MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A. THESIS A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING RICHNESS AND POVERTY WITH REFERENCES TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÁC THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH CHỈ SỰ “GIÀU” VÀ “NGHÈO” TRONG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT) VU THI THUY Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2017 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A. THESIS A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING RICHNESS AND POVERTY WITH REFERENCES TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÁC THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH CHỈ SỰ “GIÀU” VÀ “NGHÈO” TRONG TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT) VU THI THUY Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Van Thanh Hanoi, 2017 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “A study on syntactic and semnatic features of English idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requiremesnts for the degree of Master in English Linguistics. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Hanoi, 2017 Vu Thi Thuy Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Van Thanh Date: 24/11/2017 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Van Thanh, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher. My special word of thanks goes to all the lecturers at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies - Ha Noi Open University for their interesting lectures and useful advice. I would also like to thank my colleagues and friends for idea sharing and encouragement. It would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished without all of these valuable supports. Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work. ii ABSTRACT Idioms play an important role in all natural languages including English and Vietnamese. They enrich the language. They help speakers and writers to emphasise their ideas and make our observations, judgments, and explanations more lively and interesting. They are also very useful tools for communicating a great deal of meaning in a few words. Effective communication cannot be achieved successfully without idioms; therefore, they are worth studying. This thesis is a study on syntactic and semantic featues of English idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents. The data are 154 idioms denoting richness and poverty in both English and Vietamese collected from some idioms dictionaries in English and Vienamese. Through a variety of methods, namely descriptive mehod, comparative method, qualitative method and quantitative method, the study analyzes the syntacic and semantic features of English idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents. The findings of the study help to find out some similarities and differences in syntax and semantics of idioms denoting richness and poverty in English and Vietnamese. This thesis also contributes to the general understanding of syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents. Moreover, the thesis also gives teachers and learners of English some suggetions for teaching and learning English idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS N : Noun V : Verb Adj : Adjective Adv : Adverb Prep : Preposition NP : Noun Phrase VP : Verb Phrase Adj.P : Adjective phrase Adv.P : Adverbial Phrase PP : Prepositional Phrase IsDR&P: Idioms denoting richness and poverty EIsDR&P: English idioms denoting richness and poverty VIsDR&P: Vietnamese idioms denoting richness and poverty iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 3.1. Verb phrase structures of English and Vietnamese IdR&P 21 Table 3.2. Noun phrase structures of English and Vietnamese IdR&P 25 Table 3.3. Adjective phrase structures of English and Vietnamese IDR&P 26 Table 3.4. Prepositional phrase structures of English and Vietnamese IdR&P 27 Table 3.5. Adverbial phrase structures of English and Vietnamese IdR&P 27 Table 3.6. Comparative structures of English and Vietnamese IdR&P 28 Table 3.7. A summary of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting Richness and Poverty in grammatical patterns 29 Table 3.8. Frequency of Syntactic Features of Idioms denoting Richness and Poverty in English and Vietnamese 30 Table 3.9. A statistical summary of semantic features of idioms denoting Richness and poverty in English and Vietnames 38 Table 4.1: Percentages of the students’ incorrect answers in exercise 1 45 Table 4.2: Percentages of the students’ incorrect answers in exercise 2 45 Table 4.3: Percentages of the students’ incorrect answers in exercise 4 46 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii List of abbreviations iv List of tables and figures v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Rational 1 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2 1.3. Research questions 3 1.4 Methods of the study 3 1.5 Scope of the study 3 1.6 Significance of the study 4 1.7 Design of the study 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6 2.1. Previous studies 6 2.2. Theoretical backround 8 2.2.1. Definition of poverty, richness and idioms 8 2.2.3. Typical Features of Idioms 11 2.2.3.1. Semantic Ambiguity 11 2.2.3.2. Syntactic Restriction and Stability 12 2.3.3.3. Inseparability of Semantic and Syntactic Features 12 2.2.4 Idioms and other language units 13 2.2.4.1 Idioms and phrases 13 2.2.4.2 Idioms and proverbs 13 2.2.4.3 Idioms and collocations 14 2.2.5 Culture and language 15 2.2.5.1 Concepts of culture 15 2.2.5.2 Culture in language 15 vi 2.2.5.3. Idioms Related to Culture 16 2.2.6. Classification of Idioms 17 2.3. Summary 17 CHAPTER 3: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURS OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING RICHNESS AND POVERTY WITH REFERENCES TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS. 18 3.1. Syntactic features of idioms denoting richness and poverty in English and Vietnamese 18 3.1.1. Idioms denoting richness and poverty in structures of a verb phrase. 