have been considered important topics, recognized as fundamental symbols in spoken and written language or externalized language [17] The human body is often thought of as a measure of everything around us, as the sage Protagoras said: "Man is the measure of all things" [2] and human’s hands are symbols for all activities and labors in life and of course everyone has hands As the importance of hands, people tend to conceptualize activities as they are and give rise to many metaphorical, metonymic and blending expressions in performance language Within the scope of this article, we only deal with some key issues related to conceptual metaphors,

metonymy and blending of the Vietnamese lexeme "nắm" indicating hand activities with its

equivalent meanings in British English

* Ph.D candidate, Faculty of Linguistics, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU-HCM

Email: minhdattranphu@gmail.com

2.1.2 Phrasal lexemes

In languages besides word, there are other units used as the basis to create sentences, namely lexemes and phrasal lexemes Nguyen Thien Giap has defined nominal lexemes as follow: “Nominal lexemes are phrases that denote certain things, phenomena or concepts of reality” [10, pp.70-76] The author has divided nominal lexemes into two types: compound nominal lexemes and fusional nominal lexemes, specifically as follow:

(1) Compound nominal lexemes: These are phrases whose meanings are also the semantic elements corresponding to the meanings of each forming part and which directly reflect the properties of the object in its own structure meaning For

example: nắm tay (hold hand), nắm cơm (handful of rice)…

(2) Fusional nominal lexemes: These are phrases whose meanings cannot be analyzed into meaningful elements corresponding to the meanings of their constituent parts

For example: nắm được, nắm rõ (understand)… [10, pp.70-76] Mai Ngoc Chu, Vu

Duc Nghieu, Hoang Trong Phien said that “A fixed phrase is a unit composed of several lexemes; exists as an available unit like a word, having the structural and semantic elements as stable as word” [9, pp.153-165]

2.2 Semantic autonomy, conceptual metaphor, metonymy, and blending

2.2.1 Semantic autonomy

Lakoff and Turner [16] provide criteria to distinguish metaphors and non-metaphors based on semantic autonomy If a concept is directly understood by itself without resorting to another conceptual domain structure, that is, semantically autonomous, it is not a metaphor

For example, “nắm đằng chuôi” (hold the handle) in the sentence “Cô ấy thường nắm đằng

chuôi con dao để thái rau” (She usually holds the handle of a knife to chop vegetables) is not

a metaphor, but only refers to the way to hold a knife to cut something However, if a concept

is understood through another, which is not autonomous in meaning, it is a metaphor For

example, “nắm đằng chuôi” (hold the handle) in the sentence “Cô ấy thường nắm đằng chuôi

trong các hợp đồng mua bán” (She often takes the lead in sale contracts) is metaphorical

because it does not refer to the way the handle is held but to the sure way of working while signing the contract or further according to the conceptual blending theory, she is a very knowledgeable person at work

2.2.2 Conceptual metaphor

In 1980, the American linguist G Lakoff and the British philosopher M Johnson [17]

published the book Metaphors We Live By, they introduced the term conceptual metaphor,

and said “Metaphor is not only a linguistic form, but more importantly, it is a common mode

of human perception, a process by which people rely on an object or phenomenon to perceive, understand, think and express another thing or phenomenon; metaphors have conceptualizations” The views on metaphors of the two authors mentioned above are considered as classic views on cognitive metaphors, marking the study of metaphors in the field of linguistics

2.2.3 Conceptual metonymy

In Vietnamese linguistics, metonymy is considered as the phenomenon of name transformation, the name of one object is used to call another based on the law of proximity, according to Do Huu Chau [11, p.52], Nguyen Thien Giap [12, p.165], Cu Dinh Tu [13, p.191], Nguyen Duc Ton [14, pp.1-6] Thus, we can see that traditional Vietnamese linguists basically see metonymy as a matter of language, not of thought Cognitive linguistics partially accepts the view that metonymy is a phenomenon of name transformation based on the proximity, but considers metonymy as one of the basic features of cognition and use of an entity to refer to another related entity in the same conceptual domain Lakoff et al., [17] According to Kövecses [18, p.145], metonymy is a cognitive process in which one conceptual entity (the source) provides mental access to another conceptual entity (the target) in the same domain or the same rational cognitive model

2.2.4 Conceptual blending

Fauconnier and Turner [19] put forward the mental space theory to systematically

examine the cognitive structure of mankind and the representation of linguistic structure in

cognitive structure Then, they expanded the work and introduced the blending theory, also known as the conceptual integration for futher study in cognitive mappings, structure of

expressions as well as meanings of metaphor and metonymy The conceptual blending theory places research direction on the problems of generating and decoding online meanings, or rather, the study of the online construction of speech meaning Therefore, this theory is a trend to study the dynamic state of language, quite different from traditional linguistic theories, including structural and generative linguistics which focus only on the static state of the linguistic form Many people think that conceptual blending theory is the development and deepening of the theory of conceptual metaphors and metonymy (mapping views between two domains), but in fact, it contains and explains phenomena that conceptual metaphor and metonymy cannot explain

3 METHODOLOGY

To achieve the research purpose and based on the actual linguistic data, we will mainly apply the method of introspection commonly used by modern linguists when studying cognitive linguistics and pragmatics Statistical methods are also considered as a specific method to conduct quantitative analysis Statistical results are also the basis for the evaluation

of contrastive results, as well as the basis for the arguments obtained from introspection The statistical method is mainly used when doing quantitative analysis of the ethnographic

subjectivity of the source domains of the lexeme “nắm” indicating hand activities

2 Which verbs in English are equivalent to “nắm” in Vietnamese?

In our opinion, cognitive linguistic theory can be used to answer these questions

3.2 Sampling procedure

In this paper, we have used 9 titles of Vietnamese articles published on websites to analyze and contrast semantic equivalents in English They are conveniently selected

according to the expressions related to the lexeme “nắm” All examples analyzed are cited

from websites and presented in the reference

3.3 Data analysis

3.3.1 Vietnamese lexeme “nắm” indicating hand activities

According to Hoang Phe's Vietnamese Dictionary (2020) [15, p.835] “Nắm” means

“bending the fingers into the palm and holding them together to form a mass” Basically, the

universal autonomous meaning of the predicate "nắm" was announced by Hoang Phe in the Vietnamese Dictionary (2020) [15] In general, all Vietnamese who speak the Kinh’s language when hearing or seeing the predicate "nắm" can understand that it refers to hand

activities used to hold and grasp something in daily life However, when using the predicate

"nắm" in the form of compound or fusional phrases in Vietnamese external language, its

meanings are varied thanks to its mappings based on the cognitive theory of Lakoff and Turner [16] In this article, the author presents the specific cognitive meanings of the

predicate phrases "nắm" in Vietnamese and gives examples to illustrate and contrast the

equivalent ones in English

(1) “Nắm tay” (hold hand)

The compound predicate "nắm" (hold) at "nắm tay" (hold hand) clearly shows the

activity of the verb according to Hoang Phe's Vietnamese definition [15] Using the human

body, specifically the hands and fingers, to grasp something and this is its autonomous

meaning “Nắm tay” (hold hand) is considered as conceptual metaphor when used to refer to

the conceptual domain of love between two people, and conceptual blending is living together

for the rest of their lives For example, in the song “Nơi cuối con đường” (At the end of the

road) by Hoang Anh Minh [24]

From the above example, we can see that the compound predicate "nắm tay" has a conceptual metaphor of "love", “help each other” and conceptual blending of "living a whole

life together"

(2) “Nắm tình hình” (grasp situation)

The compound and fusional predicate “nắm tình hình” (grasp situation) in Vietnamese

from the viewpoint of conceptual metaphor and blending is analyzed as follows:

The predicate "nắm" (grasp) means to know and the fusional phrase "tình hình"

(situation) is seen as an object that we can hold in our hands to move up and down or use it

according to human will “Nắm tình hình” means knowing all the functions of something and

being able to control it at our will The following article title [25] is a good example of this kind to analyze

“Nắm” (grasp) is the understanding and “tình hình” (situation) is an object because we

can raise or lower it according to human’s will In this case, the conceptual blending theory implies that people want the leaders to have a deeper awareness in the work they are undertaking

