Idioms about appearance and personality in english and vietnamese

Forms/structures of idioms of comparison in English and Vietnamese………...…...30 2.2 Idioms of comparison referring to human interior qualities characteristics……...33 2.2.1 Idioms of compa

IDIOMS ABOUT APPEARANCE AND PERSONALITY IN

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Supervisor : NGUYỄN THẾ HÓA

Student : NGUYỄN THÙY LINH

Date of birth : 04/09/1994

Course : K19A06 (2012-2016)

HANOI, 2016

CODE : 22

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH

GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES

IDIOMS ABOUT APPEARANCE AND PERSONALITY IN

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Supervisor : NGUYỄN THẾ HÓA

Student : NGUYỄN THÙY LINH

Date of birth : 04/09/1994

Course : K19A06 (2012-2016)

HANOI, 2016

CODE : 22

DECLARATION

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor

Hanoi, 28th April, 2016

DECLARATION

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

PART A – INTRODUCTION………1

1 Rationale………1

2 Aims of the study……….… 2

3 Scope of the study……… 2

4 Methods of the study……… 2

5 Design of the study……….3

PART B – DEVELOPMENT……… 4

CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW……… 4

1.1 Literature review………4

1.2 Definition of idioms……… ….5

1.2.1 Definition of English idioms……… …….….… … 7

1.2.2 Definition of Vietnamese idioms……… ……8

1.3 The importance of idioms for English language learners 9

1.4 What is meant by “idiomatic variants”? 14

1.5 What is meant by “synonymous idioms”? 15

1.6 Classification of idioms……… 15

1.7 Main features of idioms in English and Vietnamese………… 19

1.7.1 Semantic features……….….…19

1.7.2 Structural features……… …… 21

1.8 Functions of idioms……… …… … 23

1.9 Major functions of idioms in human discourse……….26

CHAPTER 2 – IDIOMS ABOUT HUMAN APPEARANCE AND

CHARACTER IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE……… 28

2.1 Comparison idioms……… 28

2.1.1 Introduction……….……… ………28

2.1.2 Idioms of comparison……….29

a Concepts of idioms of comparison in English and Vietnamese… ……… 29

b Forms/structures of idioms of comparison in English and Vietnamese……… … 30

2.2 Idioms of comparison referring to human interior qualities (characteristics)…… 33

2.2.1 Idioms of comparison which denote human good interior qualities… ………34

2.2.2 Idioms of comparison which denote human bad interior qualities… ……….………38

2.3 Idioms of comparison referring to human character and appearance (behaviors and conditions………42

2.4 Similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese idioms of comparison referring to human appearance and personality… 50

2.5 Summary……… ……….… 53

CHAPTER 3 – SOLUTIONS FOR BETTER TRANSLATION AND SOME TEACHING IMPLICATIONS……….…….54

3.1 Implications for translation……… 54

3.2 Implications for language teaching……… 56

PART C – CONCLUSION……….58

REFERENCE……… 60

PART A : INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

The most important purpose of studying one language would be how to use the language like native speakers Idiom could be one of the aspect would make a language learner speak more naturally Idiom is often used flexibly in daily life or even in literature The more idioms a learner knows, the more native sound-alike conversations he could make

Idioms make a language sound more creative, and can also get others to think and figure out what the person who is using the idiom might mean Using the literal language (as in saying things directly without any creativity) sounds very common, and it seems quite boring when they are used in story books Idioms in a context makes the context nicely and creatively Good writers often use idiomatic expressions, and sometimes they have a different meaning It’s mostly a challenging thing, and using idioms in essay might earn more marks and make a better impression Therefore, learning idioms is important

Every country or nation has got their own idioms that are specific to their culture, while many idioms have synonyms in several countries which refer to the equal shared human nature in many cultures Learning the specific idioms related to a certain culture helps you learn more about the history, customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of it

Idioms also refect accumulated human experiences and are built on frequently occurring situations, that demonstrate human behavior, social traits,

certain habits or tradition in a country So are Vietnamese idioms They represent life lessons and are a heritage of those accumulated events that make up the conscious of a nation or humankind in general They also are treasure of older generations Besides using in daily life conversation, Vietnamese idioms also appear through songs and literature which help to build and conserve the national identity

Using idioms competently in both English and Vietnamese could be a advantage pushing in improving language skills and have a deep understanding about culture

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This paper aims to detect wide and full definition of idioms, types of it and

to point out similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idiom in term of appearance and personality Besides, this will show difficulties in translating English into Vietnamese and provide some solutions

to cope with them

3 Scope of the study

This study will focus on English and Vietnamese idioms of appearance and personality