18 3.1.2. Idioms denoting richness and poverty in a structure of a noun phrase 38 21 3.1.3. Idioms denoting richness and poverty in structures of an adjective phrase. 25 3.1.4. Idioms denoting richness and poverty in structures of a prepositional phrase 26 3.1.5. Idioms denoting richness and poverty in structures of an adverbial phrase 27 3.1.6. Idioms denoting richness and poverty in a structure of comparatives 27 3.2. Semantic features of English idioms enoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents 30 3.2.1. Symbolic characteristics of idioms denoting richness and poverty in English and Vietnamese 30 3.2.1.1. Metaphor 30 3.2.1.2. Metonymy 31 3.2.1.3. Hyperbole 31 3.2.1.4. Simile 32 3.2.1.5. Symmetry 32 3.2.2. Semantic fields of English and Vietnamese idioms denoting richness and poverty 32 3.2.2.1. Money 33 3.2.2.2. Food 34 3.2.2.3. Clothes 36 3.2.2.4. Other Property 36 3.3. Similarities and differences in term of syntax and semantics of English words and idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalent 39 vii 3.3.1 Similarities 39 3.3.2 Differences 39 3.3.2.1 Syntactic Features 39 3.3.2.2 Semantic Features 39 3.4. Concluding remarks 40 CHAPTER 4: COMMON ERRORS MADE BY LEARNER IN USING ENGLISH IDIOMS DENOTING RICHNESS AND POVERTY WITH REFERENCES TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 41 4.1. Survey questionaires 41 4.1.1. Subjects 41 4.1.2. Questionaires 41 4.1.3. Procedure 42 4.2 Common errors made by learners when using English idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents 43 4.2.1 Common errors made by learners of English 43 4.2.2 Causes of errors 46 4.3 Suggestions for teaching and learning English idioms denoting richness and povery with references to the Vietnamese equivalents 47 4.3.1 Suggestions for learners in learning English idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents 48 4.3.2 Suggestions for teacher in teaching English idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents 50 4.4. Summary 52 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 53 5.1 Concluding remarks 53 5.2 Limitation of the study 54 5.3 Suggestions for further study 54 REFERENCES 55 APPENDIX 58 viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale Nowadays, English has been used in over the world. It has played a very important role in bringing people from different countries closer and closer. In Vietnam, English is also a compulsory subject in many schools, colleges and universities. Vietnamese learners have been facing with many difficulties when they learn a foreign language. To master a foreign language as well as to be able to use it fluently is a strong desire of all learners. However, it is a difficult task for all learners because of many obstacles that they have to face during their learning. Moreover, the target of learning a foreign language is the ability to communicate. To be successful in communication can only be reached when both the speakers and the listeners understand each other. However, there are so many differences in many aspects of the languages and cultures that cause various problems for learners in the process of mastering a foreign language. Moreover, the vocabulary of English consists of several hundred thousand words and lots of idioms, and without an extensive English vocabulary, communication in English just can not occur in a meaningful way. In daily communication, we can see the frequent appearance of idioms. Idioms have always attracted attention of linguists, although they were not given enough recognition in the past. The new trends in English syntactic and semantic studies, however, have thrown a completely different light on these multi-word units with more or less unpredictable meanings. Being regarded as something inherently linked with a successful acquisition of a foreign language, idioms are of great importance in any language system. With different levels of figurativeness they represent indispensable semantic elements that help any foreign language speaker sound more native and proficient. It is obvious that different languages will have different idioms, both in structure and meaning. Also the repertoire of idioms will vary from one person to another, depending on their social or intellectual background. Virtually all countries, their linguistic features including the syntactic and semantic ones may vary from country to country. It is this difference that could cause 1 problems to Vietnamese learners and users of English and English learners and users of Vietnamese as a foreign language. They could therefore commit errors in cross-cultural communication or suffer from “culture shock”. Unfortunately, there is hardly a research into the syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting richness and poverty with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents. Accordingly, I have decided on this thesis title. I hope that my study could meet the demand of the people who are interested in this issue, and hope it could help the translaters, teachers and learners of English and Vietnamese as a foreign language teach and learn English and Vietnamese better, especially the idioms denoting richness and poverty. 