Nghiên cứu đối chiếu cách tri nhận thời gian trong những thành ngữ, tục ngữ chỉ thời gian tiếng anh và tiếng việt

This study is conducted to investigate how the concept of time in English andVietnamese idioms and proverbs is perceived, from which the similarities anddifferences in how English and Vi

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

GRADUATE STUDIES

*******************

PHẠM THỊ THÚY CHINH

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF THE PERCEPTION OF TIME

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TEMPORAL IDIOMS AND

PROVERBS(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁCH TRI NHẬN THỜI GIAN TRONG NHỮNG THÀNH NGỮ, TỤC NGỮ CHỈ THỜI GIAN TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201

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

GRADUATE STUDIES

*******************

PHẠM THỊ THÚY CHINH

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF THE PERCEPTION OF TIME

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TEMPORAL IDIOMS AND

PROVERBS(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁCH TRI NHẬN THỜI GIAN TRONG NHỮNG THÀNH NGỮ, TỤC NGỮ CHỈ THỜI GIAN TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Dr Huynh Anh Tuan

HANOI - 2017

I declare that the thesis titled A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF THE PERCEPTION OF TIME IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TEMPORAL IDIOMS AND PROVERBS has not been submitted for any other degree or professional

qualification at this or any other university and that it is entirely my work

I agree that the Library may lend or copy this thesis on request

Hanoi, 2017

Phạm Thị Thúy Chinh

I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to all my lecturers

in Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and InternationalStudies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable instruction andassistance throughout the realization of this thesis

Last but not least, I am indebted to my beloved family and friends who havealways inspired me to complete this study

This study is conducted to investigate how the concept of time in English andVietnamese idioms and proverbs is perceived, from which the similarities anddifferences in how English and Vietnamese people perceive the concept of time areuncovered Data for this study are 50 English and 50 Vietnamese idioms and

proverbs about time selected from three idioms and proverbs dictionaries, Oxford dictionary of idioms (2004), Oxford dictionary of proverbs (2004), Vietnamese idioms and proverbs dictionary (Nguyen Lan 2011) The idioms and proverbs are

classified and grouped based on the similar source domains The study adopts theConceptual Metaphor Theory as its approach and contrastive analysis as theresearch method The findings suggest that the similarities in how English andVietnamese people perceive time are they both think of time as space, motion, aperson, a thing that one can qualify The prominent difference is that whereasEnglish people tend to conceptualize time in terms of the tangibles such as a person,

a container, an object, Vietnamese people have the tendency to perceive time as anabstract concept such as farming seasons, weather and the limit of human existence

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Research questions 1

3 Significance of the research 2

4 Scope of the research 2

5 Organization of the thesis 3

PART I DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Idioms and Proverbs 4

1.1.1 Idioms 4

1.1.2 Proverbs 5

1.1.3 Distinction between Idioms and Proverbs 5

1.1.4 Idioms and proverbs about time 6

1.2 Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics 6

1.2.1 Cognitive Linguistics 7

1.2.2 Cognitive semantics 8

1.3 Contrastive analysis 13

1.3.1 Definitions 13

1.3.2 Guiding principles of Contrastive analysis 14

1.4 Previous studies related to the research 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Research questions 18

2.2 Research approach 18

2.3 Data 19

2.4 Research method 19

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 21

3.1 How the English people perceive through their idioms and proverbs about time 21

3.1.1 Time is perceived as space 21

3.1.2 Time is perceived as motion 23

3.1.4 Time is perceived as container 25

3.1.5 Time is perceived as a person 26

3.1.6 Time is perceived as an object 27

3.1.7 Summary 29

3.2 How the Vietnamese people perceive time through their idioms and proverbs about time 29

3.2.1 Time is perceived as space 29

3.2.2 Time is perceived as motion 30

3.2.3 Time is perceived based on the continuity of action 31

3.2.4 Time is perceived based on the relationship between human and production 32

3.2.5 Time is perceived as the limit of human existence 34

3.2.6 Time is perceived as an object that one can qualify 35

3.2.7 Time is perceived as a person 36

3.2.8 Summary 36

3.3 Similarities and differences in how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs is perceived 37

3.3.1 Similarities 37

3.3.2 Differences 38

PART III CONCLUSION 43

1 Recapitulation 43

2 Pedagogical implications 44

3 Limitations and suggestions for further researches 45

REFERENCES 46

APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1: LIST OF ENGLISH IDIOMS/PROVERBS ABOUT TIME I APPENDIX 2: LIST OF VIETNAMESE IDIOMS/PROVERBS ABOUT TIME VI

APPENDIX 3: FREQUENCY AND PERCENTAGE OF TIME PERCEPTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS AND PROVERBS ABOUT TIME IX

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Time is an abstract concept that belongs to the natural world Human beingsare born and develop depending completely on the nature so it is apparent that theymust have a close relationship with nature in general and with time in particular.The relationship between human and time is clearly expressed through humanbeings‟ history It can be said that there is no human‟s historical event that is notinvolved in a concrete timeline Also, due to the involvement, people need toperceive the abstract concept and try to convey those perceptions through their ownlanguages Therefore, language becomes one of the major devices to giveexpression to the time perception of human beings

Time perception can be investigated into many areas of a language such as inliterature or in communication However, the focus of this thesis will be English andVietnamese idioms and proverbs about time because idioms and proverbs areconsidered special linguistic units with the very long existential time in which thetraditional culture, national custom, praxis of thinking are contained (Huu Dat,2011) The consideration of idioms and proverbs as the generalization of thinkingthrough language of a nation may be the reason why people should study on itsidioms and proverbs when they want to investigate into a nation and its language

On the ground of cognitive linguistics, there are many researches on timeperception in English or in Vietnamese but few researches on it in both English andVietnamese were conducted Therefore, this study is conducted to delve into thesimilarities and differences in how the concept of time in English and Vietnameseidioms and proverbs about time is perceived

2 Research questions

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the concept of time in Englishand Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time is perceived so the findings of theresearch are hoped to bring some insights into cognitive process on time that occurs

in English and Vietnamese people‟s mind

To achieve the aim of this study, the following research questions have to be answered:

1 How is the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time perceived?

2 What are the similarities and differences in how the concept of time in

English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs is perceived?

