Idioms referring to head in english and vietnamese a contrastive analysis from cultural perspectives

One of themost effective ways to transfer cultures is utilizing idioms which may be ahindrance for English learners in the process of mastering a foreign language.Hence, in order to help

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ VĂN HÓA

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

HANOI - 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

DƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ VĂN HÓA

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Dr Đỗ Tuấn Minh

HANOI - 2017

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT -***** -

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled

IDIOMS REFERRING TO “HEAD” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS FROM CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES

submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master Degree atUniversity of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University,Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted to any degree at any otheruniversities or institutions Except where the reference is indicated, no otherperson‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2017

Nguyêñ Thi Hồng ̣ Vân

There is a close relationship between Language and culture Culture has astrong influence on language and vice versa, language reflects culture One of themost effective ways to transfer cultures is utilizing idioms which may be ahindrance for English learners in the process of mastering a foreign language.Hence, in order to help learners have a better understanding of idioms, the

researcher decided to conduct “Idioms referring to “Head” in English and

Vietnamese: A contrastive analysis from cultural perspectives.” This research aims

to explore the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idiomscontaining the word “Head” in terms of syntactic, semantic and especially culturalfeatures At the end of the study, some educational implications for Englishteachers, learners and translators are offered to make teaching, learning andtranslating more effective Hopefully, this paper will increase the knowledge ofidioms referring to “Head” and enhance cultural understanding of Vietnamese andEnglish people to a great extent

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CANDIDATE‟S STATEMENT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Objective of the Study 1

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the Study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 3

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

1.1 Theoretical Background 3

1.1.1 Idioms 3

1.1.2 Cultural and the Relationship between Language and Culture 12

1.2 Previous Studies Error! Bookmark not defined. CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES 19

2.1 Research Design 19

2.2 Research Methods 19

2.3 Research Procedures 19

2.4 Data Collection 20

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 21

3.1.2 Sentence structures 26

3.1.3 Similarities and Differences of Syntactic features of Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese 26

3.2 Semantic features of Idioms referring to “Head” in English & Vietnamese 28

3.2.1 Similarities 28

3.2.2 Differences 30

3.3 Cultural Features in Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese 31

PART C: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 35

1 Conclusion 35

2 Implications for Learning, Teaching and Translation Idioms 37

2.1 Implications for Learning 37

2.2 Implications for Teaching 38

2.3 Implications for Translation 39

2.4 Limitations and Suggestion for Further Research 40

REFERENCES 41

APPENDIX I

LIST OF TABLES

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

English is an interesting language to learn, however, to master English is noteasy One of the phenomenons that make English learners find difficult is idiomwhose meaning cannot be always inferred from the meaning of its parts becausethey contain not only the literal meanings but also the figurative ones For example,when we say “He is big-headed”, we do not mean that the man‟s head is big but aman who is very conservative

There are a large number of idioms in English as well as in other languages likeVietnamese Idioms can be seen everywhere, in newspapers, novels, short stories, and

in our daily conversation In addition, idioms make a language more interesting, vibrantand colorful This is the reason why language learners should learn about idioms inorder to make their own communications and writings livelier and to avoidmisunderstanding the meaning of speakers or documents that use idioms

I am attracted by idioms, especially idioms referring to “Head” which is one

of the most important parts in human body The researcher found many idioms

denoting “Head” in both English and Vietnamese whose meanings are extremely interesting For example: “fall head over heels” means to be in love with someone very much; and “đầu tắt mặt tối” which means very busy In fact, English and Vietnamese idioms referring to “Head” share the similarities and differences in the

light of culture

From all these reasons above, the researcher decided to choose the topic

Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese: A contrastive analysis from cultural perspectives to take detailed exploration Hopefully, the study can enlarge writer‟s knowledge about idioms referring to “Head” from cultural perspective and

contribute a small part of learning and teaching idioms

2 Objective of the Study

The purpose of this study is to supply learners of English a basic knowledge

about syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting “Head” in comparison

with Vietnamese ones Moreover, this study is carried out with the aim to explore

the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms which

denote “Head” in term of culture In addition, some implications for teaching,

learning and translating will be explored at the end of the study in order to providereaders useful resources of idioms Finally, the study is implemented to satisfyresearcher‟s interest in idioms

3 Research questions

In accordance with the objectives of the study, the research is conducted tofind out answers to the following research questions:

1 What syntactic and semantic features are reflected in the “Head” idioms

in both English and Vietnamese?