4 Methods of the study

This paper uses constrating analysis to make English and Vietnamese idioms clearer The sources for the analysis are from materials and references written by linguists in English and in Vietnamese as well as some bilingual

reference books available in Vietnam This will help to make clear both the similarities and the differences between the idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms in English and those in Vietnamese

Techniques for analyzing materials:

- English and Vietnamese idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms are investigated in many of their aspects such as appearances, forms, component orders, characteristics, meaning colors, figurative styles etc Basing on this, the author has tried to find out the similarities and differences between English idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms and Vietnamese ones

- Description and comparison are carried in the order of different groups of subjects by using some techniques such as contrastive analysis, componential analysis, transformable analysis and statistics Moreover, frequent talks with the supervisor, lecturers and experts on the field have proved to be a very useful method for the completion of the study Also, the study is carried out on the basis of the author’s personal experience

5 Design of the study

This paper has three main parts Part A is the introduction about the rationale, aim and objectives of the study, scope of the study, methods and the design of the study

Part B mentions the development for this paper and consists of three chapters Chapter 1 talks about literature reviews, chapter 2 states idioms about human appearance and character in English and Vietnamese , and chapter 3 shows the contributions and solutions

Part C is conclusion and recommendation The end of the study is the references

PART B : DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Literature review

In “Essential Idioms in English” (2003), idioms are listed and have their meaning explained with illustrating examples Palmer clearly states some restrictions in syntactic as well as semantic features in idioms In “An Introduction to Functional Grammar”(1985) by Halliday, there has been the explanation of structural grammar, the relationship between grammar and semantic, and especially in the light of Halliday’s view, idioms are regarded

as a class of group Seidl and McMordie write “English Idioms and How to Use Them” (1954) Besides, in “Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners of English” (2007) , there is a wide range of idioms, from expressions used in business and newspapers to very up-to-date informal English and slang expressions

Concerning Vietnamese idioms, there have been a lot of studies by various linguists such as “Từ điển thành ngữ tục ngữ Việt – Anh tường giải” by Bùi Phụng (2000), “Từ điển giải thích thành ngữ tiếng Việt” by Nguyễn Như Ý (1995) , “Từ điển thành ngữ tục ngữ ca dao Việt Nam” by Việt Chương (1995) , “Từ điển thành ngữ Việt- Anh” by Trần Phong Giao (2010) In addition, there have been so far some master theses in English on idioms carried out by many Vietnamese researchers Nguyen Van Long has done

researches into “Semantic Features of English and Vietnamese Idiomatic Verb Phrases” and “Linguistic Features of English and Vietnamese Idioms” (2010) Nguyen Thi Dieu Hao focuses on the study of idioms containing color words in English and Vietnamese.Vo Thanh Quyen makes a contrastive analysis of idioms denoting Human Being in English and Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Phuong Thu studies “The Syntactic and Semantic Features of English and Vietnamese Idioms Containing Verbs of Motion” (2008) Moreover, Nguyen Thi Thu Mai investigates “The Syntactic and Semantic Features of Idioms Denoting Causes and Results (English Versus Vietnamese)” It could be seen that the linguistic features of idioms expressing distance in English versus Vietnamese have not been so far investigated

1.2 Definition of idioms:

Each word certainly has its own meaning However, words do not just exist separately and individually, they, in fact, also come in groups or expressions Idioms can be said to be one of the most common expressions that one must acquire if he/she wants to master a language What is an idiom? Hornby stated in his Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1995) that an idiom is “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” In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2006), Hornby changed the definition a little bit, noting that an idiom is “a group of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of the individual words” (p 740) To put it in a simple way, an idiom is a phrase in which the words together have a meaning that is

somehow different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words, which can make idioms arduous to understand It should be kept in mind that

an idiom is differentiated from a collocation since a collocation is, according

to Cruse (1986), “a sequence of lexical items which habitually co-occur and each lexical constituent is also a semantic constituent.” (p 40)

The number of idioms in English is considerable Some interesting examples are: “It was for the birds” (means: It’s is really meaningless and uninteresting), or “to bury the hatchet” (to make peace), “to call it a day” (to stop doing something), “to paint the town red” (to carouse and have a good time),

In Vietnamese, we also possess a lot of idioms, such as: “Nghèo rớt mùng tơi” (Very poor, penniless); “Chọc gậy bánh xe” (to prevent someone from doing something they have planned); “cao chạy xa bay” (to flee, to run away)…

