A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF PROVERBS AND IDIOMS RELATING TO ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

PART B: DEVELOPMENTCHAPTER 1 : THEORETICAL BACKGROUND2.1 Proverb and Idiom relation to Language and Culture 15 2.2 Comparison between English and Vietnamese proverbs and 16 idioms viewe

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-A CONTR -ASTIVE -AN -ALYSIS OF PROVERBS -AND IDIOMS RELATING TO ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS

(Phân tích đối chiếu các câu tục ngữ, thành ngữ liên quan đến các động vật

trong tiếng Anh và cách biểu đạt tương đương trong tiếng Việt)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

HANOI - 2011

My minor thesis has been successfully completed thanks to the assistance and guidance

of my teachers, classmates and relatives

First of all, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs.Đào Thu Trang, MA for her enthusiastic assistance, academic guidance, good suggestions andcritical comments on my study

Secondly, I would also like to show my gratitude to all the teachers of the Faculty ofPost-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam NationalUniversity, Hanoi whose lectures and guidance have helped me much while carrying out thisstudy

Thirdly, my deepest thanks are for my beloved colleagues and my friends who havealways stood by my side, have helped and encouraged me during my preparation till thecompletion of the study

Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge the considerate support andindispensable assistance of my parents, my wife and my children while the work was beingdone

One more thing I would like to say is that in spite of all the efforts I have made and theadvice and assistance I have received, I am sure my minor thesis is far from perfect.Therefore, it is my responsibility for any inadequacies and shortcomings that arise in myminor thesis

I hereby certify that all work in this thesis is my original work and the substance of thisthesis has not been submitted to any other university or institution Also, I claim full

responsibility for the contents of the thesis

The research reported in this thesis was approved by University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi

Hanoi, September 30 th , 2011

One of the most typical elements of the implication of culture in language is the use ofproverbs and idioms In communicative English, there is a huge number of idioms andproverbs, and they are used very often in everyday conversation The use of proverbs andidioms causes many troubles for English learners because sometimes they are very confusing.Therefore, English teachers have to teach the students not only the knowledge about thelanguage but also the knowledge about English culture so that the students can communicatewell

Animals play a very important role in many cultures including English culture andVietnamese culture A large portion of proverbs and idioms in English as well as inVietnamese contain the images of animals There are some outstanding similarities anddifferences between them Within understanding this, English teachers and English learnerscan deal with proverbs and idioms much more easily However, there are so few worksfocusing on this issue For this reason, this paper aims at categorizing the similarities anddifferences of proverbs and idioms relating to animals in English and Vietnamese as well asgiving out some explanation On this basis, it also offers some educational implications forEnglish teachers and learners to make their teaching and learning more effective

PART B: DEVELOPMENTCHAPTER 1 : THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 Proverb and Idiom relation to Language and Culture 15

2.2 Comparison between English and Vietnamese proverbs and 16

idioms viewed from cultural identities

2.2.1 Based on principles of cultural types 16

2.3 Animal images in proverbs and idioms

2.3.1 Animal images in Vietnamese proverbs and idioms 25

CHAPTER 3

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH PROVERB AND IDIOM RELATED TO ANIMALS VERSUS THE ONES IN VIETNAMESE

3.3 Similarities and differences of English and Vietnamese 38

idioms about human characteristics through the images of animals

PART A INTRODUCTION

English and Vietnamese are two different languages, that is, each of them embodies initself the cultural factors which characterize one culture from the others

Therefore, it is unquestionable that to learn a foreign language also means to gainbenefits from its great stock of proverbs and idioms in which most cultural values arereflected However, most Vietnamese learners are taught English mainly with the knowledge

of language, not culturally appropriate factors embedded in the teaching language They speakEnglish without the understanding of English communication manner They write Englishwith little knowledge of English cultural background Consequently, it causesmisunderstanding or even communicative breakdown Clearly, without culturalappropriateness, learning English in general and learning English proverbs and idioms inparticular seem to be a challenging process It is really a risky road for learners to understandand translate English proverbs and idioms into Vietnamese

Each nation’s language has its own similar and different concepts on many fields oflife such as humane values, ways of thinking, behavior standards, religious beliefs, customsand traditions, social convention, etc Words and expressions including idioms and proverbshave formed the vocabulary system of a language Idioms and proverbs are regarded asspecial factors of a language’s vocabulary system because they reflect cultural specific

characteristics of each nation, including material and spiritual values Therefore, manyresearchers have long shown their concerns for idioms and proverbs.