2 What are cultural features of idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese?

4 Scope of the Study

It is impossible to cover all English and Vietnamese idioms in general andhuman body idioms in particular in a scope of a minor study Therefore, I would

like to focus on idioms referring to “Head” to get deeper analysis Idioms denoting

“Head” in English and Vietnamese are collected from many reliable dictionaries.

The study would investigate the following points:

- General view of idioms in English and Vietnamese

- Syntactic and semantic features of “Head” idioms in English and

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

of problem Phrases or sentences of this type are usually said to be idiomatic(Spears, 1991)

According to Oxford Dictionary of English idioms (p 57) “An idiom is aword or phrase which means something different from what it says.” - it is usually ametaphor It means that the meaning of an idiom cannot be inferred from the

meaning of individual words in that idiom For example, the phrase “a pain in the neck” can be literally understood that one‟s neck is painful However, it also has another figurative meaning in the sentence “Tom always goes mad if others do not obey him He is really a pain in the neck.” A pain in the neck here refers to a

nuisance, or something or someone that causes nuisance

In the same sense, J Seidl and W McMordie (1988, p.13) defined idioms as

“a number of words which, when taken together, have a different meaning from the individual meanings of each word.” For example, “twiddle one’s thumbs” in the sentence “It is not equal when Tim only comes to the office and twiddles his thumbs” has the idiomatic meaning “doing nothing” This meaning is very different from the meaning of each word in the idiom Twiddle indicates an action and thumbs are biggest fingers of hand.

In the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (1992), an idiom is seen as “an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from its separate parts”.

In general, these linguists and dictionaries have the similar opinions aboutthe definition of English idiom which is a phrase whose meanings cannot bepredicted from the individual meaning of the components it contains.

In Vietnam, Hoàng Văn Hành (1994) defined an idiom as “a stable word group with a solid formation and structure, and a complete and figurative meaning,

-used in everyday communication, especially in spoken language.” The idiom “chõ mũi vào chuyện người khác” in the sentence “Bà ta chuyên chõ mũi vào chuyện của người khác” (She always pokes her nose into other‟s life.) is an example for this

definition

According to Hoàng Phê (1997) an idiom is “a set expression whosemeaning is generally inexplicable simple through the meaning of individual words

it contains.” For instance the phrase “da mồi tóc sương” (scaly skin and grey hair)

means very old, aged, used to indicate an aged person in the following sentence:

“Chốc đà mười mấy năm trời Còn ra khi đã da mồi tóc sương”

(Truyện Kiều, Nguyễn Du)(With more than ten years gone

If still alive, they must have scaly skin and grey hair)

1.1.1.2 Features of Idioms

Idiomatic expressions can be diagnosed by some properties that are extractedfrom its practical use in variable discourses The features that are set below areextracted from an anonymous writer in an article labeled Anonymous “Czech andEnglish Idioms of Body Parts: A View from Cognitive Semantics, EnglishLanguage”:

 Idioms are conventional, i.e they are well-established style

 Idioms have paradigmatic fixity, i.e the individual elements of idioms are unable to be substituted in the same place of its context

 Idioms are transformational anomalous, i.e they are a unique group of words that cannot be created according to a specific pattern.

 From the formal viewpoint, idioms have combinatory abilities that are not identical with the combinatory abilities of a regular language

 From the semantic point of view, idioms have no compositional function,i.e the total meaning of an idiom cannot be predicted from the meaning of its individualparts

 Idioms have compositeness, i.e an idiom is a combination of two or morewords which function as a unit of meaning and that exactly what is called semantic unity

 Idioms have a special nature that makes them unique; they are richer than the literal language in terms of their structure and semantic features

 Idioms are institutionalized, i.e they are conventionalized and cannot bechanged

1.1.1.2.1 Syntactic Features

First of all, idioms are commonly said to be the “set-expressions”, whichmeans we cannot add, omit or freely substitute the components in an idiom In otherwords, almost all idioms have fixed structures, and their components cannot bevaried or modified In addition, we cannot transform an idiom into passive form,either, especially when it is utilized in a full sentence This is true in both English

and Vietnamese For example, “ba đầu sáu tay”, “đầu đội trời, chân đạp đất” or

“have eyes in the back of your head” If we make a change in these idioms, they are

not idioms any more

Secondly, idioms can take many forms as well as structures like phrasestructures with noun phrase (“a good head”, “a cool head”), verb phrase (“bury yourhead in the sand”, “fall head over heels”), or prepositional phrase (“from head totoe”) and sentence structure (“eyes pop out of your head”) Moreover, some idioms

have grammatically incorrect structures For instance, “give someone a

heads up”, or “to go through thick and thin” However, it is widely accepted despite

