Syntactic and semantic features of english collocations containing the word “play” with reference to the vietnamese equivalents

i MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE WORD “PLAY” WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNA

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE WORD “PLAY” WITH REFERENCE TO

THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(Đặc điểm cú pháp và ngữ nghĩa của các kết hợp

tiếng Anh có chứa từ”play” với các tương đương

trong tiếng Việt)

ĐINH THỊ KIM DUNG

Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE WORD “PLAY” WITH REFERENCE TO

THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(Đặc điểm cú pháp và ngữ nghĩa của các kết hợp

tiếng Anh có chứa từ”play” với các tương đương

trong tiếng Việt)

ĐINH THỊ KIM DUNG Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

The undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report

entitled “Syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the

word “play” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents “submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language

Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2020

Đinh Thị Kim Dung

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Dr Phạm Thị Tuyết Hương

Date:………

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the process of completing this graduation paper, I have received a lot

of help, guidance, and encouragement from many people

First of all, I would like to express my deepest thank to my supervisor Dr Phạm Thị Tuyết Hương - the lecturer of the Faculty of Foreign Languages of National Economics University, for her enthusiastic guidance, helpful suggestion and encouragement in writing of this report Her stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

I would also like to send my thanks to all teachers of Foreign Language Department for their helpings, contributions and teachings all the time when I am at

Ha Noi Open University

Finally, I would like to show my gratitude toward my family, my thanks to

my colleagues who are always beside me to support and encourage me to finish my graduation paper

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ABSTRACT

Collocation is an important aspect in vocabulary acquisition It has become the subject of a linguistic study only recently, it arouses a growing interest in numerous linguists and is defined in various ways However, English learners in general and Vietnamese students in particular often have trouble in using collocation properly Therefore, this graduation paper is written with the aim of investigating the syntactic and semantic features of the English collocations containing the word

“play” with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents Three objectives are included

in the research: (1) pointing out the syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “play”; (2) figuring out the similarities and differences in collocations containing the collocation “play” in English and their Vietnamese equivalents; (3) providing some suggestions for the teaching and learning English collocations containing the word “play” Contrastive analysis and descriptive are two main methods used in this study Data used for analysis in this study were mainly collected from grammar books and dictionaries The study has shown syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word

“play” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents From this study, teachers and learners will enhance knowledge about collocations and be able to apply these collocations in their communication effectively without confusion This research can also be a useful source of reference in learning, teaching English

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

ABBREVIATIONS vi

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives 2

1.2.1 Aims 2

1.2.2 Objectives 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Structures of the thesis 4

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Review of previous studies 5

2.2 Review of theoretical background 5

2.2.1 An overview of theory of syntax 5

2.2.2 An overview of theory of semantics 7

2.2.3 An overview of collocation 12

2.2.4 Overview of idioms 19

2.2.5 Overview of proverbs 24

2.2.6 The Distinction among Free Word Combinations, Idiomatic Expressions and Collocations 25

2.2.7 Criteria to distinguish idioms from free-word groups and proverbs 27

2.2.8 The meanings of the word “play” in English 29

2.2.9 The meanings of “chơi” in Vietnamese 30

2.2.10 The colocation with the word “chơi” in Vietnamese 30

2.3 Summary 31

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 32

3.1 Research governing orientation 32

3.1.1 Research approaches 32

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3.1.2 Research questions 32

3.2 Research methods 33

3.3 Summary 34

CHAPTER 4: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH

COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE WORD “PLAY” WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 36

4.1 Syntactic features of English collocations containing the word “PLAY” 36

4.1.1 “PLAY” as a noun in the collocations 36

4.1.2 “PLAY” as a verb in the collocations 39

4.2 Semantic features of English collocations containing the word “PLAY” 42

4.2.1 Literal meaning 42

4.2.2 Figurative meaning 45

4.3 A comparison between English collocations containing the word “play” and their Vietnamese equivalents 48

4.3.1 In terms of their syntactic features 48

4.3.2 In terms of their semantic features 51

4.4 Implications for teaching and learning English collocations containing the word “PLAY”……….53

4.4.1 Suggestions for teaching English collocations containing the word "PLAY" 53 4.4.2 Suggestions for learning English expressions containing the word "PLAY” 54

4.5 Summary 54

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 55

5.1 Recapitulation 55

5.2 Concluding remarks 55

5.4 Recommendations for a further research 57 REFERENCES I

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Vocabulary plays an important role in teaching and studying English While without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed This viewpoint has been supported by many researchers in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) who have emphasize the significance of vocabulary and agreed that vocabulary is equally, if not more, important than language structure in language acquisition This is the reason why the teaching of vocabulary is as important as the teaching of grammar Within the area of vocabulary research, collocations that are a transitional area between idioms and free combinations have attracted the attention of language researchers And language researchers have pointed out many reasons why collocations are so important in language acquisition First, acquiring collocations is beneficial for EFL learners and “communicative competence” To gain overall language proficiency, learners need to gain collocation competence At the same time, acquiring collocation knowledge may help overcome the problems of comprehending a sentence word by word thus learners ‘listening and reading abilities can be improved Also, by mastering collocations, learners’speech sounds more natural, and is more easily understood by native speakers With increasing knowledge of collocations, EFL learners may be able to speed up their thinking in speaking and getting their meaning across more effectively Collocation is an issue that is popular

in English as well as any other languages in the world; it is one of the fields which have never been studied exhaustively due to their interestingness and variety Collocations make the communication more natural and probably more effective However, because in daily communication as well as in written text, the meanings are affected by the culture and customs of each country, collocations cause numerous troubles for English-speaking people The collocations containing the word “play” are commonly-used and confusing phrases in most cases they consist

of are verb and noun and they have a wide range of meanings Thereby, this study will focus on analyzing the structures and meanings of the collocations with “play”

by illustrating syntactic and semantic features in order to figure out the similarities and differences of the “play”-contained collocations in English and their Vietnamese equivalents Various examples of these collocations are analyzed cautiously with qualitative, descriptive and contrastive methods basing on Morris

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(1938)’s theory The study will also offer some implications which are useful for teaching, learning and translating these collocations from English into Vietnamese and vice versa The reason for my study about syntactic and the semantic features of the ”play” collocations in reference to Vietnamese equivalence is that the word

