The use of english idioms related to parts of human body by the third year students at faculty of english, hanoi open university

Hanoi Open University Faculty of English GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH The Use of English Idioms Related to Parts of Human Body by the Third-Year Students at Faculty of Engl

Hanoi Open University

Faculty of English

GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH

The Use of English Idioms Related to Parts of Human Body by the

Third-Year Students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University

Supervisor : Nguyen Thi Thuy Hong, M.A Student : Dang Thuy Duong

Date of birth : 7/5/1993

Course : K18A4 (2011-2015)

Hanoi- 2015

DECLARATION

Title: The Use of English Idioms Related to Parts of Human Body by the Third-Year Students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University(Graduation Paper submitted in Partial Fulfillment for B.A Degree

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to say that I am grateful to my supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thi Thuy Hong for her wholehearted instruction, supply of useful reference books and correction of my mistakes in this thesis

I also would like to thank all of the teachers at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University for their guidance for four years

I wish to express my great thanks to my family for their encouragement and moral support, which give me more motivation not only during four years but also the process of writing the thesis

Last but not least, I would be really thankful to my friends who ususally stay by my side to support me

Hanoi, March 2015 Dang Thuy Duong

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

FOE: Faculty of English

HOU: Hanoi Open University

IELTS: International English Language Testing System

Sb: somebody

Sth: something

TABLE OF CONTENT Acknowledgements

Part1 Introduction 7

1 Rationale 7

2 Aims and Scope of the Study 8

3 Methods of the Study 8

4 Design of the Study 9

Part 2 Development 10

Chapter 1 Literature Review of Idioms 10

1.1 Definition of Idiom 10

1.2 Uses of Idioms 11

1.3 Scope uses of idioms 13

1.4 Idioms and their Style Markers 14

1.5 Features of Body Parts Idioms 17

1.6 Strategies of Interpreting Idioms 18

Chapter 2 The Study 21

2.1 Introduction 21

2.2 Methodology and Procedures 21

2.2.1 Subject 21

2.2.2 Research method used 22

2.2.3 Procedures 22

2.2.4 Data analysis 22

2.2.4.1 The survey questionnaire 22

2.2.4.1.1 Exercise One 22

2.2.4.1.2 Exercise Two 24

2.3 The findings 26

2.3.1 Misusing words 26

2.3.2 Wrong word form 27

2.3.3 Word omission 28

2.3.4 Literal matching 27

2.3.5 Wrong types of phrases… 29

2.4 Summary 29

Chapter 3 Conclusion and recommendations for better uses of English idioms related to parts of human body 30

3.1 Introduction 30

3.2 Some causes of making mistakes in acquiring English idioms related to parts of human body 30

3.2.1 Causes of the mistakes 30

3.2.2 Mistakes caused by logical thought 30

3.2.3 Mistakes caused by cultural behaviour 30

3.2.4 Mistakes caused by carelessness 30

3.3 Recommendations for an effective avoidance of the errors 31

3.3.1 Recommendations for teaching English idioms related to parts of human body 31

3.3.2 Recommendations for learning English idioms related to parts of human body 33

3.4 Summary 34

Part 3 Conclusion 35

References 36

Appendix …… 38

Answer keys 40

THE USE OF ENGLISH IDIOMS RELATED TO PARTS OF HUMAN BODY BY THE THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF

ENGLISH, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

However, in English, besides four main skills, there are still a lot of fields, for instance: idioms, proverbs, phrasal verbs, etc which confuse learners of English because of their abstract meaning and usages Only with idioms, foreign learners encounter lots of forms and elements As a result, it is very difficult for anyone to master this language Moreover, when speaking to

a English native, instead of using normal words, if someone uses as many idioms as he can, his knowledge will be highly appreciated Sometimes, these special linguistic units could also be spoken in some international speaking tests, such as IELTS, to bring more points to candidates But choosing right and suitable idioms according to situation always have the best effects Therefore, in the sphere of my thesis, I would like to mention and put forward one small and modest part in English idioms, which is related to the parts of human body appearing in daily communication of English people Through this study, I would like to help learners of English comprehend complicated figurative meanings of English idioms related to parts of human body and have a proper choice to use them in daily communication Last but not least, particularly, I would like to point out several ways to assist the third-year students of English faculty at HOU to select English idioms related to parts of

human body for better communication Hopefully, they can avoid mistakes when they communicate with foreigners

