A contrastive analysis on metaphor about power in english and vietnamese idioms from cognitive linguistics perspective

iv LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS Quantity and percentage of conceptual metaphors about power in English and Vietnamese idioms 20 Quantity and percentage of structural metaphors about

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English linguistics Code : 60220201

HANOI, 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English linguistics Code : 60220201

Supervisor : Assoc Prof Dr Lâm Quang Đông

HANOI, 2016

i

DECLARATION BY CANDIDATE

I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort It has not been submitted anywhere for any award All the sources of information that have been used have been properly acknowledged

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis has been completed with the invaluable and constant support and encouragement of my supervisor, family members and others Although no listing of acknowledgements can ever be completed, I would still like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to those people here

First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Lâm Quang Đông of ULIS, VNU for his helpful guidance, endless patience and whoehearted support Without his enthusiastic and meaningful suggestions, comments and corrections, this study would not have been accomplished

My appreciation also goes to all the lecturers in the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies in University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their useful lessons from which I have relevant knowledge and proper methods to fulfill this thesis

Furthermore, I greatly thank the librarians for their enthusiatic support when I looked for materials for writing this paper

Last but not least, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all members

in my family and my friends for their invaluable support and encouragement

Hanoi, 2016

NGUYỄN THỊ MINH

iii

ABSTRACT

This research mainly focused on metaphor about power in English and Vietnamese idioms and aims at investigating the similarities as well as the differences between their usages in the two languages Based on Lackoff and Johnson‟s framework about conceptual metaphor, nine categories of metaphor were classified including: power is the human body, power is the human activities, power is animals, power is relatives, power is physical forces, power is

a thief, power is a game, power is a container and power is up and no power is down Besides the similarity in expressing some metaphors like “power is up and

no power is down”, for example, the two languages also had some distinctive features when metaphors “power is a container” and “power is a game” were only found in English and “power is a thief” were only found in Vietnamese The result of study hopefully makes a small contribution to the translation of idioms in general and idioms about power in particular and to teaching and learning English language and culture

Key words: metaphor, idioms, power, language

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LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS

Quantity and percentage of conceptual metaphors about power in English and Vietnamese idioms

20

Quantity and percentage of structural metaphors about power in English and Vietnamese idioms

21

Quantity and percentage of ontological metaphors about power in English and Vietnamese idioms

22

Quantity and percentage of orientational metaphors about power in English and Vietnamese idioms

26

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1 Sb: somebody

2 St: something

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION BY CANDIDATE i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT III LIST OF TABLES IV TABLE OF CONTENTS V PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY 1

2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1

3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 2

4 METHODS AND PROCEDURES OF THE STUDY 2

5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 3

5.1 THEORETICAL SIGNIFICANCE 3

5.2 PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE 3

6 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.1 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 7

1.2.1 An overview of Cognitive Linguistics 7

1.2.2 Conceptual metaphor 8

1.2.3 Classification of conceptual metaphor 9

1.2.4 Conceptual metaphoric domains and mapping 12

1.2.5 Power 15

1.2.6 Idioms 16

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES 18

2.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

2.2 DATA 18

2.3 DATA COLLECTION 18

2.4 DATA ANALYSIS 19

2.5 RESEARCH PROCEDURES 19

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2.6 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY 21

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 22

3.1 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS 22

3.1.1 Structural metaphors 24

3.1.2.ONTOLOGICAL METAPHORS 25

3.1.3 Orientational metaphors 26

3.2 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS 26

3.2.1 Power is the human body 26

3.2.2 Power is the human activities 27

3.2.3 Power is animals 28

3.2.4 Power is relatives 29

3.2.5 Power is a thief 30

3.2.6 Power is a game 30

3.2.7 Power is physical forces 30

3.2.8 Power is a container 31

3.2.9 Power is up, no power is down 32

3.3 SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES 33

3.3.1 Similarities 33

3.3.2 Differences 34

PART C: CONCLUSION 36

1 RECAPITULATION 36

2 IMPLICATIONS 36

2.1 IMPLICATION FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING 36

2.2 IMPLICATION FOR TRANSLATION 37

3 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 38

REFERENCES 39 APPENDIX I

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

In recent years, cognitive linguistics has flourished in Vietnam with increasing studies One of the most important concepts of cognitive linguistics which emphasizes meaning construction (conceptualization) is metaphor Metaphor is known as one of the most useful methods in meaning transfer that is used widely not only in daily life but also in literature It helps people understand an abstract concept by referring to a concrete one For example, we often metaphorically

