Familial and social behavior expressed in vietnamese’s idioms and proverbs (thái độ ứng xử gia đình, xã hội được thể hiện trong thành ngữ, tục ngữ của người việt)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI INSTITUTE OF VIETNAMESE STUDIES AND DEVELOPMENT SCIENCESTRAN THI PHUONG FAMILIAL AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR EXPRESSED IN VIETNAMESE’S IDIOMS AND PROVERBS MAST

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI INSTITUTE OF VIETNAMESE STUDIES AND DEVELOPMENT SCIENCES

TRAN THI PHUONG

FAMILIAL AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR EXPRESSED

IN VIETNAMESE’S IDIOMS AND PROVERBS

MASTER THESIS

MAJOR: VIETNAMESE STUDIES

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI INSTITUTE OF VIETNAMESE STUDIES AND DEVELOPMENT SCIENCES

TRAN THI PHUONG

FAMILIAL AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR EXPRESSED

IN VIETNAMESE’S IDIOMS AND PROVERBS

Master thesis, major: Vietnamese studies

Code: 60 22 01 13

Supervisor: Prof.Dr Vu Duc Nghieu

Hanoi, 2013

MỤC LỤC

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DECLARATION

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale and aims of thesis 1

2.History os issue 2

3 Objectives and scope of thesis 5

4 Research tasks 6

5 Research methods of thesis 7

6 Contribution of the thesis 7

7 Organization of the thesis 8

CHAPTER 1: SOME BASIC THEORETICAL ISSUES OF THE THESIS 1.1 The relationship between language and culture 9

1.2 The concepts of “behavior” and “cultural behavior” 13

1.2.1 The concept of “behavior” 13

1.2.2 Concept of “Behavioral culture” 14

1.3 Proverb and idiom 16

1.3.1 Concepts of proverb and idiom 16

1.3.1.1 Concept of proverb 16

1.3.1.2 Concept of idiom 17

1.3.1.3 Distinction between proverb and idiom 17

1.3.2 Proverb and idiom in the relationships with folklore and folk literature 20

1.3.3 Reflecting contents proverb and idiom 22

1.3.3.1 Reflecting contents of proverb 22

1.3.3.2 Reflecting content of idiom 25

1.3.4 Role of proverb and idiom in preservation folk knowledge and experiences 25

CHAPTER 2: VIETNAMESE BEHAVIOR IN FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH IDIOMS AND PROVERBS 2.1 Familial relationships of Vietnamese 29

2.2 General characteristics of Vietnamese family 31

2.3 Behavior in basic familial relationships of Vietnamese people 33

2.3.1 Relationship between wife and husband 32

2.3.1.1 Generalization of relationship between wife and husband 32

2.3.1.2 Behavior in conjugal relationship 37

2.3.2 Relationship between parents and their children 50

2.3.2.1 The role of parents towards their children 50

2.3.2.2 The role of children towards their parents 52

2.3.2.3 Behavior in relationship between parents – children 53

2.3.3 Relationship among brothers and sisters 64

2.3.3.1 Relationship among siblings 65

2.3.3.2 Relationships among sisters-in-law; between husband’s siblings and wife; among brothers-in-law 69

2.3.4 Behavior in relative relationships (with uncles and aunts) 70

CHAPTER 3: VIETNAMESE BEHAVIOR IN SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH IDIOMS AND PROVERBS 3.1 Overview of social relationships 73

3.2 Vietnamese behavior in equal relationships 75

3.2.1 Behavior in relationships among friends 75

3.2.2 Behavior in the relationship among neighbors 77

3.2.3 Behavior in the relationship between male and female 79

3.2.4 Relationship among individuals in society 81

3.3 Vietnamese behavior in unequal relationships 93

3.3.1 Behavior between teachers and students 93

3.3.2 Behavior in the relationship between courtiers and civilians 95

3.3.3 Behavior in the relationship between employers and employees 98

3.3.4 Behavior in the relationship with old people and children 100

CONCLUSION 103

REFERENCES 107

This thesis is the result of training process in Institute of Vietnamesestudies & Science of Development as well as my process of surveying andresearching last time

First of all, my profound thanks are due to Prof.Dr Vu Duc Nghieuwho guided me and spent valuable time to explain and make orientation for

my research The thesis is successful thanks to his important help

Secondly, I would like to give my sincere thanks to the teacherspresenting lectures at the sixth class of master’s degree as well to the teachers

in Management Board of the Institute and Training Department providing methe best conditions in studying progress to complete this thesis

Finally, I would like to give my thanks to my family, friendsencouraging me to study and research

I certify that no part of this thesis is copied or reproduced by me fromany other someone’s work without acknowledgement and that the thesis isoriginally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor Prof.Dr VuDuc Nghieu

Student

Tran Thi Phuong

1 Rationale and aims of thesis.

Being a social phenomenon, language functions as the most importanttool of human communicating Simultaneously, it implements function ofreflecting - function as a tool of human thought The knowledge, experiencesand perception of people about the physical and spiritual world of humanityare all preserved in language in the form of concepts, contents "contained" inthe words

Since ancient times, folk knowledge is mainly handed down by word

of mouth method Thus, the lessons and behavioral experiences in life werestored, summarized in the idioms, proverbs, folk songs,… the elements offolk literature Therefore, in order to find out the behavioral traditional way

of Vietnamese (this conception is considered as Viet people or Kinh people)

in the family and society, doing research the source of linguistic data fromfolk literature proves more effective and predominant compared with thesource of other written ones Moreover, folk literature, including idioms andproverbs is precious literary treasure which has overcome challenges of time

to become an important element in the national cultural heritage Especially,through the art of using words, proverbs have summarized people's intellect,reflecting the diversified relationships in society as well as the way ofbehavior showing national spirit and moral standards For this reason,research Vietnamese familial and social behavior expressed in folk literaturedoes contribute to seeking the national cultural identity, thinking and lifestyle