2. Aims and Scope of the Study

Due to the limitation of time, space and sphere, this study cannot

present all categories of English idioms In this study, I will only write about the idioms concerning to parts of human body and their figurative meanings

I decided to devote chapter One to introduce all aspects of those items, including definitions, a great numbers of idioms and their meanings In the chapter Two, I will identify problems encountered by the learners of English

in general and by the third- year students of English Faculty at HOU in particular and analyze all of the current situations relating to learning English idioms related to parts of human body Chapter Three- the last chapter will be the conclusion for the study

To collect all data and information, which are neccesary for the study, I have combined several methods to gain the maximum effect In short, the two main methods I applied are quantitative and qualitative

Regarding quantitative research, I have studied many course books and articles on idioms, which are related to my parts of human body

As far as qualitative research is concerned, I have made a survey questionnaire which includes 20 questions and delivered it to a group of 57 third-year students in the Faculty of English, HOU This survey questionnaire aimed at finding out some common errors in using idioms related to parts of human body By analyzing the results collected, the author generalizes the common mistakes made by the third-year students of English, HOU Basing

on the data collected, the study author could discover the causes leading to the mistakes and suggest some recommendations to help the third- year students

of English at HOU to avoid them

4 Design of the Study

The study consists of three chapters, references and an appendix

The study begins with the introduction which deals with the rationale, the aims, the scope, and the methods of the study

Chapter 1 Literature Review

In this chapter, I would like to put forward an overview of idiom definition and main points of idioms related to parts of human body

Chapter 2 The Study

This main chapter includes the following parts:

quotations and definitions of English idioms concerning parts of human body:

Spear (1991) had a viewpoint as follow: “every language has some phrases or sentences that cannot be understood literally Even if we know the meaning of all the words in a phrase and understand the grammar completely, the meaning of the phrase may still be confusing Many clichés, proverbs, slang phrases, phrasal verbs and common sayings pose this kind of problem Phrases or sentences of this type are usually said to be idiomatic”

Manser had a similar point of view: “Until now, there is no complete guide to the large number of phrases that are peculiar to everyday conversation Any idiom, whatever its types, is deceptive Its real meaning is not what it appears to be on the surface Idioms provide an opaque connection between the surface sense of the words and their real individual meaning”

“Language is not merely a combination of words in the sense that by collecting their total meanings the significance of the whole phrase can be guessed Idioms are also defined as fixed phrases, which contain a number of words carrying a meaning that cannot be predicted and understood from the meaning of its components Idioms are very useful to the writers who want to

catch and use what the natives actually say (Longman Dictionnary of Applied Linguistics, 1985) For example, those who write cartoons, titles of books,

articles, programmers on televisions and radios find them quite adequate Those expressions can function as a single unit and their meaning cannot be

guessed from their separate parts The meaning of the separate words is

different from the total meaning of the expression

English idioms are considered as distinctive and colourful expressions, which have no literal meaning Linguistically speaking, English idioms are defined as ''multi-word lexemes, whose meaning is not a compositional function of the meaning of the component words'' (Arnold, 1995)

English idioms can be regarded as semi-fixed collocations that have

a metaphorical meaning which makes the writing very rich, colourful and interesting They are commonly used in English textbooks, movies, songs, and in the titles of articles That could be explained by the following example: ''He and his ex-wife finally buried the hatchet after years of fighting'', thus we can see that the phrase buried the hatchet carries a metaphorical meaning rather than a literal one

English idioms convey a distinct meaning without the necessary application of the grammatical rules, while the meaning that is carried by the individual words of those idioms does not provide us with any clues to guess the meaning of the whole idiom (URL:http:\\www.btinternet.com, 2003)

According to McCarthy M & O'Dell, 2003, there are some characteristics of idioms:

Firstly, English dioms related to parts of human body are used in telling stories, in commenting, and when voicing opinions