conceptualize such abstract concepts as love, argument in “Love is journey” or

“Argument is war”, which are clearly analyzed by famous cognitive linguists like Lackoff and Johnson (1980) It appears so often and is utilized so widely that sometimes we use it subconsciously without realizing it

Nobody can deny idioms‟ importance in communication, learning, teaching and translation as well but it is a difficult area of English According to Cooper (1999), idioms present a special language problem to all language learners because their figurative meanings are unpredictable Also, their meanings are not the total sum of their parts and metaphor is considered one of the key factors to understand the meaning of idioms When talking about idioms, we not only talk about the vocabulary and semantics of a language but also the cultures hidden behind Therefore, this study also makes some initial investigation to see how cultures affect idioms in Vietnamese and English in the way they convey the concept of power

2 Objectives of the study and research questions

This study aims to investigate idioms that carry conceptual metaphor about power based on the theory of Lakoff and Johnson To go further, this study is done to explore the similarities and the differences between the use of metaphor about power in English and Vietnamese idioms that reflect the culture of each language community Finally, this paper aims to provide some suggestions for

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teaching, learning and translating of conceptual metaphor about power which is expressed in English and Vietnamese idioms In other words, the study seeks answers to two research questions:

Research question 1: How is the concept of power metaphorically expressed in English and Vietnamese idioms?

Research question 2: What are the similarities and differences in expressions of conceptual metaphors about power in English and Vietnam idioms?

3 Scope of the study

In this study, the analysis is based on the theory and classification of conceptual metaphors given by Lakoff and Johnson Due to the limited time and ability, this research only investigated and contrasted conceptual metaphors about power in society and politics in English and Vietnamese idioms Six dictionaries in both languages, three in English and three in Vietnamese were chosen

The selected idioms in English are cited from several dictionaries including:

- Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners of English by Oxford University Press (2006)

- Dictionary of American Idioms by Spears, R.A (2005)

- Longman American Idioms Dictionary by Urban, R (2000)

Idioms in Vietnamese are from:

- Thành ngữ tiếng Việt by Nguyễn Lực, Lương Văn Đang (1993)

- Từ điển giải thích thành ngữ tiếng Việt by Nguyễn Như Ý (1998)

- Từ điển thành ngữ và tục ngữ Việt Nam by Nguyễn Lân (2014)

4 Methods and procedures of the study

This study is based on conceptual metaphors framework introduced by Lackoff and Johnson (1980) in their invaluable book “Metaphor We Live By” According

to this model, conceptual metaphors are classified into three different kinds, namely structural metaphors, ontological metaphors and orientational metaphors Firstly, contrastive and comparative analyses were carried out in order to identify the similarities and differences in expression of conceptual metaphor about

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power in English and Vietnamese idioms

Secondly, qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze the data Quantitatively, the data were analyzed in terms of the frequencies of structural, ontological and orientational metaphors Qualitatively, the data were classified

or examined based on such criteria as: Power is the human body; Power is a container; Power is up, and no power is down

5 Significance of the study

5.1 Theoretical significance

This study hopes to provide useful contributions to studies of cognitive linguistics, especially the role of conceptual metaphor in expressing the concept of power in idioms

6 Organization of the thesis

Part A: Introduction This part presents the rationale, the aims, and the

methodology of the study The scope, the significance of the study and the organization of the thesis are also described

Part B: Development This part consists of three chapters:

Chapter 1: Literature Review and Theoretical Background This chapter

provides fundamental knowledge of cognitive linguistics in general and conceptual metaphors in particular Some related concepts are also discussed, such as power and idioms This chapter ends with related studies

