Grammatical and semantic features of set expressions of behavior in english and in vietnamese

Nevertheless, due to a certain gap in syntactic and semantic perspectives, the idioms and proverbs ò behavior have not received enough attention from linguists in both English and Vietna

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

GRAMATICAL AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF

SET EXPRESSIONS OF BEHAVIOR IN

ENGLISH AND IN VIETNAMESE

(Đặc điểm ngữ pháp và ngữ nghĩa của các cụm cố định về ứng xử trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt)

ĐINH THI THUY LINH

Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh

Hanoi, 2020

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

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

“Grammatical and semantic features of set expressions of behavior in English and

in Vietnamese” 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

Assoc Pro Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh

Date: / /2020

in all the time of research and writing of this thesis Without her help, this thesis would not have been possible

My sincere thanks also go to all lecturers and the staff of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies at Hanoi Open University for their useful lectures, assistance, and enthusiasm during my course

Last but not least, I wish to thank my family and friends for their support and encouragement throughout my study

In short, I really thank everyone who helped me complete this thesis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

ABSTRACT vi

List of abbreviations vii

List of tables and figures viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 9

1.1 Rationale 9

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 10

1.3 Research questions 10

1.4 Methods of the study 11

1.5 Scope of the study 11

1.6 Significance of the study 12

1.7 Structure of the study 12

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 13

2.1 Previous studies 13

2.1.1 Previous Studies of English and Vietnamese Idioms 13

2.1.2 Previous Studies of English and Vietnamese Proverbs 15

2.2 Theory of syntax 17

2.3 Theory of semantics 20

2.4 Overview of expressions 21

2.4.1 Definitions of behavior 21

2.4.2 Definition of proverbs and idioms 22

2.4.2.1 Definition of proverbs 22

2.4.2.2 Definition of idioms 24

2.4.3 Features of proverbs 27

2.4.3.1 Syntactic features 27

2.4.3.2 Semantic features 29

2.4.4 Features of idioms 30

2.4.4.1 Syntactic features 31

2.4.4.2 Semantic features 33

2.5 Summary 35

CHAPTER 3: A COMPARISON BETWEEN SET EXPRESSIONS OF

BEHAVIOR IN ENGLISH AND IN VIETNAMESE

3.1 Grammatical features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese 36

3.1.1 Grammatical features of set expressions of behavior in English 36

3.1.1.1 Noun Phrases 36

3.1.1.2 Verb Phrases 37

3.1.1.3 Adjective Phrases 37

3.1.1.4 Preposition phrase 37

3.1.1.5 Sentences 38

3.1.2 Grammatical features of set expressions of behavior in Vietnamese 39

3.1.2.1 Noun Phrase 39

3.1.2.2 Verb Phrase 39

3.1.2.3 Adjective Phrase 40

3.1.2.4 Sentences 40

3.2 Semantic features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese 42

3.2.1 Semantic features of set expressions of behavior in English 43

3.2.1.1 Expressing good points 43

3.2.1.2 Expressing bad points 44

3.2.2 Semantic features of set expressions of behavior in Vietnamese 46

3.2.2.1 Expressing good points 46

3.2.2.2 Expressing bad points 47

3.3 A comparison between the grammatical and semantic features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese 49

3.3.1 In terms of grammatical features 49

3.3.2 In terms of sematic features 51

3.4 Implications for teaching and learning set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese 53

3.5 Summary 55

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION 56

4.1 Recapitulation of the study 56

4.2 Concluding remark of the study 56

4.3 Limitation of the study 57

4.4 Suggestions for further studies 57 REFERENCES 58 APPENDIXES 63

of set expressions of behavior in English and focus on the meanings of the English set expressions of behavior and a comparative analysis with Vietnamese ones Hopefully, the study may help learners and teachers of English avoid difficulties in teaching and learning set expressions

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1 Grammatical features of set expressions of behavior in English 34 Table 3.2 Grammatical features of set expressions of behavior in Vietnamese ……….36 Table 3.3 Semantic features of set expressions of behavior in English 41 Table 3.4 Semantic features of set expressions of behavior in Vietnamese 44 Table 3.5 Grammatical features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese 45 Table 3.6 Semantic features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese 47

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Language, a system of conventional spoken, manual, or written symbols by means

of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotional release Language is used to show not only the way of each people perceives the world around but also the way each people reacts towards that world In “General linguistics”, Robins (1989) almost concurred, saying “A language [is a] symbol system … based on pure or arbitrary convention … infinitely extendable and modifiable according to the changing needs and conditions of the speakers” The American linguists, Bernard Bloch and George L Trager formulated the following definition: “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.”

Set expressions were formed along with the development of national language capital, closely related to proverbs, folk songs They occupy a large number in the treasure in English and in Vietnamese For a long time, set expressions have been a means of communication in people's daily life, moreover, set expressions have been used by many writers and poets in the literature to contribute to the content of the work It can be said, set expressions are "The jewel of the nation" by its common use-value is crystallized from the language, quintessence of national culture

Set expressions are used to express ideas in figurative styles They bring the vividness and richness to the speakers’ speeches This is the reason why the more skillfully a person uses idioms in his conversations, the more effectively he can establish his communicative relationship One more important thing is that the general present tendencies are towards idiomatic usage; therefore, knowing how to use set expressions effectively in the right situations is becoming essential Moreover, the most distinguished advantage of set expressions is that they do provide users with

a whole new way of expressing concepts linguistically It can be said that set expressions are the color and vitality of a language

Several linguists have given a lot of definitions about an idiom and a proverb basing on its fixed characteristics For example, "An idiom is a fixed group of words with special different meaning from the meaning of several words" (Longman Dictionary of English Idioms (1979) Sharing the same point of view, Hoang Van

Hanh (1994) considered an idiom as a fixed group of words which is firm in terms of structure, complete and figurative in terms of meaning, and is widely used in daily speaking Nattinger, De Carrico cited in Tajali &Tehrani (2009) considers idioms as

"most important subcategory of the lexical phenomenon of formulaic language" Mieder (1993) has proposed the following definition, "A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorable form and which is handed down from generation to generation"

Theoretically, there have been so far a lot of studies and investigations into idioms concerning animals, plants, colors, causes, and results, etc Nevertheless, due to a certain gap in syntactic and semantic perspectives, the idioms and proverbs ò behavior have not received enough attention from linguists in both English and Vietnamese, especially in terms of syntactic and semantic features

Practically, set expressions are used a lot in communication, but many people don’t know the real meaning of set expressions, so this study is conducted in the hope to help Vietnamese learners of English improve their understanding of set expressions and apply set expressions in communication so that their speech is more adequate, natural, interesting and imaginative

Therefore, the thesis title is “Grammatical and semantic features of set expressions

of behavior in English and in Vietnamese” with the aim at helping the learners understand grammatical and semantic features of set expressions and use these expressions in communication in order to achieve communicate effects

1.2 Aims and objectives

The study is aimed at helping Vietnamese learners of English have a better insight into set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese in terms of grammatical and semantic features

With the aim mentioned above, this study has three main objectives as follows:

1 To identify the grammatical and semantic features of set expressions of

behavior in English and in Vietnamese

2 To find out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese set expressions of behavior in terms of grammatical and semantic features

3 To help Vietnamese learners of English use these set expressions of behavior

in term of communication in order to achieve communicate effects

1.3 Research questions

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

1 What are the grammatical and semantic features of English and Vietnamese set expressions of behavior ?

2 What are similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese set expressions of behavior in terms of grammatical and semantic features?

