A study of english and vietnamese idioms describing people’s outward appearance

The study analyzed the data qualitatively and quantitatively to find out the similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms describing p

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

A STUDY ON ENGLISH IDIOMS OF PEOPLE’S APPEARANCE DESCRIPTION AND THE

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

NGHIÊN CỨ

HÌNH TRONG TI

DECLARATION

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me

other’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor

April, 2016

Supervisor

signature

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY ON ENGLISH IDIOMS OF PEOPLE’S

RANCE DESCRIPTION AND THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

ỨU CÁC THÀNH NGỮ VỀ HÌNH TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ ĐỐI CHI

SANG TIẾNG VIỆT

TRINH MINH NGOC Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2017

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me

other’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

A STUDY ON ENGLISH IDIOMS OF PEOPLE’S

RANCE DESCRIPTION AND THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

NGOẠI

I CHIẾU

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The thesis is written under the supervisor of Assoc Prof Dr Phan Van Que First of all, my profound gratitude would be expressed to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof.Dr Phan Van Que, for his precious advice, suggestion and inspiration Secondly, my sincere thanks go to all my teacher in the Faculty of English for their lectures and instructions which definitely are useful for my research

I also would like to express my gratefulness to my family, my friends for their encouragement and help to complete this thesis

Hanoi, February 4th, 2018

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON ENGLISH IDIOMS OF PEOPLE’S APPEARANCE DESCRIPTION AND THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTSsubmitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, February 4th, 2018

Trinh Minh Ngoc

Approved by SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Date:………

I also would like to express my gratefulness to my peers, my friends for their encouragement and help to complete the graduation paper

Hanoi, February 4th, 2018

Trinh Minh Ngoc

ABSTRACT

This paper is a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese idioms describing people’s outward appearance The study analyzed the data qualitatively and quantitatively to find out the similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms describing people’s outward appearance The analysis was based on 430 idioms in English and Vietnamese as well as numerous samples from various novels, dictionaries, short stories and from the internet The findings show that idioms describing people’s outward appearance in the two languages have remarkable similarities and differences in terms of not only the structures but also the meanings The thesis also aims at suggesting some implications for the learning and teaching of idioms in general and idioms describing people’s outward appearance inparticular

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER1: INTRODUCTION 111

1.1 RATIONALE 111

1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THESTUDY 113

1.2.1 Aim 113

1.2.2 Objectives 113

1.3 SCOPE OF THESTUDY 113

1.4 RESEARCHMETHODS 114

1.5 DATAANALYSIS 114

1.6 RESEARCHQUESTIONS 14

1.7 ORGANIZATION OF THESTUDY 115

CHAPTER 2 116

LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 116

2.1 REVIEW OF PREVIOUSSTUDIES 116

2.2 THEORETICALBACKGROUND 118

2.2.1 Definition of Idioms andIdioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance 118

2.2.1.1 Definition of idioms: 118

2.2.1.2 Definition of English idioms 119

2.2.1.3 Definition of Vietnamese idioms 20

2.2.1.4 Definition of IPOA 21

2.3 THE IMPORTANCE OF IDIOMS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGELEARNERS 21

2.4 CLASSIFICATION OFIDIOMS 25

2.5 MAIN FEATURES OF IDIOMS IN ENGLISH ANDVIETNAMESE

28

2.5.1 Semanticfeatures 28

2.5.2 Structuralfeatures 29

2.6 FUNCTIONS OFIDIOMS 31

2.7 MAJOR FUNCTIONS OF IDIOMS IN HUMANDISCOURSE 33

Summary 34

OUTWARD APPEARANCE IN SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC

FEATURES 35

3.1 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DESCRIBING PEOPLE’S OUTWARD APPEARANCE 35