Chapter 2: Research Methodology and Procedures This chapter presents the

methods and the procedures of the research including how the data were

collected, described and analyzed

Chapter 3: Findings and Discussions This chapter presents the result of my

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analysis of conceptual metaphor about power in English and Vietnamese idioms, their differences and similarities in the two languages

Part C: Conclusion This part summarizes the results of the studies and

implications for learning, teaching and translating idioms Some suggestions for

further research and limitations are presented in this part as well

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL

BACKGROUND

This chapter will provide a critical analysis of the previous studies about metaphors, idioms as well as power Key concepts such as cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphors, power and idioms are reviewed with the aim of establishing a theoretical background for the comparative and contrastive analysis of conceptual metaphor about power in English and Vietnamese idioms

1.1 Literature review

Beginning from the last half of the twentieth century, Cognitive Linguistics has actually become an interesting research trend in order to investigate the relationship among language, mind and socio-physical experience of human beings So many viewpoints about conceptual metaphor are presented clearly in the famous book by Lackoff and Johnson in 1980 Thanks to the guide of Lackoff and Johnson‟s theory about conceptual metaphor, even the most abstract and tangible concept is also metaphorically understood by more concrete one through mapping domains It actually encourages me to investigate the conceptual metaphor about power, one abstract and tangible concept

In Vietnam, so many linguists have contributed to the development of cognitive linguistics through their famous studies, namely Lý Toàn Thắng (2005), Trần Văn Cơ (2007), Nguyễn Đức Tồn (2007) If Lý Toàn Thắng (2005) systematically presents the background of cognitive linguistics and its significance, Trần Văn Cơ (2007), on the other hand, focuses more on cognition and related field of cognitive linguistics, especially conceptual metaphor and its development in Vietnam and all over the world He also emphasizes that conceptual metaphors are used to understand one concept in terms of another Those famous linguists have made great contribution to the foundation and

Nguyễn Thị Yến Thoa (2005) points out some metaphors relating to parts of human body in English and Vietnamese words and phrases Relating to “hand”

in English and “bàn tay” in Vietnamese, she gives some examples of metaphors but all of them describe the function of hands in both languages In this study, she has not referred to metaphors in idioms which contain “hand” element General speaking, cognitive linguistics in general and metaphor in particular have been an attractive topic to researchers in Vietnam

Nguyễn Ngọc Vũ (2012) also investigates conceptual metaphor about power in English and Vietnamese idioms which contain the word “hand” Firstly, in that research, he once more confirms that the conceptual metaphor is the basis to create meaning of most of the idioms in both languages Secondly, thanks to the comparison between English and Vietnamese conceptualization, the learners can have better understanding about the two languages, especially how the abstract

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concept “power” is understood by the more concrete concept of “hand”

Also researching on power, Lương Thị Hiền (2007) does not base on conceptual metaphor about power; she focuses on describing words that denote power in daily communication in Vietnamese family She also gives a critical analysis of power from discourse analysis approach in that study

Despite all the existing books and research on power and conceptualization in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular, there has been no specific study on conceptual metaphor about power in English and Vietnamese idioms In this study, power in society and politics is especially emphasized and hopefully,

it might help teachers, learners, and translators understand the two languages better Therefore, it has inspired me to carry out this study

1.2 Theoretical background

1.2.1 An overview of Cognitive Linguistics

In Cognitive Linguistics, cognition is the key word used to refer to cognitive

processes in which people, through their brain, receive, transmit and operate upon information (Lý Toàn Thắng, 2008).Therefore, linguistic knowledge emerges in general cognition and thinking According to Fauconnier and Turner

(1998), Cognitive Linguistics is considered“a powerful approach to the study of

language, conceptual systems, human cognition, and general meaning construction” This approach is different from others in language sciences

because it investigates the relationship between human language, the mind, and socio-physical experience (Evans, 2012) Therefore, this approach has exerted great influence on other fields of cognitive science

According to Evans (2012), Cognitive Linguistics is guided by two primary commitments Cognitive Commitment and Generalization Commitment are two terms used by Lackoff (1991:53) to show the cognition of human-beings through brains and naming things Cognitive Commitment helps to recognize the principles of linguistic structure in which the knowledge about human cognition

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is reflected from other cognitive and brain disciplines Meanwhile, the Generalization Commitment represents a dedication which characterizes general principles and they are applied to all aspects of human language

There are two main branches or approaches of cognitivism, namely cognitive approaches to grammar and cognitive semantics (Talmy, 2000) Cognitive semantics investigates the relationship between experience, the conceptual system and the semantic structure encoded by language (Evans and Green, 2006) This study mainly focuses on cognitive semantics because it concerns with the model of meaning In summary, cognitive linguistics in general and cognitive semantics in particular plays an important role in analyzing meaning, and so this study analyzes the linguistics expressions, and idioms that carry the meaning of power

1.2.2 Conceptual metaphor

Since the appearance of Cognitive linguistics in the mid-1970s, metaphor has attracted many scholars like Lackoff and Johnson (1980), Turner (1987), and

Kovecses (2010) Metaphor is known as “understanding and experiencing one

kind of thing in terms of another” (Lackoff and Johnson, 1980:5) The

transference of meaning is based on the similarities of two objects Suggested by Lackoff and Johnson (1980), the Conceptual Metaphor theory is considered one

of the earliest and the most influential theoretical framework Actually, metaphor

is widely used in daily life like “the way we think, what we experience, and what

we do every day” It is not simply “a figure of speech” (McGlone, 2007:109); it

is actually called “fundamentally metaphorical in nature” Most of the

metaphors in everyday language are conventional in nature, that is, they are stable expressions systematically used by people

According to McGlone (2007), traditional theory considers metaphor as the simplistic comparison through schematic forms like: X is Y or X is like Y The

idiom “Call the shots/tunes”, for example, is metaphorically used to talk about

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people with great power or people who control everyone It is an example to reject the old linguistic formula Nowadays, that old theory is replaced by the advanced viewpoint developed by Lackoff and his colleagues Conceptual metaphor, as

Lackoff and Johnson referred, is considered “the systematic structuring or

restructuring” in which a target or abstract domain can be understood or

re-conceptualized in terms of a source domain, a more concrete one

Metaphor is basically considered the foundation to create idioms (Nguyễn Ngọc

Vũ, 2012) For example, “have a big hand” means that somebody has had a lot

of influence over something (Wright, 1999) because hand is the symbol of power In order to clearly understand the function of conceptual metaphor in creating idioms, this paper mainly focuses on analyzing conceptual metaphor about power in English idioms and contrasts them with Vietnamese idioms

To sum up, metaphor is “a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary

language” (Lackoff and Johnson, 1980:3) and it takes part in everyday language

and life They are natural and unconsciously, they are conceptual means to understand even the most abstract concepts through concrete ones

1.2.3 Classification of conceptual metaphor

According to the cognitive function, Lackoff and Johnson (1980) classify metaphors into three overlapping groups including structural, ontological and orientational metaphors

1.2.3.1 Structural metaphors

Structural metaphors, as in the famous book Metaphors We Live By, are cases

where one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another (Lackoff and Johnson, 2003:14) It also makes up the largest portion in conceptual metaphors

Structural metaphor is “internally consistent" and it "involves the structuring of

one kind of experience or activity in terms of another kind of experience or activity” (Lackoff & Johnson, 1980:197) Therefore, in structural metaphors, one

concept is understood and expressed in terms of another structure, sharply

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defined concept The cognitive function of metaphors ARGUMENT IS WAR is

a typical example of a structural metaphor

a Your claims are indefensible

b He attacked every weak point in my argument His criticisms were right on

target

c I demolished his argument

d I've never won an argument with him

e You disagree? Okay, shoot!

f If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out He shot down all of my arguments

(Lackoff and Johnson, 1980:4)

In those examples, an internally consistent WAR structure is imposed on the concept of ARGUMENT Arguments and wars are not the same concept; argument is verbal discourse while wars refer to armed conflict and they perform different kinds of action But ARGUMENT is partially structured, understood,

performed, and talked about in terms of WAR like attack, defend or eventually

win or lose The concept and the language are also metaphorically structured In

conclusion, structural metaphors are cases which allow us to use one highly structured and clear concept to structure another

1.2.3.2 Ontological metaphors

One of three overlapping categories of conceptual metaphors identified by

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in Metaphors We Live By (1980) is ontological metaphor It is defined as "ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas,

etc., as entities and substances" In this group of metaphors, we can conceive

intangible concepts, such as feelings, activities, and ideas as object and substances, and set up artificial boundaries for them As a result, once we can identify our experiences as entities or substances, we can refer to them, categorize them, group them, and quantify them (Lackoff and Johnson, 2003:26) Ontological metaphors are used to comprehend events, actions, activities, and

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states Events and actions are conceptualized metaphorically as objects, activities

as substances, states as containers The most typical example of ontological metaphor is container metaphor (Lackoff and Johnson, 1980) We are physical beings, bounded and set off from the rest of the world by the surface of our skins, and we experience the rest of the world as outside us Each of us is a container, with a bounding surface and an in-out orientation We project our own in-out orientation onto other physical objects that are bounded by surfaces For example, VISUAL FIELDS ARE CONTAINERS metaphors show up as follows:

a The ship is coming into view

b I have him in sight

c I can't see him-the tree is in the way He's out of sight now

d That's in the center of my field of vision There's nothing in sight

(Lackoff and Johnson, 2003:31)

Visual fields are conceptualized like containers or rooms with an outside and

inside The movement of the sight is described as the movement out of and into a

container Thanks to ontological metaphors, non-physical objectscan be characterized as a physical entity

1.2.3.3 Orientational metaphor

Orientational metaphor is defined as “a concept of spatial orientation” (Lackoff

and Johnson, 1980:14) The spatial relationships such as up-down, in-out, on-off, and front-back, deep-shallow and central-peripheral are our experience about space which we have acquired in our lives Orientational metaphors give a concept of spatial orientation; for example, HAPPY IS UP and actually, they provide even less conceptual structure for target concept than ontological ones (Kövecses, 2002:35)

There are so many examples of orientational metaphors, for examples, HAPPY IS

UP and SAD IS DOWN, which prove the existence of metaphor in our daily life

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a I‟m feeling up today

b I‟m feeling down

c You‟re in high spirits

d e He‟s really low these days

e My spirit rose

f f My spirit sank

(Lackoff and Johnson, 2003:16)

Happiness is normally defined as positive emotional state while sadness is on the

contrary The concept of “happiness” is expressed with upward orientation words like up, high, rose while the concept of “sadness” is identified with downward orientation words like down, low, sank As Lackoff and Johnson

(1980:14-21) state, orientational metaphors are based on physical and cultural experience and they can vary from culture to culture

1.2.4 Conceptual metaphoric domains and mapping

Lackoff and Johnson (1980:5) point out that in the studies of conceptual metaphor, one concept domain can be understood by another concept domain Trần Văn Cơ (2011) also shares the opinion that conceptual metaphor is the main mechanism through which we can easily understand abstract concepts In order

to generate a conceptual metaphor and understand abstract concepts we must use

a method called metaphorical mapping to connect two domains

There are many terms used to refer to these two domains in metaphorical mapping They are called Source and Target (Lackoff and Johnson, 1980) or Base and Target (Gentner, 1983), or vehicle and Tenor (Richard, 1936), etc Based on the conceptual metaphor theory developed by Lackoff and Johnson, which is used as the main guide in this study, source and target domains will be used in this thesis The domain where the concept is mapped from is the source domain and the domain where the concept is mapped onto is the target domain (Johansen, 2007) Normally, the abstract concept is the target domain and the

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concrete concept is the source domain In other words, the source domain helps

us understand the target domain

The mapping between two conceptual domains A and B is “a set of systematic

correspondences between the source and the target” (Kovecses, 2002:6) The

following part will explain more about three kinds of mappings (to-one, to-many and many-to-one) that applies to a pair of source and target domain

one-1.2.4.1 One-to-one domain mapping

One-to-one domain mapping is the relationship when a single source domain is mapped onto a single target domain (Lackoff, 1993) In the case of conceptual metaphor, LOVE IS JOURNEY, the mapping is a set of conceptual correspondences by mapping knowledge about journey onto knowledge about love

The target domain of love originate in the journey domain is the proof for Lackoff‟s claim that the mapping between domains is unidirectional