Secondly, English idioms related to parts of human body carry their own meaning and explanation

Thirdly, the main function of English idioms related to parts of human body is to paraphrase what is going on and what is being said

Fourthly, English idioms related to parts of human body are very useful and interesting in the texts of Horoscopes, because they carry more than one meaning, so the readers interpret them in different ways

Fifthly, English idioms are a type of formulaic language Formulaic language consists of fixed expressions which you learn and understand as units rather than as individual words

Last but not least, English idioms are fixed combinations of words whose meaning is often difficult to guess from the meaning of each individual word For example, if I say ‘I put my foot in it the other day at Linda’s house – I asked her if she was going to marry Simon’, what does it mean? If you do not know that “put your foot in it” means say something accidentally which upsets or embarrasses someone, it is difficult to know exactly what the sentence means It has a non-literal or idiomatic meaning

1.2. Uses of Engling idioms

In daily life as well as academic situations, English idioms are frequently used to express the speaker’s idea, opinion and viewpoint Especially, using idioms can even draw more attraction and make a talk more fascinating than speaking normal words Here are some examples of meanings of idiom using, which are clearly presented in English Idioms in Use Advanced of Felicity O’Dell and Michael McCarthy, 2003:

- To agree with a previous speaker, e.g

A: Did you notice how Lisa started listening when you said her name?

B: Yes, that certainly made her prick her ears up [start listening carefully]

- To comment people, e.g Did you hear Tom has been invited for dinner with the Prime Minister? He’s certainly gone up in the world! [gained a better social position – or more money – than before]

- To comment a situation, e.g The new finance minister wants to knock the economy into shape [take action to get something into a good condition]

- To make an anecdote more interesting, e.g It was just one disaster after another today, a sort of domino effect [when something, usually bad, happens and causes a series of other things to happen]

- To catch the reader’s eye Idioms – particularly those with strong images – are often used in headlines, advertising slogans and the names of small businesses The writer may play with the idiom or make a pun (a joke involving a play on words) in order to create a special effect, e.g a debt of dishonour instead of the usual debt of honour [a debt that you owe someone for moral rather than financial reasons]

- To indicate membership of a particular group, e.g surfers drop in on

someone, meaning to get on a wave another surfer is already on This kind of group- specific idiom is outside the focus of this book

1.3. Scope use of English idioms

English idioms are seen and heard in all sorts of speaking and writing They are particularly common in everyday conversation and in popular journalism For example, they are often found in magazine horoscopes:

e.g You’ll spend much of this week licking your wounds [trying to recover from a bad experience],

English idioms are usually used in problem solving;

e.g Do you think that my relationship has run its course? [come to a natural end]

However, idioms are also used in more formal contexts, such as lectures, academic essays and business reports,

e.g It is hoped the regulations will open the door to better management [let something new start]

1.4 Idioms and their “Style Markers”

The style marker is the sign by which we can distinguish the particular type of idiom, whether the English idiom is informal, slang, formal, etc… For example, we have informal everyday expressions, which have no style

marker; those types of English idioms should not be used in writing They are only used among friends A slang, which is represented by a very informal style, takes place among young group of people We have also markers that are represented by ill-formed phrases that are not accepted by the native speakers who like to embrace nonstandard marker There is also a literary marker used in the writing of poetry Some groups of English idioms are treated as being old-fashioned, because they are not used in modern spoken English, yet they are still being used by speakers The last type of marker is the one that indicates the country of the language (Manser: 1992)

- Cliché: It is a type that indicates an expression, which is used too

frequently We should not use clichés in writing It can also be defined as a term that is used with conversations and with another language field Clichés may give the mood of the language user; they rarely have a distinct meaning

We can examine cliché and know whether it is idiomatic or not For example,

“a smash hit” (sell out) can not be predictable from its separate words, the whole meaning of this idiom is completely different from its literal one

- Proverb: A proverb refers to a fixed saying that is often quoted We

can also consider it as a fixed phrase that has a metaphorical meaning, but at the same time it offers wise knowledge about human life It may include old-fashioned words, which make it hard to be understood