3.1.1 English idioms descrbing people’s outward appearancewith phrase patterns 35

3.1.1.1 NounPhrase 35

3.1.1.2 Adjective Phrase 36

3.1.1.3 Verb Phrase 36

3.1.1.4 Prepositional Phrase 37

3.1.1.5 Adverb Phrase 37

3.1.2 The Structures of English Idioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance 37

3.1.1 Parallel Structures 37

3.1.2 Comparative Structures 38

3.2 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF VIETNAMESE IDIOMS DESCRIBING PEOPLE’S OUTWARD APPEARANCE 38

3.2.1 Vietnamese Idioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance with PhrasePatterns 38

3.2.1.1 Noun phrase 38

3.2.1.2 Adjective Phrase 38

3.2.1.3 Verb Phrase 39

3.2.1.4 Adverb Phrase 40

3.2.2 The Structures of Vietnamese Idioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance 40

3.2.2.1 Parallel Structures: 40

3.2.2.2 Comparative Structures 42

3.2.2.3 Elliptical Structures 42

3.2.3 The Variation on the Form of Vietnamese Idioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance 42

3.3 SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DESCRIBING PEOPLE’S OUTWARD APPEARANCE 43

3.3.1 Symbolic Characteristics of English Idioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance 43

3.3.1.1 Simile 43

3.3.1.2 Metaphor 43

3.3.1.3 Metonymy 43

3.3.1.4 Hyperbole 44

3.3.2 Semantic Fields of English Idioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance 44

3.3.2.1 Thehead 45

3.3.2.2 The face 45

3.3.2.3 The eyes 46

3.3.2.4 The skin 47

3.3.2.5 The legs 47

3.4 SEMANTIC FEATURES OF VIETNAMESEIDIOMS DESCRIBING PEOPLE’S OUTWARD APPEARANCE 47

3.4.1 Symbolic Characteristics of VietnameseIdioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance 47

3.4.1.1 Simile 47

3.4.1.2 Metaphor 47

3.4.1.3 Metonymy 48

3.4.1.4 Hyperbole 48

3.4.2 Semantic Fields of VietnameseIdioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance 49

3.4.2.1 The Head 49

3.4.2.2 The face 49

3.4.2.3 The eyes 50

3.4.2.4 The skin 50

3.4.2.5 The Legs 50

3.5 SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH IDIOMS DESCRIBING PEOPLE’S OUTWARD APPEARANCEIN SYNTACTIC FEATURES 51

3.5.1 Similarities 54

3.5.1 Differences 54

3.6 Similarities and Differences between English and Vietnamese Idioms Describing People’s Outward Appearance in SemanticFeatures 55

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS FOR THE STUDY ON ENGLISH IDIOMS OF PEOPLE’S APPEARANCE DESCRIPTION AND THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 61

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

EIPOA : English Idioms Describing People’s Outward Appearance IPOA : Idioms Describing People’s OutwardAppearance

VIPOA : Vietnamese Idioms Describing People’s Outward Appearance

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Noun Phrase Structures of English and Vietnamese IPOA 51

Table 3.2 Adjective Phrase Structures of English and Vietnamese IPOA 52

Table 3.3 Verb Phrase Structures of English and Vietnamese IPOA 52

Table 3.4 Prepositional Phrase Structures of English and Vietnamese IPOA 52

Table 3.5 Adverb Phrase Structures of English and Vietnamese IPOA 53

Table 3.6 A Summary of Syntactic Features of English and Vietnamese IPOA 53

Table 3.7 Number and Percentage of English and Vietnamese IPOA listed in term of syntactic features ……….…54

Table 3.8 A Summary of Semantic Fields of English and Vietnamese IPOA 55

Table 3.9 Number and Percentage of English and Vietnamese IPOA listed in term of semantic features……… 55

CHAPTER1: INTRODUCTION

It is undeniable that language plays an important role in our daily life People have a great variety of ways to exchange their thoughts, which may be made through language, signs, gestures, body language, and so on However, language proves to be the most effective means, for it is capable of conveying all what you want while the others might sometimes be impossible In communication, however,

we have difficulties in expressing our ideas and understanding the language we are dealing with, especially in understanding meanings of idioms from English to Vietnamese and vice versa There still exists plenty of similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese that can be demonstrated through idioms In addition, idioms seem to take place of words or groups of words that cannot convey speakers’ intentions as well as opinions because an idiom is a combination of words and we cannot infer its meaning from the meanings of its component words This, sometimes, makes us impossible to predict or understand the meanings of words or phrases we are faced with A good understanding of how idioms are used in everyday language is not only important for us to better our English but also to understand some cultural characteristics of this language aswell