(3) “Nắm thành từng nắm” (make something into individual portions)

Vietnamese people use the compound predicate "nắm thành" (make) with the meaning of creating, making by hand “Từng nắm” (something looks like human’s fist) is an object created in the palm of human hands For example, in the Vietnamese folk song: “Lý con sáo”

with an excerpt [26]

“Yêu là cùng chung bước trên con đường - Cùng

nắm tay nhau thật chặt - Để luôn nhớ rằng, bước

thật chậm - Để biết yêu em nhiều hơn”

“Love is walking together on the road - Let's hold each other's hands tightly - To remember, walk slowly - To love you more”

"Nâng cao công tác nắm tình hình địa bàn trong

kiểm tra, giám sát và thi hành kỷ luật của Đảng"

Improve the understanding of the local situation in the Party's inspection, supervision and discipline enforcement

“Khi con đi khói hương tràn ngập - Mẹ nắm

từng nắm cơm - Đưa các con qua mấy chặng

đường - Ra đến tận chiến trường - Ngày con

về bình minh sáng tươi - Khắp nước non

sống trong niềm vui - Cây hoa hồng bờ sông

nở hoa - Đón con chim cũng vang lời ca”

“When you go, the smoke of incense fills the homeland

- Mom makes rice into handfuls - Takes you through a few roads - Out to the battlefield - The day you return is

a bright dawn - All over the country live in joy - The riverside pink phoenix tree blooms - Welcoming the birds with merry singing”

hands and the conceptual blend is to express the Vietnamese mothers’ love to the soldiers in the war through the image of rice handfuls

(4) “Nắm bắt” (catch)

“Nắm tình hình” (grasp situation) is the desire to know the whole thing and “nắm bắt”

(catch) is just wanting to know about a certain aspect In case we want to understand other people's thoughts and see what they need to come up with a business strategy as in the title

article “Cách nắm bắt tâm lý khách hàng” [27]

Thus, “nắm bắt” (catch) has a conceptual metaphor is to understand a certain aspect and

a conceptual blending is the way to grow a business

(5) “Nắm chặt” (grasp firmly)

According to the Vietnamese’s understanding, the predicate "nắm" (grasp) in the fusional predicate “nắm chặt” (grasp firmly) is just an expression of using a stronger force to grasp

something In this case, the Vietnamese just use one more adjunct to be able to express a

stronger action of the hands But in the figurative sense in the following example, “nắm chặt”

is used to refer to a different meaning as the article title in the Vietnam Tuoi Tre Newspaper

“Một tay nắm lấy một bàn tay” (A hand grasps a hand) [28]

In this case, conceptual blending emerges when using the fusional predicate "nắm chặt"

(grasp firmly) to denote as a method of psychological healing for people

(6) “Nắm lại” (review)

The compound predicate "nắm lại" (review) refers to something that has not been done well

because the reported figures are not correct If we want to do that job well, we have to review all related issues As the title of Vinh Long province's article "Quickly review all households working

at Ty Xuan Co., Ltd." [33]

Theo đó, huyện Long Hồ cần nhanh chóng

nắm lại tất cả các hộ dân đang làm việc tại

Công ty TNHH Tỷ Xuân (KCN Hòa Phú-

Long Hồ) - nơi xảy ra ổ dịch để giám sát

Accordingly, Long Ho district needs to quickly review all households working for Ty Xuan Company Limited (Hoa Phu Industrial Park - Long Ho) - where the outbreak of Covid-19 clusters occurred to monitor

“Muốn nắm bắt được tâm lý khách hàng, bạn

phải hiểu được suy nghĩ và mong muốn của

khách hàng, tạo dựng niềm tin và có những

chiến lược hiệu quả trong kinh doanh”

“To catch customer psychology, you must understand the thoughts and desires of customers, build trust and have effective strategies in business”

“Tôi cần một bờ vai vững chắc, tôi cần một bàn

tay để nắm chặt tay tôi Nắm tay đúng lúc đã

sưởi ấm trái tim tổn thương, sưởi ấm ngôi nhà có

nguy cơ nguội lạnh theo năm tháng”

“I need a strong shoulder, I need a hand to grasp my hand firmly Holding hands at the right time warms

a wounded heart, warms a house that is in danger of cooling down over the years”

The conceptual blending of the compound predicate "nắm lại" (review) refers to the existing

data that is not reliable for using

(7) “Nắm lấy cơ hội” (seize opportunity)

The compound and fusional predicate “nắm lấy cơ hội” (seize opportunity) is the way

Vietnamese people say in business or working activities When they want to upgrade

themselves to a higher level of development, "cơ hội" (opportunity) means the important key they rely on to advance The compound predicate "nắm" (seize) and "lấy" (take) clearly show their autonomous meaning For example, in an article in Vietnam Dan Tri Newspaper: “Bài

học lớn về nắm bắt cơ hội” (Great lesson about seizing opportunities), with an excerpt [29]

Applying the conceptual blending theory, it gives us the meaning that when we understand and can own a certain problem, we must do it immediately without hesitation (8) “Nắm quyền” (take power)

The Vietnamese have a way of understanding this compound predicate “nắm quyền”

(take power) as referring to a person or a group of people who are at the head of an

organization The predicate "nắm" (take) clearly shows its autonomous meaning and the noun

"quyền" (power) as an object For example, in the article in the Vietnam Thanh Nien

Newspaper: "Tướng Myanmar: Quân đội nắm quyền là không thể tránh khỏi" (Myanmar

General: Military takeover is inevitable) with an excerpt [30]

In this case, the conceptual metonymy has appeared "nắm quyền" (take power) refers to a

leader, boss or a group of people at the top

(9) "Nắm vững" (hold stably)

This compound predicate “nắm vững” (hold stably) is used by the Vietnamese people

when they have fully understood an issue or been sure of something to use For example, on

the Thanh Tra Newspaper headline “Nắm vững ngọn cờ độc lập dân tộc và chủ nghĩa xã hội”

[31]

“Cơ hội không phải ai cũng có, điều quan trọng

là bạn phải biết nắm bắt cơ hội đến với mình,

bằng cách chính chúng ta lao động để tạo ra

tương lai của chính chúng ta”

“Opportunities are not available to everyone, it is important that you know how to seize opportunities that come your way by working to create our own future”

"Một ngày sau khi nắm quyền, quân đội

Myanmar tiếp tục siết chặt kiểm soát Hãng tin

AP đưa tin, các nghị sĩ Myanmar đang bị giam

lỏng trong khuôn viên chính phủ ở thủ đô

Naypyitaw”

“A day after taking power, Myanmar's military

continued to tighten control The AP news agency reported that Myanmar lawmakers are being held under house arrest in the government premises in the capital Naypyitaw”

“Nắm vững ngọn cờ độc lập dân tộc và chủ

nghĩa xã hội”

“Holding stably the banner of national

independence and socialism”

express a thorough understanding of an issue

(10) “Nắm đằng chuôi” (hold the handle)

The compound predicate “nắm đằng chuôi” (hold the handle) In the autonomous

meaning, it only refers to the way in which an object is held at the handle such as a knife or

machete But in the example: “Ai nắm đằng chuôi mạng xã hội?” [32]

The compound predicate “nắm đằng chuôi” (hold the handle) no longer carries its

original meaning but means who will benefit or manage Thus, conceptual metonymy has mapped from the source domain to the target domain in the above example

The transfer of meanings in lexeme and phrasal lexemes (specifically, the lexemes “nắm, nắm+…) are analyzed and interpreted in this direction, will get positive results

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

With rich semantic expressions of the Vietnamese lexeme “nắm” indicating hand

activities, we can deduce that: as hands are used mostly in daily work activities, human beings

have formed the semantic vocabularies of the lexeme “nắm” and “nắm+” in a similar way

In Eastern culture as well as in Western culture, the activities of the hand perform the same functions from the reality of daily life However, the similar meanings are only universal, the differences are very much shown in the meaning cognitions in Vietnamese and English

“Ai nắm đằng chuôi mạng xã hội?” “Who is the master of social networks?”