Idioms can make perfect examples of figurative language, in that the overall meaning of an idiom can not be predicted from the composition of the literal meanings of the constituent parts For example, we can not predict that

these idioms up in arm or down in the mouth mean very angry Idioms in both

English and Vietnamese are structurally and lexically closely-combined phrases whose meanings are completely different from their component parts

In general, idioms are the products of national culture and social life They are conventionally lexicalized linguistic units and ready-made utterances Structually, idioms are fixed expressions; they don’t permit the usual variability displaying in other contexts From the semantic point of view,

idioms must be interpreted in connection with the historical and cultural characteristics

1.2.1 Definition of English idioms

to Use” “an idiom is a number of words which, taken together, mean something different from the individual words of the idiom when they stand alone.” (1979: 20)The Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics regards an idiom as “an expression which function as a single unit and whose meaning can not be worked out from its separate parts” (1992: 198) In the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (Oxford University Press - 1995) 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.” (1995: 67)

- Ammer defines an idiom as a set phrase of two or more words that means something different from the literal meaning of the individual words As for Cruse [p.37], an idiom is an expression whose meaning cannot be accounted for as a compositional function of the meanings its parts have when they are not parts of idioms With the aim of structural and semantic analysis in both English and Vietnamese about people, we decided to choose Cruse's definition [p.37] as the foundational one for this study

On reflection, it could be seen that there is no conflict between therefore mentioned definitions of idiom Regardless of obvious differences in

expressing, they intersect at one point: an idiom is a fixed expression whose

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

1.2.2 Definition of Vietnamese idioms

In Vietnamese, Hoàng Văn Hành [p.31] considered an idiom as "một loại

tổ hợp từ cố định, bền vững về hình thái - cấu trúc, hoàn chỉnh, bóng bẩy về ý nghĩa, được sử dụng rộng rãi trong giao tiếp hằng ngày" (a fixed group of words which is firm in terms of morphor-structure, complete and figurative in terms of meaning, and is widely used in daily speaking)

According to “Thuật ngữ ngôn ngữ học” , idiom is “cụm từ hay ngữ cố định có tình nguyên khối về ngữ nghĩa, tạo thành một chỉnh thể định danh có

ý nghĩa chung khác tổng số ý nghĩa của các thành tố cấu thành nó, tức là không có nghĩa đen và hoạt động như một từ riêng biệt trong câu.” (Is a phrase or a fixed term with the semantic monolithic, form an identifiable whole other common sense of the meaning of its constituent elements, has no literal meaning and acts as a separate from the sentence.)

In Wikipedia, it is written “Thành ngữ hoặc là những cụm từ mang ngữ nghĩa cố định (phần lớn không tạo thành câu hoàn chỉnh về mặt ngữ pháp) (không thể thay thế và sửa đổi về mặt ngôn từ) và độc lập riêng rẽ với từ ngữ hay hình ảnh mà thành ngữ sử dụng, thành ngữ thường được sử dụng trong việc tạo thành những câu nói hoàn chỉnh Thành ngữ là tập hợp từ cố định đã quen dùng mà nghĩa của nó thường không thể giải thích được một cách đơn

giản bằng nghĩa của các từ tạo nên nó Cần phân biệt thành ngữ và tục ngữ.” (Idioms are fixed semantic phrases (mostly not form complete sentences grammatically) (irreplaceable and amended in rhetoric) separately and independently with words or images which uses expressions, idioms are often used in the form of a complete sentence Idioms are fixed set of words that are familiar with its meaning often can not be explained simply by means of words that make it up Need to distinguish idioms and proverbs.)

VD:

Tốt gỗ hơn tốt nước sơn (Good wood better than paint)

Hổ phụ sinh hổ tử (Like father like son)

Con ông cháu cha (Accident of birth)

1.3 The importance of idioms for English language learners

“Since idiomatic expressions are so frequently

encountered in both spoken and written discourse, they require special attention in language programs and should not be relegated

to a position of secondary importance in the curriculum”.