3 Significance of the research

This study, to some extent, would like to shed light on the temporal cognitivemechanism happening on human mind by analyzing English and Vietnamese idiomsand proverbs about time on the basis of the conceptual metaphor theory (a subfield

of cognitive semantics theory) Moreover, a contrastive analysis is conducted in thisresearch with the aim of finding out the similarities and the differences in how theconcept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time isperceived in the two languages This thesis is also hoped to make a smallcontribution to the overall stock of cognitive semantic investigation into time from across-linguistic perspective The finding of this study will explore the way howpeople think of time and try to construe partially the reason why they perceive time

as the way they do

4 Scope of the research

This thesis is restricted to investigating the time perceptions expressed inVietnamese and English temporal idioms and proverbs This investigation is based

on my manual selection of 50 English and 50 Vietnamese idioms and proverbs

related to the concept of time which are collected from three sources, viz Oxford dictionary of idioms (2004), Oxford dictionary of proverbs (2004) and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs dictionary by Nguyen Lan (2011).

The conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Johnson and Lakoff (1980) areused as research approach in analyzing the time perceptions in the selected idiomsand proverbs

5 Organization of the thesis

This thesis is divided into three main parts The first part isINTRODUCTION which states the rationale of the study, the research questions,significance of the research, scope of the research and the organization of the thesis.The next and also most important part is DEVELOPMENT that is subdivided intothree chapters: CHAPTER 1 is the discussion on the general theoretical background

of the study; CHAPTER 2, the mainstay of the research, is the presentation on themethodology in which the research questions, research method, data and analyticalframework is discussed; CHAPTER 3 presents data analysis and discussions Thelast part is CONCLUSION that will summarize all the major points of the thesis andalso gives some implications together with limitations and suggestions for furtherresearches As a rule, the thesis will end with REFERENCE and APPENDIX

PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE

REVIEW

This study is a contrastive analysis of the perception of time in English andVietnamese temporal idioms and proverbs so this chapter reviews the literature interm of the following:

- The definitions of idioms and proverbs; the distinction between idioms and proverbs; idioms and proverbs about time;

- Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics, the guiding principles of Cognitive Semantics and its major theories;

- Contrastive analysis and its guiding principles;

- Previous researches related to the study

1.1 Idioms and Proverbs

In this section, some definitions of idioms and proverbs are presented, fromwhich the distinction between idioms and proverbs is clarified, followed by thediscussions concerning idioms and proverbs about time

1.1.1 Idioms

There is a variety of definitions of idioms defined in many dictionaries Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2000:643) defines an idiom as „a group of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of individual words‟ Collins Co-build Learner’s Dictionary (1996: 547) states “an idiom is a group of words which have a

different meaning when used together from the one they would have if you took the

meaning of each word individually” According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1988, p.711), an idiom is “a phrase which means something

different from their meanings of the separate words from which it is formed” Besides,

in Vietnamese idioms and proverbs dictionary by Nguyen Lan (2011), he states that idioms are fixed phrases that convey certain concepts Or, in English Idioms in Use Advanced by Cambridge University Press, the definition of idiom is given that „Idioms

are fixed combinations of words whose meaning is often

difficult to guess from the meaning of each individual word.‟ All aforementioneddefinitions shows that idioms, at first, are fixed phrases whose structures cannot besubstituted or rearranged otherwise their original meanings are lost Secondly, themeanings conveyed in idioms are figurative so it is absolutely difficult tounderstand their meanings from the meaning of each individual word.

1.1.2 Proverbs

Proverbs are defined in many different ways According to Wikipedia, „aproverb is a simple and concrete saying, popularly known and repeated, that

expresses a truth based on common sense or experience.‟

(www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proverb) The English Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

(2000) defines a proverb as „a well-known phrase or sentence that gives advice orsays something that is generally true‟ In Mieder (1993:5), „a proverb is a short,generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, andtraditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorable form and which is handed

down from generation to generation‟ Nguyen Lan, in his Vietnamese idioms and proverbs dictionary (2011), states that proverbs are sentences or utterances that are

comments, complaints, advice or sayings about natural or social experiences Fromthe definitions mentioned above, it can be seen that a proverb is a sentence or anutterance which contains experiential lessons in them

1.1.3 Distinction between Idioms and Proverbs

Many linguistic researchers when studying idioms and proverbs tried to give

a clear discussion about the definition of idioms and proverbs so that from whichthe distinction between idioms and proverbs can be given From the definitions ofidiom and proverb discussed above, the distinction between idiom and proverb can

based on natural or socialexperiences

This distinction, however, is sometimes not completely a clear-cut Manylinguists found it a challenging task to distinguish between the two Some proverbs,

in fact, have similar features of idioms and vice versa For example, in the Idioms