Table 1 Cognitive meaning of the Vietnamese lexeme "nắm" indicating hand activities

Category Categorization Contextual example Conceptual metaphor / metonymy /

Để biết yêu em nhiều hơn”

Metaphor: "nắm tay" (hold hand) is

"tình yêu” (love), “giúp đỡ lẫn nhau” (help each other)

Blending: "nắm tay" (hold hand) is

“sống cùng nhau đến cuối cuộc đời” (living a whole life together)

Blending: “nắm tình hình” (grasp situation) is “mong muốn lãnh đạo phải có ý thức sâu sắc về những việc

họ đang thực hiện” (want leaders to have a deeper awareness of the work they are undertaking)

“Khi con đi khói hương tràn ngập

- Mẹ gói từng nắm cơm - Đưa con qua mấy đường - Ra đến tận chiến trường - Ngày con về bình minh sáng tươi - Khắp nước non sống trong niềm vui - Cây hoa hồng bờ sông nở hoa - Đón con chim cũng vang lời ca”

Metaphor: “nắm thành từng nắm” (make something into individual portions) is “tạo ra một vật bằng thủ công” (to create an object by human hands)

Blending: “nắm thành từng nắm” (make something into individual portions) is “biểu đạt tình yêu của người mẹ Việt Nam đối với người lính trong thời chiến” (express the love of the Vietnamese mothers to soldiers during the war)

4 Nắm bắt

(catch)

“Cách nắm bắt tâm lý khách hàng”

Metaphor: “nắm bắt” (catch) is “hiểu được một vài khía cạnh nào đó” (understand some aspects)

Blending: “nắm bắt” (catch) is “tìm cách thức để phát triển kinh doanh” (find the way to grow a business)

5 Nắm chặt

(grasp firmly)

“Tôi cần một bờ vai vững chắc, tôi cần một bàn tay để nắm chặt tay tôi Nắm tay đúng lúc đã sưởi

ấm trái tim tổn thương, sưởi ấm ngôi nhà có nguy cơ nguội lạnh theo năm tháng”

Blending: “nắm chặt” (grasp firmly) is

“được xem như là một phương thuốc cứu người” (denote as a cure for people’s illness)

6 Nắm lại

(review)

“Theo đó, huyện Long Hồ cần nhanh chóng nắm lại tất cả các hộ dân đang làm việc tại Công ty TNHH Tỷ Xuân (KCN Hòa Phú-

Blending: "nắm lại" (review) is “số liệu hiện có không đáng tin cậy” (refers to the existing data that is not

Table 2 Contrast the Vietnamese lexeme “nắm” and its equivalent meanings in English

Category Categorization Contextual example Conceptual metaphor / metonymy /

blending

Long Hồ) - nơi xảy ra ổ dịch để

Blending: “nắm lấy cơ hội” (seize opportunity) is “khi chúng ta hiểu sở hữu một vấn đề nào đó thì chúng ta phải thực hiện ngay không nên do dự” (when we understand and can own a certain problem, we must do it immediately without hesitation)

đô Naypyitaw”

Metonymy: “nắm quyền” (take power) is “nói đến người lãnh đạo, người chủ hoặc một nhóm người đứng đầu” (refer to a leader, boss or a group

of people in the first row)

9 Nắm vững

(hold stably)

“Nắm vững ngọn cờ độc lập dân tộc và chủ nghĩa xã hội”

Metaphor: “nắm vững” (hold stably)

is “chỉ ra một sự thấu hiểu toàn bộ một vấn đề” (show a thorough understanding of an issue)

10 Nắm đằng

chuôi (hold the

handle)

“Ai nắm đằng chuôi mạng xã hội?

Metonymy: “nắm đằng chuôi” (hold the handle) is “nói đến người sẽ hưởng lợi hoặc quản lí” (refer to the people will benefit or manage)

1 Nắm tay (hold hand) 1 “love”, “help each other” or “live a whole life together”

2 Nắm tình hình (grasp situation) 2 “understand a general situation” or “want leaders to have a

deeper awareness of the work they are undertaking”

3 Nắm thành từng nắm (make

something into individual portions)

3 “create an object by people’s hands” or “express the love of Vietnamese mothers to soldiers during the war”

4 Nắm bắt (catch) 4 “understand some aspects and the way to grow a business”

5 Nắm chặt (grasp firmly) 5 “denote as a cure for people’s illness”

6 Nắm lại (review) 6 “refers to the existing data that is not reliable for using”

7 Nắm lấy cơ hội (seize opportunity) 7 “understand and can own a certain problem, must do it

immediately without hesitation”

8 Nắm quyền (take power) 8 “refer to a leader, boss or a group of people in the first row”

5 CONCLUSION

In this paper, we have analyzed three modes: conceptual metaphor, metonymy and

blending of predicate and phrasal predicate "nắm" and “nắm+” According to the survey results, there are 10 basic predicate phrases related to the predicate "nắm" Through this category, the conceptual movement of the predicate "nắm" indicating hand activities is

shaped, new meanings have moved far away from the archetypal meanings, following the conceptual metaphor, metonymy and blending transformation Applying the above mapping schemata shows that the cognitive value of each concept is different, expressions with simple conceptual movement also predict a tendency to become target concepts The results of the mapping model research help us localize conceptual domains having conceptual metaphor,

metonymy and blending relationships with the predicate domain "nắm" and “nắm+”

indicating hand activity in Vietnamese and its equivalent meanings in English

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<http://www.baovinhlong.com.vn/thoi-su/202107/nhanh-chong-nam-lai-tat-ca-cac-LANGUAGE OF LOVE - MARRIAGE IN VIETNAMESE FAIRY TALES

Bùi Thị Phương Lan *

ABSTRACT

Words and phrases expressing love and marriage in Vietnamese are very rich and diverse, which is reflected in the semantics field about love - marriage in folklore in general and in fairy tales in particular This study shows the groups of words indicating love - marriage in Vietnamese fairy tales and their semantic relationship in the lexical system Thereby, cultural characteristics of the character's personality

as well as feudal conceptions of love - marriage in fairy tales are analyzed

Keywords: love, marriage, family, language, culture

INTRODUCTION

The topic of love - marriage is always a hot topic in any society and at any time In folklore

as well as in modern literature, stories praising the love of couples and the fidelity of loving couples always have a special attraction for readers Fairy tales clearly show us the desire to find happiness in a couple of boys and girls living in a society where marriage is decided by fathers and mothers Until they become husband and wife, they still have to live in a resigned way, without power in the family despite the hardships they have to sacrifice for the family Studying the language in fairy tales can provide us with rich vocabulary groups about love - marriage that couples often used to express their love to each other in ancient society What words and phrases they used to use, and how they said to show their feeling All of these help us more understand customs and culture in the field of love - marriage of the feudal Vietnamese society

The article first finds out the most typical characters in the love-marriage fairy tale, then describes the group of words indicating the personality of that typical character to see the typical culture of Vietnamese people in feudal society

REASON FOR RESEARCH

Love – marriage is always a favorite topic However, the research on this topic is mainly approached in the direction of psychology to solve the problem of love - marriage Very few studies have been approached from the perspective of linguistics and culture In this article, the author desires to help the teacher of Vietnamese and folklore have a broader view of love-marriage vocabulary groups, cultural features, and have specific illustrative examples as well

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The article will delve into the vocabulary of marriage love in Vietnamese fairy tales Through the analysis and description of the groups of words commonly used to express the love of couples, husband and wife, it is possible to depict the typical cultural characteristics of the Vietnamese people in feudal society

* Ph.D candidate, Faculty of Linguistics, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU-HCM

Email: landhnv@gmail.com

as provide more illustrative examples of how to use language to describe the personalities of

typical characters in love fairy tales

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Surveying 301 Vietnamese fairy tales including 201 stories in the Vietnamese fairy treasure stories (episode 1 and episode 2) written by Nguyen Dong Chi and 100 stories in Nguyen Cu's fairy tale Of the 301 stories, there are 40 typical stories about love and marriage These 40 fairy tales are the stories of the Kinh people and the language used as Vietnamese language By the method of depicting, synthetic analysis and statistical procedures, the article will indicate a semantic relationship in the love and marriage vocabulary system, and Vietnamese cultural characteristics in characters’ personality

A LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Vocabulary on the topic of love - marriage

The vocabulary on the topic of love and marriage in any language is very interesting for many people because love and marriage are an indispensable part of our daily life Not only Vietnamese but all other languages in the world also exist the groups of vocabulary on love and marriage The linguistic dictionary as well as related research projects that do not define vocabulary on love marriage as well as vocabulary groups are divided into significance indicators

in general However, according to the concept of semantics field, we can temporarily understand the words that express love and marriage as a group of words, but in the semantic structure they have meaning showing the love and marriage phenomenon The word love marriage is a sub-system with a common significant theme to show love, marriage

No statistics show the number of vocabulary on love - marriage in Vietnamese, however, the estimated number is quite large Because the cultural conception of love - marriage at each stage

is different, so the vocabulary related is very rich and diverse In addition to the ancient words available, today young people receive the language from outside as well as produce new words of love, and marriage to meet the demand for communication in modern society

The vocabulary on love and marriage in fairy tales is also very diverse Although the quantity is limited compared to modern love novels, due to the concept of ancient love – marriage that is not open With a culture that considers love and affection to be a private matter, and does not dare to express their feelings openly, it partly indicates the limitations in using language to show the love of boys and girls However, with surveys and analysis in the content, it can show us more about their diversity

2 Theory of semantics field

Semantics field is one of the important theories of linguistics The study of semantics field

will help to discover the semantic relationships of the lexical system because the words are not randomly scattered but are in certain relationships as parts of a whole A lexical field denotes a segment of reality symbolized by a set of related words The words in a semantic field share a common semantic property The words, which are part of a lexical field, enter into sense or

meaning relationships with one another; each word delimits the meaning of the next word in the field and is delimited by it (it marks off an area or range within the semantic domain) However, there may be an amount of overlap in meaning between words in a domain, and it is often difficult

to find mutually delimiting terms

Within a domain, some words are marked while some are unmarked The unmarked members are more frequent, more basic, broader in meaning, easier to learn and remember, not metaphorical, and typically one morpheme or single lexical item However, the marked members often consist of more than one lexical item and may denote a subtype of the unmarked member When talking about the semantic field, Do Huu Chau gives his view: Each semantic subsystem is called a semantic field It is a set of words that are semantically identical [5, p.159] The semantic field is divided into three types, namely the vertical semantic field, the horizontal semantic field, and the associative field

Vertical semantic field: is divided into symbolic semantic field and symbolic semantic field Symbolic fields are sets of words that are identical in symbolic meaning To bring the symbolic meanings of words to the appropriate field, we must choose the nouns as the root These nouns must be highly general, similar to the names of symbolic categories such as people, animals, plants, objects, and materials

Horizontal semantic fields (also known as linear semantic fields): Horizontal semantic fields are formed on the basis of choosing a word as the root and then finding all the words that can be combined with it into linear sequences (phrases, phrases, sentences) are acceptable in the language

Associative field: each word can be the center of an association field The words in an associative field are the actualization, the word fixation of the possible meanings of the central word First of all, they must be words that belong to the same symbolic field, the symbolic field and the linear field, that is, words that have a homogenous structural relationship and are semantically opposite to the central word

When analyzing semantics field, the phenomenon of transliteration is also a factor that needs

to be considered Because language always adheres to the law of thrift, simplicity and rationality has the characteristics of increasing and decreasing expressive nuances so there is a phenomenon of a word carrying many meanings, called multi-meaning words This phenomenon

is very common in languages, especially in Vietnamese

In the article, I follow the concept of the semantics field of author Do Huu Chau to learn the semantic vocabulary field in the field of love and marriage in Vietnamese fairy tales

3 Theory of linguistics and culture

Language and culture is a term that refers to the relationship between language and culture Researching this issue, W Humboldt has suggested that the spiritual characteristics of a people lie in language, and language is the spiritual characteristic of that nation [4, p.3] Indeed, language and culture are both products of human creation and they are considered as the crystallization of a nation Language and culture are inseparably interrelated, interacting, influencing and complementing each other Language is a means of conveying culture, and culture is contained in language

has a different way of thinking on the same thing and phenomenon; it is because of the different ways in which each nation responds to the natural environment It is the community's way of thinking that has profoundly influenced the nation's language usage For example, the language

of an agricultural culture will be rich in groups of words for agricultural activities; the language

of a river culture will use a lot of words about rivers, even for daily life activities (quá giang, xe

đò in Vietnamese)

Through language, we can find national cultural imprints Therefore, if you want to study deeply about culture, you must study language, and vice versa, if you want to study deeply about language, you must also deeply understand culture That is shown very clearly when we interact and communicate with people with different cultural backgrounds because people living in different cultural contexts will have different beliefs, cultural values and languages

Rita Mae Brown also recognizes the relationship between language and culture: "Language

is the path of culture." Obviously, language and culture are closely intertwined In some cases, they mean the same thing There is a complicated relationship between them because they are so closely intertwined Children learn culture at the same time as language, so for them, language and culture are the same, an indivisible unity

Therefore, when learning a new language, it also means learning a new culture In contrast, people cannot experience culture without knowing the language of that culture, as they are closely linked in the minds of people in a community That's why when learning a new language, learners often read authentic texts, visit countries and talk to natives about their country, customs and beliefs

In this research, the author will clarify the cultural characteristics of typical characters in fairy tales through the vocabulary of love – marriage, which helps teachers and learners of folklore have a more specific view of the language and folklore in Vietnamese

B CONTENT

1 Typical characters in fairy tales of love-marriage

Vietnamese fairy tales often build typical male characters that are brave, kind and talented boys Talent can be shown through education level, and it can also be physical strength (such as Thach Sanh, Thanh Giong) And female characters are represented as princesses, good or pretty girls Nguyen Dong Chi said that: It is a common phenomenon that the central character of love stories is not a simple farmer, but usually an unmarried student, even though he comes from a poor and hungry family, he is also determined to study with the hope of passing the exam to be a mandarin Girl and young women are usually the daughter of a rich man or a bourgeois, sometimes the daughter of a mandarin [2, p.1646]

Analyze 40 love fairy tales to find the most typical character pairs to serve the analysis of related vocabulary groups The author has distributed the pairs of main characters into two lines of symmetry (in Table 1) The percentages indicate the popularity of the central character type pairs

Table 1 The distribution of symmetric pairs based on the characteristics

of male and female protagonists in love fairy tales

2 Poor but kind boy has strength and

strong will

princess, mandarin’s daughter or rich man’s daughter

64%

3 King/prince mandarin's daughter, pretty and polite girl 10%

4 Ugly boy camouflages under

is beautiful; if the husband is stupid his wife is smart The opposition creates a mismatch in love

(không môn đăng hộ đối) and that is the key point to set up the plot of fairy tales Due to the fact

that the couples have to live in a feudal society where there is a huge class division, they have to face a lot of pressure from their family and society That's why their love is mostly buried pitifully Through death, they want to express their desire for a free and fair society, where their love can be free to bear fruit

Remarkably, 64% of stories that build the image of the male protagonist is usually poor but willful, confident and strong boys Represented by poor students who are unmarried and devote

all their time to prepare for examinations (nấu sử xôi kinh) with the hope of passing the exam to

be a mandarin with the female characters being princesses, the daughters of a mandarin or a rich man Next, the stories with male characters who are kings, princes or mandarins with beautiful and good female characters account for 10%, and it is the same number for stories talking about stupid husbands and clever wives 7.5% is the number of stories with the main characters who are pretty girls and have well-off families, and want to marry ugly boys, often disguised as a dirty

animal like a toad (in Chàng rể cóc), the tiger (Cọp) (in Chồng xấu vợ đẹp) Thus, we see that the

common phenomenon for the male protagonists in Vietnamese fairy tales is not the sons of pure peasants, kings, princes and princesses or rich young ladies, but poor boys, namely unmarried school boys with girls of rich families The girls admire the school boys’ virtue and talent, and they fall in love without caring about the boys’ family condition The girls’ marital view is very different from their parents’, which leads to the girl family's forbiddence As the result, the relationship of the young couple must be finished in many different ways Through the characters

we can see clearly that the content of love –marriage fairy tales, all have the same core value that

is the people’s belief in eternal love and their hope for the freedom of marriage in feudal society Besides, we can also see the diversity of words and expressions talking about love of couples The loyalty of husband and wife, their relationships with the family and so on, all reflect the very unique culture of the Vietnamese people in feudal society