“play‟ is one of the most commonly used verbs in English and when it collocates with other words, Vietnamese learners often feel confused, especially about meaning of the word “play” collocations Furthermore, among many studies about collocation, none of them have worked on the collocations containing the word

“play”, which is considered as a widely- used verb and makes English learners confused With the purpose of helping learners and teachers know general knowledge of collocations, the syntactic and semantic features of the word

“play” collocations as well as the similarities and differences between the collocations with the word “play” and its Vietnamese equivalence we decided to carry out this study

1.2 Aims and objectives

1.2.1 Aims

The study is carried with the aim at helping learners of English master the collocations with the word “play” and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features

1.2.2 Objectives

The study is carried out with the following objectives:

- pointing out the syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “play”

- figuring out the similarities and differences in collocations containing the word

“play” in English and their Vietnamese equivalents

- providing some suggestions for the teaching and learning English collocations containing the word “play

1.3 Research questions

To fully achieve the aims above, the study should answer the following questions:

- What are the syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “play”?

- What are the similarities and differences of “play” collocations in English and their Vietnamese equivalents?

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- What are the implications of the study for English teaching and learning of

English collocations containing the word “play”?

1.4 Methods of the study

The study has been carried out based on a combination of different methods, among which the main method is contrastive analysis For the contrastive analysis method, English is considered to be the target language and Vietnamese- the source language – a means to contrast This method involves two steps: the first is describing the syntactic features and semantic features of the word “play”‟ collocations in English and the second is to identify the similarities and differences between English collocations containing the verb “play” and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features

Another important method used in this thesis is descriptive research method, which involves componential analysis Componential analysis is one of the most effective methods in identifying the meaning because it involves the analysis of the sense of a lexeme into its component parts Descriptive method is used to describe in details syntactic and semantic features of English collocations through examples of English collocations containing the word “play”

1.5 Scope of the study

Firstly, this is a minor thesis and collocation is an issue that is complicated and is studied in many different fields As a result, it is unfeasible to discuss collocations with “play” in all aspects This study only focuses on analyzing syntactic and semantic features of collocations with “play” and their Vietnamese equivalents, and then gives a brief introduction about the similarities and differences between them

Secondly, in this thesis, the collocation with the word “play” is studied in such levels as phrases, proverbs, idioms, and set expressions

Thirdly, data in this thesis are mainly taken from dictionaries, grammar,

vocabulary and idiom books

1.6 Significance of the study

Collocation is an important aspect in vocabulary acquisition For a teacher of English, collocation should be an indispensable part of vocabulary teaching; idiomatic collocations of a new word should be given to the students As a learner

of English, it is necessary for him to realize the importance of collocation in word

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acquisition and pay more attention to the proper use of collocation The context and the deliberate association including collocations provide connections that help learners to deeply understand a word’s meaning and furthermore to add it to his or her current vocabulary While giving a clue to memorize new words the method to learn words by collocations also instructs learners to use right words in right time and place In contrast, without any awareness of collocation, learners will make up something not native or even theory in language study Therefore, the study is expected to provide Vietnamese learners and translators of English a proper understanding into the repertoire of collocations after examining their semantic and syntactic features together with showing some basic similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese languages From this study, teachers and learners will enhance knowledge about collocations and be able to apply these collocations

in their communication effectively without confusion This research can also be a useful source of reference in learning, teaching and translating English

1.7 Structures of the thesis

The study consists of three parts organized as follows:

Chapter I entitled “Introduction” outlining the background of the study in which a

brief account of relevant information such as rationale of the study , the aims, the

objectives, the scope and design of the study Chapter II presents the previous

study and theoretical background about collocation, provides the theoretical concepts for the main contents of the study, covering a series of concepts ranging from syntactic and semantic features, an overview of collocation, characteristics,

types of collocations Chapter III (Methodology) describes the methods which are used to study consisting of describing methods, contrastive methods Chapter IV

(Finding and Discussion) shows the syntactic and semantic features of the collocations containing the word “play” At the same time, it indicates the similarities and differences between the meanings of “play” collocations in English

in comparison with their Vietnamese equivalents Chapter V (Conclusion) briefly

summarizes how to conduct the research Each chapter ends with a summary

“The acquisition of basic collocations by Japanese learners of English” – Doctoral dissertation by Keya, T (2005), which shows the change of vocabulary treatment for Japanese learners of English in the government, and so on

In Vietnamese, collocations have been also an interesting field for linguists There are many previous studies about this area They are: “A study on lexical collocations and their implication in teaching listening”, MA thesis by Le Than Ha (2007); This study shows the traditional approach and the statistical one It also provides insights into phraseology and the lexical approach would clarify the importance of collocations as an interesting part of vocabulary The latter is explored by introducing its nature generally and comparing individual words with Multi-Word Units particularly “A study on the English collocations containing the verb “SET” with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents, MA thesis by Dao Thi Ngoc Nguyen (2007); A study on common errors related to the usage of DO and MAKE collocations MA thesis by Pham Thi Nga (2012), which presents the errors that English learners often meet when using collocations with verbs “MAKE” and

“DO” and so on

2.2 Review of theoretical background

2.2.1 An overview of theory of syntax

Syntax is a field that has been studied by many researchers Following are some theories about syntax from famous philologists

Morris (1938) organized emetics, the study of signs, into three areas: (1) syntax (the study of the interrelation of the signs); (2) semantics (the study of the relation between the signs and the objects to which they apply); and (3) pragmatics

(the relationship between the sign system and the user) According to Morris, syntax

is the grammar, structure, or order of the elements in a language statement (semantics is the meaning of these elements) Syntax applies to computer languages

as well as to natural languages Usually, people think of syntax as word order

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However, syntax is also achieved in some languages such as Latin by inflectional case endings Syntax is understood to be the theory of the structure of sentences in a language This view has its direct antecedents in the theory of immediate constituents, in which the function of syntax is to mediate between the observed forms of a sentence and its meaning

Syntax, according to Blooming Field (1987, p.161), is now the study of the principles and rules that govern the ways in which words are combined to form phrases, clauses, and sentences in a language Syntax which is a subfield of grammar focuses on the word order of a language and the relationships among words In this use, syntax is opposed to morphology, the study of word structure In other words, morphology deals with word formation out of morphemes whereas syntax deals with phrase and sentence formation out of words