Cooper, 1998

The English language being very flexible constantly enriches its vocabulary with words invented by language speakers, making it more colourful with new idiomatic expressions, and, at times, refills its stocks with the borrowings and neologisms English just amazes by its extraordinary linguistic diversity

The focus of this paper is to share consideration on the importance of idioms for non-native speakers as part of their mastery of the English language

Understanding the lexicon of English demands more than knowing the denotative meaning of words It requires its speakers to have connotative word comprehension and more - an understanding of figurative language

Idioms fall into the latter category Learning idioms is certainly not a piece of

cake (very easy), but once you know them, they can be a lot of fun, and

anyway, because English people use idioms non-stop you will be all at sea

(totally confused) in most conversations until you learn the ropes (understand

how things work)

Idioms share cultural and historical information and broaden people’s understanding and manipulation of a language Among the various definitions

of idioms are: (1) the language peculiar to a people, country, class, community or, more rarely, an individual; (2) a construction or expression having a meaning different from the literal one or not according to the usual patterns of the language in New Webster’s Dictionary, 1993 It is the second definition that best suits the focus of this paper Professor Kounin defined idiom “as a stable combination of words with a fully over partially figurative meaning” (Kounin, 1970) This definition emphasizes two inherent and very important features of idiomatic expressions Idioms have lexical and grammatical stability It implies that they are fixed in their form, hence any substitution and rearrangement in their structure can lead to a complete loss

of their primary meaning

According to Cooper Th in Teaching idioms Foreign language annals (p.31, 1998) : idioms are always something special about any language; they build up some distinctive features which differ one language from another What is more, idioms reflect certain cultural traditions and depict the national character

Idioms are not a separate part of the language which one can choose either

to use or to omit, but they form an essential part of the general vocabulary of English A description of how the vocabulary of the language is growing and changing will help to place idioms in perspective

Idioms appear in every language, and English has thousands of them They are often confusing because the meaning of the whole group of words taken together has little, often nothing, to do with the meanings of the words taken one by one

“In order to understand a language, we must know what the idioms in that language mean If we try to figure out the meaning of an idiom literally, word

by word, we will get befuddled We have to know its hidden meaning Because of idioms, learning a language can be complicated.” Cooper Th Processing of Idioms by L2 Learners of English TESOL Quarterly, 33(2),

1999

Since vocabulary and culture are intertwined, speakers can gain more vocabulary through idioms and conversely, can learn more about idioms from being exposed to the target culture The more comprehensible input there is, the more learners’ listening, speaking, writing and reading skills will improve

“There are certain things that happen in every culture and there are idioms

to deal with them.” (New Webster,1993)

 In Norwegian and Czech, “walking around hot porridge” refers to beating around the bush, which is also an idiom meaning not getting to the point

 If you are in Italy or Turkey and you say you are “as hungry as a wolf” then you are starving

 In Finnish, “with long teeth” means you are doing something that you really don’t want to do

 In French, “to have long teeth” means you are ambitious

If it is raining in large amounts, most cultures have an interesting way of saying that:

 In English, it would be “raining cats and dogs”,

 In Africa, they might say “it's raining old women with clubs.”

Many languages refer to heavy rain as coming in buckets or as rain

coming out of a bucket

 In Norway they say “it's raining female trolls”;

 The Irish say “it's throwing cobblers knives.”

An idiom’s semantics can be influenced by national colouring There are many cases when phrases are based on an old English prejudice, and a similar prejudice known in other countries of the world may lead the reader to some

misunderstanding For instance, “a black cat crossed her way” would mean different things to people of different nationalities To the English people, a

black cat would mean good luck to the extent that some students are even said

to be always looking for a black cat crossing their path on the way to the

college exams To Americans, it is mostly a black cat that would mean “bad

luck” (New Webster,1993)

All these examples cited above, prove the divisibility and variability of phraseological units in a particular discourse situation – convincing manifestations of their unstability

Idioms are figurative units, they describe the situation in a metaphoric way They are often termed as “dead” or “fixed (stable)” metaphors, because many instances of realia they used to denote have already ceased to exist, as a result, the metaphoric character is lost to the modern speaker Some linguists call them “sleeping” metaphors rather than “dead”: there are speakers who are very good at “waking them up” Educated people, students of language often play upon these idioms amd make them serve their purposes Thus, the metaphor underlying an idiom is “brought to life” and gains its new colours

In Russian linguistics the semantic configuration of an idiom is termed

“deformation” (Izotova, 1988)

Idiomatic expressions pervade English with peculiar flavour and give it astounding variety, bright character and colour They help language learners understand English culture penetrate into customs and lifestyle of the English history However, learning idioms presents a host of difficulties to English learners, primarily because they don’t know the culture and history behind English idioms That is why they often use idioms incongruous with the situation Indeed, English learners utilize idiomatic expressions very carefully, being afraid of using them incorrectly and being misunderstood According to Cooper (1999), idiom study presents a special language problem for all language learners because the figurative meaning is unpredictable

To conclude we may state that the sheer number of idioms and their high frequency in discourse make them an important aspect of vocabulary

acquisition and language learning in general One of the approaches to defining this linguistic phenomenon stresses that an idiom is a manner of speaking that is natural to native speakers of the language It proves that only people who are very good at speaking English can adequately and to the point use idiomatic expressions in their speech English is a language with a vast idiomatic basis, which makes its learning very exciting and intriguing So grasping the use of idioms is an essensial part of learning English.