It can be seen that a number of words and phrases expressing love, faithfulness compatibility and others appear They are repeated many times in different stories In which, the vocabulary in each semantic field is also very diverse and rich In addition to their function of expressing their inherent meanings, they also reflect the marriage culture of Vietnamese in the feudal society Let’s consider the semantic field of love and marriage in Vietnamese fairy tales in Table 2

Table 2 Semantic field of love and marriage in Vietnamese fairy tales

1 The compatibility 7 Xứng đôi vừa lứa, đôi lứa xứng đôi, tốt đôi, môn đăng hộ đối, nhân

duyên tốt đẹp, tương đắc,

2 Love and

faithfulness expression

40 Thầm yêu trộm nhớ, trái tim thổn thức, đem lòng yêu trộm dấu thầm,

có tình ý, sinh lòng yêu mến, thương, say mê, thẫn thờ nhớ, nặng lòng, nhìn chòng chọc, ngắm mãi không rời, cảm thấy hồi hộp, hứa hẹn, buồn buồn nhớ nhớ, hẹn, lén lút, kín đáo gặp gỡ, ôm chầm lấy, được mắt xanh để ý, nhớ người yêu, hương đượm lửa nồng, âu yếm, cuộc ái ân, cơn say đắm, lạc thú gia đình, tình tự ân ái, phải lòng, quyết sống chết có nhau, thề, thề bồi, lời nguyền, chỉ (thề) non hẹn biển, đầu bạc răng long, bách niên giai lão, một lòng một dạ, nỗi nhớ nhung sầu muộn,

3 Wedding - related

activities

30 Kết nghĩa trăm năm, kết hôn, lấy nhau, đám cưới, tổ chức lễ cưới, kết

duyên, đem trầu cau đến dạm hỏi, cầu hôn, cưới cheo, đi lấy chồng, thành gia thất, chung chăn gối, về làm bạn với nhau, lễ thành hôn, sửa soạn cỗ bàn, khách dự, làm sính lễ, mang trầu đến dạm hỏi, sính

lễ, bước về nhà chồng; làm lễ, khấn vái trước bàn thờ, lễ thành hôn, hứa hôn, chung chăn gối, chung sống, nên vợ nên chồng,

4 Personal pronouns

using in love and

marriage

19 Thiếp, chàng, nàng, nhà em, mình, ta, tôi, tao, nhà nó, bà nó, ông,

anh, em, chúng mình, đôi ta, vợ chồng mình/ta, hai đứa mình, mẹ thằng,

5 Marital relationship

with family, relatives,

neighbors and related

people

19 Mẹ vợ, bố vợ-con rể, , mẹ chồng-nàng dâu, anh chị em chồng/vợ,

khách khứa, xóm làng, họ hàng nhà chồng, nhà gái, nhà trai, nhà bố

mẹ đẻ, mụ mối, nhà chồng, nhà vợ, vợ lẽ/kế, chồng cũ, vợ cũ,

6 The image of the

wife

23 Giữ gìn khuôn phép, phụng dưỡng bố mẹ già; chăm chồng; tần tảo,

lo việc bếp núc, chăm lo việc nhà; đẻ con trai nối dõi tông đường; trông nom, chăm sóc, xin sữa, trông nom, khâu vá, dọn dẹp, nghe chồng, hầu hạ chu tất, thủ tiết, một niềm trinh thuận, tấm thân bọt bèo, phận dâu, một nhịn chín lành, nhường nhịn, trọn đạo,

7 The patriarchy 6 Xin phép chồng, xin chồng tha thứ, dạy vợ, khuyên răn vợ, bưng cơm

hầu chồng, chấp thuận,…

8 Parental rights with

marriage of children

15 Gả (gả con, gả chồng), ép gả con, ép uổng/buộc/duyên, hứa hôn, cha

mẹ muốn gả thì con xin vâng, ép uổng, ép buộc, được phép bố mẹ còn vui sướng hơn gấp bội, nhận làm con rể, xin cha mẹ cho phép,

From the table, it can be seen that there are eight semantic fields, some of which consist of a numbers of words, and others are fewer The following are the remarkable ones

2.1 Love and faithfulness expression

Among the contents mentioned above, love and faithfulness expression of couples has the largest number of words and phrases (40 phrases) A series of words and phrases are used to describe the budding affections of young boys and girls, or their intense love and their longing when they can't see each other These folk- words and phrases reveal us a society with many rules and rituals set for young couples, which is secrecy, sacrifice, being gentle, not flaunting your feelings to others All are important characteristics of loving couples, especially the girls who,

even if they are in love, have to hide their feeling in their hearts The word "thương" here means love (yêu), couples in the ancient society often used the word "thương" instead of the word "yêu"

to reduce the inherent nuance of the word "yêu " For example: Chàng có còn thương đến thiếp

không? thương nhiều hay thương ít? - Thương mãi mãi; Thiếp chết rồi chàng thương nữa

chăng? When talking to the faithfulness of a couple or a husband and a wife, we can see the

following words and phrases are used quite a lot in the story, such as: thề bồi, lời thề nguyền, chỉ

(thề) non hẹn biển hương đượm lửa nồng, ái ân, sống chết có nhau, đầu bạc răng long, bách niên giai lão, một lòng một dạ,

2.2 Vocabulary related to wedding-activities

The richness and diversity of vocabulary related to wedding-activities is not inferior For

example: Kết nghĩa trăm năm, kết duyên, đem trầu cau đến dạm hỏi, cưới cheo, chung chăn gối,

về làm bạn với nhau, sửa soạn cỗ bàn, làm sính lễ, sính lễ, bước về nhà chồng In addition to the

semantic features talking about the couples' long-term attachment in marriage, the above words and phrases also reveal to us the wedding ceremony of the couples in Vietnam It is a marriage that must be organized step by step Before the wedding ceremony takes place, it is necessary to

have “dạm hỏi” ceremony The word " dạm hỏi " comes from two words " dạm ngõ” " and " ăn

hỏi " " Dạm ngõ " means that the groom's family must first bring a small ceremony including trầu cau, chè (tea), thuốc (tobacco) to the girl's family to talk and ask permission for the couple to

officially go together and discuss marriage After Dạm ngõ ceremony, there is the engagement ceremony called Ăn hỏi by Vietnamese people This ceremony, on the scale, will be larger than

Dạm ngõ If in Dạm ngõ ceremony, the main members coming to the bride’s family are parents,

the head of clan, blood relatives, Ăn hỏi ceremony has more other components such as relatives, neighbours, close friends, etc Furthermore, the wedding offering in Ăn hỏi ceremony is also

much bigger, usually including Phu thê and bean cake (bánh Đậu xanh), wine, tea, tobacco, fruit,

cash and trầu cau In which trầu cau is considered an indispensable offering In any region, from the North to the South, trầu cau symbolizes the strong attachment between husband and wife in the future (the meaning is expressed in the story named Sự tích trầu cau) Through fairy tales, we can see that in the past Ăn hỏi offering played a decisive role in marriage, the bride's family often

made exact requirements about what wedding gifts and how much In addition to gifts for the

wedding ceremony, the groom's family also has to pay a lot to the village that is called Tiền cheo

or Cưới cheo so that the wedding is recognized by the village That's why you need a lot of money

to get married In folklore, there are many unfinished love stories because the bride's family asks

the wedding gifts too heavily Specifically, the stories Thách cưới 100 lượng vàng and Sơn tinh