Encyclopedia of Human Behavior – Volume 3 – Google Books defines syntax as the study of the rules whereby words or other elements of sentence structure are combined to form grammatical sentences For example: Subject/ predicate in the following sentences are about something or someone that the sentence is about is called the subject of the sentence which is shown in bold type

- John often comes late to class

- My friend and I both have a dog named Spot

- Many parts of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in

2004

According to Richard Nordiques, updated January 19th ,2019

“In linguistics, syntax refers to the rules that govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences It's the concept that enables people to know things like adjectives generally come before the nouns they describe (green chair), how to start a question with a question word (What is that?), that subjects often come before verbs in non-question sentences (She jogged.), prepositional phrases start with prepositions (to the store), helping verbs come before main verbs (can go, will do), and so on”

For native speakers, using correct syntax is something that comes naturally, as word order is learned as soon as an infant starts absorbing the language Native speakers can tell something is not said quite right because it "sounds weird," even if they cannot detail the exact grammar rule that makes something sound "off" to the ear "It is syntax that gives the words the power to relate to each other in a

In brief, after putting all theories into consideration, Blooming field’ one should be used because his theory is suitable to identify the form of English idioms and their Vietnamese equivalents

2.2.2 An overview of theory of semantics

Semantics is a complicated but interesting field and it has been studied by

many famous linguists The followings are some popular points of view

Semantics is a branch of linguistics, which deals with meaning or the content

of communication Harford and Heasley (1983) stated that “semantics is the study

of meaning in language.” Language is a means of communication and used to communicate with others by making conversations, giving information and other things to make social relationship Human beings have been given the ability to talk,

to communicate with each other, to make meaningful utterances, so that they are

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understood by other human beings They communicate about the world in which they live, about themselves, about their thought and feeling, about what has happened, about what might happen or what they would like to happen and a lot more

According to Kamala Wiśniewski (2007), semantic features are considered basic elements which enable the differentiation of meaning of words This view is also shared by Cornelius Postman: “Semantic feature analysis allows us to decompose words into bundles of attributes” and “semantic features can be used to describe differences between antonyms, super ordinates and their hyponyms, and near synonyms”

Hurford and Heasley describe “the giving of information is itself an act of courtesy, performed to strengthen social relationships” This is also part of communication There are some linguists that try to define semantics Furthermore,

as quoted by Lyons (1977) at first refers to semantics as the study of the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable And then he amends his definition, saying that, semantics is that portion of semiotic which deals with the signification of sign in all modes of signifying

Semantics is usually connected with pragmatics Carnap (Lyons, 1977) says that descriptive semantics (i.e the investigation of the meaning of expressions in

“historically given natural language”), may be considered as part of pragmatics The reason why descriptive semantics is part of pragmatics seem to have been that he believed that difference in the use of particular expressions were not only inevitable

in language – behavior, but must be taken account of in the description or context Smith, as quoted by Lyons (1977) mentions “semantics studies how these signs are related to things And pragmatics studied how they are related to people” According to Leech (1983) in practice, the problem of distinguishing language and language use has centered on a boundary dispute between semantics and pragmatics Hurford and Heasley (1983) further explain that the study of semantics

is largely a matter of conceptually and exploring the nature of meaning in a careful and thoughtful way, using a wide range of examples, many of which we can draw from our knowledge But Jack Richards, John Platt, Heidi Weber (1987) point that

“the study of meaning is semantics Semantics is usually concerned with the analysis of the meaning of words, phrases or sentences and sometimes with the meaning of utterances in discourse or the meaning of a whole text.”

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David Crystal (1992) defines that “semantics is the study of meaning in language.” Structural semantics applied the principles of structural linguistics to the study of meaning through the notion of semantic relations (also called sense relation), such as synonymy and antonyms In generative grammar, the semantic component is a major area of the grammar’s organization, assigning a semantic representation to sentences, and analyzing them There are many theories of semantics which have been studied and analyzed for centuries and they could generally be classified into three basic concepts:

Model theoretic semantics: Discovered by Richard Montague in the late 1960s, this formal theory of ordinary language semantics is about how and in which expressions reflect their relational meaning among themselves And more amazingly, the truth values of a sentence and its reasonable denotations to other sentence are analyzed to a model (Montague, 1960)

Truth conditional semantics: First mentioned by the linguist Donald Davidson in 1973, the theory tries to find the language connection with the reality which differenates it from model theoretic semantics Its result shows that every component of a sentence must rely and reflect the truth conditions of itself in order

to carry out the true meaning of the combination There is a simple example for this theory: “winter is cold” is true only when winter is cold, if two conditions of the meaning “winter” and “cold” are not logical with each other then the semantics could not be performed

Lexical semantics: is the theory of context It states that the meaning of a word is totally revealed by its situation Each component of the sentence must collaborate with others in terms of meanings which could depend on their own level and form in order to carry out the meaning of the sentence As a result, it would be easier for the speakers to conveniently deliver their thoughts depending on the current context (Levin, 1991)

In terms of semantics, there are seven types of meaning: conceptual meaning,

connotative meaning, stylistic meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning, thematic meaning

Conceptual Meaning

Conceptual meaning is sometimes called denotative meaning or cognitive meaning, it is widely assumed to be the central factor in linguistic communication Larson noted that denotative meaning is also called as primary meaning, that is the

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meaning suggested by the word when it used alone It is the first meaning or usage which a word will suggest to most people when the word is said in isolation it is the meaning learned early in life and likely to have reference to a physical situation (Larson, 1984: 100)

The denotation of word is its agreed-upon sense-what it refers to, stands for, or designates, a part from the feeling it may call up, and this again is able for a good deal on the context the words that appears in

It is said that the aim of denotative meaning is to provide, for any given interpretation of a sentence, a configuration of abstract symbols, in which shows exactly what we need to know if we are to distinguish that meaning from all other possible sentence meaning in the language

Connotative Meaning

As we experience, words are human situations, they not only take on certain denotation, but also often acquire individual flavors They have come to have emotive tone, the associations, and suggestiveness of the situation in which they have been a part For example let us examine the words “brink” This denotes on