Organizer by Jon Wright (2002), „time is money‟ is classified as an idiom although

syntactically it is a sentence and semantically it contains an experiential lesson Or,

in Vietnamese, „trèo cao ngã đau‟ (climb high, fall painful) is considered an idiom

by some linguists but some others regard it as a proverb because they argue thefigurative meaning of this saying is that a person who is too ambitious will bedesperate when being failed, this saying is also an experiential lesson (see Huu Dat2011) Therefore, when analyzing the time perception of English and Vietnamesepeople through their idioms and proverbs, the study is not intended to make a cleardistinction between idioms and proverbs

1.1.4 Idioms and proverbs about time

Idioms and proverbs about time are the idioms and proverbs that containwords denoting time or have the meaning of time According to Seild and Mordie(1993), English idioms and proverbs are divided into a lot of special groups such asbody parts, animals, colors, numbers, and time The authors state that idioms andproverbs about time is a special kind in which time terms with special meaning areconsidered key words They belong to one specific group of idioms that demonstratethe way each person use time terms in set expressions and how they associate theseterms with other things in the world

In the study, the idioms and proverbs about time are selected based on thetwo criteria: containing words denoting time or containing the meaning of time

1.2 Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics

The study is conducted to find out how English and Vietnamese peopleperceive time in their idioms and proverbs so it belongs to cognitive semanticresearches Thus, in this section, a brief overview on Cognitive Linguistics andCognitive Semantics is given

1.2.1 Cognitive Linguistics

During the 1960s and 1970s, the emergence and development of thecognitive sciences, particularly cognitive psychology, rooted the birth of a newapproach to the study of language: Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive linguistics […] is an approach to language that is based on ourexperience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it

(Ungerer & Schmid, 1997: x)

Primarily, Cognitive Linguistics is concerned with investigating therelationship between human language, the mind and socio-physical experience(Croft & Cruse, 2004; Evans & Green, 2006; Langacker, 1987) Johnson (1987)considers linguistic knowledge as part of general cognition and thinking; linguisticbehavior is not separated from other general cognitive abilities which allow mentalprocesses of reasoning, memory, attention or learning, but understood as an integralpart of it In the same vein, Fauconier (2000) also emphasizes that CognitiveLinguistics is the study of language use because language is an integral part ofcognition which reflects the interaction of social, cultural, psychological,communicative and functional cognitive development and mental processing whichcan be understood in the context of a realistic view of acquisition

The emergence of Cognitive Linguistics in the 1970s (Fillmore, 1975; Lakoff

& Thompson, 1975; Rosch, 1975) is originally a reaction against formal approaches

to language which were dominant at that time, viz generative grammar and conditional (logical) semantics Therefore, it rejects the main claims made by GenerativeLinguistics and Truth-conditional Semantics: (1) language is an innate and autonomouscognitive faculty; (2) to know a language is to know its grammar, which consists of afinite number of combinatory rules; (3) syntax (form) is the main focus of linguisticanalysis (and thus semantics (meaning) is largely overlooked) Consequently, it proposesthree major hypotheses: the first is that language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty;the second is that grammar is conceptualization; and the third is that knowledge oflanguage emerges from

truth-language use According to Lakoff (1990), Cognitive linguistics is alsocharacterized by the two fundamental commitments, namely GeneralizationCommitment and Cognitive Commitment The Generalization Commitmentrepresents a commitment to openly investigating how the various aspects oflinguistic knowledge emerge from a common set of human cognitive abilities uponwhich they draw, rather than assuming that they are produced in encapsulatedmodules of the mind Together, the Cognitive Commitment represents thecommitment to providing a characterization of these principles that reflects what isknown about human cognition Thus, the combination of the two commitmentsleads to a universal commitment of cognitive linguistics which is committed tocharacterizing the general principles governing all aspects of human language whilebeing faithful to empirical discoveries from parallel disciplines of cognitive sciencesuch as cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, psychophysical andneuro-physical research about the nature of our mind and/or brain, and artificialintelligence.

This study is well situated in cognitive linguistics because it seeks to explorethe relationship between human brain and practice which is reflected in theirlanguage use More specifically, the investigation explores how English andVietnamese people conceptualize time through their use of idioms and proverbsabout time

1.2.2 Cognitive semantics

Cognitive Semantics, together with Cognitive Grammar as the two mainareas of Cognitive Linguistics, was born to reject the formal theories of meaningbased on the objectivist world view, such as the theories of truth conditionalsemantics which argued that „meaning was seen as the link between the world andwords, completely disengaged from human cognition‟ (Sweetser, 1990:4).Cognitive Semantics, however, states that linguistic meaning is a manifestation ofconceptual structure which emerges from bodily experience Accordingly,Cognitive Semantics is concerned with the relationship between experience, the

conceptual system and the semantic structure encoded by language (Rosch, 1973;Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1987; Johnson, 1987; Langacker, 1987, 1990,1999) In specific terms, scholars working in cognitive semantics investigateknowledge representation (conceptual structure), and meaning construction(conceptualization) Cognitive semanticists have employed language as the lensthrough which these cognitive phenomena can be investigated Consequently,researches in cognitive semantics tend to be interested in modeling the human mind

as much as it is concerned with investigating linguistic semantics

In the light of cognitive semantics, this study is conducted to find out therelationship between the concept of time and the temporal bodily experience ofEnglish and Vietnamese people conceptualized in their idioms and proverbs abouttime

1.2.2.1 Guiding principles of Cognitive Semantics

Like Cognitive Linguistics, Cognitive Semantics is an approach rather than aspecific theory so it also has adopted a number of guiding principles There are fourguiding principles in Cognitive Semantics: (1) Conceptual structure is embodied;(2) Semantic structure is conceptual structure; (3) Meaning representation isencyclopedic, (4) Meaning construction is conceptualization (Evans & Green, 2006:157)