Idioms and proverbs are used to express ideas in figurative styles They bring thevividness and richness to the speakers’ speeches This is the reason why the more skillfully aperson use idioms and proverbs in his conversations, the more effectively he can establish hiscommunicative relationship One more important thing is that the general present tendenciesare towards proverbial and idiomatic usage; therefore, knowing how to use idioms andproverbs effectively in the right situations is becoming essential Moreover, the mostdistinguished advantage of idioms and proverbs is that they do provide users with a whole newway of expressing concepts linguistically It can be said that idioms and proverbs are the colorand vitality of a language

We all know that language is the most important means of communication in theworld However, only when both the speakers and the listeners have a common understandingabout each other , can they communicate effectively Actually, the culture and the languageare considered the two sides of a paper; both are inseparable from each other and from thesocial context In communication as well as in language teaching, the culture elements aregetting more and more important Knowing the target language’s culture helps secondlanguage learners comprehend the knowledge of that language more effectively

It can be seen that proverbs and idioms are the windows on a nation’s identities If thewindow tightly closed, we would fail to decode the real message of a language in particularand of a culture in general This idea offers me a strong impetus to study proverbs and idioms

of English and Vietnamese equivalents in the view of cultural identities of each nation

Being interested in idioms and proverbs for long time, I choose idioms and proverbs as

my thesis topic Due to the limited time and knowledge, I just focus on a very small part of the

huge idiomatic and proverbial treasure, ‘ A contrastive analysis of proverbs and idioms

relating to animals in English and Vietnamese equivalents’ With the aim of presenting an

overview of proverbs and idioms in general and a contrastive analysis of proverbs and idiomsrelating to animals in English and Vietnamese in particular, I hope it will partly help learners

and translators avoid difficulties in realizing and translating English proverbs and idioms intoVietnamese and vice versa.

2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are:

- To discover cultural values through proverbs and idioms

- To investigate the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idiomsdenoting human characteristics through images animals

- To help the Vietnamese learner of English be more aware of English and Vietnameseproverbs and idioms and how to use them in appropriate and interesting way

- Provide some suggestions for the teaching/learning and translation of the Englishproverbs and idioms relating to animals

3 Scope of the study

- Proverbs and idioms are large parts in both English and Vietnamese; thus it isimpossible for the author to carry out a comprehensive study on them; thus, he just focuses onsome proverbs and idioms relating to animals

- In this study, the cross-cultural differences view from customs, religion areextensively discussed; English idioms denoting human characteristics through the images ofanimals are compared with Vietnamese ones

- All English and Vietnamese proverbs and idioms are collected from dictionaries;hence, this research may not cover all proverbs and idioms relating to animals, just those ofcommon use

4 Methodology

To achieve these aims, the author has discussed with supervisor, teachers, friends andconsulted many dictionaries and books of languages, idioms, proverbs, metaphor , magazines,newspapers, etc in both English and Vietnamese in which whatever relating to idiomatic andproverbial expression containing ‘animals’ is taken into consideration Then a comparative

analysis is designed to point out the similarities and differences between English proverbs andidioms relating to animals and Vietnamese ones.

5 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts The first part “Introduction” outlines thebackground of the study In this part, a brief account of relevant information isprovided such as rationale, aims, scopes, methods, and design of the study

The main part of the study comprises three chapters Chapter one, as implied by

the title ‘ theoretical background’ for the study It consists of relationship between

language and culture, the literal meanings and idiomatic meanings,

proverbs in relation to idioms Chapter two is concerned with “Comparison of cultural features between English-Vietnamese proverbs and idioms” , whereas chapter three deals with “A contrastive analysis of Vietnamese proverbs and idioms relating to animals versus the ones in English”

The final part is “Conclusion” , which provides the recapitulation, implications

for the EFL teaching and learning and for the translation, and suggestions for the

further studies The study ends with the “References”

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.4 Relationship between language and culture

It is said that language is the highest and the most amazing achievement of human mind

Most linguists currently regard the faculty of language as “ a defining characteristic of being human” because it is what best distinguishes man from ogres and other animals.