the improper structure

1.1.1.2.2 Semantic Features

According to Vinogradow (1997), the meaning of an idiom is cleverly

likened to “the special chemical mixture” of all the components‟ meaning “Have your head in the clouds” is a good example to illustrate his point It would be

inappropriate to translate every word and understand the meaning literally because it

is impossible to have your head in the clouds Actually, the true meaning of that

idiom is to be unaware of what is going on from fantasies or daydreams This case

is also true in Vietnamese For example, “Đầu tắt mặt tối” means very busy No

doubt, the real meaning of the idiom is far different from that of the set phrase Itmeans that although we may know the meanings of all the components of an idiom,

it is quite hard to comprehend its true meaning Therefore, we cannot draw out itsmeaning by just basing on the component words We have to translate and interpretidioms figuratively and metaphorically, instead

However, this case is not always true There are many idioms whose literalmeaning and figurative one are almost identical This point was supported by theopinion of Kunin, A.V (2006) that was “the meaning of an idiom is either partly orcompletely different from the meaning of all components “Give and take”, “as busy

as a bee” are some instances for this because we can, more or less, guess theirmeanings There are also some Vietnamese idioms which have literal sense and

their meaning can be deduced correctly from the components such as “Đẹp như tranh” (as pretty as a picture) and “Bán tín bán nghi” (half doubtful).

1.1.1.3 Metaphor and Metonymy in idioms

1.1.1.3.1 Metaphor

Metaphor is a term that comes from Greek which means “transference” In

Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (1995:734), metaphor is defined as “the imaginative use of a word or a phrase to describe somebody/ something as another

object in order to show that they have the same qualities and as to make the description more forceful” For example: “Tom is a snake” Snake is a dangerous

animal Therefore, the word “snake” is used to refer to one of characteristics of aperson This example implies “Tom is a dangerous person” However, the sentencewhich uses metaphor is more forceful and face-saving to the hearer than thesentence that does not

According to Barcelona (2000:3), “Metaphor is the cognitive mechanism whereby one experienced domain is partially mapped or projected onto a different experiential domain so that the second domain is partially understood in terms of the first one.”

In Vietnam, Vo Dai Quang (2003:33) defines metaphor as “word meaning transference based on similarity between two things regards function, character, size, shape, age, color, etc.”

In general, there are many linguistic definitions of “metaphor”, but all ofthem share the same point that is metaphor always is the transference of name based

on the association of similarity

According to Kövecses and Radden (1999), metonymy is a cognitive process

in which one conceptual entity, the vehicle, provides mental access to anotherconceptual entity, the target, within the same idealized cognitive model

Gibbs (1994: 320) further defines metonymy as “an aspect of something torepresent or stand for the thing as a whole” Gibbs proposes „is like‟ test todistinguish metaphor from metonymy If one thing can be said to be like another,then it is a metaphor If it would be nonsensical to say this, then it is a metonymy

To make it clear, Gibbs provides the following examples as used in the American English contexts:

1 The cream puff was knocked out in the first round of the fight.(Metaphor)

2 We need a new glove to play the third base (Metonymy)

The only meaningful comparison is metaphor, in that it is meaningful to saythat „the boxer is like a creampuff‟ but would be nonsensical to say „the thirdbaseman is like glove.‟

1.1.1.3.3 Metaphor and Metonymy in Idioms

Metaphors and metonymies are applied prevalently in literature, writtenlanguage as well as spoken language as a tool to make the language become morevivid, and in some cases, more profound Particularly, metaphors and metonymiescan also be found in idioms which are considered as linguistic combinations mainlywith figurative meaning

Kövecses (2010: 234) proposes that the motivation of idioms arises fromknowledge of cognitive mechanisms (metaphor, metonymy, and conventionalknowledge) In order to explain idioms based on metaphor, Kövecses (2010) uses

the example of spit fire where the domain of fire is used to refer to the domain of anger In this case, anger is comprehended via the anger is fire conceptual

metaphor Because conceptual metaphor is not the only cognitive mechanism thatcan motivate idioms, Kövecses goes on to explain idioms based on conventionalknowledge and metonymy For this purpose, he collects a large number of idiomsrelevant to the human hand from a variety of sources As conventional knowledge isalso cognitive mechanism, Kövecses means that people in a given culture have theshared knowledge regarding a conceptual domain like the human hand They havethe standard information about the parts, shape, size, use, and function of the humanhand The meaning of the idiomatic expression of have one‟s hands full is to bebusy This can be easily understood because if someone holds things in the hand, it

is hard for them to pick up other things or use the hand to do another activity

According to Kövecses, this is not the only explanation for this idiom, yet it is theconventional (neither metaphoric nor metonymic) knowledge that motivates this

idiom As for metonymy-based idioms, Kövecses uses the example of hold one’s hand meaning „wait and see‟ This meaning arises as a result of the metonymy the hand stands for the activity which seems to be the basis for the hand stands for the person.