For years, researching treasure of Vietnamese idioms and proverbs, theauthors focused only on mining and unraveling the varied contents that arereflected with the characteristics of the structure, prosody of proverbs

Problems of behaving and handling the relationships between man and nature,man and society, man and themselves expressed in folk literature haverecently attracted the interest in further research of scholars However, inresearches of familial and social relationships expressed in proverbs and folksongs, by reading the relevant documents, we found that they mainly clarifiedreflection of particular relationships without highlighting Vietnamesebehavior in those relationships Therefore, in this thesis, through studyinglinguistic data of idioms and proverbs, we will go deep into clarifying theVietnamese behavior in particular relationships and, simultaneously, willindicate assessments and direct or indirect attitude of praising or criticizing offolk to behavior mentioned

According to the policies and guidelines of the Party and State,Vietnam is in the process of building an advanced culture imbued withnational identity Along with the momentum of integration, acquirement thequintessence of world-wide culture, it is extremely critical to look back, topreserve fine traditional culture of the nation So researching behavioralculture of the Vietnamese people to find cultural inherence for practicalnational development is urgently necessary

2 History of issue

Recently, the issue of "behavioral culture" has been much interested inVietnam In perspectives of sociology, culture or psychology, there areresearches on this topic For examples: “Behavioral culture of the ethnics inVietnam” written by author Pham Vu Dung [16]; “Behavioral culture ofHanoi people with the natural environment” written by author Nguyen VietChuc [45]; “Discuss the behavioral culture of Vietnamese people” written byauthor Nguyen Tat Thinh [53]; “Behavioral psychology” written by author LeThi Bung[5]… Depending on the requirements of each specialty, the authors

have studied the behavioral culture from the different perspectives ofapproach and because of being a different major compared with those, we donot mention them in our study We only preliminarily point the main contents

of some research in which authors more or less exploited this subject throughthe resource of folk literature, especially idiom and proverb as elements offolk literature:

Tran Thi Thuy Anh, the author of study: “Traditional social behavior ofthe Vietnamese people in Northern delta” [1] “tried to build a model oftraditional social behavior of the Vietnamese people in Northern delta …determined that the value system of Vietnamese behavior is “lưỡng đoan” (or

“đa đoan”) with spiritual values, including: friendliness – tolerance –simplicity – happiness …” Behavioral model that the author wanted toidentify and name is "the model of affection and gratitude" The author gavevery accurate conclusions (some of which are results of research disciplinespreviously confirmed) New thing we find in this research is that the authorused a research method of region- splitting, or research method of “Culturalgeography”, the concept of researchers of culture studies The writer dividedinto sub-regions in the northern delta such as: the North, the South, Đoài, theEast; however, she did not explicitly make mention of characteristics ofbehavior in each region, only paid attention to aspects of material culture Theauthor writes: "The North is high Delta with a lot of seasonal fields, craftvillages, trade villages and vivid network of rural markets, numerousfestivals, pagodas, temples and communal houses Features of identity are “cỗ

ba tầng”, “nón ba tầm”, “áo mớ ba mớ bảy”, “quan họ”, Gióng festival, “ĂnBắc mặc Kinh” The South is the sunken delta, with shrimp paste, shrimpsauce (very small shrmips), digging to expend soil, water puppetry (NguyenXa), working austerely, “Xắn váy quai cồng”, “Sống ngâm da, chết ngâm

xương” but the spirit is comforted by Holy Mother Lieu Hanh, the fairy ChuDong Tu, hầu bóng, chau van singing …” [1, p 38] Using folk songs,proverbs as "tools" (the word used by the author), but sources of folk songs,proverbs are actually few Main approach of this study leans toward historyand culturology … Thus, the extensiveness of the study is quite high,especially in the perspectives of history, cultural study and sociology.

With research: “Behavioral culture of women through Vietnamese folksong treasure” [17], after outlining the behavioral culture of the Vietnamesepeople in general the author Pham Vu Dung went deep into a particularwomen subject This is due to that they "are full of inherent characteristics ofthe Vietnamese people as well as Vietnamese culture throughoutestablishment history and development of the country" [17, p 43] Althoughthe author only outline, he emphasized some of the contents, outstandingqualities of Vietnam and Vietnamese people: “Those are patriotism, diligence,sense of community and national solidarity, harmony, moderation;consistency, being easy to amalgamate without conservatism; creativity andacumen; being full of affection, appreciation of benevolence andrighteousness; living and behaving based on affection; tolerance and harmony

…” [17, p 39]

With research: “Proverbs, folk songs about familial relationships” [34],the author Pham Viet Long indicated that there are four basic familialrelationships in proverbs They are relationships of: husband-wife, parents -children, siblings, daughter in-law and son in-law – family In which, thehusband-wife relationship is reflected the most compared with otherrelationships “On the overview of the Vietnamese familial relationships,except the tensional relationship between the daughter in law and mother inlaw, other ones are reflected with warm look, highlighting cohesion, harmony

and responsibility which are considered as criteria to build cozy andsustainable family Thanks to this, the main flow of familial proverbs hascreated the sonority of humanitarianism encouraging love and attachmentamong people.” [34, p 111].

With research: “Reflection of familial and social relationships inproverbs, folk songs”[3], the author Do Thi Bay pointed out the Vietnamesefamilial relationships reflected in proverbs including the relationships of:grandparents - grandchildren, parents - children; husband - wife; siblings;mother in law - daughter in law, parents in law – son in law, stepmother –stepchildren, stepfather - stepchildren; relatives: uncles, aunts The socialrelationships include the ones of: teacher-student; friends; compatriots;owners - employees; kings and mandarins - masses Overall, this studycomprehensively reflected Vietnamese familial and social relationships;However, because of such largeness the author has not carefully analyze toshow dominant relationships as well as behavioral characteristics of theVietnamese people have not been clearly focused

3 Objectives and scope of thesis

The main objective of this thesis is behavior in the family and society

of Vietnamese people We take idioms, proverbs as research materials to findout how Vietnamese people behave in relationships; this is different fromtaking these elements of folk literature as the objective of thesis Therefore, inthis study, we will not explore the art of expressions of idioms and proverbs

It can be said that behavioral culture is related to many fields such as:culture studies, psychology, sociology, economics, education and history… indirect or indirect form However, in this thesis, we try to approach the subjectbased on exploiting treasure of idioms and proverbs of the Vietnamesepeople, localized with the treasure of idioms and proverbs of other ethnic

groups; which means traditional behavioral culture of the Vietnamses peoplerecorded in these two elements of folk literature.