Firstly, Conceptual structure is embodied, exemplified by Image Schema

theory of Mark Johnson This principle derives from the findings of cognitive

sciences about the nature of human‟s body It is well-known that human beings arethe most complex organism on earth with the extremely developed brain so theyhave not only a species-specific view but also their own distinct and independentviewpoint of the world from which all concepts are structured Therefore, theconceptual system formulated from the viewpoint is embodied experiences Fromthis assumption, conceptual structure is a consequence of the nature of human‟sbody and thus is embodied

Secondly, Semantic structure is conceptual structure, typified by Theory of

Conceptual Structure of Talmy This principle asserts that language refers to theconcepts in mind of the speaker rather than, directly, to the entities which inhere in

an objectively real external world In other words, Semantic structure (the meaningsconventionally associated with words and other linguistic units) can be equated withConceptual Structure (i.e., concepts) (Rosch, 1973) However, it does not mean thatSemantic structure and Conceptual structure are identical because in the reality,there are still many thoughts, feelings and ideas that we cannot encode them inlanguage Therefore, linguistic concepts are only a subset of the full set of concepts

in the minds of speaker-hearer (Evans, 2006; Evans & Green, 2006)

Next, meaning representation is encyclopedic, exemplified by Frame

Semantics of Fillmore This principle holds that semantic structure is encyclopedic

in nature It means lexical concepts do not present „neatly packaged bundles ofmeaning […] but serve as point of access to vast repositories of knowledge‟ (Tyler

& Evans, 2006: 160) Accordingly, in fact, in order to understand the meaning of agiven utterance, the hearer is necessary to draw upon her/ his encyclopedic knowledgerelating to the specific situation represented by the utterance to construct its meaning

Finally, meaning construction is conceptualization, exemplified by Mental

Space theory of Faucconier This principle states that language itself does notencode meaning Meaning is constructed through the process of conceptualization.Consequently, „Meaning construction is […] a dynamic process whereby linguisticunits serve as prompts for an array of conceptual operations and the recruitment ofbackground knowledge It follows from this view that meaning is a process ratherthan a discrete „thing‟ that can be „packaged‟ by language.‟ (Tyler & Evans, 2006:162)

This study follows the four guiding principles of semantic cognitive to findout how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs abouttime is perceived and the similarities and differences in their perception of time By

analyzing English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time, it can be seenthat the concept of time is embodied For example, English people perceive time asmoney because of their embodied experience on the value of time which isexplained clearly by Lakoff „the way the concept of work has developed in modernWestern culture, where work is typically associated with the time it takes and time

is precisely quantified, it has become customary to pay people by hour, week oryear In our culture, TIME IS MONEY in many ways: telephone message units,hourly wages, hotel room rates…‟ (Lakoff, 1980:130) The metaphorical linkbetween a source domain and a target domain which is conceptual structure isreflected in the semantic structure TIME IS MONEY

1.2.2.2 Major theories of Cognitive Semantics

Through this section, some of the most important theories in cognitivesemantics that are utilized for the thesis analysis will be discussed briefly

1.2.2.2.1 Conceptual metaphor theory

Conceptual metaphor theory, sometimes called Cognitive Metaphor theory isone of the most significant theories to take a cognitive semantic approach Thefundamental tenet of Conceptual Metaphor Theory is that metaphor operates at thelevel of thinking Metaphors link two conceptual domains: a source domain – thesource of the literal meaning of the metaphorical expression, and a target domain –the domain of experience actually being described by the metaphor (Croft & Cruse

2004:55) Thus, in the influential book Metaphors we live by, Lakoff and Johnson

(1980) present the theory of metaphor whose basic premise is that metaphor is not

an attribute of individual linguistic expressions and their meanings, but of wholeconceptual domains In other words, any concept from source domain can beutilized to profile a concept in the target domain For instance, we can think and talkabout TIME in terms of MONEY as in TIME IS MONEY metaphor (Lakoff andJohnson 1980) In this metaphor, TIME is the target domain and MONEY is thesource domain The source domain MONEY which is a concrete valuable asset andpossessed/ used by human beings is employed to identify the target domain TIME

which is abstract and intangible TIME, thereby, is clarified as a valuable thing alsoowned and used in the same way as MONEY is.

The Conceptual Metaphor theory directly concerns two of the majorassumptions associated with cognitive semantics: one is the thesis that semanticstructure reflects conceptual structure and the other is the embodied cognitionthesis In Lakoff and Johnson (1980), a formula TARGET DOMAIN IS SOURCEDOMAIN is used to describe the metaphorical link between domains The sourcedomain consists of a set of literal entities, attributes, processes and relationships,linked semantically and apparently stored together in the mind The „target‟ domaintends to be abstract, and takes its structure from the source domain, through themetaphorical link which is conventionally expressed in semantic structure By thatmeans, the Conceptual Metaphor theory relates to the assumption of cognitivesemantics that is semantics structure is conceptual structure Secondly, conceptual

metaphor is closely related to the notion of embodiment In Metaphors we live by,

Lakoff and Johnson mention experiential gestalts which are based on the nature orour body, our interactions with our physical environment and with other peoplewithin our culture These experiential gestalts which are developed as image schema

by Johnson (1987) serve as the grounding of conceptual metaphors (Lakoff andJohnson 1980:117)

In the light of Conceptual metaphor theory, this study will uncover how theconcept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time isperceived by indicating source domains and clarifying the mappings from sourcedomains into the concept of time