Language is a creative product of human kind that helps to distinguish them from othercreatures on the earth and that serves the main purpose of communication Language is notoccurring in isolation because human beings are not separate islands in the world of socialactivities

It is shown that the word ‘culture’ is used frequently in our daily life but ‘culture’ is noteasily defined, nor is there a consensus among scholars, philosophers and politicians (nor,probably, among a rest of us) as to what exactly the concept should include Despite a century

of efforts to define culture adequately, there was in the early 1990’s no agreement amonganthropologists regarding its nature

Another common way of understanding culture is seeing it as consisting of threeelements: values, norms, artifacts Values comprise ideas about what in life seems important.They guide the rest of the culture Norms consist of expectations of how people will behave indifferent situations Each culture has different methods, called sanctions, of enforcing itsnorms Sanctions vary with the importance of the norm; norms that a society enforces formallyhave the status of laws Artifacts-things or material culture-derive from the culture’s valuesand norms

Culture, in this study, like in Nguyen Quang (1998:3), is not “high culture” (traditionallythe milieu of arts, music or sciences and so on) but “refers to the informal and often hiddenpatterns of human interactions, expressions, and viewpoints that people in one culture share”

“No culture is good or bad, just different!” And there is a famous quote of Mahatma Gandhi “No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive” Nguyen Quang (1998:3) also

emphasizes “it is best not to overemphasize either culture differences or cultural similarities

Those who says, “We are all alike; we’re all human” deny the shape and flavor that cultures contributes to individual development Those who say, “We’re so different that we must stay separate” create harmful barriers by closing their eyes to what is common to every human being”

Culture does not belong to any single person but to all people Nguyen Quang in

“Intercultural Communication” (1998:3) describes “culture’ as “ a share background (for

example, national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language and communication style, customs, beliefs, attitudes, and values”

What we can derive from these points of view is that the language of a community is a part

or a manifestation of its culture as Goodenogh’s word “ the relationship of language to culture is that of part to whole” Language and communication modality (verbal, gesture,

written) are examples of elements that form and shape a culture Kramch-Troike (1998:3)clarifies the correlation between language and culture by emphasizing three functions of

language related to culture They are “expressing cultural reality, embodying cultural reality and symbolizing cultural reality”.

In its turns, culture influences the way in which language is used Culture is the final

arbiter of meaning or linguistic meaning is entirely determined by the cultural context inwhich the language occurs

In conclusion, there is a close relationship between language and culture; knowledge of

the target culture remains an important part of language learning, especially at higher levels.That is the reason why culture learning should always go hand in hand with language learningthough it may take a longer time and make language teaching and learning more challengingthan ever

1.5 Literal meanings and idiomatic meanings

According to Dr Duong Ky Duc (2003), the meanings of a word are not only the literalmeaning, but also the figurative meaning These meanings of the word do not exist separatelybut together as a perfect whole In this sense, the literal meaning is the center and thefigurative meaning is the extension, which shows the cultural distinction of using the wordbetween this commodity and others However, we focus much on idioms relating to animals,therefore, besides the literal meanings of the words containing ‘animals’, we mainly study thefigurative meanings of these idioms which are, in the study, called the idiomatic meanings

1.5.1 Literal meaning

The literal meaning of a word is the strict dictionary meaning of a word, the ‘dictionary

definition’ For example, if you look up the word ‘snake’ in a dictionary, you will discover that one of its literal meanings is ‘any of numerous scaly, legless, sometimes venous reptiles having a long, tapering cylindrical body and found in most tropical and temperate regions’.