Source domain

(JOURNEY)

Target domain (LOVE)

Examples of conceptual metaphor (LOVE IS JOURNEY)

Table 1.1: One-to-one domain mapping example (Lackoff, 1993:208)

1.2.4.2 One-to-many domain mapping

Lackoff and Jonhson (1980) emphasize that the one-to-many mapping is when one source domain is mapped to several target domains The conceptual metaphors LOVE IS A CONTAINER, LIFE IS A CONTAINER, and EVENT IS A CONTAINER are the examples to illustrate one-to-many mapping In these metaphors, three different targets LOVE, LIFE, and EVENT are mapped onto one source domain CONTAINER (see the following table)

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Source

domain

Target domain Conceptual metaphors Examples

The country has just come

out of the war

Table 1.2: One-to-many domain mapping example (Lackoff, 1980)

LOVE, LIFE, and EVENT are the abstract concepts and understood by the more

concrete domain CONTAINER through the words like “in, empty, out of” which

indicate something surrounded by boundaries

1.2.4.3 Many-to-one domain mapping

Many-to-one domain mapping is understood as a number of concepts acting as source domains of one target domain For example:

Source

domain

Target domain Conceptual metaphors Examples

ideas this week

style years ago

Table 1.3: Many-to-one domain mapping example (Lackoff and Johnson,

1980:46-48)

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Through the above examples of conceptual metaphor about IDEAS, one target domain – IDEAS is conceptualized by many source domains as PEOPLE, PLANTS, PRODUCTS, and FASHIONS

1.2.5 Power

Power is defined in Cambridge dictionary as “ability to control people or event”,

the amount of political control on a person or group, and “an official or legal right

to do something” Sharing the same point, Dahl (1957) interprets that power is a

relation among people Based on each situation, power is understood as control, influence, or authority For example, supposing a policeman stands on a street corner and says: “I command all automobile drivers on this street to drive on the right side of the road” It means that he uses language “to command” them to do something and he also has power over automobile drivers to compel them to use the right side of the road

According to Fairclough (2001), ideology, power and language have close relationship Language is the way to express power and ideologies Therefore,

power is also expressed under such concepts as force, and strength

Studying about different aspects of power, Hofstede(1991), Nguyễn Quang (2002, 2004) and Locher (2004) have the same results such as age, gender, physical capacity, intellectual capacity (education), wealth and social status Power and language are proved to be closely interconnected Power affects the voice of verbal strategies and can be realized through verbal interactions Power conception is different in different cultures, which affects human behaviors in

each culture: “in many cultures, power or status is given more weight than

solidarity, even in personal interactions You speak respectfully to a superior no matter how well you know them” (Home, 1985:22)

To sum up, each approach helps us understand more about the concept of power General speaking, power is understood as the relation among people in which one person (Speaker) has control, influence or authority over the others (Hearers)

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based on one of six aspects of power (Nguyễn Quang, 2002:128-129) such as power of social status, age, gender, qualifications, economic status, and physical strength In the scope of the study, I only focus on the power of the speaker over the hearer in politics and society based on one of six related aspects of power

1.2.6 Idioms

Such expressions as “Lay down the law” and “iron hand in velvet glove”, are

called idioms, so “what is an idiom?” According to the traditional view, idioms consist of two or more words and the overall meaning of which is unpredictable from the meanings of the constituent words Idioms are also defined in

Cambridge dictionary as “a group of words in a fixed order that have

a particular meaning that is different from the meanings of each word

on its own” Another noticeable semantic feature of idioms is affirmed by Cruse

(1986:37-38): “although idioms consist of more than one word, they display to

some extent the sort of internal cohesion that we expect of single words”

Fernando (1996), on the other hand, gives a more concise definition of idioms:

“conventionalized multi-word expressions often, but not always, non-literal”

All the definitions and viewpoints share the common features of an idiom including: it is a term, a phrase or an expression; it is used in non-literal, metaphoric way and its meaning is not the total sum of the meanings of its parts Another feature of idiom is that you cannot make up your own idiom because it

is fixed and only recognized by native speakers (Wright, 1999)