Idioms are considered to be an interesting, popular, indispensable and distinctive phenomenon of almost every language which reflects cultural as well as historical characteristics of the people speaking that language English and Vietnamese idioms are not an exception However, understanding and using them correctly and effectively is not an easy task It is sometimes impossible for Vietnamese learners of English to thoroughly and exactlycomprehend what is meant by English idioms as well as what structures the idioms belong to

More importantly, studying idioms help us see the interest, the beauty as well

as the culture of the language which help learners to use and understand correctly and clearly Idioms have been studied in various aspects with certain language units, such as with human body parts terms, human feeling terms, colour terms, number terms and so on However, to the best of our knowledge, idioms describing people’s

outward appearance have not been studied yet So, the hope that language learners can learn English effectively as well as have a better understanding about idioms motivates me to study idioms, especially idioms describing people’s outward appearance(IPOA)

Moreover, idioms describing people’s outward appearance are abundant and varied in the ways of expressing their meanings because, in some cases, we cannot understand some expressions based on their literal meanings For example, English

idioms used to describe people are diversified such as: (still) wet behind ears (chưa ráo máu đầu), (as) cool as a cucumber(trơ nhưđá),(as)freshasadaisy(tươinhư hoa),(as)dryasabone (khô như ngói); or in Vietnamese we have da bọc xương

ốmyếu),HằngNgagiángthế(ngườicongáiđẹplộnglẫynhưtiênnữ)andso on

Take “look a sight” as an example A listener who knows only the meaning

of ‘look’ and ‘sight’ would be unable to know the actual meaning that if a person

looks a sight, their appearance is awful, unsuitable or very untidy

For example:

"She looks a sight in that dress!"

Thus, to learn a language well, we not only need to learn the words separately but also need to know what they mean in idioms In addition, people are

of different looks that need to be described in many different ways It goes without saying that studying IPOA helps us to avoid using monotonous sentences when describing someone Moreover, learners of English can take advantage of these kinds of idioms to make their English more effectively andnaturally

Hopefully, this research will enable us to understand the syntactic and semantic features of IPOA and use them in sensible as well as productive ways Besides, learning a new language does not only mean learning the language alone but also getting to know the immense world of culture, history, convention and customs of the country that the language belongs to Studying English and Vietnamese idioms in general and IPOA in particular helps us to improve our

understanding and to achieve our ultimate goal in better teaching and learningEnglish

For the above reasons, the topic “A Study of English and Vietnamese

thesis with the hope that it will contribute something valuable to the field of teaching and learning English

1.2.1 Aim

The aim of the thesis is to provide Vietnamese learners of English with a basic knowledge of the field in order to help them use and practise idioms in general and idioms describing people’s outward appearance in particular not only

in receptive skills like listening and reading but also in productive skills like speaking and writing

The scope of this study is limited to two issues:thestructure and the meaning

of IPOA This study does not investigate into cultural and pragmatic features of IPOA

Especially, the research will focus on idioms describing human appearance, idioms containing the word denoting appearance and idioms related to human appearance

1.4 RESEARCHMETHODS

With the aims of comparing and contrasting English and Vietnamese idioms describing people’s outward appearance syntactically and semantically, the following methods wereused

The descriptive method was used to describe and interpret syntactic and semantic features of idioms describing people’s outward appearance IPOA were described and interpreted basing on a powerful source of dictionaries and lexicons

to obtain their syntactic and semanticfeatures

The analytical method was used to analyze how each structure of IPOA is formed and to identify different groups of idioms describing people’s outward appearance based on their semantic features

The contrastive method was used to show the similarities as well as differences between IPOA of the two languages in terms of their syntactic and semantic features