1.1.1.4 Proverbs and Idioms

According to Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, a proverb is “a short

well-known sentence or phrase that states a general truth about life or gives advice” Due

to the similarities between idioms and proverbs that they both have figurativemeanings, for example, it makes many people confused to distinguish idioms fromproverbs However, the border between a proverb and an idiom is not very solid Itmeans that they are different in some points

Firstly, idioms and proverbs have different structures or the stability of

structures According to Nguyễn Đình Hùng (1999) in Tuyển tập thành ngữ, tục ngữ cao dao Việt - Anh thông dụng, a proverb is different from an idiom in terms of

syntax A proverb is often a complete sentence meanwhile an idiom is just only afixed phrase or a group of words which is a constituent part of a sentence.Therefore, the individual words in an idiom cannot be changed or omitted, or addedwith any other elements In contrast, a proverb is often elliptical in their nature Forexample, the idiom “with a high hand” cannot be shortened in any circumstances,while the proverb “so many men, so many minds” can be shortened into “manymen, many minds” without any change in meaning

Secondly, idioms can be distinguished from proverbs in terms of semantics

as well Nguyễn Lân in “Từ điển thành ngữ, tục ngữ Việt Nam” states that: “Thành ngữ là những cụm từ cố định dùng để diễn đạt một khái niệm” and “Tục ngữ là những câu hoàn chỉnh, có ý nghĩa trọn vẹn, nói lên hoặc một nhận xét về tâm lý, hoặc một lời phê phán, khen hay chê, hoặc một câu khuyên nhủ, hoặc một kinh

nghiệm về nhận thức tự nhiên hay xã hội” In other words, the content of an idiom is

that of concept and the content of a proverb is that of judgment For example: “headand front” is an idiom expressing a person who proposes and lead a movement or alaunch; “two heads are better than one” is a proverb because it is an advice whichmeans it is better to have a discussion before making a decision

In general, idioms and proverbs are different from each other in terms ofboth syntax and semantics Therefore, syntactic and semantic features of idioms andproverbs are effective means to distinguish between them

1.1.1.5 Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese

1.1.1.5.1 Literal and figurative meanings of “Head” in English

In Modern English Dictionary, “Head” is defined as follow:

a The part of body containing eyes, nose, mouth and brain For example: the ball hit her on the head

b A head (singular): as measure of length

For example: Tom is taller than John by a head

c Headache

For example: I have got a terrible head this morning

d The mind, the brain

For example: The thought never entered mind head

e (Singular) a mental or natural ability of the specified nature For example: have a good head for figures/ business

f Heads (singular verb) the side of a coin with the head of a person on it For example: We tossed a coin and it came down heads

g (Plural) head individual animals in a herd, flock

For example: twenty head of cattle

h A thing like a head in form or position

For example: Cut off the dead heads of the roses

i The foam on the top of poured beer

j A device on a tape recorder that couches the moving tape and converts the electrical signals into sound.

k The part of a spot or boil that contains

For example: the pimple came to a head before bursting

l The top or the highest part of something

For example: The title at the head of the page

m The more important or prominent end of

something For example: Place the pillow at the head

of the bed n The front of a line of people

For example: Stand at the head of a queue

o A leading position in something

For example: Be at the head of one‟s profession

p The person in charge of a group or an organization For example: The head

of the family

q The person in charge of a school or a college: headmaster or headmistress

r The pressure produced by an amount of water or steam in a confined space For example: they kept up a good head of steam

s A main division in a lecture, an essay, etc

For example: a meeting arranged under five heads

1.1.1.5.2 Literal and figurative meanings of “Head” in Vietnamese

The meanings of the word “Đầu” in Vietnamese are taken from the website:http://tratu.soha.vn/dict/vn_vn/Đầu

a The highest part if the human body, the front part of an animal, in which there are the brain and other senses

b The head of human beings, considered as symbol of thought, perception For example: Vấn đề đau đầu

c The part where there is hair on the human head, hair (in general)

For example: Gãi đầu gãi tai, mái đầu xanh

d The front or the highest part of something

e The beginning points of time of space; opposite to “end”

For example: Đầu làng, đầu tháng, đầu mùa thu

f The ending part of two identical parts on two opposite directions of an object

For example: Hai bên đầu cầu

g The first point of time or location, highest or in front of all other points For example: Lần đầu, Hàng ghế đầu

h Indicating every unit to count the average of people, area units, etc

For example: Bình quân đầu người

1.1.2 Cultural and the Relationship between Language and Culture

1.1.2.1 Definition of Culture

In English, “culture” is a term that has been defined differently by variousscholars In 1871, Edward Taylor, a British anthropologist, became the first to give

a full definition of culture in his book, Primitive Culture, that is “Culture is that

complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, custom andany other capacities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Kroeberand Kluckhohn (1952:181) showed that:

"Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, and on the other as conditioning elements of further action."