Thuỷ tinh, when King Hung wanted to challenge the talents of two young men who came to

propose marriage to the princess, he asked them to submit the wedding gifts: “Một trăm ván cơm

nếp, một trăm tệp bánh trưng, voi chín ngà, gà chín cựa, ngựa chín hồng mao” However, in the

modern society, the freedom of marriage is respected and protected, so people no longer pay

daughter find true happiness or not, and whether be will happy with her husband or not when she comes into her husband’s home For the wedding offering, it depends on the circumstances of the groom's family, they themselves decide what gifts to offer About two weeks to a month after

receiving the wedding gifts in Ăn hỏi ceremony, the wedding ceremony takes place, the wedding

is usually held in a sumptuous manner On the wedding day, the groom's family goes to the bride's home to ask for the bride and pick up her to their home, then both families have a feast for relatives, friends, and neighbors who come to witness and bless the young couple with happiness

until being old (đầu bạc răng long) In the ancient society, the witness of family, friends and

neighbors had a very important meaning, because it was the testimony of the marriage relationship of the couples Even up to now, in some places, the organization of a wedding ceremony is still more important than the marriage certification in the wards and communes, many people consider the marriage registration as a legal formality Therefore, there are still many cases of marriage registration after the wedding ceremony

2.3 Words and phrases used to describe the image of the wife and the patriarchy

Next, the number of words and phrases used to describe the image of the wife as a housewife

is also very large (23) The image of the wife in the stories appears as a symbol of taking care of

the family: cooking, cleaning house, sewing (lo việc bếp núc, nhà cửa, khâu vá, dọn dẹp, )

Besides doing the housework, serving and taking care of all the members of their husband’s

family is also the duty of them, especially elderly parents-in-law (phụng dưỡng bố mẹ già; chăm

chồng, hầu hạ chu tất, lo trong bổn phận) However, their position in the family is not really taken

seriously because serving members of the husband's family is considered a duty of a bride (phận

dâu) that is the way of being a wife (cái đạo) She always plays a passive role; she must be subject

to the control of her husband (nghe chồng, vâng lời chồng), her parents-in-law and other members

of the family The wife also does not have the power to decide anything in the husband's family;

everything she’s done must be within the rules (giữ gìn khuông phép), not exceed her authority

Thereby, we can see the slimy status of women in the ancient society and the concept of contempt

for women is clearly expressed through the phrase "đẻ con trai" (birth of a son) that is always used to indicate a happy ending in fairy tales, namely: đẻ con trai nối dõi tông đường, ăn ở hoà

thuận và sinh đứa con trai

Contrary to the low position and passive role of the wife, the role of the husband and father-in -law is always affirmed in the family, they always play the main role, and they have the power to decide everything in the family as well All shows the patriarchal family character of ancient

Vietnamese society clearly The patriarchy is expressed in the following words: Xin phép chồng,

xin chồng tha thứ, dạy vợ, khuyên răn vợ, bưng cơm hầu chồng

2.4 Parental right for marriage of children

Besides, the right of parents for the marriage of their children is very great The father has the right to betroth, and force their daughters to get married to any man he likes or thinks matching for his family circumstance To be a daughter in feudal society, the girl has no right to refuse the weddings that her parents have arranged for her, so she has to accept it willingly Marriage in fairy

tales mainly takes place in the direction of betrothing and forcing (gả con/chồng, ép

uổng/buộc/duyên) The tragic love stories of young couples often stem from the reason that the

father forced his children into wealthy families, which is opposite to the dreams and wishes of

their daughters and her lovers in the story – that is the dream of being free to love and free to choose the right man in their marriage The permission of the father and mother is very important and undisputed; if they do not accept their children’s relationship, it will be considered illegitimate Marriage in the past is not based on the law but on the acceptance of the family and relatives The power of parents is shown very clearly in the sentences of the female character in

the story called Mất tai mất tóc: “cha mẹ muốn gả thì con xin vâng,” or “Nếu được phép bố mẹ

còn vui sướng hơn gấp bội” of the son with the girl who died because her parents forbade them,

not allowed them to love each other in the story Đám cưới ma

2.5 Personal pronouns used in love and marriage

The way of addressing the male and female protagonists in marriage also partly shows us the cultural characteristics of Vietnamese marriage Addressing can be divided into different stages: (1) In the period from falling in love to the time before having children, young couples often use

words, the words "chàng" and "thiếp", "chàng" and "nàng" to call each other These are ancient

Chinese words that are used a lot in folklore when it comes to the field of love and marriage In

addition to chàng, nàng, thiếp, there is also the appearance of the words and phrases like chúng

mình, hai đứa mình, đôi ta and the couple that address anh – em, but the frequency of appearance

of this couple is not much and appears only in modern fairy tales (2) In the period of having small

children, due to the reduction of the fierce feeling of love (hương đượm lửa nồng) and the shyness

of the first period, the couples more understand and are more attached to each other instead, so

they often address each other with the following words and phrases: mình – ta, mình – tôi (3) In the middle age, when the children are grown, they call each other by: vợ chồng mình, vợ chồng ta,

mẹ thằng, , bà nó, nhà em and pairs of addressing like ông – bà, tôi – bà, ông – tôi, tao – nhà nó

In which, the pair of tao – nhà nó appears very little in Vietnamese fairy tales, specifically in the story named Chàng rể thông manh

Now the ways of addressing mẹ thằng…, bố thằng…, mẹ nó, ông – bà, tôi – bà, ông – tôi, bà

nó, ông nó are still popular When Vietnamese people have children or grandchildren, they

usually use these words because they put themselves in the role of their children or their grandchildren That’s cultural feature of Vietnamese in general

2.6 Marital relationship with family, relatives, neighbors and related people

When it comes to love - marriage, it is necessary to mention the relationship of the couples with their families, relatives, neighbors and related people They are mother-in-law, father-in-law, husband/wife's brothers and sisters, guests, neighbors, relatives of husband's family, bride's family, groom's family, biological parents' house, matchmaker, husband's family, wife's family,

wife's family spouse, ex-husband, ex-wife (mẹ vợ, bố vợ, mẹ chồng, anh chị em chồng/vợ, khách

khứa, xóm làng, họ hàng nhà chồng, nhà gái, nhà trai, nhà bố mẹ đẻ, mụ mối, nhà chồng, nhà vợ,

vợ lẽ/kế, chồng cũ, vợ cũ ) Among the above relationships, the most notable relationship is

between father-in-law (bố vợ) and son-in-law (con rể), mother-in-law (me chồng) and in-law (con dâu) However, due to the patriarchal character of the ancient society, the relationship

daughter-between father-in-law and son-in-law is much more common The stories that show the role of the fathers in deciding to choose their sons-in-law account for 86% (the highest percentage) In addition to parents, brothers, relatives, and clans are equally important characters, especially the head of the family They are always the ones who play the main role in the couples’ marriage, their endorsement for the couple to become husband and wife in front of the altar of their

Next, the role of matchmakers (mụ mối) who introduce two families to become alliance with each

other is also significant Matchmakers are also responsible for the couple's happiness later In addition to the above relationships, some stories also refer to the relationship between ex-husband and ex-wife, but not many; the plot is built mainly to highlight the deep affection of the husband and wife Due to different circumstances, they have to split, so that when they meet again, they have to face an ironic situation but they do not know how to handle it in a reasonable way like the

story named Trinh phụ hai chồng, Sự tích Táo quân

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, with a new approach to research on the topic of love - marriage, which is cultural linguistics specifically semantic field, the article exposes cultural features through the characters' personalities

It is a culture that respects men and has contempt for women In a family, the value of a son

is always higher than that of a daughter Love-marriage stories reveal that the husband always plays the main role, he is a solid pillar of the family, he has the most authority and has the right to decide everything in the family and the clan On the contrary, wives are always the ones who suffer and sacrifice themselves to take care of their husbands and children and the husband's parents The love-marriage stories have described the culture of the family and the feudal society

of the Vietnamese people

The value of men is also reflected in the authority of the father in the marriage of his children, regardless of whether their children accept it or not This clearly shows a feudal society without the freedom of marriage Marriage of the children is a matter of their parents In Vietnamese, the concept of marriage in the old society was likened to "cha đặt đâu con ngồi đó"