In this study, 430 idioms describing people’s outward appearance, in which

210 idioms are in English and the rest in Vietnamese, are exploited

The data collected were analyzed and contrasted syntactically and semantically Syntactically, the analysis is mainly based onthe differentstructural types of IPOA such as noun phrases, verb phrases, adjectivephrases,adverb phrases and prepositional phrases in both languages The resultswillbe shown in tables in raw number and in percentage After doingso,we generalize the results to have an overview of the structures ofIPOAin English and Vietnamese This serve as a basis for us toidentifythe similarities and differences in the structures of English and VietnameseIPOA

Semantically, we group the idioms collected into different semantic fields which describe people in different ways Then we contrast the ways of describing people in both English and Vietnamese

1.What are the syntactic characteristics of English and VietnameseIPOA?

2.What are the semantic characteristics of English and VietnameseIPOA?

3 What are the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese IPOA in terms of their syntactic and semanticaspects?

4 What are some possible suggestions for the teaching and learning of English and VietnameseIPOA?

The thesis consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 is the introduction which includes the rationale for the research, aim and objectives of the study, the method, the scope, the research questions and the organization of the study

Chapter 2 presents the review of some previous studies and the theoretical background The working definitions, main features of idioms, idioms, other language units and some basic concepts are also included in this chapter

Chapter 3 deals with the findings and discussion The similarities and differences of English and Vietnamese idioms describing people’s outward appearance are presented syntactically and semantically

Chapter 4 draws some implications for teaching and learning IPOA in English and Vietnamese

Chapter 5 draws conclusions and some implications for teaching and learning IPOA in English and Vietnamese Some suggestions for further research will be of some help for those who are interested in this field

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

There are so many different researchers who have discovered and studied idioms in different aspects with different points of view

Many linguists andresearchers such as Fromkin, Cruse, Seidl & Mordie,

Broukai, Cruse in“Lexical semantics” (1987) mentioned that an idiom may be

briefly characterised as a lexcical complex which is semantically complex According to him, most idioms are homophonous with grammatically well- formed transparent expressions Besides, he makes the conception of idioms in his book clearer by distinguishing idioms, collocations and “dead” metaphor Palmer, who

wrote “Semantics” (1990), defined idioms as consequences of words whose

meanings cannot be predicted from the meanings of separate words themselves Semantically, idioms are single units, but not single grammatical units like words

He also showed some restrictions in syntactic features and noted the problems of idioms involved in a much wider issue of word formation, by which what would appear to be new and more complex lexemes can be formed from single ones A

variety of English idioms can be found in dictionaries such as, “Cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary” (2008), “Oxford learner’s dictionary of English idioms” by Warrren (1994), “Oxford dictionary of English idioms” by Cowie,

Mackin, and MacCaig (1993) In these dictionaries, idioms are collected and categorized carefully into alphabeticalarrangements

Idioms can also be seen in such books as “Essential idioms in English” by Dixon (1971), “Idioms organizer” by Wright (2000), “Pocket english idioms” by

Seidl & Mordie (1993)

In Vietnamese, a number of researchers have paid attention to idioms Nguyen

Luc, Luong Van Dang made significant contributions to this field in “Thành ngữ tiếng việt” (1978) Recently, Nguyen Luc has just published “Thành ngữ tiếng việt” (2009) in which a large number of idioms, their variants are collected with

of works have been done to make collections of Vietnamese idioms in comparison with other languages Typicalworksare“TừđiểnthànhngữAnh- Việt”byLaThanh(1998),“Từ điển thành ngữ, Tục ngữ Anh – Việt tường giải” by Bui Phung (1997).Vu Dung, Vu Thuy Anh, Vu Quang Hao wrote “Từ điển thành

ngữ - Tục ngữ Việt Nam” (2000) in which Vietnamese idioms are both literally and

figuratively explained and illustrated with examples Besides, Tran Quang Man in

“Thành ngữ và tục ngữ Việt Nam chọn lọc” (2002) selected a variety of Vietnamese idioms and showed some English idiom equivalents in general In