1.2.2.2.2 Image schema theory

Mark Johnson and George Lakoff together invented the term „image schema‟ in

their 1987 books In his book titled The body in the Mind, Johnson proposes that one

way in which embodied experience demonstrates itself at the cognitive level is throughimage schema As his statement, image schema is „a recurrent pattern, shape andregularity‟ in or of „actions, perceptions and conceptions‟ that are on-

going Also, image schemas are defined as schematic versions of images which arerepresentations of specific, embodied experiences (Fillmore 1975:123) Therefore,image schemas are not particular images but are schematic They representsschematic patterns arising from imagistic domains, such as containers, paths, links,forces, and balance that recur in a variety of embodied domains and structure ourbodily experience (Lakoff 1987:453; Johnson 1987:29) For example, theCONTAINER schema defining the predicates IN and OUT would work as the basisfor understanding the body as container, the visual fields, and set models Or, theLINK schema helps conceptualize social and interpersonal relationships According

to Lakoff and Johnson, image schemas structure not only our bodily experience butalso our non-bodily experience via metaphor (Lakoff 1987; Johnson 1987) In otherwords, metaphor helps to constitute the link between abstraction and bodilyexperience

In this study, the image schema theory is adopted to analyze the way Englishpeople perceive time as a container

1.3 Contrastive analysis

1.3.1 Definitions

Contrastive Analysis (CA), or Contrastive Linguistics, as Fisiak (1981:1)puts it, is defined as a sub-discipline of linguistics concerned with the comparison oftwo or more languages or subsystem of languages in order to determine both thedifferences and similarities between them In the same vein, Fallahi (1991:6) alsostates that Contrastive analysis (CA) is a branch of linguistics that brings twolanguage system together, sets them against each other, and seeks to define thesimilarities and differences between them

Although the field is explicitly defined to seek to formulate similarities anddifferences of two languages, Contrastive analysis mainly focuses on studying

differences much more than similarities „… as the term contrastive implies, it is

more interested in differences between languages than in their likenesses‟ (James,1980: 2)

In this study, by analyzing English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbsabout time to find out how English and Vietnamese people perceive time, thecontrastive study is also conducted to explore the similarities and differences in theperception of time of the two nations.

1.3.2 Guiding principles of Contrastive analysis

Contrastive analysis was originally based on the ideas of linguisticstructuralism and was initially aimed not at linguistic studies, but at helping foreignlanguage teachers This aim was intended to show in what ways the two respectivelanguages differ, in order to help in the solution of practical problems such asmaking it easier to understand learning a second language and how to teach it mosteffectively However, it then led to large-scale linguistic projects and now it is notmerely relevant for second language teaching and learning but it can also makeuseful contributions to machine translating and linguistics typology It is relevant tothe designing of teaching materials for use in all age groups Consequently,Chaturvedi (1973) suggests guiding principles for contrastive study as follow:

(i) To analyze the mother tongue and the target language independently and completely

(ii) To compare item-wise of the two languages at all levels of their structure

(iii) To arrive at the categories of

a) similar features

b) partially similar features

c) dissimilar features – for the target language

(iv) To arrive at principles of text preparation, test framing and target language teaching in general

Based on the guiding principles of contrastive analysis, this thesis analyzesEnglish and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time separately to find out howeach of nations perceives time then compares the findings to see the similarities and

differences in how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms andproverbs about time is perceived.

1.4 Previous studies related to the research

In cognitive linguistics, there are many famous linguists conducting studies

on the way people think of/ perceive time Among them, the investigation of Lakoffand Johnson (1980, 1999) into conceptual metaphor, concepts and embodiment inmetaphor and especially time perception from the cognitive linguistic perspective isextremely prominent The significant finding of their study is the so-called „space-to-time metaphor‟, that is, spatial metaphor for time This finding holds that peoplecan not perceive time directly because it is too abstract a concept to be fully graspedcognitively, thus spatial metaphors are used to understand time Following thatfinding, Boroditsky (2001, 2008, 2010) carried out some researches on spatial-temporal metaphors and their influence on the way people perceive time These areempirical cross-linguistic studies which were made up of some experimentsinvolving Mandarin L1/ English L2 and native English speakers And the results ofthe researches indicate that firstly spatial metaphors are used in both languages tounderstand and represent temporal aspects Secondly, language habits have animpact on temporal thought regardless of the language one is currently using(Boroditsky, 2001) Thirdly, both English and Mandarin use left-to-right axialspatial metaphor when talking about the notion of past time, which means in theirmind, time is perceived to move horizontally from left to right on the spatialmetaphor

Along with the finding on TIME AS SPACE, Lakoff and Johnson(1980,1993, 1999) also raise the second finding that is TIME IS MOTIONTHROUGH SPACE conceptual metaphor In their study in 1999, Lakoff andJohnson argue that time is based on human perceptuo-motor experience of movingaround in the world and of perceiving objects moving in the world Morespecifically, human experience of time, in their opinion, emerges largely on account

of a metaphorical understanding of embodied experience, especially motion events

Philosophers have noted for a long time that time is conceptualized and lexicalized

in terms of motion in space For example, Smart (1949) describes two metaphoricalconceptions for time, in which time is conceived in terms of motion towards anobserver, or an observer‟s motion towards the future Adopting the observation,psychologists and linguists develop the two basic models of conceptualizing time asmotion: the Moving Time model (MT) and the Moving Ego model (ME) (Clark1973; Lakoff 1993) The distinction between MT and ME space-to-time motionmodels was formalized by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) as figure-groundreversals of the more general TIME PASSING IS MOTION conceptual metaphor