Obviously, idiom has its idiomatic meaning Many idioms, however, can also haveboth the literal and idiomatic meanings In the study, the author does not focus on the literalmeanings of all the idiomatic expressions containing the words relating to ‘animals’ but ones

of the words relating to ‘animals’, which are, somehow, related to the idiomatic meanings ofthe idiomatic expressions containing the words relating to ‘animals’

Idiom regularly has a stronger meaning than non-idiomatic phrases For instance, “lookdaggers at someone” has more highlighting meaning than look angrily at someone, althoughthey signify the similar thing

Idiom may also imply a particular attitude of the person using them, for example,disapproval, humor, irritation or admiration.

Words do not just come individually; they also come in expressions – in-group Idiomsare among the most common of these expressions (Wright, 2002)

Idioms itself have grammar Some idiomatic expressions are fixed and cannot be changedsuch as :

Two head are better than one.

(Ba anh thợ gia bằng Gia Cát Lượng) However, in most cases, we can change the tense and the pronoun such as I am/She is/We are all at sixes and sevens.

According to Wright, idiom is an expression with following features Firstly, idiom

is fixed and is recognized by native speakers We cannot make up our own idioms Thesecond feature is that idiom uses language in a non-literal-metaphor-way Take theseidioms as examples

Tin is up to his eyes in work now

At the meeting, I felt a bit out of my depth.

I was over the moon when I heard she’d had twins.

It broke my mother’s heart to see her home burnt to the ground.

If you are up to your eyes, you are very busy When a person is out of her or hisdepth, he/she might be in the sea but he/she is more likely to be in a circumstance thathe/she cannot comprehend for some reasons If you are over the moon, you are extremelyjoyful about something If something breaks your heart, you are very gloomy about it

In these examples, it is clear that the idiom is a whole expression This is thetraditional view of idioms

We are familiar with the idea of heavy rain causing a stream to overflow and floodthe surrounding area; crowds are often described as water and the same verb flood is used

The literal meaning of a hot potato, it is not for eating; it means a controversial issue Idioms

are very important because they are commonly used in daily life It is nearly impossible tospeak, read or listen to English without meeting idioms The next reason is the metaphorical

use of a word is more common today than its literal meaning However, it is important toknow its literal meaning because it creates a picture in our mind and this picture enables us

to understand other meanings more easily The last reason why idioms are so important isthat they are fun to learn and to use If the language you want to learn is more colorful andinteresting, there is more chance that we will remember it clearly Our English will soundmore natural

Vietnamese idioms

According to Hung, in Vietnamese, idioms frequently use fixed expressions;grammatically, they are not complete sentences, which mean they are only words or phrases.Idioms do not show any comments, experiences, ethnical lesson or critics, so they often have

figurative function, not educational function For example, in Vietnamese we say “mặt hoa

da phấn” This idiom only brings us a picture of a beautiful and charming woman but not

lesson about ethnics or critics

Most of idioms are formed from incomplete meaning words; they cannot standalone but in a sentence Vietnamese idioms are often used in proverbs, folk songs, orliterature works That makes idioms meaningful only when they are in sentences Take this

as an example, “công dã tràng”, at least, it has to be in sentence: “đúng là công dã tràng”

or “chuyện anh làm chỉ là công dã tràng” Instead of expressing an idea literally, people

tend to use idiom to make their speech more beautifully or funnier For example, to express

the idea of a person who sometimes works, sometime does not, we use this idiom “hắn ta

đi làm bữa đực bữa cái”.

Idioms use brief expressions based on stories, folk tales, or classic references,which happened a long time ago Now we encounter similar situation, thus by hearingthose idioms, the listener knows exactly what the speaker means Many Vietnameseidioms are borrowed from Chinese idioms; however, Vietnamese cleverly transformed

those Chinese idioms into Vietnamese way of talking For example, “huynh đệ thủ túc”,

in Vietnamese, we have this equivalence “anh em như thể tay chân”.