“Từđiển từ và ngữ” (2000) by Nguyen Lan, many Vietnamese idioms illustrated with examples can be found in alphabeticalorder

Besides, the structural and semantic features of idioms are deeply analyzed

by Hoang Van Hanh in “Thành ngữ trong tiếng việt” (1992) HoLe, Dai Xuan Ninh, Nguyen Thien Giap explained the concepts and borderline between idioms and other language units in such books as “Vấn đề cấu tạo từ của tiếng việt hiện

đại” (1976), “Hoạt động của từ tiếngviệt (1978)and“Từvựnghọctiếngviệt”(1985)

Finally, a number of contrastive analyses on the various aspects of English and Vietnamese idioms have been taken into consideration at the University of

Danang such as “A Contrastive Analysis of English and Vietnamese Idioms Using the Terms of Human Body Parts” by Nguyen Thi Hiep (2001), “Semantic Features of English and Vietnamese Idiomatic Verb Phrases” done by Nguyen Van Long (2002) with the purpose of examining the semantic mechanism and characteristics of English and Vietnamese idioms verb phrases In 2004, Nguyen Thi Le Thu did a contrastive study into the semantic features of similes in English

and Vietnamese idioms through the thesis “An Investigation into Simile in Idioms – a Contrastive Analysis between English and Vietnamese” “A Contrastive Analysis of Idioms Denoting Human Feelings in English and Vietnamese” carried out by Vo Thanh Quyen in 2006 was aimed at studying the syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting human feelings to show their frequent occurrence in practical uses in comparison with other kinds of idioms

And a recently finished MA thesis is “An Investigation into Syntactic and

Semantic Features of Idioms Denoting Causes and Results – English versus Vietnamese” by Nguyen Thi Thu Mai (2009) In 2011, two more theses about

idioms have just successfully been completed They are “An Investigation into English and Vietnamese Idioms Containing Words Denoting Time” by Tran Thi

Thu Ba and “ An Investigation into English and Vietnamese Idioms Containing Words Denoting Weather” by Dang Thi Bich Huong

In addition, the BA thesis with the topic “Structure andMeaning of English Idioms Containing Temporal Nouns” (2006) was carried out by Doan Thi My Linh, at the College of Foreign Languages, the University of Danang All of the above mentioned theses mostly focus on a number of syntactic and semantic features and to a certain extent some cultural featuresof idioms

However, up to now, there have been no studies that deal with idioms

describing people’s outward appearance This is the reason why the research “A Study of English idioms of people’s appearance description and the Vietnamese equipvalents” is conducted in an attempt to investigate into semantic and syntactic features of English and Vietnamese IPOA

of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of the individual words”

To put it in a simple way, an idiom is a phrase in which the words together have a

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.”

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 ).Idioms can make perfect examples of figurative language, inthatthe overall meaning of an idiom can not be predicted from the compositionofthe literal meanings of the constituent parts For example, we can not predictthat these idioms up in arm or down in the mouth mean very angry Idiomsin both English and Vietnamese are structurally andlexicallyclosely-combined phrases whose meanings are completely different from theircomponentparts In general, idioms are the products of national culture and sociallife.They are conventionally lexicalized linguistic units andready-madeutterances Structually, idioms are fixed expressions; they don’t permittheusual variability displaying in other contexts From the semantic point ofview,idioms must be interpreted in connection with the historical and cultural characteristics

- According to Jenifer Seidl and W.Mc Mordie in “English Idiom and How

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 ,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 thisstudy.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

In Vietnamese, Hoang Van Hanh 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 hàng 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)

In Wikipedia, it is written “ Thành ngữ hoặc là những cụm từ mang nghĩa 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 các 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 andproverbs.) VD:

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

Hổ phụ sinh hổ tử (Like father like son)

Con ông cháu cha (Accident of birth)

Appearance is defined as the state, condition, manner, or style in which a

person or object appears; outward look or aspect, for example, a man of noble appearance (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/appearance)