3 What implication is drawn to help Vietnamese learners of English use these set expressions of behavior in term of communication in order to achieve

communicate effects?

1.4 Methods of the study

In order to achieve the aims given, the qualitative and quantitative approaches are used in combination with descriptive and comparative methods

Firstly, qualitative and qualitative approaches are used to count and classify English and Vietnamese proverbs and idioms indicating behavior to be taken as a basis for classification according to grammatical and semantic features

Secondly, the descriptive method is used to describe in detail the grammatical and semantic features through the examples of set expressions of behavior in English and

in Vietnamese collected from dictionaries, reference books, and the Internet websites Thirdly, contrastive method is used to compare and contrast grammatical and semantic features of English set expressions of behavior and their Vietnamese equivalents

Finally, some techniques are used as data collection and data analysis A number

of data relating to set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese are collected from dictionaries, reference books, and Internet websites Data collected will then be analyzed in order to find out the similarities and differences between set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese

1.5 Scope of the study

In the framework of the study, the thesis only focuses on set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese, namely, linguistic features of set expressions

of behavior in English and in Vietnamese are grammatical and semantic features 217

set expressions of behavior in English are found and 438 set expressions of behavior

in Vietnamese are collected from reference books, dictionaries and Internet websites The English and Vietnamese set expressions of behavior in this study are collected from dictionaries, reference books, and the Internet websites; therefore, this research may not cover all set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese

1.6 Significance of the study

Idioms and proverbs as a special form of language which makes people have difficulties in understanding conversations because they cannot guess the true meaning of set expressions in normal ways Learning English through set expressions

is one of the effective ways to improve your English because idioms and proverbs denote a large number of cultural features of nations Therefore, thanks to this research, language learners can get a lot of pros in studying English

Theoretically, this research provides a detailed view of set expressions of behavior

in both English and Vietnamese in terms of grammatical and semantic features Then the findings can be used as a foundation for other researches on idioms and proverbs

in English and Vietnamese under other perspectives

Practically, the results of the study provide valuable implications for efficient teaching and learning English in Vietnam in general, and teaching and learning set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese in particular As a whole, it

is hoped that along with the understanding of the grammatical and syntactic features

of these set expressions in English and Vietnamese, this study can be a useful material for learning and teaching of language through set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese

1.7 Structure of the study

This study consists of four chapters, excluding the appendixes and the references Chapter 1, Introduction, presents the reason why the topic is chosen, the aims, the

objectives, the scope, the significance and the structural design of the study are given

Chapter 2, Literature Review, presents the previous studies, theoretical background,

theoretical framework relating to grammatical and semantic features of expressions

of behavior in English and in Vietnamese

Chapter 3, Findings and Discussion, presents grammatical and semantic features of

set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese, a comparison between the grammatical and semantic features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese and implications for teaching and learning set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese

Chapter 4, Conclusions, restates the aims and summarize how to conduct the

research to the objectives Furthermore, this chapter also presents the limitations of the research and some suggestions for further studies

References and Appendix come at the end of the study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature review is divided into three main parts The first part presents and discusses the previous research works on idioms and proverbs in English and Vietnamese The second one gives the theoretical background of idioms and proverbs

in English and Vietnamese on which the whole research has been based The last one provides not only the definition of behavior but also the definition as well as features

of idioms and proverbs

2.1 Previous studies

2.1.1 Previous Studies of English and Vietnamese Idioms

It goes without saying that idioms and proverbs reflect the various experiences of laborers’ lives; moreover, they also reflect the soul of each country Idioms and proverbs are used for the number of communicative, academic and literary purposes

as pragmatic devices, and they have raised an increasing interest of linguists and researchers due to their linguistic function and capacity of expression In reality, idioms and proverbs have been becoming a subject of study by several British, American and so on Cruse, the author of “Lexical semantics” (1987), states that idioms are semantically lexical complex This is considered as a traditional view point

of idioms that are homophonous with grammatically well-formed transparent expressions So as to make clear the concept of idioms, he gives some more related

concepts to idioms, collocations and dead metaphor

F.R Palmer, the writer of “Semantics” (1990) defines idioms as consequences of words whose meanings cannot be predicted from the meaning of the words themselves Semantically, idioms are single units, but not single grammatical units like words He also brought about some restrictions in syntactic features and noted that the problems of idioms were involved with a much wider issue word formation,

by which what would appear to be new and more complex lexemes can be formed from single ones

Cristina Cacciari & Patrizia Tabossi (1993) in “idioms-processing, structure, and interpretation” focus on 3 main points: idiom interpretation and the literal figurative distinction, acquisition and processing of idioms, and meaning and structure In short, they can help the readers have a more vivid and clear understanding about idioms

J Wright in “Idioms Organizer” (2000) pointed out that an idiom is an expression that takes grammar functions in sentences, some idiomatic expressions are fixed such

as every dog has its day but in many cases, some component can be changed Very often the tense and the pronoun change: he/ she/ we had a dog life In addition, he

organized English idiom into 4 sections: areas of metaphor, individual metaphors, topics and key words

In the “dictionary of idioms and their origins” (1994) by Linda and Roger Flavell, the authors had many essays that discussed idioms Beside, idioms have also been a subject of a great number of studies and researches by many other linguists The interest in idioms casts back a perception of the universality of prefabricated-memorized combinations in spoken and in written language, and in a wide recognition of the part they play in the first and language acquisition and speech production

Since the end of 1970s, Vietnamese idioms have been recognized, collected and

explained systematically such as in "Từ điển thành ngữ Việt Nam, Nguyen Y as editor”, “Từ điển giải nghĩa thành ngữ Việt Nam, Institute of Linguistics”, “Từ điển

thành ngữ Việt Nam, Nguyen Luc and Luong Van Dang”

Nguyen Luc, Luong Van Dang who wrote “Thành ngữ Tiếng Việt” made an

important contribution to the field of Vietnamese idioms They collected and arranged the Vietnamese idioms in alphabetical order with clear explanations and examples

“Từ vựng ngữ nghĩa tiếng Việt” by Do Huu Chau (1981) studied quite carefully

about idioms The author compares idioms with complex words and phrases and at the same time, he also conducted idiomatic classification In this book, he analyzed semantic and syntactic features of Vietnamese idioms

There have been a lot of contrastive studies on the various aspects of English and Vietnamese idioms are carried out by many MA scholars Nguyen Thi Le Thu (Danang University, 2014) did a contrastive study into semantic features of similes

in English and Vietnamese idioms through the thesis “An Investigation into Simile

in Idioms – a Contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese” The thesis is

“The image of "Mouse, Horse, Cat, Chicken" in English idioms and proverbs with

reference to Vietnamese equivalents” (Nguyen Huong Giang, HOU, 2014) A study

is “Money-related idioms in English with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents”

