VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
POST – GRADUATE FACULTY
******
NGUYỄN THỊ THỦY TIÊN AN INVESTIGATION
INTO IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS CONTAINING
NUMBERS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG THÀNH NGỮ CÓ CÁC TỪ CHỈ SỐ
TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field : English Linguistics
Field code : 60 22 15 Ha Noi – 2011
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
POST – GRADUATE FACULTY

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………… ……….… iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS…… … ………………… …… ……………………… …iv
LIST OF TABLES…………….………………………………………… ……….…….vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study………….…….………… ……………….…………… 1
2. Aims of the study …………….…………… … ……….…………………………….2
3. Scope of the study…………………………………….………………… ….…………2
4. Methods of the study.……………….…… ………… ……………… … …………2
5. Design of the study…… …………………………….…………………….… ………3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1. Meaning……………………………………………………………………………… 4
1.2. Senses ………………………… …………………………………………………… 6
1.3. Definition of idioms ……………………………… ………………………… …… 7
1.4. Characteristics of idioms ……………………………… ………………………… …8
1.5. Classification of idioms …………………………………………………… …………9
1.6. Idioms and proverbs.……………………………………….…………………………11
1.7. Idioms and collocations ………………………………… ………………………… 12
1.8. Idiom and 'dead' metaphor………………………………… ……………… ………13

v
1.9. Number in English and Vietnamese…………………… ………………………… 13
1.10. Review of previous studies on idioms.…….…….…… ………………………… 16

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY


Page
Table 1
Types of numerical idioms in English and Vietnamese by
Fernando’s model
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Table 2
The frequency of appearance of numbers in English idioms

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Table 3
The frequency of appearance of numbers in Vietnamese idioms

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Table 4
The connotative meanings of numbers in English and
Vietnamese idioms by Spangler and Werner’s model

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1
PART A
INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale of the study

English has been a very important international means of communication in almost
fields of life such as economy, politics, culture and education. English bridges people over

English and Vietnamese. Based on that, a brief comparison between idioms in English
and Vietnamese is carried out to find out the similarities and differences in the
contribution of numbers to their meanings. In summary, this study is aimed at:
 To explore the roles of numbers in the meanings of idioms in English and
Vietnamese.
 To find out the similarities and differences in the contribution of numbers to the
meanings of idioms in English and Vietnamese.
In order to achieve these aims, the following question should be answered:
 What are senses do numbers contribute to the meanings of idioms in English and
Vietnamese?

3. Scope of the study

Because of the limitation of time, material resources, my knowledge and academic
ability, this study is only focused on the senses of numbers contribute to the meanings of
idioms. Specific speaking, the study is focused on revealing what types of English and
Vietnamese idioms numbers appear in and their connotative meanings in these idioms.
That is the foundation for a brief comparison between the contribution of numbers to the
meanings of idioms in English and Vietnamese.

4. Methods of the study

In order to achieve those above-mentioned aims, the study employs both
quantitative and qualitative methods. By virtue of quantitative method, data have been
collected from, literary works, books of idioms and semantics and newspapers, websites
and dictionaries in both English and Vietnamese. The qualitative method is adopted to
interpret the collected data.

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5. Design of the study


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PART B
DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter has provided the theoretical framework for the following analysis of
numerical idioms in the main chapter. In this chapter, theoretical background is consisted
of matters related to meaning; senses; idioms (the definition, the classification, the
characteristics; the distinguishing between idioms and proverbs, idioms and collocations,
idioms and dead metaphors); brief introductions about numbers in English and Vietnamese
and the brief review of previous researches about idioms.