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.2.1. Aims of the study This thesis is aimed to find out similarities and differences between English idioms of richness and poverty and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features as well as to point out some applications for teaching and learning English idioms denoting richness and poverty. 1.2.2. Objectives of the study To achieve the mentioned aims above, the following objectives can be put forward - To find out syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting “richness” and “poverty” with referenceto the Vietnameseequivalents.. - To find out the similarities and differences between English idioms of richness and poverty and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features. - To propose some applications for teaching and learning English idioms denoting “richness” and “poverty”. 1.3. Research questions This research seeks to address the following questions (i) What are syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting “richness” and “poverty” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents? 2 (ii) What are similarities and differences between English idioms of richness and poverty and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features? (iii) What are suggestions for teacher and learner in teaching and learning idioms denoting “richness” and “poverty” in English? 1.4 Methods of the study The study describes and compares the syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting “richness” and “poverty” with references to the Vietnamese equivalents and then withdraws some implications for teaching and learning of English and Vietnamese as a foreign language. The descriptive method is supposed to describe and interpret idioms denoting richness and poverty in English and their Vietnamese equivalents to clarify the syntactic and semantic features in English and Vietnamese. In addition, the contrastive method is accompanied by the qualitative and quantitative approach to identify the relationship of semantic and syntactic features, identify the main principles of meaning transfer and find out the frequency of use of these idioms denoting richness and poverty in English and Vietnamese. 1.5 Scope of the study There are a variety of English idioms denoting richness and poverty. However, due to the time allowance and limited knowledge, it is impossible to carry out a comprehensive study of all kinds of English idiomatic expressions. Within the framework of a mater graduation thesis, English idioms denoting richness and poverty with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents could be put under investigation of this thesis. This thesis mainly focuses on syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting richness and poverty and their Vietnamese equivalents. Other aspects are out of the scope of this study. They, although can be found somewhere in this paper, are only meant to support of illustrate some arguments of the author. 3 1.6 Significance of the study With the purpose of doing a research into the syntactic and semantic features of English idiomse denoting richness and poverty with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents, this study could help: - Native Vietnamese learners of English or Vietnamese and native English learners of Vietnamese or English have a comprehensive understanding about the syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting richness and poverty in these languages. - These learners grasp the use of idioms denoting richness and poverty in these two languages and use them effectively in their learning process as well as in their daily life. 1.7 Design of the study The study is organized into five chapters: Introduction, Literature review, Findings and Discussion, Applications and Conclusion. Chapter 1 - Introduction: Presents the rationale to the study, aims and objectives of the research, research question, methods of the study, scope of the research, significance of the study and structure of the thesis. Chapter 2 - Literature Review: Provides the readers with the literature review of the research, which attempts to present the theoretical background including general understanding about language learning process, an overview of English idioms denoting “richness” and “poverty” and their Vietnamese equivalents. Chapter 3 – Syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting richness and poverty with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents: Present syntactic and semantic features of English idioms denoting “Richness” and “Poverty” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents. The features are accompanied by statistical results and the analysis of the data shown in the tables. Chapter 4- Common errors made by learners when using English idioms denoting richness and poverty with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents: Work with some implications for teaching and learning English dioms denoting “Richness” and “Poverty” 4 Chapter 5 - Conclusions: Summarize the thesis with concluding remarks. Also, the limitations of the study are presented with suggestions for further studies. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW The literature review serves two main purposes. Firstly it gives a review of previous studies related to English idioms in general and English idioms denoting richness and poverty in particular. Secondly it presents and discusses the theoretical background which guides and plays as the foundation for this research thesis to base on in the process of conducting the whole research. 2.1. Previous studies Idioms have attracted many language researchers all over the world. Idioms carry a large amount of nationally or culturally specific information with them. It can be said that idioms are an interesting and popular phenomenon of every language. Up to now, there have been a number of writers making investigations into English and Vietnamese idioms. For foreign writers, a lot of books and dictionaries have brought us with great benefit. For example, “A Course in Modern English Lexicology” by Ginzburg et al. (1979) pointed out that non-motivated word-groups whose lexical meaning is not deducible from that of their components are described as idioms. Also, he gave the assumptions that non-motivated word-groups have function as wordequivalents because of their semantic and grammatical inseparability. Not only Ginzburg but also Halliday - a grammarian- has been interested in usage of idioms and the role of idioms within a certain context. In “An Introduction to Functional Grammar” Halliday (1985), there have been the explanation of structural grammar, the relationship between grammar and semanticsa “a ‘functional’ grammar means that it is based on meaning but the fact that is a ‘grammar’ means that it is an interpretation of linguistic form” and especially in the light of Halliday’s view, idioms are regarded as a class of group. According to Cowie, Mackin & McCaig (1994), idioms are carefully collected and categorized into alphabetical arrangement. Moreover, their meanings and examples of usage in English are also mentioned and explained. In “Idioms and Idiomaticity”, Chitra Fernando (1996) provides a comprehensive treatment of idioms and idiomaticity from a functional perspective. It examines the use 6 of idioms in discourse to combine the novel and the conventional, to convey representations of the world, evaluate people and situations, signal conviviality or conflict, and create coherent, cohesive texts. This book goes on to consider implications for language learning and development. In “Idiom Structure in English” (Makkai, 1972), the concept of idiomaticity areas is introduced and the membership of each is illustrated with a small number of typical examples. Each type of idiom in the first idiomaticity area (lexemic system) and the second idiomaticity area (sematic system) is described in terms of its internal structure and assigned a label. This discussion of the idiomaticity areas and their membership is integrated with a general definition of the idiom in both the lexicology and the semiology. By describing these two idiomaticity areas, the author suggests a framework by which all types of English idioms have been mentioned. Furthermore, “Idioms Organization” is a book that John Wright (1992) has written about the idioms organized by metaphor, topic and key word. The book “The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms” by Ammer (1997) or “Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms” by Richards (1987), idioms are carefully collected and categorized into alphabetical arrangement. Their meanings and examples of usage in English are also mentioned. These are the books that every linguistic or teachers of linguistics have to keep a look if they want to do a research or a study on idioms. In Vietnamese, the first researchers having important contributions to this field we must mention are Nguyen Luc and Nguyen Van Dang. They wrote “Thành ngữ Tiếng Việt” which is a collection of Vietnamese idioms arranged in alphabetical order with clear explanations and examples extracted from Vietnamese novels, newspapers and magazines. Moreover, Nguyễn Trần Trụ who wrote “Thành ngữ tục ngữ lược giải” explains meanings of the most common idioms and proverbs in such simple, clear ways that learners can use this book for consulting and reference purposes. There are also many authors have studied about idioms such as “Thành Ngữ và Tục Ngữ Việt Nam Chọn Lọc” by Tran Quang Man (2002), “Từ Điển Thành Ngữ Anh Việt” by La Thanh (2006). Vinh Ba (1999), Nguyen Lan (1994) are writers who supplied a large amountof idioms, their variants are collected with examples originally extracted fromnovels, newspapers, magazines and so on. Hoang Van Hanh (2002) gave out his comments about idioms in the book “Thành ngữ học Tiếng Việt”. In which, he 7 studied many aspects of Vietnamese idioms as well as collected and categorized these idioms. Besides, Vu Dung, Vu Thuy Anh, Vu Quang Hao (1993) wrote dictionaries in which Vietnamese idioms are both literally and figuratively explained, illustrated with examples. What is more, they also classified Vietnamese idioms in comparison with English idioms so that language learners can understand more clearly and exactly their literal meanings. Studying on Vietnamese and English idioms there are some papers such as Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai (2015) with “A study on English idioms denoting fear with references to the Vietnamese equivalents”; Nguyen Thi Lan Phuong (2015) with “A study on structural and semantic features of English idioms denoting anger with references to the Vietnamese equivalents”; Nguyen Thi Cam Van (2012) with “A study of linguistic features of proverbs expressing richness and poverty in English versus Vietnamese” and so on. However, up to now, there have been no studies about idioms denoting richness and poverty. This is the reason why this study comes into being in an attempt to focus on semantic and syntactic features of English idioms denoting richness and poverty with references to the Vietnamese equivalents. 2.2. Theoretical backround 2.2.1. Definition of poverty, richness and idioms 2.2.1.1 Definition of Poverty There are many definitions of poverty depending on the context of the situation and the views of the person giving the definition. For instance, World Bank states that “Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being, and comprises many dimensions. It includes low incomes and the inability to acquire the basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty also encompasses low levels of health and education, poor access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient capacity and opportunity to better one’s life.” ("Poverty and Inequality Analysis". worldbank.org.) According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty, poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. 8 2.2.1.2 Definition of Richness Unlike the word poverty, there are hardly various definitions for the word richness. According to Từ điển Tiếng Việt (1992), richness is defined that “có nhiều tiền của; trái với nghèo”. The definition above corresponds to the one from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Richness. Accordingly, richness is defined as the state of having an abundant supply of money, property, or possessions of value. 2.2.1.3. Definition of idioms Up to now, there are many definitions of idioms."If natural language had been designed by a logician, idioms would not exist." (Philip Johnson-Laird, 1993) Idioms exist in probably all languages - the definition of idiom is a construction whose meaning cannot be logically deduced from the words that make it up. Chiefly, their importance is that they are a major area of difficulty for non-native learners; although illogical, idioms have to be learned because they are used a lot in conversational native English speech. According to Wikipediahttp://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom, “An idiom is a word or phrase which means something different from what it says - it is usually a metaphor. Idioms are common phrases or terms whose meaning are not real, but can be understood by their popular use.” In “Idiom structure in English”, Makkai (1972), defines an idiom as “any polylexonic lexeme made up of more than one minimal free form of word (as defined by morphotactic criteria), each lexeme of which can occur in other environments as the realization of a monoloxonic lexeme”. It can be seen that idioms can mean something different from what the words mean. Fernando (1996) defines idioms as being a type of “conventionalized multiword expressions”, and “individual units whose components cannot be varied or varied only within definable limits” and “not usually recombinable”, as well as referring only to “those expressions which become conventionally fixed in a specific order and lexical form, or have a restricted set of variants, acquire the status of idioms and are recorded in idiom dictionaries”. Jennifer Seidl and W McMordie (1978) share the same point of view with Hornby (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1995) and Longman 9 Idioms Dictionary (1998) and give the definition: “An idiom is a number of word which, taken together, mean something different from the individual words of the idiom when they stand alone”. Idioms are composed of more than one word: their constituents show to some extent the sort of internal cohesion that we expect of single words. An idiom typically resists interruption and re-ordering of its constituents. For example, the idiom ‘kick the bucket’ will lose its idiomatic meaning if it is re-ordered into ‘the bucket which is kicked’. 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. Collins Cobuild (1995) defines: ‘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 effectively metaphors which have become ‘fixed’ or ‘fossilised’. In Vietnamese, idioms have also attracted a lot of the interest of researchers. Mai Ngoc Chu, Vu Dinh Nghieu, Hoang Trong Phien state in “Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học và tiếng Việt” (1997) that “idioms are groups of words which are syntactically restricted and have a particular meaning. Their meanings are often imaginative and figurative”. Hoang Van Hanh defines in “Kể chuyện thành ngữ, tục ngữ” (2002) that idioms are set expressions which are stable in theirmorpho – structure, complete and figurative in their meaning, usedwidely in daily communication, especially in speech. Generally, most of the authors showed that idiom is a group of words whose meaning cannot be understood from the meanings of individual words in it. All things considered, idioms are sayings that reflect accumulated human experiences and are built on frequently occurring situations, which demonstrate human behavior, social traits, certain habits or tradition in a country. They almost represent life lessons and are a heritage of those accumulated events that make up the conscious of a nation or humankind in general. 10