(Vu Thi Huong Giang, HOU, 2014) In 2014, Pham Thi Thuy Chinh (ULIS-VNU) with the thesis: “A contrastive study of how temporal expressions in English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs about times” was perceived

To conclude, idioms in English are studied in several aspects such as syntax, semantics, culture, pragmatism, etc and are studied from different perspectives However, most scholars pay attention to the structures and semantics of idioms When studying the idiomatic structures, idioms are described in terms of one or more structural properties When studying semantics, scholars study the hidden concept of idioms Such an approach leads to the nature of cognition and thus has valid psychology

2.1.2 Previous Studies of English and Vietnamese Proverbs

In the treasure of intangible cultural knowledge of the English and Vietnamese people, language is one of the important factors, preserving specific cultural features

of the English and Vietnamese people, including the behavioral culture In the language units, proverbs are the messages that best reflect the notions of the people about behavior in the family and society of the two nations

The study of proverbs is an interesting topic not only in foreign countries but also

in Vietnam in the current period

F Edward Hulme (1841– 1909) published his volume on Proverb Lore: Being a

Historical Study of the Similarities, Contrasts, Topics, Meanings, and Other Facets

of Proverbs, Truisms, and Pithy Sayings, as Explained by the Peoples of Many Lands and Times (1902) Hulme’s treatise basically replaced Trench’s popular volume, and

it was appropriate that it was reprinted in 1968 to honor the work of this folklore

scholar But according to proverbial wisdom, “All good things come in threes,” and thus there is also Archer Taylor’s (1890–1973) magisterial volume on The Proverb

(1931)

For Vietnamese proverbs, it can be said that there were the first typical works from

the early 20th century such as " Tục ngữ và ca dao, Nguyen Van Ngoc, 1928", " Tục

ngữ và ca dao Việt Nam, Vu Ngoc Phan in 1958”, , “Từ điển thành ngữ - tục ngữ

Việt Nam, Nguyen Lan”, “Từ điển Anh – Việt (2004), Linguistics Institute” It can be

seen that proverbs have attracted the attention of researchers very early Today, people can find a lot of written articles, online newspapers, textbooks, essays, dissertations or thesis that related to this issue It can be said that the study of proverbs in many people's thinking is obviously a category to be studied

Here are some studies conducts to find out features and related aspects of proverbs

“Thành ngữ tục ngữ lược giải” by Nguyen Tran Tru explains meanings the most

common idioms and proverbs

Only in Vietnam, there are many articles and research that works on this topic have a lot of contrastive approaches which have only received more attention

recently It is possible to name some typical projects such as: “Tuyển tập thành

ngữ-tục ngữ-ca dao Việt Anh thông dụng” by Nguyen Dinh Hung The author gives

definitions of idioms and proverbs and explains quite in detail with specific examples

At the same time, the author also lists and classifies Vietnamese idioms with equivalent English ones

From 1975 up to now, some elaborate works connected with proverbs have done their share to the knowledge of the field and one of the wholehearted authors we must not miss is Chu Xuan Diên who showed his profound understanding, deep opinion and clear analysis of the distinction between the two commonly mixed forms: idioms

and proverbs in his Tục ngữ Việt Nam (1997) which I consider a valuable source for

my study His other books include Tục ngữ Việt Nam with co-authors Luong Van

Đang, Phuong Tri (1975)

In a study on Syntactic and semantic features in proverbs about “Love” in English

and in Vietnamese (Nguyen Thi Kieu Diem, 2012, Da Nang University), the author

dealt with the features of English proverbs and made a contrastive analysis of proverbs about “Love” in English and Vietnamese counterparts

The two articles are “Văn hóa ứng xử từ gia đình đến xã hội” (Nguyen Hoa, Báo

ND điện tử, 2019) and “Đặc trưng văn hóa ứng xử của người Việt qua tục ngữ” (Do

Thi Kim Lien, 2017, Tạp chí VHNT 396) Through a group of proverbs indicating behavioral culture of Vietnamese people within the family and society, the writers draw some conclusions Vietnamese people have a well culture of behavior which needs to be promoted is that the lineages always attach great importance to affection and appreciate gratitude within the family In social relations, Vietnamese people always put personal interests in association with community interests; always preserve individual honor

Thereby, we see the specificity in proverbs At present, in the field of research and compilation of idioms and proverbs, there are only English-Vietnamese books that are relatively rich, and there are almost no full and highly accurate Vietnamese English books Meanwhile, a Vietnamese-English Idioms, Proverbs and Folk songs

is essential It makes the user to save a lot of time and effort when trying to find an equivalent idiom or proverb in English This book helps English learners have a rich vocabulary, express their ideas in a polished, image-rich way, with philosophical and

wise sayings when communicating in English with foreign people At the same time,

it also helps English language teachers provide interesting examples in the process of going to class, inspiring students to study, bringing high efficiency for teaching hours

In addition, this document also helps foreigners who are learning Vietnamese to learn about Vietnam's treasure of Folklore

Therefore, this thesis is not the first research project However, it is a work that goes deep into studying English expressions of behavior and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of grammatical and semantic features Hopefully, it will make certain contributions in clarifying the beauty of English-Vietnamese proverbs and idioms

2.2 Theory of syntax

Syntax refers to the ways in which we order specific words to create logical, meaningful sentences While the parts of speech are all the different types of words that we can use, syntax is the set of rules, patterns, or processes by which we can put them together Syntax can be seen as the governing principles defining which combinations of linguistic symbols are deemed to be correctly structured by natural language speakers

The syntax is the study of how the order of elements in a sentence affects its meaning English Syntax was concerned with how we studied sentences Syntactics not only related to the structure of sentences, but also to the structure of phrases and clauses

John Lyons (1981) states, “Syntax deals with the distribution of words (i.e forms)”

“Baker (1989) says, “By the Syntax of a language, we mean the body of rules that speakers of the language follow when they combine words into sentences.”

Linda (1993) states, “Syntax describes the way words fit together to form sentences” She adds one way to study syntax is to look at sentences which are already known to be considered syntactically ‘well-formed’ sentences to the speakers of that language

Andrew Carnie (2001) states, “Syntax is the cover term for studies of this level of language.”

Jim Miller (2002) states, “Syntax has to do with how words are put together to build phrases, with how phrases are put together to build sentences.”