Apart from the two major aforementioned findings of Lakoff and Johnson,some other linguists carry out cross-linguistic studies of time perception and getsome remarkable findings For instance, Casasanto et al (2004), in a studycomprising three experiments which is to indicate across-linguistic differenceamong English, Indonesia, Greek and Spanish, find that time is perceived as

distance and quantity Young-Ok lee, in his research titled „Perceptions of time in Korean and English‟, finds that metaphorical expressions about time in both Korean and English reveal time as an animal to capture or to be chased by, time as a

living existence that wields great power, time as a precious thing to use or spend

Or, in the study ‘Time perception across Russian and American cultures’ by Maria

Lebedko (2001), time is perceived as monetary concepts, parametrical concepts,ethnical concepts, Juvenile- gerontological concepts, axiological concepts, activityconcepts

In Vietnam, many famous linguists also pay attention to study the concepts

of time from cognitive linguistic perspective such as Nguyen Duc Dan, Tran Van

Co, Huu Dat As in the study of Nguyen Duc Dan (2009), he states that wordsindicating space are formed before words indicating time Also, in this study, heregards TIME AS A MOVING ENTITY As his arguments, the movement ofhuman occurs simultaneously in space and time Time in the already-passed spaceappearing first is regarded as the past time and time in the coming space happening

later becomes the future time As a consequence, the movement of human from theprevious space to the later space is concurrent with the movement of time from past

to future Therefore, when the movement of time is projected to the observer‟sposition, the past time is understood to be behind him/her and the future time isahead him/her Or as Tran Van Co (2007), there are two models of time: the cyclicmodel and the linear model And when investigating time perception, he proposesthat there are two types of time: subjective time and objective time By and large, allthe above exemplified findings are great contribution to cognitive linguistics inVietnam but regarding the concern of this thesis, the study by Huu Dat (2011) titled

„temporal and spatial cognition in Vietnamese idioms and proverbs‟ is realized to

be its fundamental The findings of Huu Dat on time perception, besides the onesare grounded on the TIME AS SPACE and TIME AS MOTION metaphor proposed

by Jakoff and Johnson, are that time is perceived based on the continuity of action,

on human‟s experiences, on the relationship between human and production

Generally speaking, studies on time from cognitive linguistic perspective areplentiful but there are not many researches on time perception that contrasts Englishand Vietnamese Thus, this thesis hopes to be one of the English - Vietnamesecontrastive studies on the perception of time that may be a contribution to cognitivelinguistic field

1 How is the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and

proverbs about time perceived?

2 What are the similarities and differences in how the concept of time in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs is perceived?

2.2 Research approach

The present study investigates into how the concept of time in English andVietnamese idioms/proverbs about time is perceived in the light of conceptualmetaphor theory

Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) is an important sub-field of Cognitivesemantics which focuses on the cognitive processes behind linguistic expressionsand on the conceptual motivation behind figurative meaning Its fundamental tenet

is that metaphor operates at the level of thinking Metaphor is the mapping between

a source domain and a target domain The source domain consists of a set of literalentities, attributes, processes and relationships, linked semantically and apparentlystored together in the mind The target domain tends to be abstract, and takes itsstructure from the source domain, through the metaphorical link which isconventionally expressed in semantic structure Thereby, according to Lakoff andJohnson (1980), metaphor is a way to create new meanings for abstract concepts.Consequently, the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, maybe, becomes one of the mostuseful approaches to research the concept of time In this study, from all the Englishand Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time selected, the source domains areidentified and mapped into the concept of time so as to find out how English andVietnamese people perceive time

2.3 Data

A total of 100 temporal idioms and proverbs which consist of 50 idioms and

proverbs related to the concept of time in English from Oxford dictionary of idioms (2004), Oxford dictionary of proverbs (2004) and 50 idioms and proverbs about time in Vietnamese from Vietnamese idioms and proverbs dictionary (Nguyen Lan

2011) were chosen manually for the present study The data collection procedure isconducted as follows The idioms and proverbs are selected if they contain one ofthe following: 1) the word „time‟ 2) words denoting time divisions 3) words whosemeanings are related to the concept of time in some ways For example, Englishidioms and proverbs containing the word „time‟ (e.g ahead of time), wordsdenoting time divisions such as „day, hour, tomorrow‟ (e.g day in, day out) areselected For Vietnamese, the idioms and proverbs containing words denoting timedivisions such as „ngày (day), tháng (month), năm (year), sớm (early morning), tối,đêm (night)‟ (e.g ngày qua tháng lại - Days pass, months come), or words whosemeanings are related to the concept of time in some ways (Bốn chín chưa qua năm

ba đã tới – Age of forty-nine hasn‟t passed but age of fifty three is coming) arechosen

2.4 Research method

To find out the similarities and differences in how English and Vietnamesepeople perceive time through their idioms and proverbs, the thesis adopts thecontrastive analysis as its research method According to James (1980), contrastiveanalysis plays an important role in understanding two different languages

The present study adopts the conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson,1980) as its research approach to analyze and contrast how the concept of time inEnglish and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time is perceived The analysisstarts from finding linguistic units contained in the English and Vietnamese idiomsand proverbs about time that inherently belong to a certain source domain Then,source domains of English and of Vietnamese are determined After that, the sourcedomains are mapped into the target domain TIME to explore how English and

Vietnamese people perceive time, from which the similarities and differences areexplored The analytical framework of the study is illustrated as in the belowdiagram.