Through statistical analysis, the article has shown the typical symmetrical character lines of fairy tales In which, the central characters are poor students who have progressive mind and the daughters of the mandarin or rich man This central pair of characters is the most common stereotype in fairy tales

Besides, we confirm that the words and expressions for love and marriage in Vietnamese are very rich and diverse As analyzed above, the topic of love - marriage has different semantic field Within each one, there are many groups of words and phrases (named sub-semantic field) Moreover, the vocabulary describing the characters in the fairy tales not only are used very simply, transparently, but also contain folk colors of Vietnamese nation Reading fairy tales of love and marriage, in addition to cultivating more knowledge of the language, gives us a better understanding of feudal culture as well as humanistic values in each story

REFERENCES

Nguyễn Đổng Chi, Kho tàng truyện cổ tích Việt Nam, Quyển 1, NXB Giáo dục, 2000

Nguyễn Đổng Chi, Kho tàng truyện cổ tích Việt Nam, Quyển 2, NXB Giáo dục, 2000

Nguyễn Cừ, Truyện cổ tích Việt Nam, NXB Văn học, 2016

Lý Hiểu Tùng, Văn hoá Việt Nam trong ngôn ngữ, NXB Tri thức, 2019

Trần Ngọc Thêm, Cơ sở văn hoá Việt Nam, NXB Giáo dục, 1999

Đỗ Hữu Châu, Đỗ Hữu Châu tuyển tập (tập 1: Từ vựng - ngữ nghĩa), NXB Giáo dục, 2005

Ngô Văn Lệ, Nhân chủng học đại cương, NXB Đại học Quốc gia TP.HCM, 2016

Nguyễn Công Đức, Nguyễn Hữu Chương, Từ vựng tiếng Việt, NXB Đại học Quốc gia TP.HCM, 2004 Diệp Quang Ban, Hoàng Văn Thung, Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt, Tập 1, NXB Giáo dục, 2009

Diệp Quang Ban, Hoàng Văn Thung, Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt, Tập 2, NXB Giáo dục, 2009

F.R.Palmer, Semantics 2 nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1981

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF “SHALL”

IN THE SINGAPORE COMPANIES ACT

Nguyễn Thị Nhật Linh *

ABSTRACT

Language has been playing a particularly significant role in legal documents, especially in Acts in terms of regulating social issues The main purpose of this study is to explore the variety of meanings of modal verbs Shall in expressing Modality in the Singapore Companies Act Then, from the semantic analysis, the author would give some suggestions for translation of this modal verb into Vietnamese The results of the study demonstrated that Shall has nine kinds of meaning in the Companies Act including obligation, prohibition, permission, commitment, precondition, direction, definition or declaration and future expression The findings of the study are expected to be helpful in legal English teaching and in comprehension of the Act as well as translation

Keywords: semantic, legal discourse, modality, shall, translation

1 INTRODUCTION

In the legal documents especially in Acts, language has been playing such an extremely important role in dealing with social issues Legal language is a special genre with distinctive features In terms of lexicon, Mellinkoff (1963) mentioned the peculiarity of this type of genre that legal language is characterized by some special features For example, Mellinkoff described legal language as using common words with uncommon meanings, archaisms, Latinism, Old French and Anglo-Norman words, terms of art, argot, formal words, expressions with flexible meanings (Mellinkoff, 1963) One of the peculiar features of Legal English is the use of modal verbs Modal verbs are used in everyday life by speakers to express their judgments In the legal field, they function as medium of expression of the ruler’s will, whereby its power

Similarly, Williams (2013) referred to the use of modal verbs as one of the distinctive

features of legal language and focused on the most dominant modal verbs Shall and May (Williams, 2011) However, in the scope of the study, only modal verb Shall is semantically explored Furthermore, the study also attempts to explain various meanings of Shall as well as

explore the roles of this modal auxiliary in the context of the Singapore Companies Act Then, the study would give recommendations for translation into Vietnamese

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Regarding modality, in his book “Mood and Modality” (2001), Palmer referred to modal systems, propositional modality, event modality (Palmer, 2001) Similarly, in the book “Oxford

Handbook of Modality and Mood”, the authors offered a deeper and comprehensive analysis of the

linguistic domains of modality and mood as well as methodological and theoretical approaches to explore this field in five typologically different language groups (Nuyts & Van Der Auwera, 2016) These studies are considered a base for scholars who do research on mood and modality

* Ph.D candidate, Faculty of Linguistics, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU-HCM

Email: nhatlinhbp@gmail.com

As for legal discourse, according to Tiersma (2000), Shall is used in an unusual sense He indicated that Shall is not only employed to express the future but also the imposition of obligation as well as promises or declarations In addition, he emphasized that Shall could be used

to convey the content of their promises between parties in the contract and thus it has legal

binding (Tiersma, 2000) Additionally, other studies of modal verb Shall have given some conclusions The research by Crystal and Davy (1969) stated that the main function of Shall is

invariably used to express what is to be obligatory consequence of a legal decision (Crystal and

Davy 1969) The study by Williams (2011) referred to various functions of Shall in legal

language, which leads to ambiguity and thus should be restricted in legal drafts At the same time,

Williams suggested replacing Shall with must or are to/ is to (Williams, 2011) Similarly, the research by Krapivkina (2017) also discovered the use of Shall in legal documents This study showed that in legal discourse Shall may be replaced by other modal verbs – may, must, should,

be to with less ambiguous meanings (Krapivkina, 2017)

In another aspect, Cooper (2001) devoted to this issue a research paper where he examined

the lack of precision caused by legislative drafters in using the verb Shall In this study, he indicated the dominance of Shall in legal usage (Cooper, 2011) According to AlRabiah (2013),

Shall is used as a deontic modality to impose obligation or prohibition and grant permission

(AlRabiah, 2013) However, these studies have just focused on an analysis of Shall in forms of

legal discourse such as contracts, legal conservation, and thus there are a lot of gaps in legislative

texts Therefore, it can be concluded that semantic analysis of modal verbs Shall in legislative

texts is quite new Furthermore, the application in translation from English into Vietnamese is completely new For that reason, the author chose to analyze the usage of this modal verb with the aim of comprehending their meanings and then applying them to translation

3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND DATA

In this section, the use and meanings of auxiliary Shall would be looked up in the Collin

dictionary with the normal usage and in Black dictionary with legal context The reason for which two dictionaries have been chosen for the research is that they contain detailed meanings and examples as well as grammar for their use The purpose of this section is to give a background from which some differences in meanings between normal and legal use of this modal auxiliary as well as its expressions in the Act are discussed

3.1 “Shall” in general English

In terms of semantics and grammar, based on Collins dictionary, Shall is used to express

willingness, obligation, make offers or suggestions, express persistence, imply a command,

promise or threat Specifically, Shall “is a modal verb” and “is used with the base form of a

verb” There are eight ways of its use including (1) making offers or suggestions, or asking

for advice when used with I and we in questions (2) expressing prediction in the future (3) intention (4) indicating something must happen, usually because of a rule or law (5) possibility (6) hope (7) the likely result or consequence of a particular action or situation (8) warning in “Shall I say” (Collins, 1995, p.1525)

Generally, Shall is employed in legal discourse to convey obligation and prohibition According to Black’s Law Dictionary, there are five entries of the word Shall Specifically, Shall

is used to express (1) duty or requirement (2) recommendation (3) possibility (4) future action (5) permission or rights (Bryan Andrew Garner, 2019) (Lewis, 2002, p 99)

As used in statutes and similar instruments, this word is generally imperative and mandatory;

but it may be construed as merely permissive or directory (as equivalent to May) to carry out the

legislative intention and in cases where no right or benefit to anyone depends on its being taken in the imperative sense, and where no public or private right is impaired by its interpretation in the

other sense In general, Shall expresses a compulsory meaning, denoting mandatory (Bryan

Andrew Garner, 2019, pp 1541-1542)

As for legal meaning, Shall also shares some similar meanings with Must According to Black law dictionary, Must is primarily used to express mandatory effect; a merely directory sense

(Bryan Andrew Garner, 2019, pp 1171-1172) In this section, we introduced the meanings of

