English idioms on friendship with reference to vietnamese equivalents

Aims and objectives of the study This study is aimed at investigating the structural and semantic features of English idioms on friendship and their Vietnamese equivalents in order to

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LE THI DIEP

ENGLISH IDIOMS ON FRIENDSHIP

WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH VỀ TÌNH BẠN ĐỐI CHIẾU VỚI TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A THESIS

HANOI - 2013

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

LE THI DIEP

ENGLISH IDIOMS ON FRIENDSHIP

WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH VỀ TÌNH BẠN ĐỐI CHIẾU VỚI TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A THESIS

Field: English Language

Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Ly Lan, Ph.D

HANOI - 2013

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that no part of the enclosed Master Thesis has been copied

or reproduced by me from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the thesis is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor

Hanoi, 30th December 2013

Le Thi Diep APPROVED BY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my great gratitude from

bottom of my heart to my supervisor, Ly Lan, Ph.D for her valuable

advices and assistance in completing my graduation paper Without her

guidance, correction and support, this thesis could not come into being

My sincere acknowledgement also goes to all my lecturers and officers

of Faculty of Graduate Studies, Hanoi Open University, who have facilitated me with the best possible conditions during my training course Last but not least, let my thanks go to my family and friends, whose encouragement and assistance are of extreme importance during the course

of my thesis completion

Hanoi, 30th December 2013

Le Thi Diep

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, GRAPHS

Table 1.1: Classification of idioms based on structural features……… 15 Table 2.1: Information of the research participants……… 29 Table 2.2: The participants’ basis knowledge of idioms on friendship…… 36 Table 2.3: The participants’ ability in understanding structural features of

Table 2.4: The participants’ ability in understanding semantic features of

Table 2.5: The participants’ difficulties in translating idioms on

friendship from English into Vietnamese……… 38

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iii

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, GRAPHS iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Research questions 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.1 Literature review 5

1.1.1 Previous studies overseas 5

1.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam 7

1.2 Theoretical background 8

1.2.1 Theoretical background of idioms 8

1.2.2 Theoretical background of translation 23

1.3 Summary 27

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 28

2.1 Research design 28

2.2 Research participants 28

2.3 Research procedure 29

2.4 Data collection instruments 30

2.4.1 Selective material 30

2.4.2 The survey questionnaire 31

2.5 Data analysis methods 35

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 40

3.1 Structural features of English idioms on friendship 40

3.1.1 Noun Phrases (NP) 40

3.1.2 Verb Phrases (VP) 41

3.1.3 Adjective Phrases (Adj.P) 41

3.1.4 Preposition Phrases (PP) 42

3.2 Semantic features of idioms on friendship 43

3.2.1 Sentiment 43

3.2.2 Solidarity and ties 43

3.2.3 Agreement and conflict 43

3.2.4 Loyalty and betrayal 44

3.2.5 Sharing and understanding 44

3.2.6 Forgiveness 45

3.2.7 Choice 45

3.2.8 Happiness 46

3.2.9 Indifference 46

3.2.10 Metaphorical meaning 46

3.2.11 Metonymic meanings 47

3.3 English idioms on friendship with reference to Vietnamese equivalents 48 3.3.1 In terms of structures 48

3.3.2 In terms of semantics 52

3.4 Discussion on the result of survey conducted at HDU 55

3.4.1 English idioms on friendship with no absolute equivalent in Vietnamese 57

3.4.2 English idioms on friendship with similar counterparts in Vietnamese but different meaning 58

3.4.3 English idioms on friendship used with both literal and idiomatic meanings 59

3.4.4 Similar English idioms on friendship used in different contexts 59

CHAPTER 4: POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATING IDIOMS ON FRIENDSHIP FROM ENGLISH INTO VIETNAMESE 61

4.1 Using equivalent expressions with similar meanings and forms 61

4.2 Using equivalent expressions with similar meanings and dissimilar

forms 62

4.3 Paraphrasing 63

4.4 Omitting or adding words 64

4.5 Literal translation with supplementary notes 64

CONCLUSION 66

1 Recapitulation 66

2 Limitations of the study 69

3 Suggestions for a further study 69

REFERENCES 70

APPENDICES 75

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Language plays an important role in human life because language is the significant mean in communication However, language of each country cannot be similar to each other due to its different culture, tradition, belief and custom Language and culture are two concepts which always go along with each other and have close relationship with the development of their nations

In different nations, the meanings of the words and utterances are also dissimilar A word or a sentence can have plenty of meanings (literal meaning, figurative meaning, denotative meaning and narrow meaning) For

example: In Vietnamese, “nhà” does not only mean “the building where

people live in” but also “the wife” Therefore, it is easily misunderstood for those who study Vietnamese as a foreign language

