MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY VÕ THỊ NGỌC LIÊN A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: TRUONG VAN DINH, Ph.D BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN VÕ THỊ NGỌC LIÊN PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁC THÀNH NGỮ CHỨA CÁC BỘ PHẬN CỦA ĐỘNG VẬT TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Người hướng dẫn: TS. TRƯƠNG VĂN ĐỊNH i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify that all work in this thesis is my original work and the substance of this thesis has not been submitted to any other university or institution. Therefore, I am fully responsible for the contents of the thesis. The research reported in this thesis was approved by The Department of Foreign Languages, Quy Nhon University. Binh Dinh, August 30th, 2021 VO THI NGOC LIEN ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My minor thesis has been successfully completed thanks to the assistance and guidance of my teachers, classmates and relatives. Firstly, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mr Trương Văn Định, Ph.D for his enthusiastic assistance, academic guidance, good suggestions and critical comments on my study. Secondly, I would also like to show my gratitude to all the teachers of the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, Department of foreign languages, Quy Nhon University, whose lectures and guidance have helped me so much while carrying out this study. Thirdly, my deepest thanks are for my lovely colleagues and my friends have helped and encouraged me during my preparation until I complete my study. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the considerate support and indispensable assistance of my parents, my husband and my children while the work was being done. One more thing I would like to say is that despite all the efforts, I have made and the advice and assistance I have received, I am sure my minor thesis is far from perfect. Therefore, there are a lot of inadequacies and shortcomings that are unavoidable in my minor thesis, which is my responsibility. iii ABSTRACT One of the most important elements in implication of culture and language is the use of idioms. In daily communication, both English and Vietnamese people often utilize a large number of idioms. However, learners in both languages have a lot of difficulties in using them. Therefore, English teachers have to teach the students not only the knowledge of language but also that of culture, which enable them to communicate languages proficiently. Animals plays an integrate role in both English and Vietnamese culture. There are a huge number of idioms relating to animals in both languages. However, the number of idioms containing the parts of animals is quite small and the study of them is rare. Therefore, the study of idioms relating to the parts of animals will contribute to the full collection of works on animal idioms. Moreover, this study clarifies the syntactic and semantic features in both languages, which help learners to use them more easily and effectively. Finally, the findings analyzed in the study reveal that there are some similarities and differences about structural and semantic peculiarities of idioms containing the parts of animals in English and Vietnamese. In respect of syntactic features, both languages have idioms under a variety of phrase and sentence structures. Semantically, there are more idioms containing the parts of animals implicating human than non - human in both languages. iv TABLES OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................ ii ABSTRACT ................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................. Error! Bookmark not defined.iv ABBREVIATIONS....................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.v LIST OF TABLES ....................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1 1.1. Rationale ................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Significance of the study ......................................................................... 2 1.3. Aim and objectives of the study.............................................................. 2 1.3.1. Aim of the study ............................................................................... 2 1.3.2. Objectives of the study ..................................................................... 3 1.4. Research questions .................................................................................. 3 1.5. Scope of the study ................................................................................... 3 1.6. Organization of study .............................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 5 2.1. PREVIOUS STUDIES ............................................................................... 5 2.2. Theoretical background .......................................................................... 6 2.2.1. Definitions of idioms ........................................................................ 6 2.2.2. Idioms and Other Language Units .................................................... 8 2.2.3. Idiom relation to Language and Culture ........................................... 9 2.2.4. Characteristics of idioms ................................................................ 11 2.2.5. Overview of Phrase and Sentence Structures ................................. 18 3.1. Research Methods ................................................................................. 23 3.2. Data collection ...................................................................................... 23 3.3. Data analysis ......................................................................................... 23 v 3.4. Procedures ............................................................................................. 24 3.5. Validity and Reliability ......................................................................... 24 CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ............................................ 26 4.1. SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE .................... 26 4.1.1. Phrase Structures............................................................................. 26 4.1.2. English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals of Sentence and clause Patterns ................................................................ 34 4.2. Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the parts of animals in English and IN Vietnamese ........................................... 36 4.2.1. Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the parts of animals in English .................................................................. 38 4.2.2. Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the parts of animals in Vietnamese ........................................................... 39 4.3. SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE .................... 41 4.3.1. Idioms having Human Implication ................................................. 41 4.3.2. Idioms having non-human implications ......................................... 53 4.4. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING TpsOAs IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ................................................................ 57 4.4.1. Similarities ...................................................................................... 57 4.4.2. Differences ...................................................................................... 59 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS................................. 63 5.1. Conclusion ............................................................................................ 63 5.2. Implications ........................................................................................... 64 5.2.1. Implication for learning idioms contaning TpsOAs ....................... 64 5.2.2. Implication for teaching idioms contaning TpsOAs....................... 65 vi 5.2.3. Implication for translating idioms contaning TpsOAs……………61 5.3. Limitations and suggestions for further studies .................................... 67 5.3.1. Limitations of the study……………………..………………… . ...67 5.3.2. Suggestions for Further Research ................................................... 67 REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 69 APPENDIX TOPIC ASSIGNING CERTIFICATE vii ABBREVIATIONS 1. Adj Adjective 2. Ap Adjective Phrase 3. Article Art 4. CW Comparison word 5. N Noun 6. NP Noun Phrase 7. N Number 8. O Object 9. Preposition Prep 10. PrepP Prepositional Phrase 11. S Subject 12. TpsOAs The parts of animals 13. V Verb 14. VP Verb Phrase 15. Vpred Verbal predicate 16. % Percent 17. & And viii LIST OF TABLES Order Name of tables Page Table 4.1 Noun Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 26 Table 4.2 Verb Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 28 Table 4.3 Adjective Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 31 Table 4.4 Preposition Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs 32 Table 4.5 Phrase Structures of the idioms TpsOAs 33 Table 4.6 Sentences of the idioms containing TpsOAs 34 Table 4.7 Frequency of the Parts of animals in English Table 4.7 36 and Vietnamese Idioms Frequency of Semantic Features of Idioms containing Table 4.8 57 TpsOAs in English and Vietnamese 1 CHAPTER1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. RATIONALE Idioms play an important part in the linguistic development of a country and have a close relationship with folk verses and proverbs. They make up of a large number of vocabularies in many countries, especially in Vietnam and in England. For a long time, idiom is also a means of communication in people‟s daily routine. Moreover, most poets and writers use a various kinds of idioms in literature to contribute to making clear the content of their works. In recent years, idioms have often appeared in English tests but not many students realize and comprehend all their meanings in the context or only know them through the separate words. According to Summers (2001), “idiom is a phrase that has a meaning different from the meanings of its individual parts”. This helps to explain why it is often difficult to translate an idiom from one language to another without incurring some change in meaning or usage. Additionally, there are many interesting things when we discover the different cultures in both languages to know the idioms containing the images of animals clearly. According to Judith Siefring (2005), each idiom has a story or a cultural feature besides their meaning. For example, the idiom “in the catbird seat” is said to have originally referred to baseball player in the fortunate position of having no strikes and therefore three balls still to play (a reference made in James Thurber‘s short story The Catbird Seat). In Vietnamese culture, a culture of distinctive community characteristic, caring for the idioms containing the images of animals which have a close-knit with people‟s life. For instance, while Vietnamese people tell about pets like dog with both positive and negative meaning (“Mèo đến 2 nhà thì khó, chó đến nhà thì sang‖- It's difficult for a cat to come home, but for a dog to come home) and ―thằng chó chết‖ (a dead dog), the English people consider it as a loving or appreciation in the idiom “a lucky dog”. However, there have been many theses relating to analysing idioms containing the images of animals before. The idioms containing the parts of the animals have not been mentioned and researched deeply on their structures and meanings in both English and Vietnamese. In this thesis, I have decided to choose the topic “A contrastive analysis of the parts of animal idioms in English and Vietnamese”. 1.2. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Our thesis on study idioms containing the parts of animals has the following importance: Theoretically, this study provides a better insight into analysing the semantic and syntactic features of English and Vietnamese idioms. The findings of the research can contribute to explaining the linguistic similarities as well as differences between the two languages. Practically, thanks to this study, Vietnamese learners can not only realize how to use the idioms containing the parts of animals appropriately but also have a clear insight into the custom and the social behaviour of native speakers in both languages from the result found in the study. What is more, learners can master a source of English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals (TpsOAs) to use them in reality. 1.3. AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1.3.1. Aim of the study The study aims to make a comparison between English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals on the basis of the analysis of their semantic and syntactic features in order to find their similarities and 3 differences ones between the two languages. 1.3.2. Objectives of the study To achieve the aim of the study, the researcher tried to fulfill two following objectives: + To study the semantic and syntactic features of idioms containing the parts of animals in both English and Vietnamese. + To compare and contrast the semantic and syntactic features of idioms containing the parts of animals in both English and Vietnamese. 1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS To achieve the aim and objectives mentioned above, this study addresses the following research questions: 1. What are the syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals? 2. What are similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic features of idioms containing the parts of animals in English and Vietnamese? 1.5. SCOPE OF THE STUDY Idioms have become an attractive subject of many recent researches in various languages. Therefore, the similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic features extracted from the study of idioms containing the parts of animals could be explained on the basis of cultural features of the language in comparison. Especially, with the aspect of semantic features, the author does not aim at finding the equivalents of all English animal idioms in Vietnamese, but focuses only on analysing idioms containing the parts of animals having human implications or not . For instance, idioms having human implications often show human‟s characteristics, emotion, or appearance, etc. and idioms having non- human implications are like quantity, size, or opinion etc. 4 Last but not least, the study is concerned with idioms and proverbs containing the parts of animals, but not with all animal idioms because some previous thesis mentioned idioms relating animals in general. 1.6. ORGANIZATION OF STUDY The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1, THE INTRODUCTION, presents rationale which paves the way for the next aims, objectives of the research, research questions, scope of the study, along with the organization of the study. Chapter 2, THE LITERATURE REVIEW, introduces theory of syntactic and semantic features of idioms containing the parts of animals, and the prior researches related to this study so that the author can find out their research gaps. Chapter 3, RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY, is the description of the research method, the data collection and data analysis. Chapter 4, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION, is related to our Findings and Discussion on the similarities and differences about syntactic and semantic features expressed in idioms containing the parts of animal between English and Vietnamese. Chapter 5, CONCLUSION, summarizes the conclusions drawn out from the study and some suggestions for further study. 5 CHAPTER2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. PREVIOUS STUDIES Idiom is considered as a scientific language because it is used as an object to study. Idiomaticity appeared at the beginning of the 20th century with the famous Swiss linguist, Charle Bally, who establish a scientific base for the necessity to research the fixed phrases in language. Therefore, there are many dictionaries of idioms produced to serve the purpose of learn and study such as Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms by Cowie, A.Petal, NTC‟s American Idioms Dictionary by Spears, R.A, The Cassell Dictionary of English Idioms by Fergusson, R., From the Horse‟s Mouse: Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms by Ayto, J. Besides, there are a lot of works on it such as “Essential Idioms in English Phrasal Verbs and Collocations by Robert J. Dixson”, or “Idioms for Everyday Use” by Broukai, M. etc… Vietnamese linguists are also concerned about idiomaticity, which plays an important role in studying and developing Vietnamese language. The pioneers are Nguyễn Lực and Lương Văn Đang. Nguyễn Lực published a useful book “Thành Ngữ Việt Nam”. There have been a plenty of contrastive studies on idioms in Vietnamese and other languages with many kinds of idioms. Here are some studies relating to the field of the study: “A Contrastive study of connotation of Vietnamese Zodiac Animal in English and Vietnamese Idioms and Proverbs”; ―Thành ngữ chứa từ gọi tên Ðộng vật trong tiếng Việt‖; ―Đối chiếu thành ngữ trên báo chí Tiếng Trung và Tiếng Việt‖; ―Attitudes toward idioms and idiom learning strategies‖; and ―Ngữ Nghĩa của từ ngữ chỉ động vật trong thành ngữ Tiếng Việt so sánh với thành ngữ Tiếng Anh‖. Nguyen Quoc Toan (2011) focused on researching connotation of 6 Vietnamese Zodiac Animal based on the contrastive methods so as to realize the similarities and differences meanings of English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs, but only related to twelve animals. Nguyen Thi Trung Anh (2019) made a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese idioms about dogs in terms of syntactic and semantic aspects. The findings obtained from the data analysis of 110 English and Vietnamese idioms related to dogs show that syntactically, there are a variety of phrasal structures and sentence structures appearing English and Vietnamese idioms about dogs, and semantically, the data was studied and analyzed positive, negative and neutral meanings about human characters, luck and life conditions. Ho Thi Thuc Nhi (2020) showed the metaphorical meaning of animal idioms in relation between human beings and animals. Moreover, the above-mentioned studies focus only on the meaning of the animal idioms or the statistics about the number of idioms containing names of animals. Not many studies analyzed animal idioms and proverbs, especially idioms containing the parts of animals under the aspects of semantic and syntactic features. That is the reason why the author chooses this topic. The researcher can make a contrastive analysis on semantic and syntactic characteristics of English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals. 2.2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.2.1. Definitions of idioms and proverbs 2.2.1.1. Idioms Langacker (1987, p.25) shared the similar opinion that “To regard an idiom as opaque or as primarily a fixed phrase is [...] simplistic. It is more accurately seen as a complex of semantic and symbolic relationships that have become conventionalized and have coalesced into an established 7 configuration.” For example: Vietnamese idiom has a sentence “Mẹ tròn con vuông”, but we cannot turn it into “Mẹ vuông con tròn”. Additionally, according to the Oxford English Dictionary and the Longman Dictionary of Idioms, ―the idiom originates from an ancient method for slaughtering pigs. Before being killed, the pigs‘ feet were tied to a beam – the bucket – to prevent them from kicking out and to hang them up by the heels after being killed. At the moment the pigs were killed, they kicked the bucket for a last time. Therefore, this movement was seen as an indicator of their death.” (cited in “Idiom creativity” by Langlotz (2006, p.134)) Many Vietnamese linguists also have the same concepts of idiom. Hoang Van Hanh (2004) defines that idioms are a group of words in a fixed order about the characteristic structures and complete and figurative meanings which is ultilized widely in daily communication, especially in speech. Nguyễn Đức Dân (1986) states that idiom is an element in a fixed form and it reflects the notions, the ways of speech, the ways of thought and people‟s specific characteristics. Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến (1997, p.153 – 165) give the following definition “idioms are groups of words which are syntactically restricted and have particular meanings. Their meanings are often imaginative and figurative” In short, most of the linguists abroad and at home proposed that idiom is a fixed phrase which is used commonly. 2.2.1.2. Proverb in relation to idiom Mieder (1993, p.5) 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 memorizable form and which is handed down from generation to generation". 8 According to Hornby (1995), proverb is defined as “a short well-known sentence or phrase that states a general truth about life or giving advice, ie: “Better safe than sorry or Don‘t put all your eggs in one basket‖. Moreover, according to Vu Ngoc Phan (2000), proverb was known as “a complete saying expressing one idea of comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism”. It can be seen from the above-mentioned researchers‟ notions that idioms and proverbs have many similar characteristics and that is why researchers usually study together. First of all, both idioms and proverbs are ready-made. They are made from human‟s thought, cultures and processes of hard working and studying. They are orally passed from generation to generation and naturally accepted in public. Secondly, in the aspect of structural features, both of them are fixed expressions and their components are not substituted. Therefore, people cannot infer from individual words, which must be understood as a whole. In addition, most of idioms and proverbs, whose unaccepted changes in the meaning of whole group make them nonsensical, are often discovered metaphorically. However, there are some differences between idiom and proverb. The proverb is a complete sentence with a firm structure that is based on an unchangeable foundation. In contrast, idioms are not syntactically independent because they cannot always occur as full sentences, but as a part of a sentence. Therefore, people said that the differences between idiom and proverb are structure, form and function. 2.2.2. Idioms and Other Language Units 2.2.2.1. Idioms and phrases People might misunderstand some idioms as phrases and vice versa. Fromkin, Rodman, Collins and Blair state that “Idioms are similar to ordinary phrases except that they tend to be frozen in form and do not readily enter 9 into other combinations or allow the other to change”. 2.2.2.2. Idioms and Collocations Cruse (1986, p.40) found that “collocation will be used to refer to sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur, but which are not nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a semantic constituent”. 2.2.2.3. Idioms, saying and Clichés According to Cambridge dictionary, “a saying is a well- known wise statement that often has a meaning that is different from the simple meanings of the words it contains” (cited in https://dictionary.cambridge.org /vi/dictionary/English/saying). All proverbs are sayings but idioms are neither proverbs nor sayings. “A cliché is a phrase or idea that has been used so often that it no longer has much meaning and is not interesting.‖ (Hornby, 2000, p.218). In spite of having some relevance to idioms, clichés are not idioms. 2.2.3. Idiom relation to Language and Culture “Idiomatic expressions offer a unique opportunity to teach and learn about the vocabulary richness of the target language as well as the cultural aspects hidden behind those fixed expressions. Every culture has developed its own expressions, which second (SL) and foreign language (FL) learners should acquire if they wish to exhibit a ―native-like command‖ of the target language‖ (Wray, 2000, as cited in Asl, 2013). In current tendencies of daily conversation, English people mostly use idioms. Therefore, idioms are not separate parts of the language, which originate necessary parts of the vocabulary of English and Vietnamese language. According to Richards (1992), language often consists of three main functions such as descriptive, expressive, and social. Idioms and proverbs 10 have all these functions. Proverb not only has descriptive function, which conveys factual information, but also has expressive function i.e. to express people‟s preference, feelings, characteristics etc. It implies many things such as experience and morality. Besides, it also expresses social function, which reflects people‟s relation in society. For all these things above, we can conclude that language, culture and proverb and idiom are close-knit. Both proverb and idiom reflect values, beliefs across culture. 2.2.3.1. Characteristics of Vietnamese Culture Vietnam is a country where there are plenty of ethnics and cultural diversity. Each of the ethnic minorities has made their important contribution to Vietnam‟s culture. However, Vietnamese cultural diversity is considered to be unity. Throughout many work-hard wars, Vietnamese people has become determined, hard-working and solidary in maintaining and preserving the belief, customs and family values. Therefore, we have made unique cultural identity of Vietnam. Vietnamese people work hard with their fields and raise buffaloes, pigs, cows, chickens, etc. throughout the year. Therefore, images of animals as well as their parts often appear in their idioms in Vietnam in order to describe Vietnamese people‟s cultural life lively. 2.2.3.2. Characteristics of English Culture According to Jonathan Crowther and Kathryn Kavanag (1999), the British are famous for being a nation of animal lovers, and most families have at least one pet. Therefore, they are sentimental about and often treat them as people or human‟s best friends, “a man's best friend is his dog‖. Additionally, the British names some types of animals for competition sports such as dog races. Last but not least, England, a Western country, has the nomadic culture. They have different concepts about the world, especially the animal world.