Vinh university Foreign languages department ********** LÊ THỊ HƯƠNG A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF SEMANTIC FEATURES OF COMPARATIVE ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS USING NAMES OF ANIMALS (PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT CÓ SỬ DỤNG TÊN CỦA ĐỘNG VẬT) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: LINGUISTICS VINH, MAY 2011 Vinh university Foreign languages department ********** A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF SEMANTIC FEATURES OF COMPARATIVE ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS USING NAMES OF ANIMALS (PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT CÓ SỬ DỤNG TÊN CỦA ĐỘNG VẬT) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: LINGUISTICS Student: Lª ThÞ H¬ng Class: K48B1 English Supervisor: Trần Bá Tiến, M.A VINH, MAY 2011 Acknowlegements For the completion of this work, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contributions from many people. First of all, I would like to thank Management Board of the English Department at Vinh University for giving me a great opportunity to do a study on the subject: A contrastive analysis of semantic features of comparative English and Vietnamese idioms using names of animals. My thanks also go to my supervisor, Mr Tran Ba Tien for his invaluable guidance, great sympathy and enormous patience. I am deepy greateful to his inspiration which has motivated me throught the implementation of the project. My warmest thanks are due to my loving parents, my older brother and my closest friends for their unconditional love, support and forbearance. Finally, I am all too aware that despite all the advices and assistances, I feel that the study is far from perfect; it is, therefore, my sole responsibility for any inadequacies that the study may be considered to have. Vinh, May, 2011 Le Thi Huong i Abstract Nowaday, when communication has become more important to people all over the world and English is one of the international languages, it is urgent and common that there are more people who use and speak English fluently. However, it is not easy to be a good and skillful English learner because English includes many aspects that need a lot of skills and much hard working. For Vietnamese learners of English, particularly advanced learners, knowing and understanding idiomatic expressions is a significant step to mastering this language. It can be noticed that such short expressions contain numerous linguistic features. Among these, idioms are of great interest to the author. Although idioms have been studied and viewed at different angles by numerous scholars, no one has ever reached totally persuasive answers to the questions of them. Thus, it is still a controversial topic which attracts people’s interest. The aims of this graduation paper are to investigate the ways in which metaphor and simile are used in English and Vietnamese idioms and to make some comparisons between English idioms and Vietnamese ones. In order to obtain these aims, data and sources are collected and gathered through reading and selecting numerous English and Vietnamese idiomatic expressions. Then, the author categorizes and analyzes data of similes and metaphors in idioms. The contrastive analysis method is also employed to make up the study on metaphor in English and Vietnamese idioms with an attempt to provide a clearer understanding of the aspect. The results show that there are both similarities and differences between English idioms and Vietnamese ones through similes and metaphors, which are specifically demonstrated in the thesis. Lastly, some suggestions are introduced for teaching idioms in school with the hope that student can be more interesting at idioms. ii Table of contents Page Acknowlegements i Abstract ii Table of contents iii List of tables iv Part I introduction 1. Justification of the Study 2. Aims and Objectives of the Study 3. Methods of the Study 4. Scopes of the Study 5. Format of the Study Part II investigation Chapter 1 theoretical background 1.1. Definition of Idiom 1.1.1. Points of View of English Author on Idiom 1.1.2. Points of View of Vietnamese Author on Idiom 1.2 Features of Idiom 1.2.1 Semantic feature 1.2.2 Syntactic feature 1.3. Criteria to Distinguish Idioms from Free-Word Groups 1.3.1. Word and Its Meaning 1.3.2. The Meaning of Idioms 1.3.3. Idioms and Free- Word Groups 1.4. Criteria to Distinguish Idioms and Proverbs CHAPTER II ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS USING NAMES OF ANIMALS 2.1. English and Vietnamese Idioms Using Names of Animals 2.1.1. The Names of Animals in English Idioms 2.1.2. The Names of Animals in Vietnamese Idioms 2.2. The Meaning of English Idioms Using Names of Animals and Their Equivalents in Vietnamese 2.2.1. The Similarities 2.2.2. The Differences CHAPTER III: SOME SUGGESTIONS TO TEACH ENGLISH COMPARATIVE IDIOMS USING NAMES OF ANIMALS 3.1. Some Difficulties are Confronted by Learner 3.1.1. Difficulties in Understanding 3.1.2. Difficulties in Memorizing 3.2 Pedagogical Suggestions for Teaching English Idioms 3.2.1 Which idioms to teach 3.2.2 Separated lessons or integrated ones 3.2.3 Specific classroom activities PART III: CONCLUSION 1.Recapitulation and Implications 2.Suggestions for Further Studies References Appendix iii List of tables Table 1: The English comparative idioms are similar with Vietnamese ones Table 2: The English comparative idioms are different from Vietnamese ones iv Part I introduction 1. Justification of the Study In the age of increasing international communication, English has become the vital means for communication in all fields. It is considered a bridge that brings people from different countries closer. Thus, English is now popular in Vietnam, especially at school and university. During the course of learning English, we have chances to deal with many aspects of English language. In that, we are really interested in its linguistic field, particularly English idioms because they play a very important role in reflecting customs, cultural traditions, history of a nation. According to Long Man, Idioms Dictionary, idioms appear in every language both in written and spoken one to emphasize meaning and “make our observation, judgments and explanations be more lively and interesting”. Therefore, they have aesthetic function. However, idioms also give us many difficulties in communication. They are often confusing because the meaning of the whole group of words taken together has little, often nothing to do with the meanings of the words taken one by one. For example, when we say: “The street is as fat as a whale”, we do not mean that the street is fat or big but what we imply is that the street is very crowded. It can be said that, one of various types of English idioms that makes the speakers and writers have difficulty in understanding and translating them into the mother tongue is English comparative idioms. That is the reason why the author chooses the topic: “A contrastive analysis of semantic features of comparative English and Vietnamese idioms using names of animals” with the hope that this study might help Vietnamese people who learn English as well as who are fond of idioms to understand and use them in the right ways. 2. Aims and Objectives of the Study As mentioned above, this study is conducted to make a contrast of semantic features of English comparative idioms Vietnamese ones. Therefore, the main objectives of the study are: - Help the learners and readers to improve their knowledge of English and Vietnamese idioms, especially comparative idioms and help them understand the cultural characteristic of English and Vietnamese people via the idioms. - Give some suggestions for teaching idioms in class. 3. Methods of the Study The main method employed is qualitative one with the use of other methods: - Contrastive and comparative method - Statistic method - Analysis and systematic method 4. Scope of the Study The study concerns with problems that are idioms, English and Vietnamese idioms with comparisons and the meaning of English comparative idioms and Vietnamese ones. 5. Format of the Study The research consists of 3 parts: Part I is the introduction of the thesis which contains justification, the aims and objectives, the scope, the method and the format of the study. Part II is the development of the thesis with 3 chapters: Chapter 1 is theoretical background which provides the definition of idiom, criteria to distinguish idioms from proverbs, criteria to distinguish idioms from free-word groups; chapter 2 is the survey which investigates English and Vietnamese idioms using names of animals and chapter 3 is some suggestions to translate English comparative idioms using names of animals. Part III is the conclusion of the thesis including the summary of the recapitulation and implication and suggestions for further studies. The study also contains acknowledgements, abstract, table of contents, list of tables, references and appendix. Part II Development Chapter 1 Theoretical background This chapter examines a theoretical background of idiom. Firstly, the author presents the definition of idiom. Then, she talks about criteria to distinguish idioms from free-word groups and idioms from proverb. 1.1. Definition of Idiom 1.1.1. Points of View of English Author on Idiom In English, various authors define the term “idiom” differently. Idioms may be treated as a type of collocation involving two or more words in context. However, since the meaning of an idiom can not be predicted from the meanings of its constituents, we may also consider idioms as a type of multiword lexeme. According to Jennifer Seild and W. Mc.Mordie (1988) an idiom is “a number of words which, when taken together, have different meaning from the individual meanings of each word”. For example, when we say “Do not beat a dead horse” we do not imply a certain kind of animal is involved but what we mean is that the person should not waste time on an issue that has already been decided. Similarity, when we say “ He likes a cat on hot bricks”, we do not imply that a person likes a cat being somewhere, what we want to mean is that he is worried or when we say “ like a dog with two tails”, we do not refer to a thing or person having two tails. Nevertheless, what we mean is that a person feels very proud and happy about something, etc. We can see these phrases as “Do not beat a dead horse”, “like a dog with two tails”, “likes a cat on hot bricks” are called idioms. From Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Jonathan Crowther (1995) defined that an idiom is “a phrase whose meaning is difficult of sometimes impossible to guess by looking at the individual words it contains”. In the same year, Dean Curry in the “Illustrated American idioms” (1995) offered another definition of idiom as follows; “An idiom is the assigning of a new meaning to a group of words which already have their own meaning”. (1995: 49)