Contents of behavioral culture are determined according to system ofinteractions between people and the natural environment, people and theothers, people and themselves Accordingly, generally, it is considered indetail systems: behaving towards natural; behaving in the family (husband -wife, parents - children, among siblings, among relatives) and behaving insociety (among friends, teachers - students, among neighbors ), which meanthe behavioral relationships among members of community; behavingtowards self (the conception of human life) However, in this thesis, we onlyconsider the way of behavior between members in the community of Vietpeople Thus, two main research objectives and scope corresponding to twochapters of this thesis are: behavior of Vietnamese pople in familialrelationships and behavior of Vietnamese people in social relationships

Linguistics data used in the thesis are collected from "Dictionary ofVietnamese Idioms” included 728 pages written by the authors Nguyen Nhu

Y, Nguyen Van Khang, Phan Xuan Thanh [61]; “Treasure of Vietnameseproverbs” written by the authors Nguyen Xuan Kinh (chief editor), NguyenThuy Loan, Phan Lan Huong, Nguyen Luan [30] with 8194 units of proverb.These are two relatively abundant and comprehensive data source compiledaccording to a scientific, modern method being convenient for lookup.However, in this linguistics data source there are units which are notcompletely proverbs or idioms, but because of respecting for the actualcollection of the authors, we accept without comment, exclusion

4 Research tasks

We define the first task of research in this thesis is survey idioms, proverbsrecorded in reliable sources After that, we collects idioms, proverbs

expressed Vietnamese behavior in the family and society Then, we analysis

to find out that in which correlation these behaviors are expressed, howbehavior among people is described and how the folk assess and showattitude of praising or criticizing to the behavior mentioned

5 Research methods of thesis

In this thesis, we apply and combine research methods of disciplines: folkliterature, sociology, culture studies and especially interdisciplinary researchmethods

Being an expression of culture, thought of a community, social behaviorshould be considered as a general social phenomenon; thus to approach it, weneed a synthesis method To achieve the target of the thesis which is bothdescription of behavior in particular familial and social relationships, andgeneralization to clarify the characteristics behavioral culture of Vietnamese,Viet ethnic group, synthetic interdisciplinary research method will providemore considerable efficiency

After collecting linguistic data, deriving from them, we go to classify,describe, analyze and give comments Manipulation of verification through afew quantities is also implemented

6 Contribution of the thesis

We hope that this thesis will achieve some results as follows:

6.1 The thesis presents relatively particularly and systematically contents

of Vietnamese familial and social behavior reflected in idioms, proverbs

6.2 Initially, the thesis shows prominent features in Vietnamese way of

behavior recorded in idiom and proverb, since then, it contributes toresearch, identify their characteristics of thinking, lifestyle and affection

7 Organization of the thesis

Besides the introduction, conclusion, references, appendix the thesis isdivided into three chapters

Chapter 1: Some basic theoretical issues of the thesis

Chapter 2: Vietnamese behavior in familial relationships through idiomsand proverbs

Chapter 3: Vietnamese behavior in social relationships through idiomsand proverbs

CHAPTER 1: SOME BASIC THEORETICAL

ISSUES OF THE THESIS 1.1 The relationship between language and culture

In recent years, the international exchange and cooperation in Vietnam

is becoming a popular trend In this new development stage, nationalcharacteristics are paid special attention more Accordingly, it's a specialinterest in culture, because culture is always considered as an important part

of the national characteristics

Language is the objective of linguistics discipline, and culture is theone of culture studies However, considering the relationship between the twothese concepts, it seems there is no equality between them According toProfessor Nguyen Lai, when regarding the relationship between language andculture, initial difficulties may be encountered: “a/ Objectives of culture arenaturally outspread, there has been no definition being entirely satisfactory; b/

In general understanding, language is contained by culture itself; but in fact,

in its practical operation, language governs cultural mechanism in manyrespects and through many complicated levels” [31, p.173]

Firstly, language and culture are products of man with their labor andthinking; that is the human phenomenon In the 50s of XX century, E.D Sapir– Professor of linguistics at Yale University wrote: “Le langage est un produit

de la culture, et non une fonction biologique” (Language is a cultural product,

is not a biological function) [6, p 51] Language is a cultural phenomenon, apart of the culture Culture has wide denotation while language has moreconfined denotation but wider connotation According to Nguyen Van Chien[6, p 51], the relationship between language and culture is the one ofcontaining each other; there are difficulties, intersection and similaritybetween them This relationship is showed with two circles:

A Văn hóa

B A Language Culture AAvaA

The circle A larger represents the concept of culture and culturalevents The circle B smaller represents language concept and language events

However, according to Professor Nguyen Lai, with language contained

by cultural category, it is only a formal arrangement; there is an issue hidden

in it in the more depth It is that the formation of language is the multiplepremise of the formation of culture The formations of the two objects are notthe same in terms of mechanisms and specially, are unable to overlap in terms

of time He quoted the argument of Engles, a researcher respected the premiserole of language even in its function of stimulating the formation of "socialhuman": “Human overcame their animal natures to become social human.Firstly, it is thanks to labor, after labor and at the same time with labor, it isthanks to language.” [31, p 175] Thus, according to the emphasis of Engles,clearly, language is not only the premise to create cultural objects but rather,from its depth, it is the premise of man creation, since then humancontinuously establish subjective and objective premises to form their culturalobjects More particularly, if there had been not the first language formcreating and promoting people’s thinking, artist qualities of human could nothave been established in order to create many artist language types such asmusic, painting, sculpture, architecture which are not under the first form andbelong to cultural objects Thus, not coincidentally, in his "Curriculum ofGeneral linguistics", Saussure made questions about this complexity:

“Linguistics is closely related to other scientific fields, but the boundariesseparating it from other scientific fields do not always emerge”, and according

to him, the clearest complexity is the boundary of linguistics and generalculture So, at many levels, language is the premise for the development ofcultural objects And the development of culture continues to provideconditions to the language development

Language and culture harmonize with each other to develop on theprinciple of inheriting tradition; so, they contain themselves many of the mostunique features of ethnic community’s nuances Culture and language aresocial institutions with both particular and common specific characteristics

To specify, awareness value of them is always defined by convention created

by a particular social community in concrete space and time Spiritualproducts associated with the awareness value are abstract but this abstraction

is always expressed through physical signs for people to be able to feel based

on the conventions of community Professor Nguyen Lai pointed detail

comparison as follows: a/ Language is the result of a series of mental activity.

This type of mental activity is eventually showed by physical signs althoughawareness expressions among communities are not necessarily identical in

material as well as method b/ Culture is a series of mental activity in general;

finally it is manifested directly or indirectly by conventional physical signs

One way of greeting, a ritual custom, a folk dance, an architecturalshape, an archaeological relic…, in spite of such differences between them,their value is more or less defined by the conventions within the scope thecommunity If they are separated from the conventional and symbolicmeanings attaching spiritual life of the community from which it originates, it

is itself no longer cultural property In other words, in general principle,language activities as well as cultural activities are types of mental activity,

both of them are based on the conventionalizing process attaching topsychological and social factors

Unlike any other cultural phenomenon, language is a peculiar culturalphenomenon because language is not only a cultural product but also a mean

of recording other cultural phenomena In addition to this, language in whichcultural phenomena are reserved in a long time is a tool to show culturalcharacteristics of the community “By analyzing thoroughly, it must be saidthat language is the most important factor among the factors that constitutethe ethnic culture” [39, p 24] It is language which also plays role as a mirrorreflecting the cultural contents, as a preserver and transmitter culture from one

to another, from previous generation to the next Ethnic establishment history,the development of cultivation methods, production or transformation ofcustoms, habits, beliefs, lifestyle, behavior, housing, clothing, way ofcognizing the world (both material and spiritual culture) of each ethnicpeople are unfailingly recorded and reflected in their language Language andcultural of ethnic people have a cohesive attachment but they are neveridentical It can be said that though each community of people have theconcept frame of space, time, people, familial and social relationships incommon with the others, each of them has view and concepts which do notoverlap For example, the words denoting color, personal pronouns, kinshiprelationships of each language contain blanks when comparing them to eachother The accurate understanding and using meanings of the words arealways associated with understanding the culture of the ethnic peopleproducing of that language The formation process of words’ meanings isclosely connected to cultural and sociable experiences of human Eachlanguage is the unique system of signs and codes showing the way ofcognizing, approaching, dividing, organizing the actual events in objective

reality of different ethnic communities So, in a certain aspects it can beconsidered that language contains spirit and culture of ethnic people

1.2 The concepts of “behavior” and “cultural behavior”

1.2.1 The concept of “behavior”

In the speech summarizing the "The decade of culture" (1987 - 1997),the former General Director of the United Nations, De Cuellar stated:

“Culture is the way of life (how to behave) together” [1; p 16] Therefore,researching behavior means researching culture and the way of life Behavior

is a system of interactions, reactions carried out by living things (includinghuman) to adapt to the natural and social environment It is research object ofmany sciences, including disciplines such as Habit studies, Psychology,Sociology

Author Le Thi Bung gave notion as follows: “Behavior is the reaction

of human to the impact of others on his in a certain situation It means thatthese people are active in response selected and considered themselvesinstead of being active in communication Behavior is expressed throughattitude, action, gesture, manner of talking depending on knowledge,experiences and personality to achieve the best result in communication.” [5,

p 12] Consequently, according to this definition, the objective of behavioralpsychology is only necessary psychological knowledge to response theinfluence of a certain situation, to select appropriate attitude, reaction, gesture

as well as manner of speaking to gain effective communication amongpeoples For this reason, it is not all communication in which behavior occurs

Regarding “behavior” as a concept of Cultural anthropology, it can beseen that: The object of Cultural anthropology is very large but mainlycontains research on human - creatures with their natural, social and culturalpersonalities Cultural anthropology studies behavioral models to prove that at

particular level, culture impacts on personality establishment and behaviorchanges in accordance with each culture Not focusing on isolated behavior,Cultural anthropology deeply researches how natural – social – culturalenvironment influences on people’s behavior Leslie White wrote: “Anoutstanding distinction of behavior between human and animal is high level

of human when living in the world of symbols and conventions.Anthropologists call that culture Culture is all traditional dogmas…behavioral instructions propagated in society by variety ways.” [According to

1, p 17]

Human behavior is not only confined to the selective response towardscommunication partner to find out the best communication results, but it alsoincludes all actions, attitude of the man towards natural and socialenvironment and himself trough detail relationships Human behaviorcontains individual or social knowledge, thinking, psychology and feelings; inaddition to this, most of behavior is symbolization

1.2.2 Concept of “Behavioral culture”

From viewpoint of culture studies, the author Pham Vu Dung inresearch “Behavioral culture of ethnic communities in Vietnam” [16] gavenotion as follows: “Behavioral culture is quintessential system of behavioralhabits, behavioral models, behavioral standards in the behavioral relationshipsbetween people with other objects It is showed through language, action,attitude, life style, psychology… which are standardized to become standardsfor each person, social groups and total society; are appropriate to social fife,cultural identity of each ethnic community and each nation; are admitted andfollowed by person, social groups, community and total society.” [16, p.19]

We believe that, this definition only focus on positive and good thingstowards which all societies are directing Reality of life continuously moves

complicatedly, behavioral culture not only includes such positive elementsbut, in fact, it also contains negative ways of behavior