1.4 What is meant by “idiomatic variants”?

In “Bases of General Linguistics”, Ju.X Xtepanov (1956) partly dealt with variants He said that phonetic variation of words had its own limitation performed by synonyms It means that the forms of the words change but their meanings are the same That a word is pronounced in two ways makes two phonetic variants of a word

“Variant" is something which differs in form from another thing, though really the same; as, a variant from a type in natural history; a variant of a story or a word

Basing on these, we can say that idiomatic variants are idioms having the same meanings and grammatical structures or having different components belonging to the same field of meaning

1.5 What is meant by “synonymous idioms”?

“Synonym" is one of two or more words (commonly words of the same language) which are equivalents of each other, one of two or more words which have very nearly the same signification, and therefore may often be used interchangeably

It can be said that Russian linguists have recorded great achievements of synonymy, especially synonymous idioms T.A Bertagaep and V.I Zimin , Essensial Russian- English Dictionary (1967) referred to synonymous idioms (synonymous idiomatic groups of words) in modern Russian Basing on the structures of synonymous idioms, they gave the concept of idiomatic variants and the opposite of idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms They supposed that synonymous idioms were idiomatic groups of words which had the same meanings but different expressive colours belonging to different functional styles of the language

partly referred to the synonymous idioms He said “The idioms which are about the same as words are mainly synonymous, colorific and descriptive”

It means that synonymous idioms are idioms having the same meanings but different structures or having the same structures but different components belonging to different fields of meaning

1.6 Classification of idioms

Contrasting views of the meanings of idioms lead to the classification of idioms as well Whether the meaning of an idiom can be worked out from the meanings of its component parts?

From the cognitive standpoint, the meanings of an idiom’s constituent parts help people to understand the meaning of an idiom Nevertherless, the relation between the form and the meaning of an idiom may not always be completely direct R.W.Gibbs and N.P.Nayak in their book Psycholinguistic Studies On The Syntatic Behavior Of Idioms Cognitive Psychology, 1989

classify idioms into “decomposable / compositional / analyzable idioms” and

“non-decomposable / non-compositional / unanalyzable idioms”.

Decomposable idioms are those whose constituent parts contribute to the overall idiomatic interpretation, and they tent to be syntactically variable

Non-decomposable idioms are those whose constituent parts do not contribute to the overall idiomatic interpretation, and their opaque semantics make them not subject to syntactic flexibility

Decomposable idioms are also sub-divided into normally decomposable

idioms and abnormally decomposable idioms Idioms that have an one-to-one

relation in which each word contributes independently to the figurative

interpretation are categorized as normally decomposable idioms, e.g the idiom “spill the beans” and the semantic relation between “to spill” and “to

tell” , “the bean” and “the secret” “to spill the beans” means “ to tell

somebody something that should be kept secret or private” (Oxford Idioms

Dictionary, O.U.P,2001 p 368) Abnormally decomposable idioms, on the

other hand, have an all-to-one relation with the literal meaning of the whole

phrase being semantically related to the figurative interpretation, e.g “push

the panic button”

There are many ways to classify idioms into different categories The classification method can be based on the structures (of both content and forms), the meanings, the origins, the functions, etc In Vietnamese, idioms can also be divided into different groups like those of the English idioms Yet the main way to categorize Vietnamese idioms in anchored in the structures

of idioms According to that method, Vietnamese idioms can be grouped into

two main categories: metaphoric idioms, and idioms of comparison

Metaphoric idioms are idioms which contain metaphors Metaphoric idioms are principally based on the description of certain events or

phenomena The form, the constituent parts (or in general, the “appearance”)

of a metaphoric idiom do not always reflect its entire meaning hidden behind

the words Such “appearance”, to some extent, only functions as the primary clue to recognize the “surface” meaning of the idiom Then with the help of that “surface” meaning , the entire concealed meaning of the idiom can be

understood

Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến in Cơ sở ngôn

ngữ học và tiếng Việt, Education Publishing House, 1997, p 153-165 present

an example of metaphoric idioms: “Ngã vào võng đào”