In terms of the syntactic category, a syntactic category is a type of syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories, in phrase structure grammars, the phrasal categories (e.g noun phrase, verb phrase, prepositional phrase, etc.) are also syntactic categories

a Phrases

In terms of characteristics of phrases, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary (2005), “A phrase is a group of words which have a particular meaning

when used together” It is a syntactic structure that consists of more than one word but lacks the subject-predicate organization of a clause According to Angela Downing and Philip Lock in English Grammar (2007), and Victoria Flomklin, Robert Rodman, Peter Collins and David Blair in An Introduction to Language (2012), words are classified grammatically according to the traditional terminology, which includes noun, verb, adjective, preposition, pronoun, article, and conjunction Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs make up the largest part of the vocabulary

In the book The Oxford English Grammar (1996), Greenbaum, S defines:

Noun phrases, “a noun phrase has as its head a noun, a pronoun, a nominal adjective or numeral” (p.208) For examples, a wonderful spinach cheese, a citizen

of her own class, etc

Verb phrases, “a verb phrase has as its head a main (or lexical) verb The main

verb may be preceded by up to four auxiliaries (or auxiliary verb)” (p.246) For

examples, was sank, has been sunk, etc

Adjective phrase, “an adjective phrase has as its head an adjective, which may be

preceded by premodifiers, and followed by postmodifier” (p.288) For examples, fond

of steak, very happy, etc

Adverb phrase, “an adverb phrase has as its adverb, which may be by premodifiers

and (less commonly) followed by postmodifier.” (p.295), for example, much more

easily than I could count

Prepositional phrase, "a preposition consists of a preposition and the complement

of the preposition The preposition may be pre- modified by an intensifying adverb The prepositional complement is chiefly a noun phrase, an –ing participle clause or

wh-clause" (p.300) For instance, on the chair, etc

In the book, An Introduction to the Grammar of English: Syntactic arguments and

socio-historical background (2002), Elly van Gelderen states:

Noun phrases, “a noun phrase is built around a noun which is called the head of

the noun phrase In addition to the head, a noun phrase can contain determiners and

adjectives as well as other elements” (p.31) For example, the beautiful girl, a bottle

of water, etc

Verb phrases, “a verb phrase is built around a verb, which can indicate an action,

a state, or a sensation Verbs can be in the present or past tense” (p.35) For example,

listened to music, washed the clothes, etc

Adjective phrase, “an adjective phrase is built around adjectives, which indicate

properties of nouns.” (p.35) For instance, so handsome, tired of working, etc

Adverb phrase, “an adverb phrase is built around adverbs which indicate qualities

of verbs, adverbs, and adjectives” (p.35) For instance, very quickly, quite

comfortable, etc

Prepositional phrase, “a prepositional is built around a preposition Prepositions

indicate relations in space and time A prepositional phrase includes a preposition and

a noun phrase.” (p.36) for example, on the board, the boy with blue trousers, etc In

fact, the thesis uses the names of each type of phrases mainly based on the viewpoint

of Sydney Greenbaum in The Oxford English Grammar

b Clause

Jacob (2003:49) considered a clause as “a construction with one phrase constituent,

a phrase bearing the predicate relation.” Doan Minh (2001:101) stated that “a clause

is a part of a sentence that usually has the Subject and the Predicate of its own.” This thesis is based on the definition of Quirk et al (1985: 42) According to him, clauses consist of more than one phrase

A clause is a group of words containing a subject and a predicate and forming part of

a compound or complex sentence (www.wordnik.com/words/clause) In accordance with Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clause), a clause is the smallest grammatical

unit that can express a complete proposition A typical clause in English contains minimally a subject and a predicate In other languages, the subject is often omitted

if it is retrievable from context

A typical clause in English contains minimally a subject and a predicate In other languages, the subject is often omitted if it is retrievable from context A simple sentence usually consists of a single finite clause with a finite verb that

is independent More complex sentences may contain multiple clauses Main clause (= matrix clauses, independent clauses) are those that could stand as a

sentence by themselves Subordinate clauses (= embedded clauses, dependent clauses) are those that would be awkward or nonsensical if used alone In fact, the thesis uses the names of each type of clauses and sentences mainly based on the

viewpoint of Sydney Greenbaum in The Oxford English Grammar

c Sentence

In English, a sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full-stop, or

a question mark, or an exclamation mark

The sentence is generally defined as a word or a group of words that expresses a thorough idea by giving a statement/order, or asking a question, or exclaiming

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press affirms that “a sentence is a group of words, usually containing a verb that expresses a thought in the form of a statement, question, instruction, or exclamation and starts with a capital letter when written.”

All the definitions given above are different in some respects, but in general, the syntax is the grammar, structure or order of the elements in the language statement They are important criteria that are used in this thesis when analyse the syntactic features of set expressions in English and in Vietnamese In fact, the thesis uses the names of each type of sentences mainly based on the viewpoint of Sydney

Greenbaum in The Oxford English Grammar

2.3 Theory of semantics

The linguistic field is interested in the study of meaning in language Linguistic semantics has been defined as the study of linguistic ways of organizing and expressing meaning

Whereas syntax is the grammar, structure, or order of the elements in a language statement, semantics is the meaning of these elements According to Palmer (1976),

"semantic is generally considered as the study of meaning in a language"

Palmer (1981) says, “Semantics is a technical term used to refer to the study of meaning, and since meaning is part of language, semantics is part of linguistics

Unfortunately, “meaning” covers a variety of aspects of language, there is no general agreement about the nature of meaning, what aspects of it may properly be included

in semantics, or the way in which it should be described.”

There are some term semantics in various definition by some experts, they are: Palmer (1976) says, “Semantics is technical term used to refer to the study of meaning” Semantics looks at these relationships in language and looks at how these meanings are created, which is an important part of understanding how language works as a whole It is concerned with what sentences and other linguistics objects express, not with the arrangement of their syntactic parts or with their pronunciation Lyons (1977) defines “Semantics is generally defined as the study of meaning.” Akmajian (1979) says, “Semantics is generally considered to be the study of meaning (and related notions) in language, semantics is generally considered to be the study of reference (and related notions) in languages"

Saeed (2003) states, “Semantics is the study of meaning communicated through language.”

Semantics has developed and became worthy study There are two factors that make semantics become important and worthy study First, meaning is strictly connected with communication A certain meaning can be delivered through communication plays an important role in human life Second, the process of human attempts to comprehend the nature of meaning involves the mental ability by the use

of reasoning and perception As stated by Leech (1974), “Semantics is central to the study of communication; and as communication becomes more and more crucial factor in social organization, the need to understand it becomes more and more pressing Semantics is also at the centre of the study of the human mind-thought process, cognition and conceptualization.”

All of these meanings given above are different in some respects but mainly semantics is a division of linguistics dealing with the meaning of words, it is a study concerned with the meaning of the linguistic string It means the analysis must be concentrated on what sentences or other linguistic objects convey not to the arrangement of their syntactic part of their grammatical form

2.4 Overview of set expressions

2.4.1 Definitions of behavior

Behavior is an expression of communication, a person's reaction to the impact of others on a certain situation through the person's attitudes, behavior, gestures, and

speech aiming to achieve good results in human relationships In terms of personality, the nature of behavior is the individual's personality characteristics expressed through the individual's attitude, behavior, gestures and speech with those around him or her Cultural behavior is the manifestation of human external activities, expressed in a person's lifestyle, lifestyle, thinking and behavior towards oneself, with those around,

in public society, at work and in daily operating environment However, the cultural behavior of each individual is different It is formed through the process of learning, training and growth of each individual in society Cultural behavior is considered to

be the cultural, ethical and aesthetic values of each individual expressed through attitudes, behaviors, gestures, words of each individual

Elizabeth A Minton, Lynn R Khale (2014) Belief Systems, Religion, and

Behavioral Economics New York: Business Expert Press LLC states, “Behavior is

the actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in conjunction with themselves or their environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the (inanimate) physical environment It is the computed response of the system or organism to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external , conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary.”