Human behavior is the product of social consciousness and in each era,each society also establishes a system for own behavior Besides the features

of age, each behavior system carries inheritability Each generation acquires,filters, maintains the cultural values of the previous generation, contributes tothe creation of new standards adding to traditional values Different ethnicgroups and ethnic community have not the same customs, habits, way ofbehavior based on their natural, historical, social conditions, which createstheir cultural identity Most of nations in the world all pass the same historicalstages and cultivation methods; therefore, besides typical characteristics, allcultures of own general, human characteristics We agree with the concept ofbehavioral culture written by Nguyen Thi Hong Thu in doctoral thesis ofLiterature: “Japanese proverbs of behavioral culture (in comparison withVietnamese proverbs)” [55]: “Behavioral culture is human’s manner ofbehavior towards their habitat (natural and social environment) andthemselves It carries national features, inheritability, humanity, transformingcomplicatedly through time” [55, p 38] According to the author, behavioralculture is recognized primarily in two forms:

In direct form, behavioral culture is showed particularly in habitat of

people (the environments of nature, society, spirit, essence ) In everydaylife, we can witness the expressions of behavioral culture anywhere, anytimethrough behavior, gestures, language, ways of communicating betweenpeople with the others in society and with natural world

In indirect form, it means the contents of behavioral culture are

reflected in philosophy, psychology, sociology in which artist culture,especially folk literature is typical In which, idioms, proverbs is the preserver

of parlance, behavior, experiential knowledge, lessons summarized in wordsand mainly popularized by word of mouth Therefore, we will be interested

in researching the behavior of Viet people through this linguistics data

1.3 Proverb and idiom

1.3.1 Concepts of proverb and idiom

1.3.1.1 Concept of proverb

So far, in the world as well as in Vietnam, there are many definitions ofproverbs, but no one of them is considered standard to be able to apply inresearching all aspects of proverbs For example:

Chu Xuan Dien in "Dictionary of Literature" [12] defined proverb: "Asthe short statements with rhythm, sustainable form, used in everyday speech,often having multiple meanings, formed by analogy association.” [12, p 473]

Bui Manh Nhi in the "Studies of Vietnamese folk literature" [43]defined: “Proverb being short and stable statements with rhythm, imaginesand many meanings of the folk reflects the experiences of the grassroots in allfields (nature, labor, production and society), was applied to their lives,thought and everyday language This is a genre of folk literature," [43, p.254]

In "Morality in proverb," Nguyen Duc Dan also gave a definition:

“Proverb is a series of statements with structural stability, reflecting theknowledge, the experience, the conception (of folk) of a nationality ofobjective world, nature as well as society.” [10, p 58]

“Proverb is a genre of folk literature with the main function of toaccumulating experiences, knowledge, to raise comments which are in theform of short, simple, concise statements with rhythm, imagines to be easy toremember, to popularize.” [59, p.129]

In spite of giving the concepts of proverb being not entirely the same,the authors all paid attention to the "structural stability", "sustainable form" ofproverb In our opinion, the definition given by author Nguyen Duc Dan in

"morality in proverb" is the most appropriate of all

1.3.1.2 Concept of idiom

In "Fundamentals of Linguistics and Vietnamese language", theauthors defined: “Idiom is fixed phrases with complete structure and meaning.Their meanings are iconic and suggestive.” [7, p 157]

The author Hoang Van Hanh in “Vietnamese idioms” raised definition

as follows: “Idiom is kind of fixed word combination with stability of form structure, complete and polished meaning, being widely used in dailycommunication, especially in oral language.” [24, p 27]

-The stability of form - structure of idiom is expressed in followingrespects:

Firstly, lexical component of idiom, generally, is stable; it means thatelements creating idiom are virtually unchanged in using, in many cases it isimpossible to replace them with other ones

Secondly, the structural sustainability of idiom is expressed with theconstant order of the components creating idiom

Completeness and ornateness of idiom’s meaning are showed in theirexpression of concepts or symbols with full of characteristics, progress orobjects In other words, idiom is the unit of naming in language

1.3.1.3 Distinction between proverb and idiom

Duong Quang Ham was the first person raising the ideal of distinctionbetween proverb and idiom: “A proverb must fully have itself meaning,counsel or direction while an idiom is only available statement to convenientlyexpress something or to ornately describe certain state.” [41, p 41]

However, Vu Ngoc Phan does not agree with this distinction He wrote:

“That distinction is not clear because if we distinguish like that, the effect ofproverb is not different from the one of idiom [ ] Proverb is a sentencedisplaying itself a full meaning, an assessment, an experience, a morality, ajustice, even a criticism Meanwhile, idiom is a part of available sentence thatpeople get used to using, but it can itself express a full meaning In terms ofgrammatical form, each of idioms is a word group, is not a complete sentencewhile a proverb, despite of shortness, is still a full sentence.” [41, pp 41-42]

In the essay “Comments about distinction between idiom and proverb”,the author Cu Dinh Tu used function as the criterion to distinguish idiom fromproverb He stated: “Idiom being available units keep the function of naming,

in others words, it is used to name objects, characteristics, actions…”; and

“Considering linguistic respect, proverb has different function compared withidiom Proverb as well as other creations of folk literature such as folk songs,fairy tales are all announcements They announce a judgment, a conclusionabout a certain aspect of the objective world So, each of proverbs is acomplete sentence, showing fully an ideal It is the reason why proverb hasstructure of two centers.” [41, p 42]

Several other authors such as Chu Xuan Dien, Luong Van Dang,Phuong Tri raised a new criterion to distinct: “Idiom is concepts and proverb

is judgments” [13, pp 27-28] This conception is continuously reaffirmed byNguyen Luc, Luong Van Dang: “We believe that the main connectionbetween these two genres is about meaning and awareness of people It is able

to consider that the criterion to distinguish between them is: “the content ofidiom is notion, the content of proverb is judgment [ ] A part of proverbgenre is possible to become a part of idiom genre When idiom is a unchangedclause or sentence, it will be able to equivalent to an expression of thoughtbeing judgment So, idiom also has a part containing judgment content.” [35,

p 21-23]