1.2.2.2 Some features of idiom

It is asserted that language follows rules If it did not, its users would not be able tomake sense of the random utterances they read or heard and they would not be able tocommunicate meaningfully themselves Idiom, however, breaks the normal rules The word

‘idiom’ comes from the Greek ‘idiot’, ‘one’s own, peculiar, strange’ Hence, idiom isconsidered anomalies of language, mavericks of the linguistic world; and most of the linguistswhen studying features of idiom have focused on these animalities of idiom Idiom may becharacterized by several features; but they may be summarized under two main headings:

semantic and syntactic peculiarities

In terms of semantic peculiarities, Jackson and Amvela (2000:67) indicate that idiomhas “ambiguity”, it means that idiom may have either a literal or an idiomatic meaning Forexample,

If someone “beats a dead horse”, they may in fact be in the process of striking the

carcass of an animal (literal meaning); or they may be wasting time discussing a matter that

has already been closed (idiomatic meaning) Similarly, “To sit on the fence” can literally mean that one is sitting on a fence “I sat on the fence and watched the game”; whereas its idiomatic meaning that one is not making clear choice regarding some issue “The politician sat on the fence and would not give his opinion about the tax issue” However, once a reader

or hearer realizes that a given expression is idiom, even if they are not sure of its exactmeaning, they will automatically discard the literal meaning of the expression, and seek anidiomatic meaning Furthermore, the context in which the idiom occurs also play an importantrole in the reduction of this potential ambiguity

Another noticeable semantic feature of idiom is affirmed by Cruse (1986: 37-38):

“although idiom consists of more than one word, it displays to some extent the sort of internalcohesion that we expect of single words” In order words, idiom may be characterized as “alexical complex, which is semantically simplex” And this semantic integrity of idiom leads toits lexical integrity It means that idiom has a number of syntactic (grammatical) constraints:

 The first constraints are on replacements or substitutions Fernando (1996:43-45)shows that an idiom may be varied in terms of number and tense (inflectional changes)

or the replacement of one structure word like an article by another or by zero He givessome examples:

+ “ He smelt a rat and he kept mum” (past tense, past time)

( The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English 1983)

“Everybody smells a rat in a doctored obituary, even the window”

(Present tense indicating a timeless truth)

( The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English 1983)

However, these replacements can be only applied to a small number of idioms Ingeneral, most idioms are indivisible units whose components can’t be varied Some do not

permit pluralization like in “kick the buckets” (kick the bucket) or “smell the rats” (smell a rat); some do not permit singularization such as “twiddle one’s thumb” (twiddle one’s thumbs) or “ raining a cat and a dog” (raining cats and dogs) In addition, replacement of characteristic lexis in idiom isn’t possible even synonymous words For example, in “we look forward to meeting you”, “look” can not be replaced by “see” or “watch” Hence, “we see/watch forward to meeting you” is not idiomatic Similarly, in “wash one’s dirty linen in public”, ‘linen’ can not be replaced by ‘socks’, neither can ‘thought’ be replaced by ‘idea’ in

‘have second thoughts’

 Idiom also resists re-ordering of its parts We consider “ John kicked the bucket” In the literal sense, this expression has a passive variant, “ The bucket was kicked by John” But in its idiomatic use, i.e when “kicked the bucket” means “died”, the

expression does not allow the use of the corresponding passive alternative Other

changes of the order of the words like in “The short and the long of it” (The long and the short) or in “What Peter pulled was his sister’s leg” (What Peter did was pull his sister’s leg) are impossible.

 Additions and deletions are also not normally permitted within idiom Thus, we can’t

say “To pull someone’s left leg” and “To kick the large bucket” , they have no normal idiomatic interpretation because of the addition of ‘left’ and ‘large’ , whereas ‘straight from horse’s mouth’ and ‘turn a new leaf’ are both unacceptable because ‘the’ and

‘over’ have been omitted.

Such constraints make idiom fixed or invariant and separate them from non-idiom Cruse(1986:38) recognizes another feature of idiom which shows its status as phrases in a way that

“if idiom may be inflected, the inflectional affixes are carried by the grammaticallyappropriate elements within the idiom, whether or not they are semantic constituents; that is tosay, the elements of idiom retain at least some of their grammatical identity:

“ John has a bee in his bonnet about many things” (John luôn bận tâm về mọi thứ)

(*John has bees-in-his bonnets about many things)”; this expression is wrong because the

grammatical appropriate elements “ have a bee in one’s about something” is invariant, it

does not permit pluralization

1.2.2.3 Types of Idiom

Fernando (1996:35-36) states that idiom can be divided into three sub-classes: pure idiom,semi-idiom, and literal idiom

A pure idiom is “a type of conventionalized, non-literal multiword expression”; that is

to say the meaning of a pure idiom has nothing to do with the meaning of its constituents

Hence, “spill the beans” has nothing to do with ‘beans’ In contrast to its literal counterpart meaning, “letting fall leguminous seeds”, a non-literal meaning is imposed on the idiom as a whole: “commit an indiscretion”.

A semi-idiom “has one or more literal constituents and at least one with a non-literal subsense, usually special to that co-occurrence relation and no other” Examples of semi-idiom

are “catch one’s breath” (check one’s breath) or “foot the bill” (pay the bill) in which

“catch” and “foot” are non-literal constituents

Literal idiom (on foot, waste not, want not, on the contrary, a happy birthday, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, etc.) “meet the salient criterion for idiom: invariance or

restricted variation They are, however, less semantically complex than pure and semi-idiom”

1.6 Proverb in relation to idiom

1.6.1 Definitions of proverb

There have been many definitions of a proverb but there is no standard one that can beused to study all aspects of proverb Let’s consider some definitions of proverb thatVietnamese and foreign researchers have made

- Proverbs can be defined as “a short saying or sentence that is generally known by many people The saying usually contains words of wisdom, truth or morals that are based on common sense or practical experience.”(www.Theidiomconnection.com)

- A short saying that everyone knows, expressing a truth, an experience or giving advice (English version by Bach Anh Hong/Viện ngôn ngữ học, 1992)

Although the above definitions are different in some ways, they still have similarities:

a saying expressing a truth, moral instruction or giving advice

1.6.2 Proverb versus Idiom

According to Hornby (1995), in his Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, proverb isdefined as “a short well-known sentence or phrase that states a general truth about life or

giving advice, ex Better safe than sorry or Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” More

particularly, Vu Ngoc Phan (2000:39) considered proverb as “a complete saying expressingone idea of comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism”

It is easy to find that idiom and proverb have much in common and it comes as nosurprise that they are traditionally studied together The first one is that both idiom andproverb are ready –made They are products of human’s thought, cultures and processes ofhard working and learning They are mainly orally handed down from generation to generationand naturally accepted in daily life Secondly, both idiom and proverb are set-expressions withstable and components are not substituted Therefore, their meanings can not be deduced fromindividual words but must be understood as a whole It means that any substitutions in anycomponents of idiom or proverb may result in unacceptable changes in the meaning of wholegroup, which make them nonsensical in metaphorical meaning Apart from this, most idiomand proverb use language in metaphorical way We cannot usually discover their meanings by

looking up the individual words in a dictionary; their meanings must be understoodmetaphorically.

Beside those similarities, both of them still own typical features that distinguish onefrom the other The first and most obvious difference lies in their grammatical structures.Idiom is a phrase which is a part of sentence; thus, it is equivalent to words only

Proverb is a complete sentence or a phrase expressing the whole idea Moreover, idiomand proverb are also different in terms of their functions Proverb is a short well-knownsentence or phrase that expresses a judgment, state a general truth about life or advice; it istold to contain three main literature functions which are perceptive function, aesthetic

function, and educational function For example, the proverb ‘Money makes the mare go’

demonstrates a remark as well as a criticism about the negative side of money Its perceptivefunction is to make people aware of the bad effect of money which can become the powerdominating the society, even the most inanimate things The educational function is to criticizethe negative side of money and urge to be aware of that ill effect And its aesthetic function is

to exaggerate in a picturesque way to help readers understand the proverb easily In contrast,idiom does not express judgments, give advice or state general truth about life, which means itdoes not have functions of perception and education but only aesthetic function For example,

the idiom “to eat like a horse “ merely describes the ability of eating strongly of someone

because of great hunger in figurative and imaginary way and does not point out anyeducational lesson or knowledge of life

In short, beside their common things, idiom is distinguished from proverb by itsstructures and functions