According to Cambridge University Press (2008), behavior is the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others or the way that someone behaves in a particular situation Le Thi Bung (2001) stated that behavior is the reaction of people to the impact of others on themselves in a particular situation and demonstrates that people are not active in communication but active in selective, calculated responses, expressed through attitudes, behaviors, gestures, and speech patterns depending on experienced knowledge of each person to achieve the highest communicative results In fact, the thesis uses the definition of behavior mainly based

on both the reaction and the way of reacting

2.4.2 Definition of proverbs and idioms

2.4.2.1 Definition of proverbs

Proverbs are folklore genre in order to summarize people's experiences and knowledge in the form of short, concise, rhythmic, easy-to-remember, easy-to-convey and often rhyming sentences Proverbial contents often reflect the experiences

of productive labor, record historical and social phenomena, or express the folk philosophy of the nation The amount of proverbs created and handed down by the

people for a long time is very rich Proverbs provide the daily speech of the people, and give literary language a concise, highly generalizable form of expression

Between form and content, proverbs are closely connected, a proverb usually has two meanings: a literal and a figurative meaning Proverbs have the nature of summarizing, generalizing specific comments into mottos and truths The image of proverbs is linguistic image built from the measures of comparison, humanization, metaphor, etc

These are some following definitions of proverbs:

Lord John Russell (1850) observed poetically that a "proverb is the wit of one, and the wisdom of many." But giving the word "proverb" the sort of definition theorists need has proven to be a difficult task, and although scholars often quote Archer Taylor's argument that formulating a scientific "definition of a proverb is too difficult

to repay the undertaking An incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not Hence no definition will enable us to identify positively

a sentence as proverbial," many students of proverbs have attempted to itemize its essential characteristics

More constructively, Mieder (1993) has proposed the following definition, "A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorable form and which is handed down from generation to generation"

Norrick (1985) created a table of distinctive features to distinguish proverbs from idioms, cliches, etc Prahlad (1996) distinguishes proverbs from some other, closely related types of sayings, "True proverbs must further be distinguished from other types of proverbial speech, e.g proverbial phrases, Wellerisms, maxims, quotations, and proverbial comparisons."

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2001) a proverb is “a short pithy saying in common and recognized use; a concise sentence, often metaphorical or alternative in form, which is held to express some truth ascertained by experience or observation and familiar to all.”

In Vietnamese, Vu Ngoc Phan in “Tục ngữ ca dao dân ca” indicates that a proverb

is a sentence that fully expresses itself an idea, an observation, an experience, a morality, a justice, sometimes a criticism

Nguyen Van To in “Tục ngữ ta đối với tục ngữ Tàu và tục ngữ Tây” states that

proverbs are a familiar saying in secularism, with many profound and profound meanings

Duong Quang Ham in “Việt Nam văn học sử yếu” proposes that a proverb by itself

must have meaning, or counsel or indicate something

Therefore, a proverb can be considered a complete literary work because it carries within itself all three basic functions of literature: cognitive function, aesthetic

function and educational function For example, the Vietnamese proverb "Uống

nước, nhớ nguồn" expresses a comment on the gratitude for those who have brought

about the results they are enjoying The cognitive function of this proverb helps people understand the basis of social relations and to have meaningful lives Its educational function is to contribute to the affection between people and people in a good way in relationships in life Its aesthetic function is to transmit content so people have used metaphorical rhetoric and images that make readers more persuasive and receptive Corresponding to the proverb, in English there is a sentence "Never cast dirt into that fountain of which you sometimes drunk “Proverbs are defined in different ways; however, they still have things in common that can help us understand what a proverb is These definitions are clues for us to identify proverbs in using and studying With the aims of syntactic and semantic analysis of proverbs in both English and Vietnamese, I intend to adopt the definition of idioms given out by Mieder (1993) who has proposed the following definition, "A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorable form and which is handed down from generation

to generation" Behavioral proverbs are proverbs that meet the definition of proverbs and express the meaning of behavior

2.4.2.2 Definition of idioms

Idioms are one of an expression whose meaning does not seem to follow logically from combination words of meaning It is also called a group of words which has a meaning that is not to be found in the analysis of its part in idiom, the word or the combination of words cannot be meant literally meaning but it must be meant in a group of words and it is meant contextually Idioms express a particular sentiment, but they do not literally mean what the individual words themselves mean As a language form, idioms have its own characteristic and patterns and used in high

frequency whether in written language or oral language because idioms can convey

a host of language and cultural information when people chat to each other

Up to now, there are many definitions of idioms

Cruse (1986) pays much attention to the semantic features of idioms, according to him, “idioms is an expression the meaning of which cannot be inferred from the meaning of its parts”

A similar definition is given by Seidl and McMordie, who say that “an idiom can

be defined as a number of words which, when taken together, have a different meaning from the individual meanings of each word” (Seidl & McMordie 1988: 12–13)

In Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics, the term idiom is defined simply as “an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from its separate parts” For example: “She washed her hands of the matter” means “She refused to have anything more to do with the matter” (Richards & Schmidt 2010: 270)

Michael McCarthy Felicity O’Dell, writers of English Idioms in use (2017:6),

considers idioms are expressions which have meaning that is not obvious from the

individual words For example, the idioms drive somebody round the bend means

make somebody angry or frustrated, but we cannot know this just by looking at the words

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1988) defines an idiom as “a phrase which means something different from their meanings of the separate words from which it is formed”

Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American language (2nd college edition, 1970) gives this definition “an accepted phrase, construction, or expression contrary

to the patterns of the language's having a meaning different from the language or

having different from the literal”

Collins Co-build Learner’s Dictionary (1996) defines an idiom as “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”

New Simplified English Dictionary (1966) gives an idiom such a definition as “a group of words which have a special meaning when used together”

Many linguists such as Palmer (1990), states that "an idiom is an expression whose meaning cannot be inferred from the meanings of its parts"

Seidle and Mordie (1978) who considers “an idiom is a number of words which, taken together, mean something different from the individual words of the idiom when they stand alone”

Laval (2003) states: “Idiomatic expressions are expressions where there is a

considerable difference between what said (literal interpretation) is and what is meant (idiomatic interpretation) In other words, the meaning of an idiomatic expressions depend largely on a convention that relates a given linguistic form to a given meaning”

Collins has a different way to define idioms but shares the similar idea To take the definition by Collins (1996) to consider, an idiom is "a special kind of phrase" It is a group of words which have a different meaning when used together from the one it would have if the meaning of each word were taken individually […] idioms are typical metaphorical: they are effective metaphors which have become “fixed‟ or

“fossilized"

According to Palmer (1990), idioms as consequences of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meaning of the words themselves Semantically, idioms are single units, but they are not single grammatical units like words He also printed out some restriction in syntactic features and noted that the problem of idioms was involved with the much wider issue of word formation, by which what would appear

to be new and more complex lexemes can be formed from single ones

In Vietnam, idioms have also attracted a lot of the interest of researchers

According to Hoang Phe (2006), “idioms are a set of fixed words that are used in

a way that its meaning is often unexplainable in terms of the words' meaning” Duong Quang Ham in “Việt Nam văn học sử yếu” states that “idioms are just words available for us to use to express an idea, a state to be colorful”