Arnold suggests that they are commonly used in both spoken and written English especially in the titles of books, movies, songs, and articles They can provide a good starting or concluding point in writing essays in English For example, ''Every storm cloud has a silver linning'' (every bad

situation has sth good) We can consider this proverb as idiomatic, because it has a metaphorical meaning, which goes beyond its literal one (Arnold: 1995)

- Slang: Slangs refer to the terms that are recognized as casual or

playful Idioms are yesterday's slang, and slang is tomorrow's idioms which have through use and over time become acceptable to be used in the informal language Thus, we cannot use slang expressions in writing For example, ''tip someone off'' means “to give sb a hint” We cannot use this idiom in writing

or in formal spoken English This expression is idiomatic, because we cannot guess its total meaning from its separate parts or words

- Informal expressions: They refer to a very casual expressions that

are suitable to be spoken and not written (e.g ''lock horns''- get into an argument with someone) The suggested idiom can not be used in written or

in spoken English with someone who has a formal position We can call it idiomatic because we cannot know the meaning of the whole idiom from the meaning of its individual words

- Formal expressions : They are literally in origin and usually reserved

in writing They are also found in conversations that take place among people who share formal relationship (like student\teacher relationship) For example, ''pave the way” (to prepare for sth or sb) this idiom can be used in formal speech

- Folksy: It refers to expressions which are rural, and old-fashioned

They cannot be used in writing, e.g ''pushing up daisies'' (to be dead) The suggested metaphoric idiom contains a rural word (daisies), which makes the

term difficult to be understood

- Phrasal Verbs: A phrasal verb is a combination of a verb plus an

adverb, like: 'make up', and 'put down' We can know its possible idiomaticity

by putting those examples under specific exam For example, we have the verb 'make up' that has the meaning of the verb 'invent' We can consider it as

an idiomatic verb because the total meaning of 'make up' is different from the meaning of the verb 'make' and the adverb 'up' This phrasal verb is high in

the ladder of idiomaticity (Palmer: 1981)

- Partial Idioms: These are a type of idioms which appear when the

meaning of one of the words has its usual meaning, while the other has a meaning that is peculiar or unusual to the particular sequence For example, the idiom “red hair” refers to hair, but not the red one in strict

We have another partial English idiom like “make your bed” (to restore/ rearrange your bed) This idiom can be used as a comic expression by comedians when is said in a play The reaction will bring a set of carpenter's tools in order to produce a funny situation

Some linguists try to classify English idioms in terms of colour, number, animals, etc In this paper, I would like to concentrate on English idioms refering human body parts and their significance in language

1.5 Features of Body Parts Idioms

Idiomatic expressions in English can be diagnosed by some properties that are extracted from its practical use in variable discourses The features that are set below are extracted from an anonymous writer in an article labeled Anonymous “Czech and English Idioms of Body Parts: A View from Cognitive Semantics, English Language”:

+ English idioms are conventional That means they are well- established style

+ English idioms have paradigmatic fixity That means the individual elements of idioms are unable to be substituted in the same place of its context

+ English idioms are transformationally anomalous That means they are a unique group of word that cannot be created according to a specific pattern

+ From the formal viewpoint, idioms have combinatory abilities that are not identical with the combinatory abilities of a regular language

+ From the semantic point of view, English idioms have no compositional function That means the total meaning of an idiom cannot be predicted from the meaning of its individual parts

+ English idioms have compositeness That means an idiom is a combination of two or more words which function as a unit of meaning and that exactly what is called semantic unity

+ English idioms have a special nature that makes them unique That means they are richer than the literal language in terms of their structure and semantic features

+ English idioms cause a high degree of disinformation potential That means the individual parts of idioms are polysemous and can be misunderstood by the listener

+ English idioms are institutionalized That means they are conventionalized and cannot be changed

1.6 Strategies of Interpreting Idioms

English idioms and their interpretations depend on a conceptual theory, which is developed by the cognitive linguists who are concerned with the fact that our thinking in idiom interpretation is metaphorical and that is reflected

in its use The explanation of idioms are rendered in terms of three cognitive strategies: conceptual metaphor, general conventional knowledge and metonymies