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, appearance means the outward form somebody has; or in Wikipedia, human physical appearance means the way some one looks like (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance)

In “Cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary” (2008), appearance is “the way a person or thing looks to other people” For example, a middle- aged man of smart appearance

From the above mentioned definitions, “people’s outward appearance” can

be defined as the outward look or form that someone has It can be concluded that idioms describing someone’s outward look or form are considered idioms describing people’s outward appearance In reality, we can see that people can be

described in a lot of ways, especially through idioms For example, her face is a picture (normally, we can guess that she is very beautiful but this means she looks very surprised or angry instead)

“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 broadenpeople’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 primarymeaning

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 byone

“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 cangain 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 areidiomsto 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 thepoint

IfyouareinItalyorTurkeyandyousayyouare“ashungryasawolf”then you are

starving

In Finnish, “with long teeth” means you are doing something that you

really don’t want todo

In French, “to have long teeth” means you areambitious.If it is raining in

large amounts, most cultures have an interesting way of saying that:

In English, it would be “raining cats anddogs”,

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

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 femaletrolls”;

The Irish say “it's throwing cobblersknives.”

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

“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 vocabularyacquisition 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

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 / unanalyzableidioms”

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“thesecret”;

“to spill the beans” means “totell 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 ofcomparison

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 Ngoc Chu, VuDuc Nghia and Hoang Trong Phien 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 dào”

- “Ngã” means “ fall” or “someone falls”, which impliesunluckiness

- “Võng dào” means a good, sumptuoushammock

“ Ngã vào võng dào” 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

abouteveninthemostdifficultorunluckysituations”.InEnglish,therearealso 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 diiomsdescribing two contrasting domains, objects

In Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học và tiếng việt (1997) , Mai Ngoc Chu, VuDuc Nghia

and Hoang Trong Phien demonstrates that a metaphoric idiom that depictsacertainevent,incident,or phenomena,there isonly one domainportrayed

Thus onlyoneimage, one message is implied, e.g Ngã vào võngdào, Nuôi ong tay

áo, Nước đổ đầu vịt, Chó có váy lĩnh, Hàng thịt nguýt hàng cá, Vải thưa che mat thánh, Múa rìu qua mắt thợ, etc

There are two domains which are reflected in the secondtypeof metaphoric

idioms Those domains are comparatively compatiblewitheach other, e.g Ba đầu sáu tay, Nói có sách mách có chứng, Ăn trên ngồi trốc,Me tròn con vuông, Hòn đất ném đi hòn chì ném lai, etc (Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học và tiếng việt (1997),Mai Ngoc

Chu, VuDuc Nghia and Hoang Trong Phien) The third type also describes two phenomena, or two objects,butunlike those of the second type of metaphoric idioms,

the two domainsdescribedin the third type are contrasting with each other, e.g Méo miệng đòi ăn xôi vò, Miệng thon thót da ót ngâm, etc (Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học và tiếng việt, (1997) , Mai Ngoc Chu, VuDuc Nghia and Hoang Trong Phien)

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 đọn 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 Ngoc Chu, VuDuc Nghia and Hoang Trong Phien)

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

2.5.1Semanticfeatures

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/shegives 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 wasbuttressed by Kunin,A.V (2006) whenhe said that “the meaning of an idiomis 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 theirmeanings

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”(ashardasastone),“đẹp nhưtranh”(asprettyasapicture), “bám như đỉa đói” (to stick like a limpet), “bán tín bán nghi” (halfdoubtful),….(Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học và tiếng việt (1997) , Mai Ngoc

Chu, VuDuc Nghia and Hoang Trong Phien)

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),“seesomething w i th half an eye” (something very easy, effortless to

see ornotice),…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))

2.5.2Structuralfeatures

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 inthe 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),

“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

irregularstructures(thosewhichhaveunconventionalformsbutmeaningscan 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

semantic units which is definitely unchangeable To make it succinct, they are notably special because of their semantic unity, structural stability and metaphorical meanings