Vu Ngoc Phan in the “Tục ngữ ca dao dân ca” proposes that “idioms are an existing part of the sentence that many people are familiar with, but in itself does not express

a complete idea”

Hoang Van Hanh defines in “Kể chuyện thành ngữ, tục ngữ” (1994) that idioms are

"set expressions which are stable in their morpho – structure, complete and figurative

in their meaning, used widely in daily communication, especially in speech"

Mai Ngoc Chu, Vu Duc Nghieu and Hoang Trong Phien (2008) in "Cơ Sở Ngôn Ngữ Học Tiếng Việt" affirm that “idioms are groups of words which are syntactically

restricted and have a particular meaning Their meaning are often imaginative and figurative”

Phan Van Que in “Ngữ nghĩa của thành ngữ, tục ngữ có thành tố chỉ động vật trong Tiếng Anh” (1996) defined idiom 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 in common that can help us understand what an idiom is These definitions are clues for us to identify idioms in using and studying With the aims of syntactic and semantic analysis of idioms in both English and Vietnamese, I intend to adopt the definition of idioms given out by Seidle and Mordie (1978) who considers “an idiom is a number

of words which, taken together, mean something different from the individual words

of the idiom when they stand alone”

2.4.3 Features of proverbs

Grammatically as well as semantically, the proverb has special characteristics Mieder (1993) has proposed the following definition, "A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorable form and which is handed down from generation to generation"

2.4.3.1 Syntactic features

In English, Mac Coinnigh, M (2015) states: “Proverbs appear in a variety of different sentence types; from a syntactic perspective, these sentences may be classified into four distinct types according to the number of clauses and sub-clauses they contain These sentence types are: simple, compound, complex.”

(i) the most basic sentence is the simple sentence, which contains one main clause (subject and predicate) and no subclauses They are typically simple, declarative, non-oppositional, and stylistically unmarked i.e they do not contain many stylistic markers They appear in both affirmative and negative form as can be seen in the examples (1-2) below:

(1) a A clear conscience laughs at false accusations Affirmative (+)

b Lá lành đùm lá rách

(2) a A good anvil does not fear the hammer Negative (–)

b Giết người không đao kiếm

(ii) Compound sentences possess multiple independent clauses which are separated

by a coordinator (in English these are for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) There is a grammatical equality in these sentences, which balances the two clauses against one another through a central fulcrum in the shape of the coordinator These examples often display a type of semantic equality or contrast, which is created through the replication of the syntactic pattern In No.3 below we can see the two independent

clauses You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours located contiguously with the conjunction and acting as the central pivot However, in Vietnamese proverbs in

compound sentences, there is a comma between two independent clauses as can be seen in No.4

(3) You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours

[Clause] + [coordinator – and] + [Clause]

(4) Đàn ông cười hoa, đàn bà cười nụ

[Clause] + [comma mark] + [Clause]

(iii) Complex sentences contain one clause and one or more subclauses; the subclauses may be adjectival, nominal, or adverbial The structural balance in these proverbs is asymmetrical, with the subclause being dependent on the main clause as

can be seen in No 5 below, i.e the sublcause that breaks the camel’s back cannot stand alone grammatically, and is tied to the main clause in which the subject the last

straw is contained The subordinate clause often features a WH–subclause, which in

English begins with one of the following: what, where, who, why, or when (see 7) A stylistic feature of these proverbs is the repositioning of the subclause into sentence-initial position, usually for the purposes of emphasis as also can be seen in No.7

No.6-(5) [It is the last straw] [that breaks the camel’s back]

different functions, although some may be more frequently used than others The declarative (or indicative) function is a favored one in proverbs – as it is in natural speech – as it conveys information or ideas in the form of a statement (No 8)

(8) a Beauty is only skin deep

b Cái nết đánh chết cái đẹp

The communciative sentences types feature the imperative form in which an order

is given These, as we can imagine, were extremely common – although Mieder (2012: 147) has recently shown that this is no longer the case – as proverbs often give advice, counsel and instructions on how individuals should behave in both specific contexts and in general life Once again, the affirmative and negative imperative patterns are found frequently (No 9-10)

Affirmative imperative

(9) a Strike while the iron is hot

b Ăn cây nào, rào cây ấy

Negative imperative

(10) a Don’t look at a gift horse in the mouth

b Đừng ăn cây táo mà rào cây sung

To sum up, in terms of syntactic features, firstly, proverbs may take many different kinds of sentences such as simple sentence, compound sentence and complex sentence Secondly, proverbs exhibit all the different functions as affirmative and communicative Therefore, they are essential criteria used for the study of syntactic features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese

2.4.3.2 Semantic features

In Vietnamese, there have been a lot of different opinions about the semantic features of Vietnamese proverbs When referring to the meaning of proverbs, Chu Xuan Dien wrote: "A proverb usually has two meanings: literal and figurative" This

is a concept that many people agree with The authors Le Chi Que, Vo Quang Nhon, and Nguyen Hung Vi in the textbook "Văn học dân gian Việt Nam" affirm that:

"Proverbs always have two meanings: literal meaning (or original meaning) and figurative meaning" [15,197].This concept is not really convincing because we see a part of proverbs, as we mentioned above, only have literal meaning Perhaps when making such affirmations, people only pay attention to the proverbial section summarizing the experiences, conceptions of the philosophy of human life As for proverbs that summarize the laws of natural phenomena, experiences in labor,

breeding, farming or some historical legend and local characteristics, which are only literal, are not mentioned A definition must cover all phenomena

There are authors who do not use the terms "literal", "figurative" but use the terms

"single meaning", "many meanings", "multiple meanings" like Hoang Tien Tuu He wrote: "There are proverbs that have only one meaning (For example:" "Khoai ưa lạ,

mạ ưa quen", "Một búi cỏ, một giỏ phân".) But part of the proverbs occupies a large rate, the high quality and is the most typical part of this genre " According to him:

" proverbs can be divided into two basic categories: the single meaning one and the multi meaning kind Proverbs of the single meaning type are those that can only be

understood in" literal terms "For example: mưa tháng bảy gãy cành trám; dao thử

trầu héo, kéo thử lụa sô

Proverbs of the multi - meaning type can be divided into two categories: the first includes sentences that are both understood in a "literal" sense and which can (and

often) be understood in "figurative" terms; for example: góp gió thành bão, góp cây

nên rừng The second category includes sentences used only in "figurative" terms;

for example: một giọt máu đào hơn ao nước lã

We see, although there is a different expression, but basically, Hoang Tien Tuu also agreed that proverbs have two types of meanings and proverbs of the multi-meaning type are actually just another way of calling "figurative meaning" The concept of "many meanings" was also used by Bui Manh Nhi in the article "Tục ngữ" printed in the book "Văn học dân gian" by the owner: "Proverbs are short folk sentences Compact, stable, rhythmic, visual and often has many meanings .” In the" Từ điển văn học ", Chu Xuan Dien also mentioned this and according to him, many meanings of proverb is due to be "formed by associating analogies."