Idioms sometimes are misunderstood with collocations, proverbs and sayings If some word combinations like “do homework” or “heavy smoker” are called

collocations, it is obviously that they are “sequences of lexical items which

habitually co-occur, but which are nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a semantic constituent” (Cruse, 1986) It means

that in collocations, we can add, replace or change the order of all constituents and their meanings are not ambiguous On the contrary, the meanings of idioms

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normally are not literal and its parts cannot be inserted, interrupted or changed The clear distinction between idioms and proverbs and sayings is that proverbs and sayings are the whole sentences, whereas idioms are a phrase or an expression

Actually, all the factors above make idioms different from collocations, proverbs and sayings Therefore, in order to study metaphor about power in English and Vietnamese idioms, this paper must be based on those features

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CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES

This chapter will discuss the methods and the procedures of the research including how the data are collected, described and analyzed The appropriate methods will be chosen to guarantee the reliability and validity of the study

2.2 Data

For the purpose of the study, English and Vietnamese idioms are selected from famous dictionaries of idioms In English, famous dictionaries are used including:

Oxford Idioms-Dictionary for Learners of English (2006) by Oxford University

Press; Dictionary of American Idioms by Spears, R.A (2005) and Longman

American Idioms Dictionary by Urban, R (2000)

All Vietnamese idioms are cited from Thành ngữ tiếng Việt by Nguyễn Lực, Lương Văn Đang (1993); Từ điển giải thích thành ngữ tiếng Việt by Nguyễn Như

Ý (1998); and Từ điển Thành ngữ và Tục ngữ Việt Nam by Nguyễn Lân (2014)

2.3 Data collection

By checking their meanings carefully, 114 samples of metaphorical expression denoting the concept of power were found in those dictionaries These samples, including 63 in English and 51 in Vietnamese have been collected and classified

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based on the features of conceptual metaphor Due to many Vietnamese idioms carrying the concept of power which is not suitable for the scope of this study, for example, power in family; therefore, the number of Vietnamese idioms is smaller than English

While collecting and classifying the raw data, a number of questions were sent

to my American friends in order to check and compare my understanding with the native speaker in order to find out the similarities and differences in the two cultures

is neutral and can be generalized (Roman et al, 2013), qualitative research, on the other hand, can create knowledge about new phenomena and complex interrelations that have not yet been researched thoroughly or at all (Seipel and Rieker, 2003)

2.5 Research procedures

The research aims to find out the similarities and differences between conceptual metaphor about power in English and Vietnamese idioms In order to achieve the goals, a number of steps were carried out:

Secondly, the theoretical framework of this study includes cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphors, idioms and power which are clearly described to guide this study

 Step 2: Collect the data

Based on the theoretical framework of this study, about 100 samples are sorted out carefully from 6 dictionaries in both English and Vietnamese In order to collect idioms which convey the concept of power, the author must pay much attention to their explanations by different authors and/or language users because the meaning of idioms is not based on its constituents While collecting and classifying the data, all the samples are carefully chosen in order to answer the two research questions

 Step 3: Analyze the data

In this study, the data are classified into three types, namely structural metaphors, ontological metaphors and orientational metaphors pursuant to Lackoff and Johnson (1980) The number and percentage of metaphoric expression in each type of conceptual metaphors are pointed out clearly to clarify the reliability and validity of this study Also in each type of conceptual metaphor, the similarities and differences in expressing the concept of power in English and Vietnamese idioms are identified through comparison and contrast

 Step 4: Present the findings, discussion and conclusion

Step 3 generates important findings, which are then discussed, and finally conclusions are drawn The study ends with some implications, limitations and suggestions for further studies

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2.6 Reliability and validity

In terms of reliability, all the data of this study are mainly collected from published dictionaries and books in English and Vietnamese Moreover, any information cited in this study is from reliable sources with clear reference of its author, time and place of publication

In terms of validity, all of English and Vietnamese idioms are selected carefully and truly representative In order to understand which idioms convey the concept

of power, we must base on the explanation by famous authors and experts The expressions in English are also double-checked by the explanation of professors

in Vietnam and English native speakers through email to ensure the quality of the study