- “Ngã” means “ fall” or “someone falls”, which implies unluckiness

“ Ngã vào võng đào” means “fallling into a good, luxurious hammock”,

that is the “surface” meaning of this idiom

From the “surface" or the apparent meaning of this idiom, people will refer to its further figurative meaning, that is “there is something hopeful about even in the most difficult or unlucky situations” In English, there are

also some idioms which bare the equivalent meaning such as Every cloud has

a silver lining, Misfortune has its senses, No great loss without small gain, If

the sky falls , we shall catch larks (Moon, Fixed Expressions and Idioms in

English: A corpus based, 1998)

Moon (1998) also pointed out that metaphoric idioms can be subdivided into smaller categories based on their meanings, and structures : metaphoric idioms depicting certain events, incidents, or phenomena; metaphoric idioms describing two similar domains; and metaphoric diioms describing two contrasting domains, objects

In Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học và tiếng Việt, (1997) , Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức

Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến demonstrates that a metaphoric idiom that depicts a certain event, incident, or phenomena, there is only one domain

portrayed Thus, only one image, one message is implied, e.g Ngã vào võng đào, Nuôi ong tay áo, Nước đổ đầu vịt, Chó có váy lĩnh, Hàng thịt nguýt hàng

cá, Vải thưa che mắt thánh, Múa rìu qua mắt thợ, etc

There are two domains which are reflected in the second type of metaphoric idioms Those domains are comparatively compatible with each

other, e.g Ba đầu sáu tay, Nói có sách mách có chứng, Ăn trên ngồi trốc, Mẹ

tròn con vuông, Hòn đất ném đi hòn chì ném lại, etc (Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học và tiếng Việt , (1997) , Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến)

The third type also describes two phenomena, or two objects, but unlike those of the second type of metaphoric idioms, the two domains described in

the third type are contrasting with each other, e.g Một vốn bốn lời, Méo

miệng đòi ăn xôi vò, Miệng thơn thớt dạ ớt ngâm, Bán bò tậu ễnh ương, Xấu

máu đòi ăn của độc, etc (Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học và tiếng Việt, (1997) , Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến)

Apart from the categorization method which depends merely on the structures

of idioms, there is another way to classify idioms into various groups That is based on the number of words within an idiom A remarkable feature regarding to the number of words of Vietnamese idioms is that the idioms which have even numbers of words (4 words, 6 words, 8 words) account for approximately 85% of the total amount of Vietnamese idioms The reason for that is Vietnamese people are often in favor of using rhythmic intonation and

harmonious tune such as Áo gấm đi đêm, Ăn không nên đọi nói không nên lời,

Bới lông tìm vết, Môn đăng hộ đối, Ngưu tầm ngưu mã tầm mã , etc (Cơ sở

ngôn ngữ học và tiếng Việt, (1997) , Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến)

1.7 Main features of idioms in English and Vietnamese

Idioms have some remarkably special features In this paper, let’s examine the two most important ones: semantic and structural features

1.7.1 Semantic features

Vinogradow (1977) once cleverly likened the meaning of an idiom to “the special chemical mixture” of the meaning of all the components, which is, notably and completely new in quality Just take an example to elucidate his point: “to give someone the slip”, it would be inappropriate to translate every word and understand the meaning literally (one has a slip and then he/she

gives it to another person) Actually, the meaning is “to make a get-away”,

“to escape from some one” The idiom “to take one’s medicine” (to accept, acquiesce something unpleasant without complaining or protesting) is also a good example Its meaning can not be drawn out if we just base on the component words No doubt, the real meaning of the idiom is far different from that of the set phrase That is to say, we have to translate and interpret idioms figuratively and metaphorically It’s quite puzzling to comprehend an very idiom despite the fact that we may know the meanings of all their components

However, not all idioms have their meaning completely differ from the meaning of all their individual components There are many idioms whose literal meaning and figurative one are almost identical This point was buttressed by Kunin, A.V (2006) when he said that “the meaning of an idiom

is either partly or completely different from the meaning of all components.” For example, “give and take”, “as busy as a bee”, “cat and dog life”,…We can, more or less, guess their meanings