“edge” However in the phrase “The brink of the cliff” or” the brink of disaster”,

this word suggests danger and its emotive tone is that of fear

According to Leech (1974: 40-41) connotative meaning is the communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content It will be clear if we are talking about connotation, we are in fact talking about the “real word experience” Someone associates with an expression when someone uses and hears it The fact that if we compared connotative meaning with denotative meaning is that connotations are relatively unstable; that is they vary considerably we have seen, according to culture, historical period, and the experience of the individual Although all the speaker of particular language speaks the language exactly the same conceptual framework, actually each of them has individual perception of words Connotative meaning is indeterminate and open in the same way as our knowledge and belief about the universe are opened-ended Connotations play a major role in the language of literature, of politics, of advertising, and a greeting card

Stylistic Meaning

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Stylistic meaning is that which a piece of language conveys about the circumstances of its use A recent account of English has recognized some main dimensions of stylistic variation For instance:

1 They chucked a stone at the cops, and then did a bunk with the loot

2 After casting a stone at the police, they absconded with the money Sentence (1) could be said by the two criminals, talking casually about the crime afterwards; sentence (2) might be said by the chief of the police in making the official report; both could describe the same happening (Leech, 1974: 15)

Affective Meaning

Affective meaning is a sort of meaning which affects the personal feeling of speakers, including his/her attitude to the listener, or his/her attitude to something he/she talking about In order to get people attention to be quiet, we might say either

(1)”I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if you would be so kind as to lower

your voice as a little” or (2) “Will you belt up” Factors such as intonation and voice

timbre are also important here The impression of politeness in the sentence (1) can

be reserved by tone of biting sarcasm; sentence (2) can be turn into a playful remark between intimates if delivered with the intonation of a mild request

Reflected Meaning

Reflected meaning involves an interconnection on the lexical level of language, it is the meaning, which arises in case of multiple conceptual meaning, when one senses of word forms part of our response to another sense For instance,

on hearing the Church service, the synonymous expressions The Comforter and The Holy Ghost both refer to the Third Trinity, but the Comforter sounds warm and comforting, while the Holy Ghost sounds awesome

Collocative Meaning

Collocative meaning consists of the associations a word acquire s on account

of the meanings of the words, which tends to occur in its environment For instance the words pretty and handsome share common ground in the meaning of good looking But may be distinguished by the range of noun in which they are like to occur or collocate; Pretty woman and handsome man The ranges may well match although they suggest a different kind of attractiveness of the adjectives

Thematic Meaning

This is the final category of meaning, thematic meaning is the meaning that is communicated by the way in which the speaker or writer organizes the message, in

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terms of ordering, focus, and emphasis It is often felt an active sentence such as (1) below has a different meaning from its passive equivalent (2) although in conceptual content they seem to be the same (Leech 1974: 19)

1 Mrs Bessie Smith donated the first prize

2 The first prize was donated by Mrs Bessie Smith

We can assume that the active sentence answers an implicit question “what did

Mrs Bessie Smith donate?”, while the passive sentence answers the implicit

question “who donates the first prize?”, that in other words (1) in contrast to see (2)

suggest that we know who Mrs Bessie Smith is

In brief, semantics is one of the most fundamental concepts in linguistics The theory of semantic field includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, covered, illustrated, simplified, negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased

Theory of syntax and semantics is carried out first with main purpose to decide the theoretical framework of the study in the chapter three

2.2.3 An overview of collocation

Regarded as a basic factor that makes speaking and writing more naturally, collocations play a great important role in studying English in particular as well as studying any languages As a result, to master a language, learners have to study these multi-word units with more or less unpredictable meanings With different levels of figurativeness they represent indispensable lexical elements that help any foreign language speaker sound more native and proficient It is obvious that different languages will have different collocations, both in syntax and semantics Moreover, the usage of collocations will vary from one person to another, depending on their social or intellectual background

Collocations can be frequently encountered in daily conversation as well as written texts, and to a certain extent, they form a part of the core values of the culture Since collocations convey meaning quickly and enable language users express themselves more efficiently, they should be integrated into the translating and learning process of foreign languages The ready-made production of these figurative expressions contributes to the fluency making it possible for the speaker

to be more concentrated on the message that needs to be delivered than on the formation of a sentence with a long literal explanation

Definitions of collocation

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The term collocation was first introduced by Firth (1957), a British linguist

He was the first person to look lexis at its syntagmatic, left-to-right unfolding of language According to Firth (1957), the collocation is defined as a combination of

words associated with each other, for example to take a photo, to do homework, to

play football The term collocation has it origin in the Latin verb collocate which

means to set in order/to arrange All languages have a large numbers of

collocations, and linguists have defined collocation in different ways

The concept of collocations was first identified by Palmer (1981) as a string

of words that must or should be learned or is best or most conveniently learned as

an integral whole or independent entity rather than by the process of piecing together their component parts Most of the researchers who define collocation agree that it is a lexical unit consisting of a cluster of two or three words from different parts of speech (e.g Baker, 1992; Benson and Ilson, 1997) Most of the definitions are paraphrases of Firth (1957: 183) definition that collocations are

“words in habitual company” Most of the definitions have at their core some sense

of the, co-occurrence‟ of words For instance, Colin Mclntosh et al (2009) gives a general definition of collocation that collocation is the way words combine

in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing For example, in English we say strong wind but heavy rain More specifically speaking, Robins (1989: 65), defines collocation as the habitual association of a word in a language with other particular words in sentences but less closely connected extra-linguistic reference For example, „white race‟, “white coffee”, etc All contain the word, white‟ with different meanings from the denotative meaning of the color However, one of the most detailed definitions is provided by Howard Jackson & Etienne Ze Evenla (2000:256) “collocation is a lexical relationship of mutual expectancy, the presence of a particular lexical item gives rise to the greater likelihood that other lexical items belonging to the same area of meaning will also occur.” And collocation should be discussed in terms of continuum in which they are placed in the middle position At the two ends of the continuum are free word combinations which are phrases constructed using rules of syntax and idioms which allow little or no variation form and whose meaning cannot be determined

by the literal meanings of individual words

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In Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2003), collocation is defined as the way words combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing [19]

or a particular combination of words used in this way

“The term collocation refers to combinations of two lexical items each of which makes a distinct semantic contribution” (Stephan Gramley and Kurt – Michael Patzold, 2002) [10] According to Cruise (1987) collocations are defined

as “sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur, but which are nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a

semantic constituent Such expressions as (to pick a semantic area at random) fine

weather, torrential rain; high winds are examples of collocations

The semantic cohesion of a collocation is the more mark if the meaning carried by one (or more) of its constituent elements is highly restricted contextually, and different from its meaning in more neutral contexts From Cowie’s viewpoint (1994), words which combine with other words, or with idioms, in particular grammatical constructions are said to collocate with those words or idioms