Hoang Van Hanh with the some other authors stated that in spite ofhaving many similarities to proverb, idiom is essentially different fromproverb That difference is displayed like this: “Idiom is special groups ofwords, ornately expressing conceptions while proverb is special sentence,artistically expressing judgments.” [24, p 31] After that, he summarized thesimilarities and differences in this table:

Features used ascriteria to distinct

Idiom Proverb

1 Feature of

structuralmorphology withrhyme and parallel

Unchanged groups

of words (or aclause),

morphologicalrelationship

Unchangedsentence(utterance) (bothsimple sentenceand complexsentence), syntaxrelationship

2 Function of naming Name objects,

phenomena,processes…

Name situations,events and states

3 Function of

expressingawarenessmorphology

Express conceptions

by symbolicimagines

Two layers ofmeaning created bymethod ofcomparison andmetaphor

It can be seen that, so far, there are two conceptions raised todistinguish idiom from proverb; one based on content and the other based onfunction However, considering two couples of “concept – judgment” (of thefirst conception) and of “naming – announcing” (of the other conception), wecan see that couple “concept – judgment” is contained by couple “naming –announcing” Because concept is used to name and judgment is a form ofannouncing The authors acknowledge the intersection between idiom andproverb, according to above quotations, intersection part is significantly large.According to the author Trieu Nguyen: “Confusion between idiom andproverb, in fact, has been considered as an obviousness, even no one assesses

it as a mistake (This is expressed through collection and compilation ofidioms and proverbs so far, even that the confusedness of later ones is moreserious than the confusedness of previous published ones.” [41, p 45]

From the opinions of authors, we claim that it is possible to distinguishidiom from proverb on both respects of content and form as follows:Formally, idiom and proverb are both available units; idiom is phrases orlexical units while proverb is sentences, clauses or short text, being not verbalunits Regarding the content, the content of idiom is equivalent to conception

of objects, properties or processes while the content proverb is judgments,conclusions or experiences of the folk

1.3.2 Proverb and idiom in the relationships with folklore and folk

literature

Folklore consisting of the cultural materials of the pre-modern societieswith a pure agriculture but without script is popularized and preserved byword of mouth through non-institutional and traditional channels ofcommunication

Folk literature is a part of both national literature and folklore As acomponent of the folklore, folk literature is also one of the factors ofintangible culture Some its respects are close to philosophy, chronicle, folkbeliefs, folk customs, and customary laws of traditional communities Thesegenres of intangible culture have attachment and mutual relationship, affecteach other and interlock spontaneously; even it is sometimes difficult toseparate

Proverb is a genre of folk literature In it, we can find out therecognition of folk knowledge and experience in labor, production, behavior,customs, habits, beliefs or performing activities “Phép vua thua lệ làng” (thewill of the king yields to people’s customs) is purely a proverb in folkliterature or an unwritten law of traditional society? Without culturalknowledge, only basing on the words, it is difficult to understand the proverb

“Tua rua thì mặc tua rua, mạ già ruộng ngấu không thua bạn điền” Proverbalso summarizes experience of religious practice (Cha chết gậy tre, mẹ chếtgậy vông/ Cha đưa mẹ đón ); reminds everyone to take part in traditionalfestivals (Mười một là hội Hương Nha, mười hai Gia Dụ, mười ba hộiHiền )

In classification of the folk literature into genres, the researchers do notarrange idiom as the one It is a special type of linguistic unit in a nationallanguage Idiom is arranged into the intermediate signs between the signs ofword level and sentence level But in terms of content and meaning, idiomscarry value and function as the ones of a word and can replace words to name.Hiding behind the cover of a communication language, idiom contains a largeamount of living experience, ways of treatment and behavior, folkconceptions Because of this reason, it is easy to find out performingactivities, ways of speaking, conceptions of the folk It is customs, traditional

beliefs which is preserved in the treasure of idiom It is a mean to popularizeculture of nationalities

If dividing Folklore into three components: Linguistic Folklore; PlasticFolklore and Performing Folklore, it is proverb and idiom which are genresoccupying a large quantity of linguistic Folklore With other genres, they play

an important and main role in spreading Vietnamese folklore

1.3.3 Reflecting contents proverb and idiom

1.3.3.1 Reflecting contents of proverb

Proverb reflects judgments, conceptions of the masses about labor,historical – social phenomena, thought, morality…

Proverb with content of labor and production reflect main aspects ofpeople’s labor conditions and method, characteristics of national life Theseproduction experiences appearing in people’s process of struggle with natureare summarized in proverb and widely popularized to become the folkknowledge of science and technology

a/ In production and living progresses, people accumulated many experiences

of the rules of climate and weather changes

- Bơ bãi không bằng phải thì

- Vấy mại thì mưa, bối bừa thì nắng

b/ For each career such as agriculture, fishing, some ancient crafts, there are

many experiences summarized In which, the experiences of cultivationoccupies the majority of quantity

-Nhất nước, nhì phân, tam cần, tứ giống

- Chiêm cập cợi, mùa đợi nhau

Proverb of production content expresses creative spirit of the people in

labor, however it is practical experiences Many of them only reflectparticular expressions of natural rules in certain local and certain time

Proverb with content of historical and social phenomena is the maincomponent, reflecting habits, preferences, the struggle of the people

a/ A few memories, historical phenomena of nation:

- Hăm mốt Lê Lai, hăm hai Lê Lợi

- Lê tồn Trịnh tại, Lê bại Trịnh vong

b/ Proverb of Viet people mainly reflects the characteristics of familial and

social activities, material and spiritual activities in the feudality

Firstly: The habits and customs, "the postulates" in people's lives.

- Dưa La, cà Láng, nem Báng, tương Bần, nước mắm Vạn Vân, cá rô Ðầm Sét

- Mồng bày hội Khám, mồng tám hội Dâu, mồng chín đâu đâu trở về hội Dóng

Secondly: The activities of Vietnamese rural life in feudality.