The general conventional knowledge refers to all the information that people have about the world around them, it is somehow unconscious, because people do not recall the general conventional knowledge when they are speaking, thus the process is usually done unconsciously

Conceptual metaphors and metonymies are the cognitive devices which provide a link between the concrete knowledge of the world people hold in their memory and the figurative meaning of a given idiom That means, we have an abstract area in our mind which needs to be brought into our everyday use

From the cognitive viewpoint, English idioms are considered as a product of our conceptual system English idioms are just expressions that carry meanings which are different from the meaning of its individual parts, but it comes from our general knowledge of the world that is embodied in our conceptual system That shows when a number of people share the same experience in life or the same culture Those who share the same stories, traditions, and experiences can understand and interpret them easily rather than those who are not native speaker That is because people of the same culture share the same images that are stored in their memory and that are gathered through their life Some linguists like Tylia, Bragina, and Oparina suggest that culture is like a channel through which language is passed from one community to another and that what is called ”cultural connotation” (http://www.bohemica.com)

English idioms seem to be difficult lexical items to interpret However,

if we look at the conceptual metaphor which underlay idioms, we will be much closer to understand them It is indicated that conceptual thinking of understanding idioms is like a vehicle which connects the literal meaning of the words to their idiomatic meaning Thus, with idioms that revolve round

"head", native speakers are able to infer the idiomatic meaning because they subconsciously know what the word "head" means Therefore, the process of interpreting idioms is conducted successfully when the three cognitive strategies, namely conventional knowledge, conceptual metaphors and metonymies are at work Learners of English can easily simplify most of the inferences about the meaning of idiomatic expressions

Another factor that helps learners of English to understand and infer idioms is ''context'' in the sense that the surrounding co-text has a strong effect

on what we think the word means Context helps to interpret the meaning of idiomatic phrases We cannot infer the meaning of an idiom unless we know the context by which we can comprehend the total meaning Context is very important for the interpretation of literal language and more important to interpret idioms, which have figurative meaning Palmer (1981: 43) argues that misinformation and confusion often result from our inability to infer the meanings of idioms, which are contextually misplaced

English idioms have function in human discourse English idioms focus

on the massage content including actions English idioms are interactional including greetings and farewells so that they can secure the cohesion of discourse The discoursal cohesion seems to rely semantically on idioms People use idiomatic expressions in order to express their opinions, feelings, emotions, evaluation of events, agreement with or rejection of, other people's statements Those expressions also show whether this massage can be understood, and predicted or not Although idioms behave as semantic units, their syntactic behavior poses problems Thus, the sentence "He kick the bucketed yesterday" sounds awkward Thus, the only correct form of past tense is ''kicked the bucket'', so we cannot consider an idiom like a single word but they are sequence of grammatical words (URL:

http://www.bohemica.com)

Syntactic Restrictions

There are some syntactic restrictions concerning the idioms, for example, we cannot change the number of the nouns of English idioms that is why we cannot say, ''spill the bean'' instead of ''spill the beans'' In addition,

we cannot give the comparative and superlative form of the adjectives in idioms Thus, we cannot say ''redder herring'' instead of ''red herring'' We have some syntactic restrictions of English idioms we cannot passive some

idioms like ''the bucket was kicked'' Therefore, English idioms have some restrictions in their uses We rather use them as they are with stability and fixity (Palmer, 1981:43)

Idioms and Culture

An English idiom is generally a colloquial metaphor It is a term that requires some foundational knowledge, information, or experience, to use only within a culture where the insider parties must have common reference English idioms are not considered a part of the language, but rather a part of the culture As cultures are typically localized, English idioms are often not useful outside of their local physical contexts Thus, the insiders of a community cannot decode idioms that are related to different linguistic community However, in spite of the gap that exists between cultures, some idioms can be more universally used than others, and can be easily translated (Wikipedia, 2009) This fact of the cultural influence on guessing idioms Some linguists claim that idioms that are concerned with the human body parts can be guessed more easily because human beings regardless of their cultures are familiar with the functions of their body parts