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and CultureOrganization (UNESCO), culture is defined as follow:

"

Culture is a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs "

Regarding to Matsumoto (1996), a set of attitudes, values, beliefs, andbehaviors shared by a group of people, but different for each individual,

communicated from one generation to the next is considered as culture Lederach(1995:9) defined culture is "the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set ofpeople for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realitiesaround them."

In Vietnamese, Nguyen Quang (1998:3) claimed that “Culture is a sharebackground (for example, national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a commonlanguage and communication style, customs, beliefs, attitudes, and values.” For

him, the nature of culture is compared to an iceberg, most of which is hidden under

water It means that culture has hidden aspects which have significant effects onbehavior of an individual and on interactions with others but cannot be seenvisually

In general, Moore‟s definition of culture (1985:4) is the shortest and mostconcise, in my opinion that is "Culture is the whole of knowledge, ideas and habits

of society that are transmitted from one generation to the next."

1.1.2.2 Definition of Language

There is no doubt that language is a communication tool used by humans,animals and even some plant species However, human language is apparentlyunique in being a symbolic communication system which is learnt instead of beingbiologically and naturally inherited One of the most concise definitions of language

is that “language is a human system of communication that uses arbitrary signalssuch as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols” (Nordquist, n.d.) Li (2005,p.24) noted that language carries out these three crucial functions:

1 Language is the primary vehicle of communication;

2 Language reflects both the personality of the individual and the culture of his history In turn, it helps shape both personality and culture;

3 Language makes possible the growth and transmission of culture, the continuity of societies and the effective functioning and controlling of social group

Language contains many characteristic, one of which is that language is ameans of communication and self-expressions It means language helps people

express their ideas, feelings and various traces or surges of emotions Language isalso said to be irrefutably arbitrary; non-instinctive; conventional, symbolic,systematic and vocal In addition, as a means of fostering, stimulating anddeveloping culture as well as establish and reinforcing human relations, language isclearly a form of social behaviour which must be utilized in a society or it wouldsurely die In short, being extendable, modifiable and especially, structurallycomplex, language is a crucial factor that distinguishes humans from other creatures

or species

1.1.2.3 The relationship between Culture and Language

Language and culture have an inextricable and dialectical relationship.According to Brown (1994), “language is a part of a culture and a culture is a part of

a language, the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the twowithout losing the significance of either language or culture.” (p 165) Kramsch(2000) also proclaimed, “Language is the principle means whereby we conduct oursocial lives When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up withculture in multiple and complex ways.” (p 3) To emphasize the essential and vitalrole of language to culture, Li (2005) stated that “without language, culture wouldnot be possible” (p.25) On the other hand, culture, a set of values, demeanours andpatterns of perception, also plays an important part in the formation anddevelopment of language It can be said that learning a language entails the learning

of a new culture These two processes always occur concurrently

In a nutshell, language is the indispensable vehicle for transmitting a largeamount of culture and culture has a significantly strong influence on language Theyare closely and naturally interwoven It is widely known that each country hasdifferent cultures In fact, however, no culture is completely isolated and separatelyunique People of different cultures can sometimes share the same ways of thinkingand viewing in some matters This is mentioned in the viewpoint of Li (2005)

“There are important resemblances that stem in part from diffusion and in part fromthe fact that all cultures are built around biological, psychological and social

characteristics common to all mankind.” (p 26) Universal concepts and similarpoints among cultures certainly reflect in languages Therefore, between twodifferent languages, English and Vietnamese, for example, we can find someconcepts or cases that are coincidentally similar or even the same.