With regard to the role of language and culture, the usage of idioms in human life cannot be underrated Idioms have been created along with the development of communication in human society Idioms reflect typical culture, tradition, custom of each nation The meaning of the idioms cannot

be deduced from the individual words because both the grammar and the order of words in the idiom are fixed, and if their forms are changed, the idioms will lose their meanings The main messages of the idioms are often hidden under surface words, thus it becomes a challenge for foreign language learners Being able to mastering English idioms is likely to help learners of English feel more confident in communicating and in doing translation as well

Idioms denote various fields of human life such as love, marriage, family, animals, plants, weather, parts of the body etc., thus having been studied by a number of researchers in Vietnam and overseas However, idioms on friendships seem to be open for being discussed and further studied Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between two or more people; besides, friendship is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an association As a result, friendship has been studied in academic fields such

as sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and philosophy With a view

to helping Vietnamese learners to have a thorough understanding of English idioms on friendships and then being able to avoid negative interferences in

doing translation, a research problem of “English idioms on friendship with reference to Vietnamese equivalents” have been chosen for my graduation

thesis It is also hoped that the study could probably make a small contribution to figure out English and Vietnamese idioms on friendship

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This study is aimed at investigating the structural and semantic features

of English idioms on friendship and their Vietnamese equivalents in order to propose some applications for translating the idioms on friendship from English into Vietnamese in an effective way

With a view to achieving the mentioned-above aims, some specific objectives have been put forward as follows: (i) finding the main structural and semantic features of English idioms on friendship; (ii) pointing out the similarities and dissimilarities between English and Vietnamese idioms on friendship; (iii) investigating some difficulties faced by third-year learners at Faculty of Foreign Languages of Hong Duc University in translating idioms

on friendship from English into Vietnamese; (iv) suggesting some possible

applications for translating idioms on friendship from English into Vietnamese

3 Research questions

The study is conducted to find out the answers of the following questions: (i) What are structural and semantic features of English idioms on friendship with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents? (ii) What are some applications for translating idioms on friendship from English into Vietnamese?

4 Scope of the study

The study focused on analyzing and comparing features of English and Vietnamese idioms on friendship in terms of structural and semantic features The similarities and dissimilarities withdrawn from the study could

be explained on the basis of the cultural and linguistic features, thus helping

us find out some applications for translating idioms on friendship from English into Vietnamese

5 Methods of the study

In order to complete this study, some different research methods will be applied Firstly, the descriptive method is applied to examine the basis knowledge of English idioms on friendship Secondly, the comparative method is used to find out the similarities and dissimilarities of the English idioms on friendship and their Vietnamese equivalents in the terms of structural and semantic features Thirdly, the qualitative method is used to investigate structural and semantic features of English idioms on friendship from different sources of selective material with a view to designing a survey questionnaire to find out the actual problems faced by the third-year learners

at Faculty of Foreign Languages of HDU when acquiring idioms in general,

and translating idioms on friendship from English into Vietnamese in particular Finally, the quantitative method is used to collect and analyze the results taken from the survey questionnaire, defining the major difficulties of the target participants in terms of idioms on friendship, so as to giving some possible applications for translating them from English into Vietnamese in

an effective way

6 Design of the study

Apart from the Introduction and Conclusion, the main part of the thesis will be divided into four chapters:

Chapter 1 presents the review of literature and theoretical background relating to English and Vietnamese idioms

Chapter 2 presents methodology which has been applied to conduct the research of the whole graduation thesis

Chapter 3 points out the findings and discussion on English idioms on friendship with reference to Vietnamese equivalents as well as some difficulties met by the third-year learners at Faculty of Foreign Languages of HDU when translating idioms from English into Vietnamese

Chapter 4 proposes some possible applications for translating idioms on friendship from English into Vietnamese in an effective way

CHAPTER 1

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Literature review

There are a large number of studies on English idioms in various fields

of language such as syntax, semantics and translations, etc These studies have provided us interesting outcomes which should be reviewed before going into the main details of the study

1.1.1 Previous studies overseas

One of the famous works done by group authors of Andrew Ortony, Danie L Schallert, Ralph E Reynolds and Stephen J Antos was

“Interpreting Metaphors and Idioms: Some Effects of Context on Comprehension” In 1978 they conducted two experiments In experiment one, the targets were sentences followed by short or long contexts which included either literal interpretations or metaphorical ones Its result indicated that only in the short context condition did subjects take significantly longer to understand metaphorical than literal targets In experiment two, the targets were phrases that could be given either an idiomatic or a literal interpretation It was found that the comprehension of phrases receiving an idiomatic interpretation took no longer than the comprehension of those same phrases when given a literal interpretation, and there were some evidence that idiomatic interpretations were consistently faster

In 1978, Jennifer Seidl and Mc Mordie, W carried out a research on

“English idioms and how to use them” Idioms in their research were presented with various key words or key structures They gave some keywords with idiomatic uses in part of speech such as adjectives and

adverbs, nouns and miscellaneous in other chapters They also presented idioms with key structures in each individual part with some examples to illustrate such as idioms with nouns and adjectives, idiomatic pairs, idioms with prepositions, phrasal verbs, verbal idioms, idioms from special subjects, and idioms with key words form special categories and idioms with comparison

Another study on “Comprehension of Idioms” was carried out by Cristina, Cacciari and Patrizia Tabossi in 1988 The access of idiomatic expression was investigated in three cross-modal priming experiments When the idiomatic string was predictable, subjects were faster at performing a lexical decision to idiomatically related targets than to literally related targets (Experiment one) When the string was not recognizable as idiomatic until its completions, then subjects were faster on the target literally related to the last word (Experiment two) Lexical decision for the same materials used in Experiment two, when target words were presented

300 messages after the end of idiom was heard, was faster both for targets related to the last word and for the idiomatic meaning of the string, relative

to control targets (Experiment three) The experimental results showed that the idiomatic interpretation of a string easier than or as easy to access as its literal interpretation were largely due to the inadequacy of the experimental paradigms used

The research on “Idioms for everyday uses” conducted by Milada Broukal (1994) consisted of different related topics such as colors, food, numbers, parts of the body, animals, etc It was presented in form of reading comprehension practice to help learners collecting the meanings for convenient reference

Felicity O’Dell and Michael McCarthy (2010) conducted a study on

“English idioms in use”, which consisted of six sections with practice exercises In section one, key aspects of what idioms are and how to use them were dealt with In section two, the authors presented specific individual types of idioms In section three, the units were organized around the topic or functional area where they are most likely to be used The section four focused on some of the written contexts where idioms are frequently found The ways in which idioms are typically used in spoken language were focused on in the next section The last section concentrated

on one keyword which gave rise to a particularly large number of English

idioms

1.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam

In Vietnam, there are many studies on English idioms under different topics which gain a great deal of interest, such as “Cẩm nang thành ngữ tiếng Anh” by Tran Ngoc Que Chau, (2011) investigating the semantic and syntactic features of idioms denoting family in English and Vietnamese;

“Idioms containing terms for plants in English and Vietnamese” by Hoang Thi Nhung, (2011); “English and Vietnamese idioms of comparison” by Le Thi Hong, (2011); “An investigation into English and Vietnamese idioms containing words denoting mental” by Vo Ngoc Anh, (2012); and “English and Vietnamese idioms related to love and marriage” by Nguyen Thi Mong

Cam, (2012)

Furthermore, a number of researches on Vietnamese idioms can be found, such as “Về khái niệm thành ngữ tiếng Việt” by Nguyen Thien Giap, (1975); “Thành ngữ tiếng Việt” by Luong Van Dang, (1978); “Ngữ nghĩa thành ngữ và tục ngữ, sự vận dụng” by Nguyen Duc Dan, (1986); “Kể

chuyện thành ngữ, tục ngữ” by Hoang Van Hanh, (1994); Bình diện cấu trúc hình thái ngữ nghĩa của thành ngữ tiếng Việt by Nguyen Cong Duc, (1995) and “Tuyển tập thành ngữ , tục ngữ , ca dao Việt –Anh thông dụng” by Nguyen Dinh Hung, (2002)

However, there have been no studies dealing with the structural and semantic features of English idioms on friendship with reference to Vietnamese equivalents This study is being implemented to find out some similarities and dissimilarities of the structural and semantic features of

idioms in both languages, thus proposing some possible applications for translating idioms on friendship from English into Vietnamese

1.2 Theoretical background

1.2.1 Theoretical background of idioms

1.2.1.1 Definition of idioms

There have seen several definitions of idioms First, an idiom is defined

as a number of words taken together, which mean something different from the individual words of the idiom when they stand alone (S Jenifer & W Mc Mordie, 1979: 20) Second, an idiom is a combination of words that has a figurative meaning, due to its common usage An idiom's figurative meaning

is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made (Culicover, P & Jackendoff, R., 2005) Idioms are numerous and they occur frequently in all languages There are estimated to be at least 25,000 idiomatic expressions in the English language (Jackendoff, R., 1997) Carter defines “idioms as special combinations with restricted forms and meanings that cannot deduced from the literal meanings of the words which make them up.” (Carter, R., 1985: 65) Accordingly, an idiom is learned and used as a single language unit It should not be analyzed into its constituents; it is

unchangeable and always carries a figurative meaning Third, Jonathan C defines idiom as “a phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit” (Jonathan, C., 1995: 67) In the same year, Dean Curry offered another definition of idiom as “the assigning of a new meaning to a group of words which already have their own meaning” (Dean, C., 1994: 49)

Though definitions of idioms are different to some extent, all of them share the basic concept: “idioms are words, phrases or expressions that cannot be taken literally; in everyday language usage, they have a meaning

rather than the basic one you would find in the dictionary.”

In conclusion, there is no conflict between definitions of idioms mentioned-above in spite of some different ways of expressing They

integrate at one point that an idiom is a fixed expression whose meaning

cannot be worked out by combining the literal meaning of its individual words

1.2.1.2 Features of English idioms

(i) Structural features

As these definitions of idioms mentioned above, an idiom is a fixed group of words Each word is regarded as a component of an idiom and an idiom can consist of at least two components Idioms are structurally and lexically restricted; therefore, the components of idioms cannot be added, omitted or replaced They cannot be changed or varied in the way literal

expressions are normally varied both in speech and writing In both English

and Vietnamese, the stability in idioms is very high

Bell, R.T (1974:2) identifies some structural features which are essential in the recognition of idioms Some of their features are: (i)

Alteration of Grammatical Rules: The idiomatic expression is not always grammatical, but it is established, accepted and used by native speakers of

the language with a fixed structure and meaning E.g.: It’s been ages since

special expressions which are almost known and agreed by all the members

of a particular community E.g.: Once in a blue moon (rarely, infrequently);

(iii) Alteration of Word Order: Idiomatic expressions in English, usually, do

not respect the English word order E.g.: It may be well ahead of time (normal word order) or It may well be ahead of time (probably); (iv)

Figurativeness: The basic characteristic of idiomatic expressions is that the words are used metaphorically Therefore, the surface structure has a little role to play in understanding the meaning of the whole expression For

example, in the idiom to bury the hatchet (to become friendly again after a disagreement), the meanings of the words ‘to bury’ and ‘the hatchet’ are

different from the meaning of the whole expression; (v) Phrasal Verbs: These are the most common type of idioms in English Many of them carry idiomatic meanings that cannot be inferred from the form, unless the phrase

is already known E.g.: After war began, the two countries broke off

However, Fraser has specified the idioms between those which are able

to undergo all the grammatical changes and those which are unable to undergo the smallest grammar changes at all (Fraser, B., 1970: 33) Therefore, some idioms are more flexible and can be made some changes without losing their idiomatic meaning This means that idioms are only fixed in some of their parts but not all Idioms are expressions, not subjected

to analysis, only some syntactic changes may be carried out in them The

idioms which can easily be subjected to syntactic changes are more flexible Tense changes within idioms can be possibly made in most of the idioms, for they indicate the animation of the actions in different tenses on the

person’s mind For example: keep in touch => kept in touch (to maintain

communications with someone) Besides, some idioms can be broken or changed more or less in their structures For example, we sometimes say:

like mother like daughter/ like father like son

In terms of structures, the central part of an idiom can be nouns (Two peas in a pod), verbs (to stick to one’s last), adjectives (nearest and dearest)

or prepositions (with open arm) Each idiom has a stable structure and

meaning; an idiom can have a regular structure, an irregular or even a grammatically incorrect structure Firstly, idioms which have a regular structure have common forms but there is no connection between the

meaning of each component and that of the whole unit, for example tell tales

groups of words which have unconventional forms but their meaning can be worked out through the meaning of individual words such as: make your enemy your friend According to the rule of grammar, the structures of the

verb ‘make’ are make somebody do something and make

to obey grammatical rule to make sense, it can still be understood that (make your enemy become your friend) Finally, the idioms can be groups of words which both are grammatically incorrect in form and irregular in meaning The structure is grammatically inaccurate and the meaning is not precisely

expressed by gathering the meaning of each member-word such as: Be up to

the above idioms can be written as “Verb + preposition + adjective” In

English grammar, normally adjectives never come after prepositions

individually, however, as in an idiom, this case is acceptable

In short, in terms of structural features, firstly, an idiom is a expression and any changes in the internal structure of the idiom can make it lose the idiomatic meaning Secondly, idioms may take various forms or structures such as noun phrases, verb phrases, preposition phrases, adjective phrases, etc In relation with structures, the idiom can have a regular,

set-irregular or even incorrectly grammatical structure

(ii) Semantic features

Idioms are composed of words; however, they are not the combination

of the meaning of each element forming them Kramsch stated: “The meaning of an idiom was the special chemical mixture of the meaning of all components, which is completely new in quality” (Kramsch, C 2000: 63) Therefore, it is important to understand idioms metaphorically The meaning

is the most important aspect when discussing semantic features of idioms The basic characteristic of idioms is figurative meaning which helps to

distinguish whether a fixed expression is an idiom or not For example: Read

exactly what they are feeling or thinking without having to ask) and its

Vietnamese translation equivalent is ñi guốc trong bụng

In case the meaning of an idiom is either partly (motivated idioms) or completely different from the meaning of all components (non-motivated idioms) the meaning of idioms cannot be guessed from the meaning of their

components (Kunin, A.V., 2006) However, in some cases of partial

difference, their figurative meaning is not quite different from the literal one,

for examples: out of sight, out of mind (xa mặt cách lòng); new one in, old

In addition, idioms can convey positive, neutral, or negative meanings

In terms of positive meaning, there can be seen an example: share

advantages and disadvantages each other) As for idioms expressing neutral

meaning, some examples are shown: two peas in a pod (to be very similar)

and make friends (to establish a link of friendship with someone) With regard to negative meaning, some typical examples of idioms are bite the

and stab someone in the back (to harm (someone) by treachery or betrayal of

trust)

To sum up, idioms can be motivated, partially-motivated and motivated Besides, idiomatic expressions can convey positive, neutral, or negative meanings Idioms have high evocativeness because the speaker in conversation usually uses utterances that express his attitude or emotion For instance, when talking about similar people tending to associate with each

non-other, the idiom birds of a feather may be used

1.2.1.3 Classification of English idioms

Some authors categorized and classified idioms in different ways Cowie says that “there is no clear dividing-line between idioms and non-idioms: they form the end-points of a continuum” (Cowie, A P., 1983) He categorizes idiomatic expressions according to their degree of fixedness and figurativeness He distinguishes between: pure idioms, figurative idioms, restricted collocations, and open collocations Pure idioms “form the end-point of a process by which word-combinations first establish themselves

through constant re-use, then undergo figurative extension and finally petrify

or congeal” In figurative idioms, “variation is seldom found and pronoun substitution unlikely” As far as the transparency of meaning is concerned,

“the literal senses of these expressions do not survive alongside their figurative ones in normal, everyday use” Restricted collocations are sometimes called “semi-idioms” In these phrases, “one word has a figurative sense not found outside that limited context The other element appears in a familiar, literal sense” Some expressions in this category allow

a degree of lexical variation In open collocations, the elements are freely combinable and each element is typically used in a common literal sense (Cowie, A P., 1983)

re-In terms of figurative meaning, idioms are divided into four types:

non-compositional/opaque (e.g by and large), non-compositional/opaque (e.g kick

quasi-metaphorical (e.g don’t give up the ship) (Glucksberg, S., 2001) The term

non-compositional means that idioms cannot be analyzed either semantically

or syntactically, while compositional idioms can The term opaque refers to the fact that meanings cannot be derived from the meanings of the constituents; meanings of transparent idioms, on the other hand, can be mapped onto their constituent words Among the four types, quasi-metaphorical, are idioms, “which behave just as metaphors” To sum up, Glucksberg’s categorization is similar to Cowie’s in a way that the categories form a continuum going from petrified, opaque expressions to those that allows some variation and whose meaning can be arrived at through semantic analysis

Tkachuk provides the following division with idiomatic classes, basing

on grammatical characteristics of the phrases, namely sentential (e.g the

grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.) and non-sentential

Non-sentential idioms can be verbal (e.g blacken sb’s reputation) or verbless In the verbless idioms, there can be a nominal (e.g a red rag to a

bull ), adjectival (e.g white as snow) or adverbial phrase (e.g once in a blue

moon) (Tkachuk, Tetyana, 2005)

However, due to the limited framework of a graduation thesis, it is impossibility to cover all criteria for idioms classification Therefore, only two main categorizations of idioms on the base of the structural and semantic features have been focused on

(i) Classification based on structural features

Basing on structural features, idioms can be classified into five main types: idioms in form of noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases and preposition phrases In accordance with their grammatical function, they can be described as in the following table:

Table 1.1: Classification of idioms based on structural features

N + N Crocodile tears Insincere tears N’s +N The cat’s

Noun phrases

(NP)

N+ Adj knight

commander

Chivalrous man who

is ready to help and protect oppressed and helpless people

constantly quarreling Adj + N Lone wolf a person who prefers

to be alone

N + S.C Dogs that chase

many hares kill none

Unfaithfulness in love

V + N Go to the dog Talk about country

or company which goes from a good situation or condition

V + (one’s) +

N + prep

Glance one’s eyes down

Take a very quick superficial look at something

V + one +N

Give somebody moral support

Give somebody your friendship,

encouragement, approval, etc… rather than financial and practical help

Verb phrases

(VP)

V+ S.C See which way

the wind blows

See what most people think, or what

is likely to happen before you decide how to act yourself Adjective

phrases (Adj.P)

Adj + and + adj

bruise in the flesh, which is

accompanied with a mixture of blue

Adj + as+

N

As cool as a cucumber

Calm, self-controlled

Adv + and adv

Pre + N+

or+ Pre +

N

By hook or by crook

(of something difficult) by any method, whether it is honest or not

Conj + clause

happen

Adverb phrases

(Adv P)