The case is aslo true in Vietnamese, we can take “cá nằm trên thớt” (to take great risk), “con ông cháu cha” (born into a wealthy family, born with a silver spoon in one's mouth) or “ăn cháo đá bát” (to repay kindness with

ingratitude) as examples Obviously, we can not interpret them literally but must perceive them as separate semantic units which have figurative meanings, revealing the reflection of things and concepts However, there are also some idioms in Vietnamese which have literal sense and their meanings can be deduced correctly from the components To illustrate this point, we

have “cứng như đá” (as hard as a stone), “đẹp như tranh” (as pretty as a

picture), “bám như đỉa đói” (to stick like a limpet), “bán tín bán nghi” (half

doubtful),….(Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học và tiếng Việt, (1997) , Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ

Đức Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến)

Secondly, idioms can convey positive, neutral or negative meanings

When it comes to positive meanings, we may take “to have a heart of gold” (to be a good and honest person), “to be in the pink” (to be very healthy), “the

fruit of something” (meaning: the good and satisfactory result of an activity)

or “a lucky dog” (a really lucky person) as examples Some examples of idioms with negative meanings are “a fair-weathered friend” ( a friend who

stays beside you in good times, but forgets about you once things become

difficult), “to shed crocodile tears” (to pretend, make believe that one is weeping), Some idioms such as “ in somebody’s shoes” (in one’s position),

“see something with half an eye” (something very easy, effortless to see or

notice),…are considered as idioms with neutral meanings Interestingly, some

idioms can have both positive and negative meanings, such as “to take

advantage of ” It can mean “to make use of an opportunity” (positive meaning), or “to exploit, to make use of somebody or something in an

dishonest way” (negative meaning) (“Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners

of English” (2006))

1.7.2 Structural features

Idioms are commonly said to be the “set-expressions”, which means that

we can not add, omit or freely substitute the components in an idiom without adversely influenced its metaphorical meaning or even impairing it Another way to say, the components of idioms can’t be varied or simply modified in

the way we often do with literal and normal expressions This is true both in

speaking or writing, both in English and Vietnamese For example: “chuột sa

chĩnh gạo ” (to get a windfall), “cá chậu chim lồng”, “chim sa cá lặn”, , or

“ hit the hay” (go to bed), “bite the buller” (undergo a difficult, unpleasant situation), “bury the hatchet” (make peace) Certainly, if we simply change them to “hit the grass” or “bury the axe”, they are not idioms any more In

addition, we can not transform an idiom into passive form, especially when it’s utilized in a full sentence.( Oxford Idioms Dictionary, O.U.P,2001)

Secondly, idioms can very differ at length That’s irrefutably right, especially when it comes to English idioms We have many idioms which just

have one or two words, for example: “lemon” (something defective) or

“fishy” (suspicious and strange), “horse around” (play around), “on ice” (to

set aside for future use),…We also have those idioms which are quite long,

such as “get up on the wrong side of the bed” (wake up in bad mood), or

“people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” (one should not

criticize or chide when he/she is equally at fault, blameworthy),… (Oxford Idioms Dictionary, O.U.P,2001)

Thirdly, it’s evident that idioms can take many forms as well as structures Take English ones into consideration, we have many idioms that are in the

form of noun phrases ( “a new man”, “a lucky dog”, “crocodile tears”, “a

bad apple ”, “a storm in a tea cup”, ), verb phrases (“keep something under

one’s hat”, “face the music”, “bite the bullet’,…) or prepositional phrases

( “in the hole”, “on ice”, “up one’s sleeve”, ) Moreover, idioms can have

regular structures (the ones whose meanings we can not easily guess), irregular structures (those which have unconventional forms but meanings

can be deduced from the components) or sometimes, grammatically incorrect

structures Typical examples of the last type are “to go through thick and

thin”, “to be at large” , or “to be good friends with somebody”,…They are

widely accepted despise the improper structures (Oxford Idioms Dictionary, O.U.P,2001)

All in all, from the points given above, it’s clear that although English idioms and Vietnamese idioms may not totally similar here and there, the common ground is that they are almost fixed and figurative expressions and operate as semantic units which is definitely unchangeable To make it succinct, they are notably special because of their semantic unity, structural stability and metaphorical meanings

1.8 Functions of idioms

Idioms may play different roles They are used to name objects, actions or describe situations They may express certain generalizations, advice, make evaluation, emphasize…

Traditionally, from the point of view of the function of idioms, we can refer to the following basis groups: (Wray,1998)

- idioms with a nominative function - express concepts and name objects, states, processes, actions, qualities, etc They have the structure of a phrase

Examples: while elephant, pull somebody 's leg, cool as a cucumber; body

and soul

- idioms with a communicative function - describe situations and express

independent statements They have the structure of a sentence, e.g all that

glitters is not gold, the coast is clear

- idioms with both nominative and communicative functions (including

idioms with a mixed, limited variable structure), e.g break the ice - the ice

is broken, close the door on - the door is closed, lead somebody by the

nose - somebody is led by nose

- idioms without any distinctive nominative and communicative function - linguists usually include here modal and interjectional idioms, or idioms

which have a cohesive function, e.g like hell; what on earth; on the other

hand; as well as; by the way.