1.1.2.4 The Differences between English and Vietnamese Culture

Each country has different cultures due to various factors such asgeographical features and climatic conditions Below are some differences betweenBritish and Vietnamese cultures Situated in North-western Europe, the UnitedKingdom (UK) includes the island of Great Britain, the North Eastern part of theisland of Ireland and some other smaller islands England is widely known as thelargest and also the most populous part of the island of Great Britain Over ninetypercent of the population now dwells in towns or cities Among many culturalregions, the English culture is considered to be archetypal and often used to refer tothe culture of the whole country In addition, surrounded by sea, Britain isconsidered as an island country which generally has varied temperate climate.Therefore, it is hard to know exactly what the weather in Britain will be like fromone day to another Furthermore, there are not remarkably high mountains or forests

in Britain; much of the land is utilized for human habitation The navigable rivers,although quite short and not very large, have served a significant role in thetransport system

Vietnam, on the other hand, locates in the South East of the Asian continent

It is the largest and also most populous of the three Indochinese countries Withfifty-four peoples, Vietnam is said to be a multi-ethnic country Unlike Britain, amajority of Vietnam‟s population still live in rural areas and small villages.Generally, Vietnam is characterized by tropical monsoon type of climate Althoughabout three quarters of its area are mountains and hills, Vietnam has vast and fertileplains with alluvial soil banked up by many rivers and seas which are utilized foragriculture which has always been a great of importance in the economy There are

a plenty of agriculture products, such as rice, fruits, ground-nut trees, vegetables,

various husbandry products and industrial trees, in which rice is regarded as thebasic food of every meals Besides, Vietnamese people usually raise and breedbuffaloes, pigs and poultry In fact, agriculture is intimately linked with aquaculture.

In Vietnam, there are many long and navigable rivers The dense network of rivers,lakes, streams and ponds is considered as the assets of this country, multiplyingVietnam‟s grandeur in many ways

Unlike Vietnam, agriculture does not serve the most significant part inBritish economy The working population employed in agriculture is estimated atless than 3% Cereals, dairying of beef, cattle, poultry meat and eggs are someprinciple agricultural products in Britain Therefore, the staple foods in Britishmeals are cereal and meat When it comes to husbandry, people often mention cows,cattle, sheep, poultry and horses British people, especially the English, are widelyknown for their modesty, humour and sportsmanship In addition, politeness isbelieved to be a conspicuous characteristic of British society English people arealso perceived as being “reserved” They often keep certain distance to strangepeople, they neither talk much about themselves nor have the habit of showingfreely strong emotions The major and common religion in Britain is Christianity,while in Vietnam, Buddhism is the dominant one Being one of the Easterncountries, Vietnam has the Oriental cultures and values which are notably differentfrom those of the West It has an old-aged and wonderful heroic history In order toprotect the country from being taken as colony, Vietnamese people courageouslyand unyieldingly fought against lots of fierce enemies in many years to gain theirindependence and freedom Influenced by Confucianism, Vietnamese people paymuch attention to the society hierarchy and the worship of ancestors Moreover,Oriental culture, including that of Vietnam, has dignified Yin-Yang philosophy,which highlights the perfect harmony between people with people as well as peoplewith nature In general, Vietnamese people are patriotic, hard-working, faithful,intrepid, modest and self-controlled As Nguyen, M D (1985) stated, “Vietnamesecherish and uphold their ties with the past and their historical heritage of 4,000

years of civilization,…,Vietnamese prefer activities that develop the humanessence, such as philosophy, poetry andmeditation.”(p 411).

Admittedly, both Vietnam and Great Britain have their own significantculture features which are not similar As mentioning above, culture has asignificantly strong influence on language and language, certainly, acts as a mirrorreflecting most of the culture Therefore, it is easy to see that there will be lots ofinteresting dissimilarities between the language units of English and Vietnamese,especially idioms

1.1.2.5 Cultural features in Idioms

Every language has its own vivid and colorful idioms which were created bypeople when using for a long time and has deep nation history and local color.Maalej (2005) identifies idioms as culture-specific aspect of a particular language.Idioms as a special form of language exist in both of them and carry a large amount

of cultural information such as history, geography, religion, custom, nationalpsychology and thought pattern; therefore, they are closely related to culture Idiomsare the heritage of history and product of cultural evolvement Consequently, wecan know much about culture through studying idioms and in turn get betterunderstanding of idioms by learning the cultural background behind them

Despite the gap that exists between cultures, some idioms can be moreuniversally used than others, and can be easily translated This fact of the culturehas influences on guessing idioms Some linguists claim that idioms that areconcerned with the head can be guessed more easily because human beingsregardless of their cultures are familiar with the functions of their head

1.2 Previous Studies

Up to now, there are a large number of documents about idioms in Englishand Vietnamese For English dictionaries of idioms, there are some famous onescollected and written by researchers such as “Oxford Dictionary of idioms” byJudith Siefring which provides learners with updated idioms including clear

explanations in typical contexts; and “Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms”

by Paul Heacock giving clear examples on each idiom as well as their origins ForEnglish books about idioms, there are some widely used by many learners ofEnglish such as “Pocket English Idioms” by Jennifer Seidl and W.Mc Mordie whichprovides a list of 3,000 idioms with explanations and examples of use It also givesout many exercises with answers In “English Idioms in Use” by Michael McCarthyand Felicity O‟Dell, there are 60 units of vocabulary references and practicesincluding over 1,000 idioms The book is divided into two parts Idioms withexplanations, examples and special notes about their usages are presented on theleft-hand pages and exercises for practicing them are shown on the right-handpages