Surveying the above opinions, we see that, although researchers have different expressions, they all have in common that most proverbs have two meanings: Literal meaning and figurative meaning or also called symbolic meaning

2.4.4 Features of Idioms

Grammatically as well as semantically, the idiom has special characteristics

Victoria (2011) states that an idiom belongs to the lexicon or mental dictionary as single items with their meanings specified because the words (or morphemes) of a language are arbitrary (not predictable by rule) The meaning of lexicon is a

repository of the words (or morphemes) of a language and its meanings

2.4.4.1 Syntactic features

In idioms studies of many linguists, the characteristic features of idioms are

“syntactic restriction” and “stability"

In English, in terms of structure, idioms may take many different forms or

structures According to Cowie, Mackin and McCaig (1993) in Oxford Dictionary of

English idioms, English idioms have enormous structural variety The idioms may be

a noun phrase, an adjective phrase, a verb phrase, a prepositional phrase, an adverbial phrase, and an interjection:

Idioms as a noun phrase: for example: back - seat driver (a person like critising) Idioms as an adjective phrase: as an example, as bold as brass (very rude,

Idioms as a clause: like the cat that swallowed the canary

Idioms as an interjection: Dog my cats

In addition, 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, it’s just not my day (Nothing is going right for me today)

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 its 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 the grammatical rules to make sense Its 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,

for example, its ages since we met (singular with a plural noun) 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 Idiom

diamond cut diamond (two parties are equally matched) is grammatically incorrect,

for normally the verb cut should take the third person singulars as the subject diamond

is singular It is grammatically wrong, but idiomatic and widely accepted

Most idioms are unique and fixed in their grammatical structures However, there are some changes in nouns, pronouns or in the verb tenses that can be made to an idiom Adjectives and adverbs can also be added to an idiomatic phrase Or people

can change the subject of the idiom, for example, I wasn't born yesterday (I am

experienced; knowledgeable in the ways of the world), when applying with another

girl can be changed into “she wasn't born yesterday” It is for these reasons that it is

sometimes difficult to isolate the actual idiomatic expression and then find it in a dictionary of idioms

Finally, the constituents of an idiom cannot be deleted or added to, not even an

article For instance, out of the question means impossible If the article the is deleted,

the idiomaticity will be lost and it will signify no question instead

In Vietnamese, most of Vietnamese linguists have had the same point of view about the forms of Vietnamese idioms Nguyen Thien Giap (1985) did consider an idiom as a fixed expression Although Nguyen Duc Dan (1986) didn’t focus on the forms of Vietnamese idioms, he dealt with the fixation of idioms He said “Idioms are language units which have fixed forms” Hoang Van Hanh (1987) attached special importance to the components forming idioms He affirmed that an idiom was a fixed group of words whose form was unchanged

It can be said that Vietnamese idioms are fixed groups of words whose forms are unchanged: the fixed combination comes from settled words and expressions such as

bắt cá hai tay (to run after two hares), cá chậu chim lồng (behind prison bars), ăn chắc mặc bền (solidity first), chuột sa chĩnh gạo (to get a windfall), etc The fixation

shows that we cannot change the order of words or use the synonyms (similar words)

to replace any components of an idiom in a casual way This is a basic feature helping

us to realize idioms easily However, in fact, there are some fixed expressions which

are not idioms such as bánh xe lịch sử (the wheel of history), gia đình văn hóa (good

family), khoa học kỹ thuật (sciences and techniques) etc Therefore, in order to realize

an idiom correctly, we can not only look at this feature but also other ones

To sum up, in terms of syntactic features, firstly, idioms may take many different forms or structures a noun phrase, an adjective phrase, a verb phrase, a prepositional

phrase, an adverbial phrase, and a clause structure Mentioning to structure, an idiom can have a regular structure, an irregular or even a grammatically incorrect structure Secondly, an idiom is a set – expression We cannot make any changes without losing the idiomatic meaning Therefore, they are essential criteria used for the study of syntactic features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese

2.4.4.2 Semantic features

When mentioning the semantic features of an idiom, it is often talked about its

meaning

In terms of semantic, all idioms were literal expressions; however, the imposition

of figurative meanings was not entirely uniform, which resulted in some becoming more idiomatic than others Grains and Redman (1986:45] and Amevela (2000:37) have considered semantic opacity or semantic ambiguity as one of the salient features of idioms Ortony et al (1978), and Titone and Connine (1999) claim that there are two classes of idioms, the first comprising those whose meaning has a relationship with the component lexical items (known as compositional), and the second being those whose meaning has no relation with their components (non-compositional) Idiomatic expressions cannot be translated from one language into another literally, using word-for-word translation, the reason being that they do not have an equivalent in literal or formal terms Thus, when translating idiomatic expressions, attention must be paid to their metaphorical nature and the cultural environment in which the expression is Literal translation of certain idiomatic expressions may convey their metaphorical meaning, particularly when the meaning

in the target language is close to that of an interpreted idiom

It is very important to understand idioms metaphorically We can not usually discover the meanings by looking up the individual words in a dictionary when studying idioms; most of the idioms are metaphorical rather than literal For example,

in order to understand the idiom to breed bad blood between, we have to consider its meaning metaphorically as to make conflicts between people

Another feature concerning itself with semantics is that idioms can range from positive, neutral to negative meaning Some idioms have positive meanings such as

a willing horse (a keen worker), to get it into one’s head (to deeply understand), or

to warm the cockles of one’s heart (to make someone feel pleased or happy) Some

have neutral meanings as to watch the world go by (to observe the others while doing nothing oneself), etc And many other idioms are negative For instance, crocodile

tears means insincere tears, to waste one’s breath means to talk or give advice without having any effects, or to wash one’s dirty linen in public means to discuss or argue about one’s personal affairs in public, etc All those examples show that the

nuances of idiomatic meanings are very complicated They mainly depend on the nuances of their key components

In Vietnamese, there have been a lot of different opinions about the semantic features of Vietnamese idioms According to Nguyen Van Menh (1972), an idiom introduces an image, a phenomenon, a state, a personality, an attitude, etc This opinion is quite simple and general In 1986, he gave his own new point of view

""Idioms have their own meanings and nominative functions, and are used in daily speaking Nguyen Van Tu (1968) said “The meaning of an idiom does not come from individual components which may have their images or not Its meaning can be different from the meaning of each component or does come from each original word” Nguyen Thien Giap (1985) focused on the basic semantic features of idioms: Being rich in imagery is a basic feature of idioms Idioms express concepts basing on specific images and symbols The imagery of idioms is made from its metaphor and comparison

Although there have been different ideas about the semantic features of idioms, Vietnamese linguists have all shared the same point of view as follows:

Firstly, the meaning of an idiom is a perfect whole which does not come from the meanings of individual components added

Secondly, the meaning of an idiom expresses the reflection of things or concepts Thirdly, the meaning of an idiom is usually figurative and descriptive