In relation to words, within the group of idioms with a nominative tion (lexemic idioms), we can refer to idioms equivalent to single words, i.e

func-they may be replaced by a single word (of course = certainly, kick the bucket

= die, in the family way = pregnant). They may also correspond to

non-idiomatic phrases (collocations: a big fish = an important person, as red as a

turkey cock = very angry), or they may be correlated with approximate (free)

description, e.g have green fingers = have natural ability in growing plants.

(Wray,1998)

Nominative idioms correlate with word classes (parts of speech) They may be divided into: noun, verbal, adjectival and adverbial idioms, etc., for

example: a dark horse (noun), make give up (verbal), as white as a sheet

(adjectival), once in a blue moon, tooth and nail (adverbial). Their function is not completely identical with that of single words, since their meaning

usually includes a higher degree of both expressiveness and evaluation (Gibbs,1992)

From the pragmatic point of view and discourse, some linguists, including Fernando (l996) speak about:

- "ideational" idioms ("the state and way of the world" idioms, expressing namely: actions, events, situation, people, things, attitudes, emotions,

etc.): red herring, bury the hatchet, as white as a sheet

- "interpersonal" idioms (expressing greetings, agreement, rejections, etc.):

so long, never mind.

- "relational” idioms (ensuring cohesion, etc).: by the way, in addition to,

last but not least

Other linguists give more detailed categorization of idioms Some idioms may have more than one function Moon (1998), for example, distinguishes the following groups of idioms:

- informational (conveying information of different kind: in the red, rub

shoulders with, one’s kith and kin)

- evaluative (giving the speaker’s attitude to the situation: works wonders, wash one’s hands of sth, a different kettle of fish)

- situational (expressing conventions, clauses, exclamation, relating to

extralingual context: walls have ears, so long, talk of the devil, long time

no see).

- modalizing (expressing modality, truth values, advice, request: mark my

words, more or less, at all, in effect)

- organizational (organizing the text, signaling discourse structure: by the

way, all in all, let alone, in the light, on the other hand, in other words).

1.9 Major functions of idioms in human discourse

The predominant function of idioms is their contribution to the value of a text Idioms make given texts less plain, but more expressive and communicative People use idioms because they want to communicate a thought they have in minds, and the use of idioms is one of the best ways to put that thought across That idioms contain images which clearly reflect phenomena in real life makes the message that a text conveys be more convincing and easy to understand

Glaeser in his book Phraseologie der Englischen Sprache, 1986 stated that

“as a rule, phraseological units, and idioms in particular, contribute to the expressive value of a text” The stylistic effects of a text can be achieved thanks to the possible transformation of idioms As idioms are entrenched a collection of meanings within each and every constituent part of them, they can be regarded as texts with remarkable communicative effect

Idioms can be found not only in spoken language, but in written texts as well The frequent appearance of idioms testifies to a considerably large number of newspaper articles, presentations, speeches, literature works, and even advertisements, etc Such kinds of text types require high interaction between the writer and the reader, so that the messages of those texts can easily reach the reader’s mind Hence, with the help of idioms in those texts, the relation between the speaker and the listener, or the writer and the reader are more tightly connected (Cooper,1999)

In the past, linguists only looked at idioms from what is concerned with their meanings It was only since the mid 1980s, the functions of idioms in human discourse have become an important point in the studies of idioms

The functions of idioms indicate how people use idiomatic expressions to put across or to express their opinions, emotions, feelings, evaluations, agreement, or disagreement, statements, etc

Idiom comprehension is not simply literal or figurative, but driven That is, an idiom can only perform its function when it is put in proper situations “As a stable combination of words with a fully or partially figurative meaning”, (Kunin, 1970) an idiom is a phraseological unit that is natural to native speakers of the language, which means only people who are very good at speaking that language can adequately use idiomatic expressions

relevance-in their speeches Berelevance-ing aware of the contexts relevance-in which an idiom is put helps language users to understand that idiom more easily Certain situations determine the use of an idiom and they are indispensable cues for the decoding of an idiom’s functional force It is evidently true to say that “the correct usage of English idioms is finesse, which makes the language of the speaker more vivid and exciting”