- Phép vua thua lệ làng

- Ðất lề, quê thói

Thirdly: Reflecting family organization and kinship relations of people

in feudal society

- Một ngưòi làm quan cả họ được nhờ

- Sẩy cha còn chú, sẩy mẹ bú dì

Fourthly: Reflecting the lives of employees and the social relations in

feudal society

- Lấy bát mồ hôi đổi bát cơm

- Bà chúa đứt tay bằng ăn mày sổ ruột

 Proverb shows folk philosophy

Proverb reflects the living experiences, lifestyle, traditional thoughtand morality of working people, in which there are political, social andphilosophical ideas

a/ Proverb displays spirit of humanism, the humanity of working

people This is expressed, firstly, through conception of people:

- Người làm ra của, của không làm ra người

- Người sống của còn, người chết của hết

Còn da lông mọc, còn chồi nảy cây

And through the attitude, assessment of labor and working people:

- Hay làm đầu quang mặt sạch, chẳng hay làm đầu rếch mặt dơ

- Của một đồng, công một nén

b/ Proverbs represents pride, praising of prosperous country, talented

people with distinctive features:

- Ăn Bắc, mặc Kinh

- Trai Cầu Vồng, Yên Thế, gái Nội Duệ, Cầu Lim

c/ Many proverbs represent the spirit of struggle, criticism,

condemnation of working people

- Tuần hà là cha kẻ cướp

- Muốn nói oan, làm quan mà nói

d/ Proverb reflects abundant qualities of working people, traditional

thought and morality of people through the comments, profoundcontemplations of reality

- Một con ngựa đau cả tàu bỏ cỏ

- Ðói cho sạch, rách cho thơm

The folk also refers to negative expressions and implies a critique:

- Ðèn nhà ai nấy sáng

- Giàu đổi bạn, sang đổi vợ

- Giàu trọng, khó khinh

e/ Proverb reflects experiences of people in real life, however many

proverb units show the spontaneous materialistic awareness

- Ở bầu thì tròn, ở ống thì dài

- Ðược mùa cau, đau mùa lúa

1.3.3.2 Reflecting content of idiom

In fact, there was no certain research raising reflection content of idiom

as clearly and particularly as raising one of proverb The reason is thatfunction of naming objects, facts, process, function of expressing concepts ofidiom are different from function of showing judgments about certainsituation or state of proverb

The value of each idiom is equivalent to the one of a word, so it isimpossible to observe as well as describe completely the contents of idiom.This is extremely difficult and complicated work Therefore, the classificationidioms based on content respect is able to conduct in the same way ofgrouping words according to meaning or different criteria In this thesis, weuse Vietnamese idioms with the content of reflecting behavior in family andsociety as research data, in which, it is cultural behavior of Viet peoplereflected

1.3.4 Role of proverb and idiom in preservation folk knowledge and

experiences

In literature history of all nationalities, before the state of handwritingwith written works, in the folk, there are brief statements with conpendiousmeaning; songs in natural tone to express or convey feelings; short stories toexplain natural phenomena, customs or believes Folk literature by word ofmouth with proverb, folk songs, fairy tales… has appeared in many societies

before people found handwriting Thus, elements of folk literature areimportant literary documents of many nationalities in the world includingViet nationality

In ancient Vietnamese society, the quantity of people with literacy toexpress ideals, feelings in handwriting (demotic script or Han script) is verymodest The majority of the population composed and stored linguistic works

in the oral form; so, oral folk literature is extremely abundant and important

in Vietnamese literature

Firstly, idiom and proverb are treasures containing knowledge andexperiences of folk about nature and society Not only raising ways of namingobjects, phenomena through a part of lexical units – idiom, but the folk alsopresented judgments based on experiences and direct observations There aretwo types of experience reflected in proverb: experience of nature and the one

of social life The diversification of judgments in proverb expresses the trend

of folk: They want to go deeper into the nature of things, to detect andconfirm the regularity of natural, social phenomena and human life Inaddition, the diversification of judgments in proverb also shows flexibility,lissomness of human cognition, reflecting the complexity, variety of manymutual relations and phenomena of the objective world

In life, perception through experiences is significant Withoutexperiences, it is difficult for people to exist in society But if the experience

is not developed into the category of awareness and generalized into the rules,

it will be only pure experience Moreover, to be accepted by a community,those experiences, especially experiences in social life should be valued as atruth, a morality for people to follow They are considered social regulations

“Those conventions being living habits, even thinking habits, ways of expressing, speaking create invisible pressure, forcing people to follow

because only doing like that, their behavior is considered as logical and moral.” [27, p 214] Not only in content, but also in the expression way of

proverb, we can find convention: “It is generated according to certain molds,

gradually, with time and popularization, it is conventionalized into the proverb expression or proverb verbal style.” [ 27, p 215] Thus, to approach

treasure of folk knowledge and experiences, exploiting linguistic data ofproverb is effective work

In the research “Towards the establishment vocabulary of Viet culture”[6], the author Nguyen Van Chien gave concept of “sign of culture key-word” It is a basic lexical unit in treasure of culture key-word in a language;being a linguistic morphology showing concepts and recording culturalfeatures of a nationality Through its meaning and meaning structure, aculture key-word directs to concepts related to cultural features of a certainnationality Thus, idiom and proverb play important roles in researchingtypical signs of culture key-word Cultural identities of nationality arereflected the most concentratedly and clearly through culture key-wordappearing in these linguistic units And of course, they include thought,experiences, knowledge of the folk about nature, society, behavior mannersbetween people with nature, society and themselves

Sub-conclusion:

In conclusion, in chapter one, we discussed several concepts such as:behavior, behavioral culture; concepts of proverb, idiom and distinctionbetween them Around these concepts, many researchers raised not the sameopinions

In this thesis, we agree with conceptions: human behavior is veryabundant and diversified, including all reactions and attitude towards naturaland social environment, towards themselves Behavioral culture contains allbehavioral manners of human, carrying national features, inheritability,humanity, transforming complicatedly through time