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 andsoul

- 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 isclear

- 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 bynose

- 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 theway

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

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

so long, never mind

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

Other linguists give more detailed categorization of idioms Some

idiomsmay havemore than one function Moon (1998), for example,

distinguishesthe following groups of idioms:

- informational (conveying information of different kind: in the red, rub shoulders with, one’s kith andkin)

- 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 nosee)

- 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 otherwords)

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 relevance- 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 in their speeches Being aware of the contexts 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 andexciting”

Summary

The first part of chapter 2 has presented a review of related previous studies

on grammatical structures and semantic features relating to idioms

The research bases its syntactic and semantic analysis on the perspectives of

a some authors such as Quirk et al., Cruse, Richard et al in English and of Hoang Van Hanh, Dai Xuan Ninh, Ho Le, Nguyen Hoa, Mai Ngoc Chu, VuDuc Nghia and Hoang Trong Phienin Vietnamese Their viewpoints are complementary in making the picture of idioms describing people’s outward appearance clearer in terms of syntax and semantics

CHAPTER 3:

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH IPOA AND VIETNAMESE IPOA IN SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES

3.1 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH IPOA

3.1.1English IPOA with Phrase Patterns

Phrase structures of English IPOA are discussed in five groups

asfollow:

- IPOA with noun phrasestructure

- IPOA with verb phrasestructure

- IPOA with adjective phrasestructure

- IPOA with adverb phrasestructure

- IPOA with prepositional phrasestructure

Average Joe; a long face; a cold fish; a black look; plain Jane

+ modified by a prepositional phrase

A noun phrase in English IPOA can be modified by a prepositional phrase:

NP + PreP

For example: face like thunder, egg on one’s face, nose in the air

She walked past me with her nose intheair

+ modified by another noun

Besides, there are some IPOA with the structure of a noun modified by

another noun as in: poker face, plastic smile, bedroom eyes

For example: face only a mother could love(using english.com) (ugly)

3.1.1.2Adjective Phrase

English and Vietnamese idioms describing people’s outward appearance formed in adjective phrases appear in a large number in the total number of idioms collected English IPOA in adjective phrase structure usually have the comparative form with ‘as’ as in:

(as) + adjective + as + a noun/ NP

For example:

Bald as a coot; as cold as ice; as cold as stone; thin as a rake; ugly as a stick;

as ugly as sin; as old as Methuselah; fat as a pig; fresh as a daisy; pale as death; pretty as a picture

Ex: You are as cold as ice

Grin/ smile from ear to ear

Besides, English verb phrase IPOA seem to be more constrained in the

way that some of them are often used in negative forms such as not be a pretty sight, not turn a hair, not bat / without batting aneyelid

verb + direct object + complement

For example:

Look like a cat that got the cream

Have one’s face lifted

verb + direct object + adverb

For example:

Keep one’s hair on

Carry it off well

3.1.1.4PrepositionalPhrase

A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition followed by a

prepositional complement, which is characteristically a noun phrase or a wh- clause or V-ing clause However, in IPOA of this type, a preposition is usually

followed by a noun phrase

Down in the doldrums, up the duff

3.1.2The Structures of English IPOA

3.1.2.1Parallel Structures

Parallel structures can be found easily in IPOA both in English Let us go over some idioms formed in this pattern

For example:

Skin and bones; (like) chalk and cheese; apples and oranges; (beat S.B) black and blue

3.1.2.2Comparative Structures

In the total number of IPOA collected, idioms with comparative structures

account for a large number in English We can see such words as: as……as; like; is

used in most comparative structure idioms

InEnglish: (as) + adjective + as +B

For example:

My teacher is as busy as a bee

3.2SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF VIETNAMESE IPOA

3.2.1Vietnamese IPOA with PhrasePatterns

+ modified by another noun

In Vietnamese: mặt hoa da phấn; mặt cú da dơi; mắt ốc nhồi; đầu hai thứ tóc

“mặt cắt không còn hột máu” in Vietnamese

3.2.1.2AdjectivePhrase

There are also a lot of Vietnamese IPOA with this comparative structure

with the word ‘như’ after theadjective

For example: