Idiomatic Expressions of Places in British English and Vietnamese as Seen from Cultural Perspective

With an ambition to help teachers and students have a good understanding about the relationship between idioms and culture, the author has managed to figure out the features of idiomatic

Idiomatic Expressions of Places in British English and Vietnamese as Seen from Cultural

Perspective

Hà Thị Thọ Anh

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn: Đỗ Thị Mai Thanh M.A

Năm bảo vệ: 2011

Abstract: British English and Vietnamese have their own valuable treasures of idioms as

well as their great values of culture and language that are handed down and enriched from generation to generation Idiomatic expressions, an interesting form of language and culture seem to be indispensible in daily speech as well as in books, newspapers, magazines, TV or radio Owning the outstanding features in terms of origins, structures, styles and meaning, idioms have caused a lot of difficulties for people Whenever the meaning of a phrase or an expression cannot be understood simply and clearly, even if the meaning of the word is known well, an idiom can be encountered with great ambiguity because the background knowledge and non literal meaning is not taken into account With an ambition to help teachers and students have a good understanding about the relationship between idioms and culture, the author has managed to figure out the features of idiomatic expressions of places in British English and Vietnamese from cultural perspective via a set of one hundred idiomatic expressions of places, compare and contrast to reveal the similarities and differences about languages and cultural context influence in the idiomatic expressions of places Also, the importance of cultural

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgment ii

Abstract iii

Table of content iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methods of the study 3

5 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Culture and language 4

1.1.1 Culture and cultural values 4

1.1.2 Relation between language and culture 5

1 1.3 Idioms and their roles in communication 6

1.2 Idioms in the light of semantics 7

1.2.1 Definition 7

1.2.2 Functions of idioms 8

1.2.3 Classification of idioms 9

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1.2.4 Sources of idioms 10

1.2.5 Features of idioms 11

1.3 Distinction of idioms 11

1.3.1 Idioms vs slang 11

1.3.2 Idioms vs proverb 12

1.3.3 Idioms vs collocation 13

1.4 Idioms in the light of culture 13

1.4.1 Idioms as seen from social specification 13

1.4.2 Idioms as seen from social psychology 17

1 5 The influence of culture on British English and Vietnamese idiomatic expressions of places 18

1.5.1 Influence of culture on British English idiomatic expressions of places 18

1.5.2 Influence of culture on Vietnamese idiomatic expressions of places 20

1.6 Previous studies on idioms 24

CHAPTER 2: DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES BETWEEN IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS OF PLACES IN BRITISH ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 26

2.1 Idiomatic expressions of places in British English 26

2.1.1 Idiomatic expressions containing the geographical names 26

2.1.2 Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘ house and home” 28

2.1.3 Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘earth’ 29

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2.2.1 Idiomatic expressions containing the geographical names 31

2.2.2 Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘ house and home” 35

2.2.3 Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘earth’ 35

2.2 4 Idiomatic expressions containing the word: sea/ ocean/river 36

2.3 Findings 37

2.4 Summary 40

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Recaptulation 41

2 Implications 42

3 Suggestions for further study 42

References 43 Appendix I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale:

It is common knowledge that the language of each culture lies in its self similar and different cultural concepts on many fields of life such as human values, attitude to life, behavior standards, religious beliefs, customs and tradition, social conventions etc

Among the idioms relating to different aspects of social life, idiomatic expressions of places in British English and Vietnamese specify the typical features of cultural values connected to social life Idiomatic expressions of places contain much knowledge about mankind and surrounding world Each idiom of place is connected to a local specification and cultural background that conveys ideas about the lifestyles and stereotype of the nation and the country Specifically, the idioms of places refer to the human emotion, behavior, life style and reflect the expectation and wishes of people in their social lives Hence, studying on the similarities and differences between the idiomatic expressions of places in British English and Vietnamese has been one of the researcher’s concerns and the study on the topic “Idiomatic expressions of places in British English and Vietnamese as seen from cultural perspective” is carried out The study will be served as an interesting and helpful material for those who care for cultural patterns in intercultural communication and cross- cultural communication

2 Aims of the study:

The study aims at

- helping the learners establish a background understanding on the relationship between idioms and culture by analysing the features of idiomatic expressions of places in British English and Vietnamese;

- indicating influence of British culture and Vietnamese culture on language in general and idiomatic expressions of places in this particular aspect;

- showing some similarities and differences between British English and Vietnamese idiomatic expressions in terms of local specification in which meaning of the idioms and human attitude are revealed;

- raising people’s cultural awareness in teaching and learning British English and Vietnamese idioms

3 Scope of the study:

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The study will focus on idiomatic expressions of places in British English and

Vietnamese which are taken from outstanding sources in English: Oxford Idioms-

Dictionary for Learners of English, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture and in Vietnamese: Từ Điển Thành Ngữ Tục Ngữ Việt Nam ( Nguyễn Lân), Đi Tìm Điển Tích Thành Ngữ ( Tiêu Hà Minh), Thành Ngữ Anh Việt ( Bùi Phụng), Tuyển Tập Thành Ngữ, Tục Ngữ, Ca dao Anh Việt Thông Dụng (Nguyễn Đình Hùng) The list of British English and Vietnamese idiomatic expressions

will be found in the appendix as the illustrations

4 Methods of the study:

This is a comparative and contrastive study Therefore, the strategic methods used are qualitative and quantitative ones which are conducted by carefully collecting and referring to materials from various sources to have full-blown information of idioms and its cultural background in general The good choice of fifty idiomatic expressions in Vietnamese and fifty idiomatic expressions in British English will be carefully analysed and examined to see the similarities and differences between the two cultures and languages The author’s own experience in communication and cultural awareness will be

referred to as way of categorizing the field

5 Design of the study:

The study is divided into three main parts: Part A gives a general introduction and stated the reasons, aims and ways for carrying out the study Part B includes two chapters, Chapter 1 deals with the theoretical background on culture and idioms in British English and Vietnamese Also, the influence of the two cultures on idiomatic expressions of places will be taken into account Chapter 2 mainly provides a careful analysis of idiomatic expressions of places in British English and Vietnamese concerning the similarities and differences in the aspect of local specification The last part, conclusion concerns with the summaries of main points, the implication and some suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

1.1 Culture and language

1.1.1 Culture and cultural values

There have been various notions of culture, but to make it simple to get the ideas of culture, according to Goodenough (1957, 167), the term culture is used in the sense of whatever a person must know in order to function in a particular society Porter and Samovar (1994; 12) also clarified that culture does not naturally come into the people’s mind, members of the culture adapt the patterns of behavior, ways of thingking and build their attitude, beliefs etc fully part of their personality by absorbing them through repeated experience or exposure

1.1.2 Relationship between language and culture

The relationship between language and culture has been interrelated in the sense that language is used to maintain and convey culture and cultural ties In general, language and culture have always been in existence together and reinforced each other The relationship between them is so closely linked that separation is impossible, in other words,

it is difficult to master the language without the knowledge of the culture

1.1.3 Idioms and their roles in communication

It can be said that the biggest role in communication that idioms carry is to convey information in a figurative and impressive way

1.2 Idioms in the light of semantics

1.2.1 Definition

According to Seidle and Mac Mordie (1988), “an idiom is a number of words which, taken together, meaning something different from the individual words of the idioms when they stand alone The way in which the words are put together is often odd, illogical or even grammatically incorrect.”

1.2.2 Functions of idioms

According to Chitra Fernando (1996, 72), idioms perform the three important functions: ideational, interpersonal and relational functions

Other categorization of functions drawn from Moon’s theory (1998) is:

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- Informational: Evaluative: Situational: Modalizing: Organizational:

1.2.3 Classification of idioms

Classification of idioms based on meaning

Classification of idioms based on structures:

1.2.4 Sources of idioms

Idioms have a variety of sources that originated from the social and cultural life such as farming, means of transport, science, Bible, literature, history, leisure activities etc

1.2.5 Features of idioms

As suggested in the theory about idioms given by Chitra Fenando (1996; 3), idioms are commonly accepted as a type of multiword expression or single words Compositeness: Institutionalization: Semantic opacity

1.3 Distinction of idioms

1.3.1 Idioms vs slang

“Slangs are very informal words and phrases commonly used in speech, especially between people from the same social groups or who work together, not considered suitable for formal contexts and often not in use for long Slang sometimes restricted to one particular group of people e.g soldiers and children” (Oxford Advanced Learners

Dictionary -1995)

1.3.2 Idioms vs proverb

Flavell (1992) said that proverbs exist in all languages and written collections of them date back to the earliest times Proverbs can be defined as memorable short sayings of the people, containing words of advice or wisdom and often appear in the form of whole sentences - to be adapted into proverbial form

1.3.3 Idioms vs collocation

Collocation as defined in the Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary (1995) is the regular combination of words Or “collocation is an arrangement of words which sounds

natural e.g strong coffee not powerful coffee (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary

English 1978)

1.4 Idioms in the light of culture

1.4.1 Idioms - as seen from cultural and social specification

+ Idioms attached with locality

+ Idioms attached with basic (human) need

+ Idioms attached with social development

+ Idioms attached with cultural transmission

1.4.2 Idioms as seen from social-psychology

+ Idiomatic expressions referring to human attitude

+ Idiomatic expressions referring to emotions and behaviors

1.5 Influences of British English and Vietnamese cultures on idiomatic expressions of places 1.5.1 Influence of British English culture on idiomatic expressions of places

+ The influence of geographical factor

+ The influence of historical factor: the Roman conquest

+ The influence of customs and tradition:

+ The influence of religion- Christianity

+ The influence of literature:

1.5.2 Influence of Vietnamese culture on idiomatic expressions of places

+ The influence of geographical factor:

+ The influence of religion- Buddhism:

+ The influence of customs and tradition:

+ The influence of historical factor: Han people and ideology

+ The influence of literature

1.6 Previous studies on idioms

A Study on Comparative Idioms from Cultural Perspective-Do Thi Thu Trang (2006, VNU-ULIS)

A Study on Idiomatic Variants and Synonymous Idioms in English and Vietnamese- Dang Nguyen Giang (2009 VNU-ULIS)

Idiomatic Expressions Containing the Word “Dog” in English and Vietnamese - Dao Thanh Tu (2007 VNU-ULIS)

CHAPTER 2: DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES BETWEEN IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS OF PLACES IN BRITISH ENGLISH AND

VIETNAMESE

In the human’s social life, the idioms concerning about the specific locations and places are various and play an important role in producing the variety of language and culture In this part, the similarities and differences are presented respectively, British English idioms are mentioned before coming into the analysis of Vietnamese ones The

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analysis of the idiomatic expressions of British English and Vietnamese will be based on

the local specification with four categories of places: home, house/ nhà, gia đình; earth,

heaven/ thiên địa; sea/ ocean and geographical names, through which the meaning of the

idioms and the human attitude will be revealed and carefully examined for the purpose of complete understanding all the idioms in the light of culture

In the analysis, not all the one hundred idioms are mentioned as illustration, the study just focuses on some typical idioms that are commonly used in communication The use of the idioms of places will be illustrated with the examples and the literal meanings of the idioms are also given in the explaination part Also, some data about the frequent use of idioms in the four specific categories will be provided in the tables then the analysis and interpretation will be written out

2.1 Idiomatic expressions of places in British English

2.1.1 Idiomatic expressions containing the geographical names

2.1.2 Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘house and home’

2.1.3 Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘earth’

2.1.4 Idiomatic expressions containing the word: sea/ ocean/river

2.2 Idiomatic expressions of places in Vietnamese

2.2.1 Idiomatic expressions containing the geographical names

2.2.2 Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘house/ home”

2.2.3 Idiomatic expressions containing the word ‘earth’

2.2.4 Idiomatic expressions containing the word: ‘sea / ocean/river’

2.3 Findings

Based on the analysis of the idioms in British English and Vietnamese, it can be seen that all the idioms containing the words of places reveal the human attitude toward life, the emotion and social behaviours All the idioms in British English and Vietnamese are fixed expressions that have been established and used for a long time They reflect human beings’ remarks, comments, estimations or sometime experience about various phenomena in everyday life Hence, the idioms of places have evidently cultural features

of the two countries In the analysis, the similarities and differences between the two cultures expressed in the form of idioms have been viewed from the local specification aspect concerning idiomatic expressions containing the word: house/ home; earth; sea/ocean and specific names of places