The number of idioms and proverbs classified in each source-domain groupare presented in the Appendix 3 Besides, Vietnamese idioms and proverbs selectedare translated into English with literal meanings

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

In this section, data will be classified into groups based on source domainsand analyzed to seek the answers of the two major issues, viz how the concept oftime in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about time is perceived, andthe similarities and differences in how the concept of time in English andVietnamese idioms and proverbs about time is perceived The first-mentioned issue

is analyzed in the two separate parts: firstly, how English perceives time which isshowed in their idioms and proverbs about time; secondly, the ways of perceivingtime of Vietnamese is expressed through their idioms and proverbs about time aswell The second issue is analyzed based on the findings of the first issue to find outthe similarities and differences in how English and Vietnamese people perceive theconcept of time through their idioms and proverbs

3.1 How the English people perceive through their idioms and proverbs about time

3.1.1 Time is perceived as space

In the movement of the physical world in general and of human being inparticular, space and time are the two categories that have a close relationship, that

is, the movement of space always inseparably accompanies with the movement oftime However, the concept of time is more abstract than the one of space Space isall the things that exist around us and we can realize its change easily but time isnot In the ancient world, when there was not any device such as watches, clocks, tomeasure time, people based on the change of space to determine it As theirprimitive perception of time, there were only day and night that involved in thesunlight, or more specifically, day started with the sunup and night began with thesundown Even when clock was invented later on, people still understood time viaspatial orientation

The influence of spatial orientation on human thought and especially on ourunderstanding of time has often been noted Lakoff (1993:218) assumes ourmetaphorical understanding of time in terms of space is biologically determined

because in our visual systems, we have detectors for motion, objects and locationbut not for time That is why language denoting space is employed to describe time.The metaphor TIME AS SPACE means that time is understood in terms of space,that is to say, the source domain (SPACE) is mapped onto the target domain(TIME) In conceptualizing time as space, English people take advantage of theconceptual richness inherent in the spatial domain and map its structural elementsonto time to impart new meanings onto temporal notions In English temporalidioms and proverbs selected, English people tend to perceive time as extension andlocation.

1) Extension of time

By combining the adjectives that traditionally express space with the wordsdenoting time, new meanings of the abstract concept as time are generated.Consider the below examples:

the correspondence that helps to map the source domain SPACE onto target domainTIME The mapping is illustrated as follows:

SOURCE DOMAIN -> TARGET DOMAIN

quick or slow occurrence of an action More specifically, an action occurring andlasting long or shortly will form the duration of time in people‟s mind, from whichEnglish people can perceive time like an extension in space.

2) Location of time

Due to being understood through spatial metaphor, the abstract concept astime is conceptualized as location by English people Consider the followinginstances:

English people use the locative prepositions such as „ahead of’, ‘at’, behind’, ‘before’, ‘between’, ‘from…to’ with reference to time to depict time as location More accurately, spatial location as the source domain is mapped onto

TIME so time is conceptualized as a location In examples (4), (6), (7), (8), Englishpeople perceive time as a relative location compared with the position of the ego,

but time is conceived as an exact position with „at‟ as in (5) or as the motion from a

location to another as in (9)

3.1.2 Time is perceived as motion

First, English people perceive time through TIME PASSING IS A MOVINGOBJECT metaphor Take a look at the following:

(11) Time flies like an arrow

In this metaphor, time is understood to move towards the static ego, theperson who is the point of reference to the event Therefore, time can be seen to

“come” from the future (12) or “fly” towards the future (11) and “go” into the past(10) TIME AS MOVING ENTITY is illustrated as below:

Secondly, English people think of time as TIME AND OBSERVER

MOVING IN THE SAME DIRECTION, consider the below example:

Also being in motion but time is projected to the dynamic reference ratherthan static one like in the examples (10), (11), (12) so as in (13) and (14), it is can

be seen that time and ego are moving together in the same direction, which isillustrated as follows:

3.1.3 Time is perceived as valuable things

Understanding the value of time in the life, English people conceptualize it asprecious things The target domains which are valuable things such as money, goldare mapped onto TIME as in TIME IS A VALUABLE THING conceptualmetaphor Time, it has been claimed, is a commodity in the modern Westernindustrialized culture (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) and its worth is reflected in Englishthrough three conceptual three metaphors as following:

1) TIME IS MONEY metaphor Consider the below examples:

(16) An inch of time is an inch of gold

(17) Time is capital: invest it wisely

(18)Time is like money: once spent it, it can never be spent again

In example (15) and (16), English people use the image schema SOURCEDOMAIN IS TARGET DOMAIN to describe the metaphorical links between timeand money/gold Examples (17) and (18) are metaphoric because the verb „invest‟and „spent‟ which primarily apply to money are employed to talk about time.Therefore, English people can spend time or invest it exactly as they spend andinvest money as habitual basis The illustration of mapping MONEY onto TIME ispresented as follows:

MONEY -> TIMEThe user of money -> The user of time

The purpose that requires money -> The purpose that requires

timeThe value of money -> The value of time

2) The TIME IS A LIMITED SOURCE conceptual metaphor is derived from theidea that mankind has a limited quantity of time that ends is a projection of limited time

of our own lives as in the statement of Lakoff and Tunner (1989, p.34): „each

of us is allotted a certain fixed time on earth Our allotted time will eventually beused up and we will die‟ Thus, English people perceive time as a limited resourcethat they should „gain‟ or „save‟ and should not „waste‟ For instance:

(20) Wasting time/ A waste of time

3) TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY metaphor is the entailment of TIME IS

A LIMITED SOURCE This entailment is based on English people‟s general experiencethat what is limited is valuable so it can be bought or sold as in:

3.1.4 Time is perceived as container

English people regard Time as bounded; therefore, they can perform actions within defined limits of time Time within which actions are performed can be seen

as a temporal container for events Consequently, TIME AS CONTAINER

conceptual metaphor can be found in the following instances:

(23) A stitch in time saves nine

To express TIME AS CONTAINER metaphor, English people use the

prepositions „in‟ and ‘out of’ following to time as in (23), (24), (26), (27) to show

the orientation of action that is in or out of the defined limits of time and the adverbs

‘over’, ‘part’ and „up‟ with reference to time as in (28), (29), (30) to manifest

time‟s ability to fill the container

3.1.5 Time is perceived as a person

In English, time is conceptualized as a human being as follows:

(32) Time heals all wounds/ time is a great healer

(33) Time and tide wait for no men

(34) Turn back the hands of time

In examples (31), (32), (33), (34), time is expressed and understood throughpersonification that is stressed by Lakoff and Turner (1988, p.72) „personificationpermits us to use our knowledge about ourselves to maximal effect, to use insightsabout ourselves to help us comprehend such things as force of nature, commonevents, abstract concepts, and inanimate objects‟ In (31), English peopleconceptualize time as a wise person with good eyesight who is the unique person to

„tell‟ happenings In (32), English people personify time as a good doctor and indoing so it provides a good way to understand the healing power of time Just as agood doctor heals our wounds, so when people have sorrows, time cures them by

making them forget a bad past Also, just as a good doctor gives patients a feeling ofhope to regain their health, people are hopeful to see the passage of time helpingthem regain their hope in life after bad experiences In (33), time is described as atraveler who travels incessantly and „waits‟ for no one In (34), time is personified

by being attributed an outward animate characteristic: having hands Attributinghands to time suggests that time is construed as an agent able to do things with itshands

3.1.6 Time is perceived as an object

English people sometimes conceptualize time as an object through themetaphor: TIME AS AN OBJECT Since being typical of objects, time can beviewed as possessions of people or a concrete object that one may metaphoricallytake it, lose it or qualify it The mappings from the concrete source domain,OBJECT, onto the abstract target domain, TIME are reflected as follows:

SOURCE DOMAIN -> TARGET DOMAIN

OBJECT -> TIME

To possess object -> To possess time

To impact an object -> To impact time

To lose an object -> To lose time

To borrow an object -> To borrow time

To qualify an object -> To qualify time1) The TIME IS A POSSESSION metaphor is linguistically expressed in Englishthrough the use of possessive pronouns or possessive verbs as the following examples:

In the above examples, the possession of time is expressed grammatically

through the use of possessive pronoun „one’s‟ as in (35), (37), (38) and possessive

verb „have‟ as in (36)

2) The TIME IS AN OBJECT THAT CAN BE IMPACTED metaphor is found as

in (38) or in some instances as follows:

(42) Take time by the forelock

3) The TIME AS AN OBJECT TO BE LOST metaphor as in:

4) The TIME AS OBJECT TO BE BORROWED metaphor as in

5) The TIME AS AN OBJECT THAT ONE CAN QUALIFY metaphor as follows:

By using qualifying expressions such as adjectives of color, of feeling, ofsize, with time-denoting nouns, English people are possible to qualify time as they

do with things Thus, although they do not know what color time is or how time is,the adjectives „black‟, „hard‟, „good‟ or „big‟ are used with time nouns to expressthe meaning of a sad time without hope as in (45), a difficult time to overcome as in(46), a happy time as in (47) or a successful time as in (48)

6) The TIME AS LIVING OBJECT metaphor as in:

In the two instance, time is perceived as a living object which can grow and be

„ripe‟ like fruits on a tree as in (50) or has its own life as an animal and can bekilled as in (49)

3.1.7 Summary

Time is an abstract concept but it becomes more concrete when beingperceived through English people‟s mind From spatial adjectives, locativeprepositions, motion verbs, nouns and verbs denoting things or people that arecontained in the English idioms and proverbs, the source domains including space,motion, valuable things, a container, a person and an abject are identified Thesource domains which are concrete and tangible are mapped onto the target domainTIME so that time is perceived as the tangibles

3.2 How the Vietnamese people perceive time through their idioms and

proverbs about time

3.2.1 Time is perceived as space

Vietnamese people perceive time through spatial metaphor Considering thefollowing examples:

(51) Đêm ngắn, tình dài (Night seems to be short when the lovers are together) (52) Ngày rộng tháng dài (Days are wide, months are long)

(53) Ngày vui ngắn chẳng tày gang (Happy day doesn‟t last long)

(54)Thức đêm mới biết đêm dài (Night seems to be long when someone does not sleep)

(55) Thời giờ eo hẹp (Time is tight)

(56) Đêm tháng năm chưa nằm đã sáng (Night in May is shorter than day)

(57) Ngày tháng mười chưa cười đã tối (Day in October is shorter than night)

Vietnamese people employed words denoting space to talk about time More

specifically, the adjectives in Vietnamese such as „dài‟(long), „ngắn‟ (short), „rộng‟ (wide) and „eo hẹp‟ (tight) expressing the magnitude of Space are employed to

describe the magnitude of time When Vietnamese people experience a happy event,

they tend to feel that time passes quickly so it is visualized with the magnitude of short (ngắn) as in (51) and (53) Or, time is conceptualized to have its own magnitude as rộng (wide) and dài (long) when Vietnamese people are free from their farming work,

normally from after lunar new year to March in lunar calendar, as in (52) or when theyhave to spend much time on something/an event as in (54)