Although many linguists affirm that idioms have their own figurative and imaginary meanings, we shouldn’t consider this as an absolute fact In Vietnamese, there are also some idioms which have literal sense coming from the meanings of

their components They may be comparative idioms such as nát như tương (as pasty

as soy), đen như cột nhà cháy (as black as a sweep) and bám như đỉa đói (to stick like

a limpet), whose imagery comes from the images compared with activities or

properties Some Sino-Vietnamese idioms such as nhất cử lưỡng tiện (to kill two birds

with one stone), bán tín bán nghi (half doubtful) and bách phát bách trúng (to hit the mark one hundred times out of one hundred) also have literal sense basing on the

meanings of their components

In conclusion, idioms add humor, imagery, spice to language and dress up messages in a colorful way An idiom is a kind of lexical unit in which the whole meaning of the expression is not apparent from the meanings of its components

In this thesis, the types of set expressions (both idioms and proverbs) are used as the topic of the study to analyze semantic features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese

In the second part of the chapter, the theoretical background was introduced It presents some contents such as linguistic features including syntactic and semantic features, idiom and proverb definitions, features of idioms and proverbs In terms of syntactic features, idioms have some of the following structures: noun phrase, an adjective phrase, a verb phrase, a prepositional phrase, an adverbial phrase while a proverb is a sentence In terms of semantic features, idioms and proverbs can range from positive, neutral to negative meaning English idioms features are invariable and figurative meanwhile Vietnamese idioms' features are fixed and multi- meaningful These results will be the basis for the following chapters

In the third part of the chapter, both idioms and proverbs are human’s thoughts, cultures, and processes of hard-working and learning In addition, both of them are set-expressions with stable and in substituted components

The following chapter will conduct the study of grammatical and semantic features of set expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese, thereby giving

similarity and different set expressions of behavior in both languages Through that, some solutions for using the set expressions in teaching and learning are proposed

CHAPTER 3

A COMPARISON BETWEEN SET EXPRESSIONS OF BEHAVIOR

IN ENGLISH AND IN VIETNAMESE

The findings of the analysis of grammatical and semantic features of set

expressions of behavior in English and in Vietnamese will be presented in this

chapter We will conduct a combined analysis of these set expressions in both grammatical and semantic features in English and Vietnamese Also, to clarify the findings, a detailed discussion and examples from our data collection together will be presented

3.1 Grammatical features of set expressions of behavior in English and in

Vietnamese

When mentioning the grammatical features, we often talk about the grammar, structure, or order of the elements in a language statement Idioms and proverbs have

a wide range of structures

3.1.1 Grammatical features of set expressions of behavior in English

As focused on the previous chapter, idioms and proverbs should be understood in

a broader sense of phrases and sentences From this point of view, after analyzing the results, this can be discovered that set expressions of behavior can be divided into 5 groups: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases, and sentences

3.1.1.1 Noun Phrases

In grammar, a noun phrase is a phrase whose head is a noun or a pronoun, optionally accompanied by a modifier set The set expressions of behavior in English

in the pattern of noun phrase are classified as follows:

a (Article) + Adjective + Noun/Noun phrase

We can find this pattern in the set expressions of behavior such as a left- handed

compliment, back-seat driver, cold shoulder For example,

she said my new pants really make my legs look much slimmer What a handed compliment! (Thefreedictionary.com)

left-b (Article) + Noun + Preposition phrase

Set expressions of behavior are under this pattern such as bag of wind For instance,

Mr Smith likes to expound at great length on any given topic, but he's just an overb lown bag of wind (Thefreedictionary.com)

3.1.1.2 Verb Phrases

A verb phrase has as its head a main (or lexical) verb The main verb may be preceded by up to four auxiliaries (or auxiliary verb) Set expressions of behavior in English also are classified according to the features of a verb phrase as follows:

a Verb + Noun/ Noun Phrase (+Noun/Noun Phrase)

This pattern includes set expressions, such as call someone’s bluff, bury the hatchet, count one’s blessings, cramp one’s style For example, Can you please bury the hatchet and make up with your sister already? I can't take the constant fighting (Thefreedictionary.com)

b Verb + Noun + Preposition phrase

This pattern has set expressions of behavior, such as bring oil to the fire, bring

reproach on, cast false color on, bawl one’s eyes out For example, after we broke up, I just lay on my bed and bawled my eyes out

(Thefreedictionary.com)

c Verb + Preposition phrase

There are some set expressions of behavior which are found in this pattern: blink

away tears, beef about, appeal against, abet in For instance,

don’t worry, we will appeal against the judge's sentence (Thefreedictionary.com) 3.1.1.3 Adjective Phrases

The adjective phrase has as its head an adjective, which may be preceded by

premodifiers, and followed by postmodifier The set expressions of behavior in

adjective phrases in English are listed as follows:

a As + Adjective + As + Noun/ Noun Phrase

This pattern encompasses set expressions, for example:

As bold as brass, as the call, so the echo, etc For example, Can you believe that new hire went to the boss, as bold as brass, and asked for time off on his first day? (Thefreedictionary.com)

b Adjective + than + Noun Phrase

Set expressions of behavior below this structure are as follows: Better than one’s

words, better a glorious than a shameful life, better to give than to take

3.1.1.4 Prepositional phrases

Under this pattern, set expressions of behavior are on in the cold, out of character,

beside oneself, etc

For instance, she was beside herself when she found she’d lost her ring, or Peter was

beside himself with joy-he’s won the poetry award (Thefreedictionary.com)

3.1.1.5 Sentences

The set expressions of behavior are found in the patterns: simple sentences (S + V + C; S + V + O; S + V + A); compound; complex sentence Simple sentences are

beauty is only skin deep, the thread follows the needle; curses come home to roost

Compound sentences are the tongue has no bone but it breaks bone; wise men are not

always silent, but know when to be Complex sentences are if you run after two hares, you will catch neither; you must defend the one who gives you a living

21

Simple sentence S+V+A

5

Compound

S + V, conjunction S + V

14

Complex:

Independent Clause, Dependent Clause

39

From the table above, it can be seen that set expressions of behavior appear the most are sentences (46.5%), so the structures of sentences have an impact on set expressions of behavior in English After the sentences, there are verb phrases (39.6%), adjectives phrases (6.5%) and prepositional phrases (3.7%), noun phrases (3.7%)

3.1.2 Grammatical features of set expressions of behavior in Vietnamese

After researching 438 Vietnamese set expressions of behavior, it can be seen that set expressions can be divided into four groups: noun phrases, verb phrases, and adjective phrases and sentences

3.1.2.1 Noun Phrases

The set expressions of behavior in noun phrases in Vietnamese are listed as follows:

a Noun + (Adjective), Noun + (Adjective)

The following set expressions are in this structure: giường cao, chiếu sạch; ân sâu,

nghĩa nặng, etc

b Noun +Verb, Noun +Verb

This kid of pattern can be found in such set expressions as: giậu đổ, bìm leo; hòn bấc ném đi, hòn chì ném lại, lạt mềm buộc chặt, etc

The Vietnamese set expressions of behavior in verb phrases are given as follows:

a Verb + Noun/ Adj, Verb + Noun/ Adj

This pattern can be found in the set expressions of behavior: nói có sách, mách có chứng; qua cầu, cất nhịp; uống nước, nhớ nguồn; ăn cháo, đái bát