A comprehensive definition can be found in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary where a collocation is viewed as a word or phrase that is often used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the meaning” This is an explanation of the fact that collocations can be problematic to the nonnative speakersbecause for them is hard to distinguish if a combination of words sounds better than another combination of words A collocation (also collocate) is a word or phrase which is frequently used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to speakers of the language

For example: heavy rain

- An expression consisting of two or more words that correspond to some conventional way of saying things

- The words together can mean more than their sum of parts

For example: disk drive

Collocations: An arrangement or juxtaposition of words or other elements, especially those that commonly used together

For example: bright idea, or dead serious etc

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In Oxford Collocation Dictionary (2003), collocation is defined as the way words combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing or a particular combination of words used in this way

“The term “collocation” refers to combinations of two lexical items, each of which makes a distinct semantic contribution” (Stephan Grimly and Kurt – Michael Patrol, 2002)

Collocations represent something new in the way human minds perceive and understand the language

A collocation can be defined in many ways For instance in The English Oxford Dictionary published between 1884 and 1928: “the word collocation is described as the action of setting in a place or position, esp of placing together with,

or side by side with something else Furthermore, this explanation is connected with the arrangement of a word in a sentence which partly clarifies the main use of

a collocation A comprehensive definition can be found in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary where a collocation is viewed as a word or phrase that is often used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the meaning” This is an explanation of the fact that collocations can be problematic to the nonnative speakers

Characteristics of Collocations

In discussion of the nature of collocation, linguists have been trying to generalize what characteristics collocations have in common Generally, collocations have two major features as follow

Collocations are Arbitrary

According to Kathleen R McKeown and Dragomir R Radev, the notion of

arbitrariness captures the fact that substituting a synonym for one of the words in a

collocational word pair may result in an infelicitous lexical combination Thus, for

example, a phrase such as make an effort is acceptable, but make an exertion is not; similarly, a running commentary, commit treason, warm greetings are all true collocations, but a running discussion, commit treachery, and hot greetings are not

acceptable lexical combinations In short, there is no absolute rule that can be learned for collocations Thus, they are best dealt with isolation as they arise or depending on notion of typicality to decide what acceptation and unacceptable collocations are

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Collocations are Language-Specific

As Larson (1984:141) points out, every language interprets the physical words in its own way and has its own convention which governs the collocability

of words In other words, combinations of words will differ from language to language For example, in Vietnamese we say “earn money” but in English the

equivalent phrase is “make money” Similarly, in American English one says set

the table and make a decision; whereas in British English, the corresponding

phrases are lay the table and take a decision Therefore, what is perfectly

acceptable collocation in one language may be unacceptable in another Take the

case of make in English and làm in Vietnamese as a typical example Although

these two words are equivalent to each other, they cannot go with the same range

of nouns While such collocations as làm trai, làm duyên làm dáng, làm lẽ are acceptable in Vietnamese, the verb make in English actually cannot co-occur with these corresponding nouns Instead, the equivalents phrases must be be a man,

posture, be a concubine in which different verbs are employed

be considered lexical collocation and 29 grammatical (she thus largely accepts the structural view of collocation) A lexical collocation is a type of construction where

a verb, noun, adjective or adverb forms a predictable connection with another word,

as in:

Adverb + Adjective: e.g completely satisfied (NOT downright satisfied) Adjective + Noun: e.g excruciating pain (NOT excruciating joy)

Noun + Verb: e.g lions roar (NOT lions shout)

Verb + Noun: e.g commit suicide (NOT undertake suicide)

In contrast to grammatical collocations, lexical collocations do not contain grammatical elements They can be classified into three types

Open collocations: are characterized by a combination of two words or more occurring together with no specific relation between them This means that the word

in one of their regular, no idiomatic meanings” Restricted collocations differ from free combination collocations in that they co-occur with a small number of words Evelyn, et al (1986, p.253) provide “to commit a murder” as an example where the verb collocates with a few nouns such as “murder, crime”

Bound collocations: are, as Cowie (1981, p.228) describes them as “a bridge category between collocations and idioms” The significant feature of this group is that one of the elements of the collocations is, as Emery states (1987, p.9), “unique selective” of the other One example is “to shrug one’s shoulders” Collocations are found in various types of syntactic configurations (Emery, 1987, p 8-9),

Subject/-Verb, e.g the water freezes

Verb/-Object, e.g break a code

Adjective/-Noun, e.g best wishes

Grammatical collocations

A grammatical collocation is a type of construction where, for example, a verb

or an adjective must be followed by a particular preposition, or a noun must be followed by a particular form of the verb, as in:

Verb + Preposition: e.g depend on (NOT depend of) Adjective +

Preposition: e.g afraid of (NOT afraid at)

Noun + Particular form of verb: e.g strength to lift it (not strength lifting it)

By Michael M.C Cathy and Felicity O Dell (2005: 9-12), collocations are classified as following;

Adjectives and nouns

Some adjectives are typically used with particular nouns

“Jean always wears red or yellow or some other bright color.”

“We had a brief chat about the exams but didn't have time to discuss them properly.”

Nouns and verbs

Some nouns and verbs often go together The following examples are all to do with economics and business

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“The economy boomed in the 1990s.” [the economy was very strong]

“The company has grown and now employs 50 more people than last year.”

“The company has expanded and now has branches in most major cities.” “The two companies merged in 2003 and now form one very large corporation.”

“The company launched the product in 2002 [introduced the product]” “The price increase poses a problem for us [is a problem]”

“The Internet has created opportunities for our business, [brought new opportunities]”

M.C Cathy, M & Felicity O Dell, F (2005:12)

Noun + noun

There are a lot of collocations with the pattern a of

“As Sam read the lies about him, he felt a surge of anger, [literary: a sudden angry feeling]”

“Every parent feels a sense of pride when their child does well or wins something.”

“I felt a pang of nostalgia when I saw the old photos of the village where I grew up.”