CHAPTER 2 SOME FEATURES OF ENGLISH –VIETNAMESE PROVERB AND IDIOM

2.1 Proverb and Idiom relation to Language and Culture

The general tendencies of present-day English are mostly towards proverbial andidiomatic usage Proverb and idiom are not separate parts of the language, which one canchoose either to use or omit, they form essential parts of the vocabulary of English andVietnamese language

In Richard’s terms “language is often described of having three main functions:descriptive, expressive, and social” Proverb and idiom are part of language and they have allfunctions of a language Proverb not only has descriptive function, that is, the function ofconveying factual information, but also has expressive function i.e to express people’sfeelings, preferences, prejudices etc It implies many things such as advice astonishment,experience and morality Proverb also has social function because it reflects relations betweenpeople in society

Language reflects thought Language has obvious effect on thought, as clearly shown

in vocabulary system and structure of language ‘Culture is really an integral part of the interaction between language and thought Cultural patterns, custom and ways of life are expressed in language; cultural specific world views are reflected in language’ (Brown, 1986,

p45)

Language, thought or culture are not all the same thing, but none can survive withoutthe others Proverb and idiom not only belong to a language but also reflect much of itsculture In other words, they are considered to be a mirror reflecting social-cultural traditions

in the most reliable ways For all these things above, we can conclude that there is a closerelation between language, culture and proverb and idiom Both proverb and idiom reflectvalues, beliefs across culture

2.4 Comparison between English and Vietnamese proverbs and idioms viewed from cultural identities

2.2.1 Based on principles of cultural types

Southeast Asia in general and Vietnam in particular are considered some of the earliestagricultural centers of mankind Vietnamese people live on land Vietnam soil has thick strataand high fertility which provides very favorable conditions for the development of agricultureand forestry Vietnamese people’s lives are closely linked with agriculture, or to be moreexact, with the cultivation of water rice and other plants, not only weather but some cattle arealso familiar with Vietnamese people Cow and buffalo are the most common animals toVietnamese peasants because they bring about meat and milk and, to some extent, means oftransportation Therefore, these two appear repeatedly in proverb and idiom Buffalo isconsidered as the biggest property of a peasant family:

“Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp”

(A buffalo is the most precious property of a peasant)

It is also the symbol of the water rice culture as the sentence:

“Con trâu đi trước, cái cày đi sau”

(To put the cart before the horse) (A buffalo is ploughing the field)

Buffaloes are commonly seen in most Vietnamese villages Cows are also Vietnamesepeasants’ good friends though they are not as popular as buffalo Their appearance in theidiom and proverb stock are fewer Some of them can be led in as:

“Mất bò mới lo làm chuồng”

(It is too late to lock the stable when the horse is stolen)

implying that it is no use applying any preventive measure after the loss

“Ăn cơm thịt bò lo ngay ngáy;

Ăn cơm cáy thì ngáy o o”

(A great fortune is a great slavery) ( Eating rice with beef worries peasants while eating rice with crabs relaxes their minds)

indicates that richness does not always mean happiness Richness can make other people envy.Living in the richness, they are always under pressure, being poor but honest they will feelpeaceful The image of buffaloes are also rendered to tell people about bad man’scharacteristics For examples,

“Trâu chết mặc trâu, bò chết mặc bò, củ tỏi dắt lưng”

(It does not matter to me whose cows or buffaloes die, I prepare to get my shares) indicates

the selfishness;

“ Trâu lành không ai mặc cả, trâu ngã khối kẻ cầm dao”

(when the buffalo is healthy, no one dares to do anything to harm it, but when it is in bad luck, many people are waiting to kill it)

refers to a bad person availing himself of other misfortune In another idiom,

“Trâu chết để da, người ta chết để tiếng”

(He that had an ill name is half hanged) (It means when a buffalo dies, it leaves its skins behind, when a man dies, he leaves his name behind) the image of buffalo is used to advise people to behave nicely when they are alive to

leave good name after their death The importance of a buffalo is also mentioned many times

in Vietnamese idiom as in :

“Làm ruộng phải có trâu, làm giàu phải có vợ”

(buffalo is important to agriculture like women role in one’s family).