Adv + prep + N

Once in a blue moon

Very rarely

Prep + N In the red A person whose

debts are greater than his assets

Preposition

phrases (PP)

Prep + N + prep

In the pink of (health/condition)

Extremely healthy

(ii) Classification based on semantic features

Vinogradov claims that idioms include three kinds: phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological combinations (Vinogradov, V.V., 1977: 121)

Phraseological fusion is the highest stage of integrating together In such kind of idioms, the meaning of the components and that of the whole group are of no relevance In other words, the meanings of constituents are perceived by the meaning of the whole so thoroughly that they cannot be understood unless they are studied as a whole unit For instance, the idiom

unexpectedly”

Phraseological unities are much more abundant than phraseological fusions due to their less complete stability of lexical components Unlike

phraseological fusions with fully non-motivated word groups, phraseological unities are partially non-motivated The coherence in phraseological unities

is not as remarkable as in phraseological fusions Also, the meaning of the whole unit at times can be perceived through the meaning of its components

In phraseological unities, changing a word for another synonym is

acceptable As an illustration, instead of saying to have a hard job doing

once being concerned with phraseological unities, people can hardly pay any attention to metaphoric meanings of the whole phraseological unit other than

the lexical meanings of the component words In the following idioms be

easy to be understood literally However, the figurative meaning of the whole unit can be only perceived as “be simple and free from trouble”

Phraseological combinations are the least idiomatic of all kinds of phraseological units Unlike phraseological fusions which are fully non-motivated and phraseological unities which are partially non-motivated, phraseological combinations are motivated In other words, in phraseological combinations, the meaning of the whole can be inferred from the meaning of its components Specifically, this kind of idiom’s structure includes one component giving word-for-word meaning and other giving figurative one The meaning of the idiom can be partly worked out thanks to the literal meaning of one component and the figurative meaning would express

complete meaning of the whole unit In the idiom meet somebody’s eyes

(look straight at somebody because you realize that they are looking at you),

‘meet’ is used figuratively while somebody’s eyes are used in its literal

meaning

1.2.1.4 Features of Vietnamese idioms

In Vietnamese, idioms are considered as very special language units because they reflect Vietnamese cultural characteristics The forms and contents of idioms are also distinguished by structural and semantic features

(i) Structural features

Most Vietnamese linguists have had the same opinion about the forms

of Vietnamese idioms Nguyen Van Tu, (1976) said “Idioms are fixed expressions whose word components do not have their own individual meanings and become a solid block” He emphasized the combination of the components forming the meaning of idioms Nguyen Thien Giap, (1975) considered an idiom as a fixed expression Although Nguyen Duc Dan, (1986) did not focus on the forms of Vietnamese idioms, he dealt with the fixation of idioms He said “Idioms are language units which have fixed forms” Hoang Van Hanh, (1994) attached special importance to the components forming idioms He states that an idiom is a fixed group of words whose form is unchanged

In short, Vietnamese idioms are fixed groups of words whose forms are unchanged: the fixed combination comes from settled words and expressions

such as bắt cá hai tay (to run after two hares), mèo mù vớ cá rán (The devil

of words or use the synonyms (similar words) to replace any components of

an idiom in a casual way This is a basic feature helping us to realize idioms easily However, there are some fixed expressions which are not idioms such

as bánh xe lịch sử (the wheel of history), gia ñình văn hóa (good family), etc

Thus, so as to realize an idiom correctly, we cannot only look at this feature but also other ones

(ii) Semantic features

There are quite a few different opinions about the semantic features of Vietnamese idioms According to Nguyen Van Menh, (1971), an idiom introduces an image, a phenomenon, a state, a personality, an attitude, etc This opinion is quite simple and general Nguyen Van Tu, (1976) said “The meaning of an idiom does not come from individual components which may have their images or not Its meaning can be different from the meaning of each component or does not come from each original word” Nguyen Thien Giap, (1985) focused on the basic semantic features of idioms: Being rich in imagery is a basic feature of idioms Idioms express concepts basing on specific images and symbols The imagery of idioms is made from its metaphor and comparison

Although there are different ideas about the semantic features of idioms, Vietnamese linguists have all shared the same point of view as: Firstly, the meaning of an idiom is a perfect whole which does not come from the meanings of individual components added Secondly, the meaning

of an idiom expresses the reflection of things or concepts Thirdly, the meaning of an idiom is usually figurative and descriptive

Many linguists affirm that idioms have their own figurative and imaginary meanings; nevertheless, we should not consider this as an absolute fact In Vietnamese, there are also some idioms which have literal sense coming from the meanings of their components They may be comparative

idioms such as nát như tương (as pasty as soy), ñen như cột nhà cháy (as

imagery comes from the images compared with activities or properties

Some Sino-Vietnamese idioms such as nhất cử lưỡng tiện (to kill two birds

with one stone), bán tín bán nghi (half doubtful) and bách phát bách trúng

sense basing on the meanings of their components

1.2.1.5 Classification of Vietnamese idioms

According to structural features, Luong Van Dang, (1978), on one hand,

classified Vietnamese idioms as follows:

(i) Idioms with three single words or more: e.g bạn nối khố (a bosom

friend), bở hơi tai (fagged out), treo ñầu dê, bán thịt chó (He cries wine and sells vinegar)…

(ii) Idioms with a single word and a compound word: e.g bé hạt tiêu

(little body, great mind), câm miệng hến (mute as a fish)…

(iii) Idioms with two compound words: e.g buôn gian bán lận (to cheat in

commerce), nhắm mắt xuôi tay (to die), năm xung tháng hạn (an unpropitious period of time) …

(iv) Idioms as simple sentences: e.g châu chấu ñá xe (David fights

Goliath), ếch ngồi ñáy giếng (a frog in a well), mèo mù vớ cá rán (The devil looks after his own)…

(v) Idioms with alliterations or compound words: e.g hì hà hì hục (be

completely engrossed in), lảm nhàm lảm nhảm (to drivel)…

(vi) Idioms with symmetrical comparisons: e.g nát như tương (as pastry

(vii) Idioms with summary comparisons: e.g như cá gặp nước (feel like

duck in water), như nước ñổ ñầu vịt (like water off a duck’s back)…

Moreover, the common structures of Vietnamese idioms are the structures which have two balanced components Idioms are also formed by

joining rhymes (usually interior rhymes) such as bóc ngắn cắn dài (to live

beyond one’s means), bé xé ra to (to make mountains out of molehills) etc

These structures do not only make idioms easy to say and remember, but they also keep the fixation and unshakeable characteristics of idioms

On the other hand, Nguyen Cong Duc, (1995) divided Vietnamese idioms

into two main groups:

(i) Idioms with symmetrical structures: Symmetrical structures consist of two elements which have the same forms and harmonious balanced contents (opposite or supplement of each other) These structures form a large number

of idioms in general and idioms showing speaking activities in particular They are concretized by the following expressions:

AxAy (A: verb; x, y: combinative words) e.g buôn gian bán lận (to

cheat in commerce)…

BxBy (B: noun; x, y: combinative words) e.g mồm năm miệng mười

(loud-mouthed)…

CxCy (C: adjective; x, y: combinative words) e.g vụng chèo khéo

DxDy (D: numeral; x, y: combinative words) e.g nửa nạc nửa mỡ

(neither flesh nor fish)… Idioms with symmetrical structures can be

compound sentences, for example: có mồm thì cắp, có nắp thì ñậy (to

keep silent for good)

(ii) Idioms with comparative structures: These are the common structures

of Vietnamese idioms A như (like/as) B is considered as the comprehensive

form of comparative idioms The words such as như, bằng, tày are usually

between A and B, and they are concretized by the following expressions:

nonsensical) …

Ax như B (Ax: verb-adjective phrase; B: noun) e.g nói dối như cuội (to be a colossal liar)…

Ax như Bx (Ax: phrase consisting of a verb and an adjective; Bx:

phrase expressing activity) e.g chuyện nở như ngô rang (to chat

"the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and highlights the message" (Newmark, P 1988:96)

Nida's definitions (1964:129) of formal and dynamic equivalence may also be seen to apply when considering cultural implications for translation According to Nida, E., a "gloss translation" mostly typifies formal equivalence where form and content are reproduced as faithfully as possible and the TL reader is able to "understand as much as he can of the customs,

manner of thought, and means of expression" of the SL context All in all, it can be easily seen that the above approaches are not very much different from what Venuti, L (1995:20) named “source language oriented and target language-oriented” translation approach, which may share some similarities with Newmark’s ( 1988: 145) methods of translation as follows:

Word-for-word translation Adaptation

Literal translation Free translation

Faithful translation Idiomatic translation

Semantic translation Communicative translation

(i) Word-for-word translation

This method focuses on SL word order in which words are translated by most common meaning and out of context Therefore, the results of this method are that the translation is read like original text

(ii) Literal translation

The SL text, concretely its grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest equivalents In this method, words are translated single and out of text

(iii) Faithful translation

The translation interprets the exact contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the grammatical structures of the target language

It transfers cultural words and preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical deviation from source language norms

(iv) Semantic translation

Semantic translation refers to that type of translation which takes into account the aesthetic value of the source language text It does not rely on cultural equivalence and makes very small concessions to readership While faithful translation is dogmatic, semantic translation is very flexible

(v) Communicative translation

This method attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible

to that obtained on the readers of the original

However, according to Newmark, P (1988), there are only two methods of translation that are appropriate to any texts They are as follows