Idioms also attract the attention of many Vietnamese researchers like NguyễnLực and Lương Văn Đang who are two authors of the book “Thành ngữ TiếngViệt”, which is a collection of Vietnamese idioms arranged in alphabetical orderwith clear explanations and examples extracted from Vietnamese novels,newspapers and magazines Vietnamese researchers also study, collect and writedictionaries of idioms like “Từ điển Thành ngữ tục ngữ Việt Nam” by Đặng HồngChương and “Từ điển Thành ngữ Tục ngữ Việt Anh tường giải” by Bùi Phụngwhich displays the most popular Vietnamese idioms with similar ones in English sothat it is easy for foreigners to understand, learn and use Vietnamese

Finally, there are also many dissertations about different kinds of English andVietnamese idioms conducted by Vietnamese researchers such as “A contrastiveanalysis of cultural features in idioms of comparison in Vietnamese and English” byTrần Thị Vân Anh, “An study on idiomatic expressions containing words denotingfood and drink in English and their Vietnamese equivalents from culturalperspectives” by Nguyễn Thị Thành

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES 2.1 Research Design

In order to reach the goal of the study, quantitative and qualitativeapproaches will be carried out After that, the collected data will be qualitativelyanalyzed, compared and generalized to highlight their characteristics

2.2 Research Methods

Due to the nature of the topic, three methods are used for this study, which

are descriptive method, analytical method and contrastive method.

Descriptive method is used to demonstrate syntactic and semantic features of

idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese from some reliable

dictionaries as materials for the research process Then collected data is described,classified, generalized and analyzed systematically by applying the analyticalmethod and contrastive method in order to figure out the similarities and differencesbetween English idioms and Vietnamese idioms from cultural perspectives

According to Fisiak (1981:1), Contrastive Analysis or ContrastiveLinguistics mainly concerns with comparing any two or more languages to identifysimilarities & differences and selected languages for study depends on researchers‟practical & theoretical needs An exploration into such likeness and variationcertainly helps learners sharpen their communicative competence effectively

2.3 Research Procedures

- Collecting English and Vietnamese idioms which contain the word “Head”and their meanings and examples from the sources of books, dictionaries and

internet

- Analyzing and categorizing English and Vietnamese idioms containing

“Head” according to their syntactic and semantic features

- Figuring out the similarities and differences between English andVietnamese idioms referring to “Head” in terms of syntactic, semantic and cultural

features

- Putting forward some implications for learning, teaching and translatingidioms.

- Showing study limitations and making some suggestions for furtherresearch

- Closing the study with References and Appendix

2.4 Data Collection

The number of idioms containing the word “Head” investigated in theresearch is 90 in English and 60 in Vietnamese These idioms are collected frombooks, dictionaries and internet All the collected idioms will be classified and puttogether in categories of different features of syntactic and semantic

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Syntactic features of Idioms containing “Head” in English and Vietnamese

In this part, the syntactic features of English and Vietnamese idiomscontaining word “Head” are investigated and compared carefully in order to findout the similarities and differences between two languages

3.1.1 Phrase structures

3.1.1.1 Noun phrase

10 head and shoulders above someone/something 10 Đầu chày đít thớt

14 Đầu trâu mặt ngựa

15 Đầu voi, đuôi chuột

16 Tâm đầu ý hợp

17 Ba đầu sáu tay

18 Đầu chẳng phải, phải tai

19 Đầu hai thứ tóc

3.1.1.2 Verb phrase

8 bang (hammer knock) something into 8 Giật đầu cá, vá đầu tôm

9 be banging your head against a brick wall 10 Giơ đầu chịu bang

15 do someone's head in

16 fall head over heels (in love)

17 get your head around something

18 get/ keep your head down

19 get your head out of the clouds

20 give a heads up

21 go head to head

22 harm a hair on someone's head

23 have a good head on your shoulders

24 have a head for something

25 have eyes in the back of your head

English Vietnamese

26 have your head in the clouds

27 head someone/something off

28 hide your head in the sand

29 hit the nail right on the head

30 hold a gun to someone's head

31 hold your head up high

32 keep a civil tongue in your head

33 keep your head above water

34 knock something on the head

35 Laugh/ scream/ shout] your head off

36 like a bear with a sore head

37 make heads or tails (out) of something

38 pop your head out

39 put a gun to someone's head

40 put head/neck on the block

41 put ideas into someone's head

42 put one's head in the lion's mouth

43 put/stick your head above the parapet

44 stand/turn something on its head

45 stick/put one's head in a noose

46 trouble one's head about (someone or something)