M.C Cathy, M & Felicity O Dell, F (2005:12)

- Verbs and expressions with prepositions

Some verbs collocate with particular prepositional expressions

“As Jack went on stage to receive his gold medal for the judo competition you could see his parents swelling with pride, [looking extremely proud]”

“I was filled with horror when I read the newspaper report of the explosion.”

“When she spilt juice on her new skirt the little girl burst into tears, [suddenly started crying]”

(M.C Cathy, M & Felicity O Dell, F (2005:12))

Verbs and adverbs

Some verbs have particular adverbs which regularly collocate with them

“She pulled steadily on the rope and helped him to safety, [pulled firmly and evenly]”

“He placed the beautiful vase gently on the window ledge.”

“I love you and want to marry you,' Derek whispered softly to Marsha

“She smiled proudly as she looked at the photos of her new grandson.”

M.C Cathy, M & Felicity O Dell, F (2005:12)

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Adverbs and adjectives

Adjectives often have particular adverbs which regularly collocate with them

“They are happily married.”

“I am fully aware that there are serious problems [I know well]”

“Harry was blissfully unaware that he was in danger [Harry had no idea at all, often used about something unpleasant]”

M.C Cathy, M & O Dell, F (2005:12)

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (533) gives the following

definition: idiom is a “peculiarity of phraseology approved by usage though having meaning not deducible from those of the separate words.”

A more detailed description is given in Webster’s New World Dictionary (670): idiom is “a phrase, construction, or expression that is recognized as a unit in the usage of a given language and either differs from the usual syntactic patterns or has a meaning that differs from the literal meaning of its parts taken together”

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (163) relates to an

idiom as an expression the meaning of which “cannot be deduced by examining the meanings of the constituent lexemes“, the expression being both grammatically and lexically fixed

Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms (vii) suggests that one of the

problems with idioms is that it is often impossible to guess the meaning of an idiom from the words that it contains, emphasizing the fact that idioms often have a stronger meaning than non-idiomatic phrases

Dictionaries provide rather general and brief descriptions of idioms Linguistic works, on the other hand, which specialize in this particular field of idioms, take into consideration various aspects of idioms and thus can appear to be more descriptive A set expression of two or more words means something other than the literal meanings of its individual words Idioms are colloquialisms or expressions that people say

In English, idioms maybe treated as a type of collocation involving two or more words in context However, since the meaning of an idiom cannot be predicted from the meaning of its constituents, idioms may be considered as a type of multi-word lexeme In the most general term, an idiom maybe defined as “a phrase and meaning of which cannot predicted from the individual meaning of the morpheme it comprises” (Howard Jackson and Etiene’sze’ A’nivela, 2002:66) An idiom is defined by Jonathan Crowth (1995) as “a phrase whose meaning is difficult or sometimes impossible to guess by looking at the individual word it contains” (from Advance Learner’s Dictionary)

In English, idioms also have been defined by Jenifer Seild and W.Mc.Mordie (1988) as “a number of words which, when taken together, have different meaning from the individual meaning of each word” Therefore, an idiom is a multi-word construction that is a semantic unit whose meaning cannot be deducted from the meaning of constituents and has a non-productive syntactic structure

For example, when we say “kicked the bucket”, it does not imply that they necessary hit a certain type of container for liquid with their foot, what it means is that they “died” in English, expression “to kick the bucket”, a listener knowing only the meaning of kick and bucket would be unable to deduce the expression actual meaning, which is to die Although it can refer literally to the act of string a specific bucket with a foot, native speakers rarely use it that way Thus, idioms are not literal expressions They are fixed expressions and they can be syntactic phrases or sentences

In Vietnam, according to Hoang Van Hanh (1987), an idiom is defined

as “a stable word group with solid information and structure, and a complete and figurative meaning used in everyday communication, especially in spoken

language” For example, “nửa nạc nửa mỡ” (fall between two tools) is used to refer

a person who is not determined, or “fall off your perch” refer to a person who is killed in a battle

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Phan Van Que in “Ngữ nghĩa của thành ngữ, tục ngữ có thành tố chỉ động vật trong tiếng Anh” (1996) defined idioms as “a group of words combined together to express something whose meaning is different from its constituent.”

Hoang Phe (1997), an idiom is considered to be “a set of expression whose meaning is generally inexplicable simply through the meaning of individual word it contains”

Although idioms are defined in different ways, they still have things on common that con help us understand what an idiom is These definitions are clues for us to identify idioms in using and studying

Features of English idioms

Syntactic features

An idiom is a multiword expression Individual components of an idiom can often reflected in the same way individual words in a phrase can be inflected This inflection usually follows the same term of inflection as the idiom’s literal counterpart For instance, idiom “have a bee in one’s bonnet” can be put in the sentence like this “he has bees in his bonnet” In this case, “a bee” from singular can

be change into plural “bees”

An idiom behaves as a single semantic unit It often can be replaced by a literal counterpart that is made up of a single word For example, “fall off your perch” means “die”

An idiom resists interruption by the other word whether they are semantically compatible or not We cannot change idiom “put one’s leg” like this “pull hard on one’s leg” or “pull on one’s leg” It also resists reordering of it component parts For example, “let the cat out of the bag” cannot be reordered “the cat got out of the bag”

An idiom has a non-productive syntactic structure Only single particular lexemes can collocate in an idiom construction Substituting other words from the same lexical relation set will destroy idiomatic meaning of expression For instance,

we cannot say “fall off the coach” instead of “fall off your wagon” although coach and wagon are synonyms

Therefore, what is and what is not an idiom is a master of degree (Fernando and Flavell, 1981) For instance, “make up a story”, “make up a fire”, “make up one’s face” The first expression is used in its literal meaning; the second is a partial meaning, while the last is full idiomatic

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According to Howard Jackson and Etiemne’ Ze’Anivela (1995) in the book “words, meaning and vocabulary”, idioms may be characterized by several features but they may be summarized under 2 main headings: ambiguity, and syntactic peculiarities Since most idioms are constructed from morphemes, they are also used non-idiomatically They may either a literal or an idiomatic meaning Hence, they are ambiguity Idioms also have special syntactic properties that can distinguish them from word phrases, proverbs, collocates, etc