- Communicative translation

In this method, translators try to produce the same effect on the TL readers

as the original does on the SL readers

(vii) Free translation

Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content without the form of the original Usually it is a paraphrase much longer than

the original, a so-called ‘intralingual translation’, often prolix and pretentious, and not translation at all

(viii) Idiomatic translation

Idiomatic translation reproduces the ‘message’ of the original but tends to distort nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original

1.2.2.2 Principles of translation

Alexander Fraser Tytler, (1907) sets down principles for translation and gives guidelines for quality assessment that are strikingly modern as follows: (1) A translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work

(2) The style and manner of writing should be of the same character as that of the original

(3) A translation should have all the ease of original composition

The first principle seems obvious enough It means no errors or omissions, but also includes the idea that a translation is not a copy or a reproduction, but an original work in and of itself, even if its content is based entirely on another's work The translator is not supposed to make additions, amendments, or annotations, except possibly when working on esoteric literary texts The translator should not play the game of rewriting an original text so that it says "what the author meant" or "what the author should have said."

The second principle is similarly obvious, though difficult to execute in practice It means that the translator must not only have a complete command

of writing in the target language (the translator's native language, in almost all

cases), but also must be able to perceive stylistic touches and understand their meaning in the original text

The third principle is the hardest to achieve, because it harks back to the Russian axiom that states that if a translation is beautiful, it is not faithful, and

if it is faithful, it is not beautiful There is a delicate balance to achieve here,

in other words, and translators must aspire to be good writers in their native language, and must know all the finer points of writing in the subject and language they are working in so as to produce a translation with "all the ease

of original composition." In other words, a translation should not sound like a translation

on them, thus leading to a further study into English idioms on friendship as well as Vietnamese ones in the following chapters

CHAPTER 2

METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the research methodology used for the whole study It comprises of five smaller parts: (1) research design; (2) research participants; (3) research procedure; (4) data collection instruments and (5) data analysis methods

2.1 Research design

The research design for this study is a descriptive and comparative case that is analyzed through qualitative and quantitative methods to point out some similarities and dissimilarities between English and Vietnamese idioms

on friendship in term of structural and semantic features A survey questionnaire is used as one of data collection methods to evaluate participants’ ability in understanding English and Vietnamese idioms on friendship in terms of structural and semantic features and translating idioms

on friendship from English into Vietnamese In order to ensure which solution could be useful for translating idioms on friendship from English into Vietnamese in an effective way, qualitative method is applied to investigate structural and semantic features of English idioms on friendship from various sources of materials related to idioms

2.2 Research participants

The 100 participants of this study have been selected from third-year learners (including males and females) at Faculty of Foreign Languages of Hong Duc University (HDU), which was founded in 1997 in Thanh Hoa province These English major learners have been learning English for at least 3 years at high school and passed 4 English semesters of the first two years at HDU In terms of linguistic competence, the selective students have

generally covered most basic grammatical categories introduced in the textbook applied in their curricula during their time at high school and at university first year The following table presented information on the research participants:

Table 2.1: Information of the research participants

Gender of participants Number of participants

as the participants’ difficulties in translating idioms on friendship from English into Vietnamese in order to give some applications for translating them

2.3 Research procedure

In order to achieve the aims and objectives of the study, the process of doing this research has come through three major stages Writing the thesis proposal was the very first stage in the process which lasted nearly two months from early January to late February, 2013 After the proposal with

draft outline was approved by the supervisor, a survey questionnaire has been designed and material selection from different sources relating to main topic of the thesis was implemented In order to gather only useful materials with appropriate examples for illustrating the features of idioms on friendship, it has taken more than three months, so this second stage was a rather long process to sort out all the needed data The last stage started from late July to early November for analyzing features of English and Vietnamese idioms on friendship, as well as discussing the results from the survey questionnaire This was also the time when the thesis was completed both in form and content

2.4 Data collection instruments

For achieving the aims and objectives of the study with high reliability, two data collection instruments have been employed: selective material and survey questionnaire

2.4.1 Selective material

The selective material related to English and Vietnamese idioms played

a crucial role in terms of supplement data for the study

The majority of the selective material used in the study are collected from English and Vietnamese books such as Tuyển tập thành ngữ , tục ngữ ,

ca dao Việt –Anh thông dụng (Nguyen Dinh Hung, 2002); dictionaries as Từ ñiển Anh – Việt – the Oxford Dictionaries (Nguyen Trung Dung, 1997, Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus (Elizabeth Walter, 2008); plays as Hamlet (Shakespeare, W.1996); novels as Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell, 1936), The Thorn Birds (Colleen Mccullough,

2003 ), stories as Thằng bạn vàng (Dang Thi Hanh dung, 2010), Áo Trắng Bên Sông (Phuong Dung, 2005), Nhật ký của chị (Pham Anh, 2013), Công