47 turn something on its head

48 build/get/work up a head of steam

49 come into your head

50 go over someone's head

51 go to someone's head

English Vietnamese

53 head off to somewhere

54 pissed out of your head/mind/skull

55 stand on one's head (to do something)

56 talk out of the back of your head

57 touched in the head

58 get it into your head

59 give someone a head start

60 give someone their head

61 take it into your head to do something

62 could do something standing on your head

63 have a head start

64 have something hanging over your head

65 have your head (stuck) up your arse

66 have your head screwed on right

67 have your head screwed on the right way

68 let your heart rule your head

69 need (to have) your head examined = need your head testing

70 need something like a hole in the head

3.1.1.3 Adjective phrase

1 like a bear with a sore head 1 Bạc đầu còn dại

3 not be right in the head/ not right in 3 Cứng đầu cứng cổ

4 soft in the head

5 Lớn đầu to cái dại

6 To đầu còn dại

3 off one‟s head

4 off the top of your head

5 on someone's (own) head be it

6 out of your head

7 over head and ears in debts

8 with your head in the clouds

5 Đầu sông ngọn nguồn

6 Đầu mày cuối mắt

7 Đầu rắc rồi, cuối lôi thôi

8 Đầu thừa đuôi thẹo

3.1.2 Sentence structures

Even though the main structure of idioms is phrase, there are still some

idioms following sentence structure

1 a sword of Damocles hangs over 1 Cá đối bằng đầu

4 something comes into your head 4 Đầu đội trời, chân đạp đất

5 Miếng trầu là đầu câu chuyện

6 Nước đồ đầu vịt

7 Quân vô tướng như hổ vô đầu

8 Vạn sự khởi đầu nan

3.1.3 Similarities and Differences of Syntactic features of Idioms referring to “Head” in English and Vietnamese

3.1.3.1 Similarities

In terms of syntactic features, both English idioms and Vietnamese idiomshave structures in form of Noun phrases, Verb phrases, Adjective phrases,Prepositional phrases and Sentence structure

In terms of word function, the word “Head” in English idioms mainly

functions as a noun such as “an old head on young shoulders ” and “hide your head

in the sand.” Head also functions as a verb, but this case is quite rare with only two idioms which are “head off something” and “head off to somewhere.” Sometimes, it functions as an adverb as well in the idiom “from head to toe.” Like English idioms,

the dominant function of the word “Đầu” in Vietnamese idioms is Noun For

example, “Đầu bạc răng long”, “Bạc đầu còn dại” and “Giấu đầu hở đuôi.” Besides, “Đầu” also has the function of an adverb in these cases “Đầu rắc rồi, cuối lôi thôi” and “Từ đầu chí cuối.” The researcher cannot find any Vietnamese idioms

in which the word “Đầu” functions as Verb

some examples “Đầu đường cuối chợ” and “Đầu sóng ngọn gió”, meanwhile no

English idioms containing “Head” has this structure

Secondly, idioms containing the word “Head” of Verb phrase structure inEnglish are more common than those in Vietnamese with the number of seventyover only fifteen

Another difference between English and Vietnamese idioms is the parallelstructure or contrary idiom which is the most popular one in Vietnamese, but ithardly happens in English The most outstanding character of this structure is thecorrespondence among components and words establish idioms In other words, thisstructure uses the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have thesame level of importance For instance, in the idiom “Đầu bạc răng long,” đầu and răng are in the same grammatical category of Noun, bạc and long are in the same category of adjective “Đầu bù tóc rối” and “Đầu trâu mặt ngựa” are two more

examples of this type

In addition, Vietnamese idioms seem to be smoother and easier to rememberbecause lots of Vietnamese idioms containing the word “Head” use the repetition ofthe whole word or rhythm and alliteration which cannot be found in English ones In

“Chúi đầu chúi mũi” and “Cứng đầu cứng cổ,” for example, the words chúi and cứng are repeated Or in other case, “Giật đầu cá, vá đầu tôm” or “Đầu xuôi, đuôi lọt,” the repetition of syllables cá and vá, xuôi and đuôi creates the rhythm for these

idioms and makes them more attractive Another structural feature found in anumber of Vietnamese idioms is the opposite phenomenon which rarely appears in

English ones Idioms like “Đầu làng cuối xóm,” “Giấu đầu hở đuôi” and “Đầu voi,