Must with the desire to compare the legal meanings between Shall and Must in order to explore

vividly the essential roles of Shall in conveying related meanings in the Act

3.3 Data

The Singapore Companies Act (Companies Act) first enacted in 1967 was identical to the Malaysian Companies Act of 1965 as both countries were British colonies at the time Therefore, the Singapore Companies Act has a lot in common with the British Empire's Companies Act Up

to now, this Companies Act has been amended many times in the direction of becoming more and more Singaporean The most notable change was made in 2014 Therefore, it can be said that the Singapore Companies Act has become a law based on the will and needs of the Singaporean rather than on the British Companies Act (Wang, 2014) The Companies Act was first enacted on December 29, 1967, and has been revised over the years We use the last revised version dated 30/07/2020 as amended by Act No 40 (Amended by Act 40 of 2018) and the up-to-date consolidated text on the Singapore government website (https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/) The Act consists of 411 articles and 591 pages However, we have just extracted some parts Specifically,

we choose regulations related to Business Registration, Enterprise Charter, Directors and Managers of Enterprises, Business Names, Issuance of Shares, Rights of Shareholders, Summons, voting, passing resolutions at the meeting, reorganization, and foreign enterprises in Singapore

4 AN ANALYSIS OF “SHALL” IN COMPANIES ACT

According to Krapivkina (2017), Shall has been considered out of fashion in use and thus

causes certain difficulties for lawmakers, legal interpreters, translators as well as lay persons

However, Shall is likely to be dominant and stylistic in the language of law thanks to its hallmark

in traditional and formal legal discourse (Krapivkina, 2017) The study by Bryan A Garner (2001)

stated that in legal discourse, Shall conducts various roles such as right or duty expressions,

preconditions, requirements, or prohibition Additionally, it also performs the function of declaration or temporal meaning uses (Bryan A Garner, 2001) In this section, the various

meanings of Shall in the Companies Act will be explored and discussed

Table 1 The frequency and percentage of Shall in the Act

that the meanings of obligation, permission and precondition are distinctively dominant accounting for 29%, 24% and 24% respectively Additionally, the meaning of prohibition is quite significant with 16% while the rest just take up a small percentage The below section will

analyze and discuss the meanings of Shall in each circumstance

4.1 “Shall” demonstrates duty or obligation

In the Companies Act, Shall performs such specific functions First of all, it can be used to

build legislation related to duty or obligation imposition or mandatory requirements For example:

(1) A director of a company who makes a solvency statement without having reasonable

grounds for the opinions expressed in it shall be guilty of an offence and SHALL be liable on

conviction to a fine not exceeding $100,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years

or to both (Clause 6, Article 7A) In this clause, a director of a company is imposed an obligation

of making a solvency statement with having reasonable grounds otherwise, he will bear a fine or even imprisonment

(2) The Registrar shall keep a record whenever the electronic transaction system or the

registers are altered under subsection (2) (Clause 6, Article 7A) This clause requires the duty or

responsibility of the Registrar as for keeping a record when there is a change in registers

Regarding legislation related duty or obligation imposition or mandatory requirements, the

Act also has other forms of expression such as be obliged to, but this seldom happens in the Act

On the one hand, in terms of expressing duty, obligation imposition or mandatory

requirements, the use of Shall has received a lot of opposition from scholars who advocate Plain Legal English Movement According to these scholars, Shall should be replaced by Must in order

to avoid ambiguity (Vince, 1994, p 60) However, other scholars assumed that this replacement is

impossible because of the differences in their use Additionally, Bhatia (1987) stated that Shall demonstrates stronger obligation in comparison with Must (Bhatia, 1987) Besides, Shall serves for requirements associated with compulsory activities while Must with optional ones Whilst

an “underlying impertinence” while Shall indicates something required to do (Krapivkina, 2017)

On the other hand, according to Tiersma (1999) cited in Hanem (2010), Shall is dominant in legal discourse, especially in legislative texts when it is used to demonstrate command (Shall) or prohibition (Shall not) This use has its origin in translating Roman law texts into English Besides, Tiersma stated the reason for which Shall is more prioritized in legislation is that Shall is stronger than Must for regulating duties or obligations Furthermore, he argued that Shall

guarantees the happening of the action and thus creates legal bindings (Tiersma, 1999, p.106)

cited in (Hanem, 2010, p 71) Similarly, other studies also advocate the use of Shall in legal texts

regarding regulations of deontic necessity or obligation (Palmer, 1979), (Huddleston & Pullum,

2002, p.178) cited in (AlRabiah, 2013) This explains the reason Shall is dominantly used in

legislative discourse in general and in the Companies Act in particular (Bryan A Garner, 2001)

In this respect, from our personal point of view, the use of Shall in legislative Act is

completely reasonable It creates professional images and guarantees certain legal security The

fact that there are some scholars suggested using Must rather than Shall in expressing duty or obligation to avoid the uncertainty of Shall’s meanings (Krois-Lindner & TransLegal, 2015), (Curto, 2018) However, Shall can be comprehensible if it is put in such specific contexts Thus, using archaism such as Shall in legislative texts may establish distinguished features for the Act

4.2 “Shall not” indicates prohibition

According to the analyzed data, it can be seen that Shall not (the negative form of Shall) is

employed with the aim of presenting a prohibition The below clause is an example:

(3) A company that, by virtue of a determination made under this section, has become a

public company Shall not convert to a private company without the leave of the Court (Clause 5,

Article 32) This regulation prohibits a company from converting to a private company without

the leave of the Court The much less form of expressing prohibition in this Act is be prohibited

from, but this form only occurs once in the whole Act In this respect, Shall not is aligned with Must not; However, as we analyzed in the next part, Shall not is much stronger than Must not

when it comes to expressing a ban or prohibition

4.3 “Shall” is used to express permission

In this sense, Shall is used to express “the right to do something” and is similar to May For

example:

(4) Where a company or foreign company has been declared to be a company to which this

Part applies, the Minister Shall appoint one or more inspectors to investigate the affairs of that

company, and to report his opinion thereon to the Minister (Clause 1, Article 231) This

regulation entitles the power or the right for the minister about the appointment of inspectors for investigation of that company’s affairs

4.4 “Shall not” is used to deny permission

In this case, Shall not is closely aligned to May not such as the meanings of Shall not in

below clauses

(5) Subsection (1) shall not apply in relation to any debenture that is offered to the public for

subscription or purchase (Clause 3, Article 100)

(6) Subject to subsection (5), the resignation of a director shall not be conditional upon the

company’s acceptance of his resignation (Clause 4B, Article 145) In these clauses, the entities

are likely to have the rights to choose to perform in accordance with the regulation Especially, subsection (1) may be applied in debenture or not; the director’s resignation may be conditional or not These kinds of regulations tend to give recommendations or options for the related entities to behave reasonably when they are in their specific conditions

4.5 “Shall” can be used in commitment speech acts

In this case, Shall is used when the addresser commits or promises to do something or show

the intention These below clauses are commitment of related entities in realization the efficiency

of the Act In other words, in two clauses, they are commitments of the authority and the directors

in performing regulated requirements Shall in this circumstance is used not only as a promise but

also as an obligatory rule that expresses the willingness of the government and stakeholders in making sure the enforcement of the Act

(7) The Authority shall be responsible for the administration of this Act, subject to the

general or special directions of the Minister (Clause 1, Article 8)

(8) Without prejudice to any other means of complying with subsections (1) and (2), the

directors shall have complied with those subsections if they secure that the same paper

document containing the text of the resolution is sent without delay to each member in turn

4.6 “Shall” can be used to denote effect

In this sense, Shall denotes the obligations of entities to act in such a way that is stipulated in

the clause (Cooper, 2011, p 16) In other words, the lawmakers predict a circumstance in such conditions and the entities have liability to obey if they fall in such described conditions regulated

by the Act

(9) Any person who fails to comply with subsection (5) shall be guilty of an offence and

shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $1,000 and also to a default penalty

(Clause 6, Article 216)

(10) Where the action has been commenced or is to be brought in the State Courts, an

application for leave under subsection (2) shall be made in a District Court (Clause 6, Article