Regarding to concept of proverb, we agree with author Nguyen DucDan, with conception: Proverb is a series of statements with structuralstability, reflecting the knowledge, the experience, the conception (of folk) of

a nationality of objective world, nature as well as society While, idioms arefixed phrases with complete structure and meaning Their meanings are iconicand suggestive After that, we believe that it is possible to distinguish idiomand proverb in both respects of content and form as above

We also recognize that idiom and proverb are genres occupying a largequantity in linguistic folklore, playing an important role in preservation andpopularization folklore of Viet people, in particular, knowledge and livingexperiences of the folk

Those theories are used as bases to survey and analyze linguistic data innext chapters

CHAPTER 2: VIETNAMESE BEHAVIOR IN FAMILIAL

RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH IDIOMS AND PROVERBS

2.1 Familial relationships of Vietnamese

In fact, family is a complex concept including factors such asbiological, psychological, culture, economic making it differ from othersocial groups So, there are many researchers raising different concepts offamily; however, it is uneasy to give a complete one In this thesis, we quoteconception of family written in book of sociology by Pham Tat Dong and LeNgoc Hung, using it as theoretical background of family “Family is a typicalsocial institution, a small social group of which members have strongattachment for marriage relationship, blood relationship or adoptionrelationship, for community activities, responsibility, morality in order toeach other to meet individual demand of each member as well as toimplement social necessity of human reproduction.” [14, p 310]

According to Tran Thuy Anh, “familial relationships in Vietnam areplentiful and complicated because family of Vietnamese has a closeconnection with extended family.” [1, p.135] Therefore, according to directrelationships and collateral relationships, Vietnamese kinship system ismodeled in a network when obtaining Ego as an original as follows:

Great-grandfather Great-grandmother Grandfather’s siblings Grandfather Grandmother Grandmother’s siblings

Uncles Father Mother Aunts

Father’s cousins Mother’s cousins

- Wife - husband

- Parents - children

- Sisters and brothers

- Relative relationships with uncles and aunts

2.2 General characteristics of Vietnamese family

One of the roots for forming and locating family of Viet people istraditional mode of production – wet rice cultivation in the form of self-sufficiency As a result this, it can be seen that the most typical feature of Vietpeople’s family is pure agriculture The majority of Vietnamese household arefamilies of Agricultural Economics

The second characteristic is the small family structure by male blood.According to researchers, when researching in details and particularly,specially, basing on certain and distinct context, it is seen that the form ofextended family still maintains somewhere and sometime in Vietnam.However, with overview and popularization, we can see that structurally, theform of Viet people’s family is mainly nuclear family with male blood andthe father as the head of the family [According to 34] Deputy professorNguyen Tu Chi, going deep into organization structure of traditional village

Relationship among sisters-in-law, between husband’s siblings and

wife, among brothers-in-law

and family of Viet people, he indicated similar assessments as follows: “For along time, extended families, from countryside to town, from the northernDelta and midlands to over nation have been dissolved to small families andeven to the nuclear family in the majority of cases.” [34, p 34] Thus, withVietnamese family, he focused on the form of small family or nuclear one.After that, he looked into the nature of traditional family as follows:

“Patriarchal property of the Vietnamese family is repeatedly emphasized, withthe main principle to frame it: supreme authority of the father to the children,

of the husband to the wife; inheritance privilege of sons, especially the eldestson; thorough role, sometimes almost unique role of men - the householdheads in every kind of family organization… Patriarchal property was alsohighlighted with centuries of Confucian education In addition, on the respect

of community activities in village, women’s blatant absence in organizationstructure also showed they are underdogs” [34, p.34]

However, a special feature of the Vietnamese family by male blood isrelatively high status of women Regarding to traditional structure, obviously,activities in Vietnamese family mainly focused on patriarchal power, then onmale members; but reconsidering this problem with practical view of homeeconomics, we can see that Vietnamese women’s destiny is not unfortunatelike that… It is Associate Professor Nguyen Tu Chi who indicated that theyare not only right-hand women and indispensable for their father and husband

in heavy agricultural labor, but they also hold thriving "trading flow" in thedelta It is them who earned a significant part of family income in the form ofcash, therefore, the position of Vietnamese women in the family is not low

In terms of aspect of community and social structure, Vietnamesefamily is the smallest community unit at grassroots level It is the unit whichpreserves and maintains the best all traditional values and identity of Viet

nationality on almost respects of production, economics, religion, belief,behavioral culture, custom… When family appears and exists with thefunction of nuclear cell in society, traditional values, social standards onehand is reflected through family, on the other hand, was developed by themembers of the family

2.3 Behavior in basic familial relationships of Vietnamese people

2.3.1 Relationship between wife and husband

2.3.1.1 Generalization of relationship between wife and husband

Surveying units of idiom and proverb from two sources of linguisticdata mentioned in the introduction, we recognize 196 units reflectingassessments and comments of folk about relationship between wife –husband Basing on content classification of idioms and proverbs, wedetermine the main contents of this relationship reflected as follows:

 Relationship between wife and husband reflected has strong andunseparated attachment It is attachment of couple with physical harmony (25

units): Ex “Trao xương đổi thịt”; “Có vợ có chồng như đũa có đôi”…; and awareness of affection and gratitude (7 units): Ex “Vợ chồng xét nhân

nghĩa”…

 Spouses are similar to each other in personality, qualities, age,

form, context (15 units): Ex “Chồng khôn vợ ngoan, chồng quan vợ bợm”;

“Chồng mồm cá ngão, vợ môi cá mè”; …

Accordingly, all things being not similar according to folk conception

are considered unsuitability between wife and husband (4 units): Ex “Con

vợ khôn lấy thằng chồng dại, như bông hoa nhài cắm bãi cứt trâu”.

However, sometimes, the folk consider this unsuitability as a factor

making a mutual balance and addition because: “có đâu lại được cả ông lẫn