Even the way a man chooses his life-partner is also likened to that of a person when he

choose his buffalo:

“Mua trâu xem vĩ, lấy vợ xem nịi”

(Know the breed, know the dog) (when buying a buffalo, take close look at its legs, when choosing wife, take her family race into consideration)

In conclusion, cow, buffalo are closely linked with Vietnamese lives, with water riceculture

Different from that of Vietnam, with dry and cold climate, England has a greaterproportion grassland than any other countries And most of which is more suitable forbreeding, especially sheep farming than for rice growing We can say that England economy

in the past depended much on sheep breeding for getting wool, milk and meat So sheep can

be considered as the most popular cattle to the English The image of sheep appears much inproverb and idiom, however, the English attitudes toward this kind of animal are various.Lamb is not the animal of high respect

For English people, lamb is a mild animal as in :

“As mild as a lamb”

(Hiền như một chú cừu non)

And because lamb is so mild, so nạve and a little fool, it often revokes in people’s heartsthe feeling of pity as :

“Like a lamb to the slaughter”

(Như cừu non đến lị mổ)

This idiom is used to describe the situation when you go somewhere dangerous withoutany protection probably because you do not realize that you are in danger Its meaning can beillustrated clearly in following sentence:

“When the war started, thousands of young men went off to fight, like lambs to the

slaughter”

( Khi có chiến xảy ra, hàng ngàn thanh niên lên đường nhập ngũ, như những chú cừu non đến lò mổ)

The words ‘lamb’ and ‘mutton’ also acts as metaphors conveying critics to an older

person, usually a woman, who dresses like a younger person as in:

“Have you seen her? Mutton dressed up as lamb Somebody should remind her that she

is 55, not 25”

(Cậu đã gặp bà ta chưa? Cừu già ăn vận cừu non Phải có ai đó nói cho bà ta biết là bà

ấy đã 55 chứ không phải 25 tuổi).

Sheep is also considered as the animal of healthy life as in:

“To go to bed with the lamb and rise with the lark bring me really good health”

(Ngủ sớm và dậy sớm mang lại cho ta sức khỏe tốt)

The image “black sheep of the family” refers to a person who is considered to have done

something bad or to be a failure, by their family or by group to which they belong as in:

“Debbie is the black sheep of the family, having left home at seventeen to live with her

boyfriend”

(Debbie là một đứa con hư của gia đình, đã bỏ nhà đi lúc 17 tuổi để sống cùng bạn trai).

Horse is another popular animal in English peoples’ lives Englishmen love horses somuch that they spend many idioms and proverbs for this kind of herbivore Horses seem to beworthily reliable images as :

“Straight from the horse’s mouth” ( Theo nguồn tin đáng tin cậy)

It means you get the information from a reliable source

Horse Guards are the cavalry brigade of British household troops, who protect British

Royal families This big animal is also considered as a little bit hot-tempered one as “to hold your horse” indicates some kind of aggressive manner of speaking in discussion:

“Hold your horse! We have not finished the last question yet”.

(Hãy bình tĩnh! Chúng tôi chưa xong câu hỏi cuối cùng mà)

Horses are also admired for their strength and big size If someone is ‘as strong as a

horse’, he is really healthy and muscular man No other animal has such extraordinary

physical power as ‘wild horses’ :

“Wild horses could not drag me to that place again”

(As strong as a wild horse could not force me to go there again).

(Khỏe như những con ngựa hoang cũng không thể kéo tôi đến đó lần nữa)

Someone who has a good appetite for meals is also compared to a horse:

“Eat like a horse” (Ăn như mỏ khoét)

Someone who could eat as great amount of food as a horse are in a state of extremehunger:

“What is for dinner? I could eat a horse!”

However, horses are seemingly a little bit stubborn:

“You can lead a horse to the water but you can not make it drink.”

(figurative meaning: You can give somebody the opportunity to do something but you can

not force them to do it if they do not want to)

Their images are also utilized to refer to men as in :

“He is not the right kind of ambassador for Moscow Johnson would be much better It is

the questions of horses for courses

(It indicates the fact that people or things should only be used for the purpose for which

they are most suitable)”

or one’s opinion or stance as in :