In terms of structure, an idiom can have a regular structure, an irregular or even a grammatically incorrect structure For the first type, they have common forms but there is no connection between the meaning of each component and that

of the whole unit, for example Fall off the back of a lorry (Something has been

stolen) Therefore, you cannot guess the meaning of the idioms without learning them before The second group takes into account ones which have unconventional forms but their meaning can be worked out through the meaning of individual words Take “It’s early days yet” as a typical illustration; since the idiom is irregular and illogical in terms of grammatical structure According to the rule of language,

“It” is singular and therefore “day” must be singular, too However, in this case, the idiom does not need to obey grammatical rule to make sense “It’s early days yet” can still be understood that “It too soon to say/ decide” In the last group, grammatically incorrect, both its form and meaning are irregular The structure is grammatically inaccurate and the meaning is not precisely expressed by gathering the meaning of each member-word Such idioms as “Be up to no good” (doing or planning something wrong or dishonest), “to go through thick and thin” (in spite of all the difficulties and problems; in good and bad times) illustrate grammatical irregularity The structure of the idioms can be written as “Verb + preposition + adjective” In English, normally a structure like this is acknowledged once in a blue moon since adjectives never come after prepositions individually As an idiom, however, the case is accepted

To sum up, in terms of syntactic feature, firstly, an idiom is asset –expression

We cannot make any changes without losing the idiomatic meaning Secondly, idioms may take many different forms or structures Mentioning to structure, an idiom can have a regular structure, an irregular or even a grammatically incorrect structure

Semantic features of idioms

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It is undoubted that meaning is the most important factor when talking about semantic feature of idioms Figurative meaning is the basic characteristic of idioms which helps to decide whether a fixed expression is an idiom or not Here is an idiom to exemplify: “Fall off the back of a lorry” (Something has been stolen) However, the meaning of these idioms can be guessed from the meaning of their components The meaning of an idiom is either partly or completely different from the meaning of all components In case of any partial difference, their figurative meaning is not different from the literal one The partly different ones are such

as fall on deaf ears, Fall on hard times, fall in love with, etc

Besides, idioms can convey positive, neutral, or negative meanings For the first group, conveying positive meaning we have some examples such as fall on your

feet (Been very lucky or successful in a difficult situation), Be as easy as falling off

a log (Extremely easy) The second group, for example: some idioms expressing

neutral meaning we have fall asleep (go to sleep And in the last group typical

examples of idioms with negative meanings are fall flat (Fail, prove to be in effective), Fall short (Fail to reach its target), Fall apart (Collapse, break down

either physically or mentally and emotionally)

In short, idioms can be motivated, partially – motivated and non –motivated Also, idiomatic expressions can convey positive, neutral, or negative meanings

Classification of idioms

It is generally accepted to classify idioms according to their meaning (semantically) and structure (structurally) In addition to structural and semantic classification of idiomatic expressions, Gramley and Patzhold (2004, p.56-57) distinguish more categories They classify idioms according to the “image or picture they evoke” and divide them into four distinct groups:

 Idioms with a focus on individual (keep a stiff upper lip)

 Idioms with a focus on the world (go down the drain)

 Idioms that refer to the interaction of individuals (lend someone a helping

hand)

 Idioms which express the interaction between an individual and the world

(take up arms for something)

Yet another classification was put forward by Makkai (as cited in Fernando

1996, 19-20)

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The first group is based on imagery: the sea, hunting, cattle, sheep, swine, birds, trees, etc It is stated that body part idioms are prevailing in English because

“about fifty parts of the human body (…) are all put to vivid expressive uses; verb +

particle combinations, e.g pull through, keep up, etc.” (as cited in Fernando 1996,

19-20) The second group of idioms, according to Makkai, contains expressions denoting determination, exasperation and vituperation Makkai also identifies two major types of idioms, i.e those of encoding and decoding He classifies idioms of decoding “as lexemic and sememic, giving greater attention to the structure of the lexemic variety” (as cited in Fernando 1989, 5)

A major difficulty encountered by linguists is the task of classifying idiomatic phrases Classification of idioms depends on the linguist’s point of view and, as such, can be questioned Peaty (1983) claimed that idioms can be classified according to their literal and metaphorical meanings, structure and the degree of idiomaticity The classifications presented and discussed in the sections below are shared by many authors and treated as the most reliable ones

After applying all their classifications on English and Vietnamese comparative idioms, we have found that Gramley and Patzhold (2004) classification

is the most suitable one by which we can follow to carry out our thesis

2.2.5 Overview of proverbs

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (Hornby, 2006) has given a definition: a proverb is a well-known phrase or sentence that gives advice or says something that

is generally true, for example: Time is money

According to Linda and Roger Flavell (1993), proverb is a concise sentence, often metaphorical or alliterative in form, which is held to express some truth ascertained by experience or observation and familiar to all

Paul Hermadi and Francis Steen (1999) make it clearly by considering proverbs brief, memorable, and intuitively convincing formulation of socially sanctioned advice The concept of proverb is, however, a bit different in Vietnamese

Alan Dundes (1978) standing on the concept defined structure: A proverb is

a traditional propositional statement consisting of at least one descriptive element consisting of a topic and comment

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However, in Vietnamese, the concept of proverb is a bit different Vietnamese dictionary defines proverb as short statements, often expressed with rhythm, which sum up knowledge, life experience and moral lesson of people

According to Phạm Văn Bình (1993), a proverb is a complete sentence expressing an idea of comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism

Another linguist defines a proverb is the mouthpiece formed in everyday speech Those are the words but units exist in the memory of the community as a unit of language

For example:

- Ăn cây táo, rào cây sung

- Lên voi xuống chó

- Mưa dầm thấm lâu,…

In short, in the opinion of many researchers, although few short way, proverb

is also a sentence express a full meaning, the meaning of the proverb is that a combination of each of its constituent The meaning of the proverb may be a comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism

We also can indicate some following common features of proverb according

to Obeng (1996):

- Proverbs are passed down through time with little change in form

- Proverbs are often used metaphorically and it is understandable that their

metaphorical nature we can unravel their meaning

For example: a stitch in time saves nine, don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater

- Proverbs often make use of grammatical and theoretical devices that help

to make them memorable, including alliteration, rhyme, parallel structure,

repetition of key words or phrases, and strong imagery

2.2.6 The Distinction among Free Word Combinations, Idiomatic Expressions and Collocations

Free Word Combinations

In the point of view of Kathleen R McKeown and Dragomir R Radev, a free word combination can be described using general rules; that is, in terms of semantic constraints on the words which appear in a certain syntactic relation with

a given headword Thus, examples of free word combinations include

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put+[object] or run+[object] (i.e „manage‟) where the words that can occur as

object are virtually open-ended In the case of put, the semantic constraint on the

object is relatively open-ended (any physical object can be mentioned) and thus the

range of words that can occur is relatively unrestricted In the case of run (in the

sense of „manage‟ or „direct‟) the semantic restrictions on the object are tighter but still follow a semantic generality: any institution or organization can be

managed (e.g business, ice cream parlor, etc.) To put it in a nutshell, free word

combinations have the properties that each of the words can be replaced by another without seriously modifying the overall meaning of the composite unit and if one

of the words is omitted, a reader cannot easily infer it from the remaining ones

Collocation

Unlike free word combinations, a collocation is a group of words that occur together more often than by chance On the other hand, unlike idioms, individual words in a collocation can contribute to the overall semantics of the compound Collocations fall between these extremes and it can be difficult to draw the line between categories A word combination fails to be classified as free and is termed

a collocation when the number of words which can occur in a syntactic relation with a given headword decreases to the point where it is not possible to describe the set using semantic regularities

Idioms

An idiom, on the other hand, is a rigid word combination to which no generalities apply; Neither can its meaning be determined from the meaning of its parts nor can it participate in the usual word-order variations (Fernado,1996)

An expression is an idiom, described by Jon Wright (1999:7) when it carries the following features:

1 It is fixed and it is recognized by native speakers You cannot make up your own!

2 It uses language in a non-literal-metaphorical way

According to Jack C Richard et al (1992: 172), idiom is an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from its separate parts Robins (1989), Palmer (1981), Jackson and Evenla (2000), Seidle (1978) and Cruse (1986) all treat idioms as a special kind of collocation, however,

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meaning of an idiom cannot be deduced from the meanings of its constituents For example, „make it‟ – the collocation of „make‟ and „it‟ is an idiom meaning

„succeed‟, which is not systematically determinable from the meanings of

„make‟ and „it‟

To sum up, idiom is a special kind of collocation in which the semantics of the whole cannot be deduced from the meanings of the individual constituents and without knowing the idiom it is often almost to understand it

For example:

to make good to make an appointment to be made of steel

to make it to make a promise to be made of iron

to make or break sb /st to make a mistake to be made from sugar

2.2.7 Criteria to distinguish idioms from free-word groups and proverbs

Idioms are often difficult to distinguish from free-word groups, sayings, especially proverbs because all of them are stable structure We have some characters to realize them

With free-word groups and saying, this means to be easier to recognize them Free-word group is a short of words which are often used together or a sequence of two or more words arranged in a grammatical construction and acting as a single unit in sentence as the underlined expressions:

- We are going to the White house (used as a noun phrase of the sentence)

- This green house belongs to a famous player (used as a noun and subject of the sentence)

There are two criteria for distinguish free word groups from idioms Firstly, there is the semantic difference of two groups of the same constituents, and secondly meaning? if free-word group is not united and figurative However, according to Autryshina (1995), structure variability is one of essential features to distinguish idioms from free-word groups Firstly, idioms have restriction in the substitution Secondly, idioms have restriction in adding elements And lastly, idioms have restriction in grammatical invariability

Idioms and proverbs are likely the most difficult to distinguish because they have many similar characteristics, they are both stable structure and figurative In fact, the borderline between them is not very clear and solid

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According to Advanced Learner’s dictionary, a proverb is defined as “a short well-known sentence or phrase that states a general truth about life or gives advice’ Many points of view give consumptions about proverbs, but we can clarify briefly that proverb is a short sentence, usually known by many people, stating something commonly experienced or giving advice or a short popular saying, usually of ancient origin, that experienced effectively some commonplace truth or useful thought or a moral lesson We can consider following example:

- “Better alone than in ill company” (chọn bạn mà chơi) (1)

- “He laughs best who laughs last” (cười người chớ vội cười lâu, cười người hôm trước hôm sau người cười) (2)

Both of these examples, giving advice (1) or warning (2) tell us experiences in life We can see that a proverb has been concluded from the experience in life, it is likely a lesson The differences between idioms and proverbs appear caused by two main reasons:

Firstly, there is difference about function and meaning The content of idiom is that

of concept, while the content of a proverb is that of judgment It means a proverb express a judgment so that it has a reporting function, and an idiom express a concept so that is has a naming function For instance:

- Proverb: “fine words butter no parsnip” (có thực mới vực được đạo)

- Idiom: “like a dog with two tails” (very happy)

In general meaning of a proverb, we have already distinguished above, it is helpful

to realize proverbs in language

Secondly, there are differences in structure An idiom is usually a phrase, but a proverb is a sentence Although definitions show that an idiom is a phrase, in fact it can be a sentence or a clause like a proverb The most important thing in difference about structure is stability of structure

An idiom has a non-productive syntactic structure You cannot change, move, stolen or omit any part of it because this will destroy idiomatic meaning of expression For example, with idiom “in seventh heaven” (be very happy about something) you cannot change like this “in seven paradise”, although “heaven” and

“paradise” are synonyms Or you cannot add any words in to the idiom “be drown

in tears”, if it is “be drown in many tears”, it immediately loses idiomatic expression whereas proverbs can have all characteristics above We can consider

2.2.8 The meanings of the word “play” in English

According to Oxford Advanced learners Dictionary (7th edition) the word “play” has the following meanings:

“play” as a verb

ENJOY E.g.: The children spent the afternoon playing with their new toys

GAME

to take part in a game or other organized activity

Eg: Do you want to play cards/football (with us)?

to compete against a person or team in a game:

Eg: Who are the Giants playing next week?

ACT

to perform music on an instrument or instruments:

Eg: He learned to play the clarinet at the age of ten

to (cause a machine to) produce sound or a picture:

Eg: Play the last few minutes of the video again

to perform an entertainment or a particular character in a play, film, etc

Eg: I didn't realize that "Macbeth" was playing (= being performed) at the festival

to behave or pretend in a particular way, especially in order to produce a particular effect or result:

Eg: Would you mind playing host (= entertaining the guests)