1.1. Meaning

Lyons (1997:1) said, “Semantics is generally defined as the study of meaning, and
this is the definition which we shall initially adopt”. Thus core issue in the field of
semantics is the meaning. In Understanding English Semantics by Dr. Nguyen Hoa (2004),
the definition of meaning is explained as follow: “According to C.K. Ogden and I.A.
Richards (1923) in “The meaning of meaning”, a number of meanings can be associated
with this term”:
 An intrinsic property
 The other words annexed to a word in a dictionary
 The connotation of a word
 The place of anything in a system
 That to which the user of symbol ought to be referring
 That to which the interpreter of a symbol
- refers
- believes himself to be referring

fat
silly, dizzy
paints her face
domineering
know-it-all

Leech (1974:23) defines that “connotative meaning is the communicative value of
an expression according to what is referred to, exceeds the above contents that are purely
conceptual”. Keith Alan, (2001:147) states “the connotations that arise from encyclopedic
knowledge about its denotation and also from experiences, beliefs, and prejudices about
the contexts in which the expression is typically used.” For example, the word BOY has
the connotation „STRONG‟ – positive meaning and LION the connotation „CRUEL‟ –
negative meaning.
Siregar (2005) claims that there are two kinds of meaning in semantics: Linguistic
meaning and Speaker meaning. Linguistic meaning is determined by the meaning of its
constituents and their grammatical relations. For example:
- Be careful of a sharp bend in the road.

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- Please don‟t bend this paper
Speaker meaning is what a speaker means in producing an utterance. It consists of
literal meaning and non-literal meaning. Literal meaning does not make hearers have
difficulty understanding what the speaker means. However, we mean something different
from what our words mean by speaking non-literally. In that case, it is called non-literal
meaning. Using idioms is a way of using non-literal meaning because the meaning of an
idiomatic expression cannot be predicted either lexically or grammatically. This study is
concerned with idioms so non-literal meaning is focused on.


In English, there are a large number of idioms often used in daily communicative
activities. Thus, idioms have been a concern of any English learners because they can not
understand idioms by inferring from the literal meanings of words, which leads to
difficulty in communicating in both spoken language and the written form. People often
talk about idioms during the process of learning English, so what is idiom in English?
According to Cruse (1986: 37), an idiom is an “expression whose meaning cannot
be inferred from the meanings of its parts when they are not parts of idioms”. Cruse (1986:
37–38) claims that an idiom must have two compulsory features: „Lexically complex‟
showing that each idiom has to be consisted of more than one lexical constituent and
„semantically simplex‟ that is „a single minimal semantic constituent‟. As a result, a non-
idiomatic expression can be divided into several semantic constituents. For example, the
meaning of the expression „at the eleventh hour‟ can not be deducted from the meanings of
any its constituent or from its structure. The expression means that something happens
when it is almost too late, or at the last possible moment. Fernando (1996) shares the same
view of the definition of idioms. At the same time, he has a broad view when considering
idioms as multi-word expressions whose meanings are not derived from the meanings of
their constituents or their syntactic structures or consist the meaning of one of its
constituents while the other constituent denotes a concept which it does not denote in other
linguistic contexts. Idioms even accept restricted variation such as literal idioms „on the
contrary, a happy new year‟.
Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary provides the definitions of “idiom” as “a
group of words whose meaning is different from the meanings of the individual words”.
In Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, idiom is defined as “a group of
words in a fixed order that have a particular meaning that is different from the meanings of
each word understood on its own”. Idiom, a colorful way of using English, is used in
informal and formal, spoken and written languages to bring about stronger meaning than
non-idiomatic phrases in an impressive way by conveying both ideas and implying the
attitude of the language user such as disapproval, admiration or humor. For instance, “look
daggers at someone” is more interesting than “look angrily at someone” although they

as a path, love as war, and up is more), metonymies (lend a hand, count heads),
hyperboles (not worth the paper it‟s printed on).
• Proverbiality: Idioms are used to illustrate familiar situations of social life. The
situations are similar to folksy, familiar images (climbing walls, chewing the fat, spilling
beans).

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• Informality: Idioms have a tendency to appear in colloquial speech.
• Affect: Evaluative or affective stances can be inferred from the use of idioms.

1.5. Classification of idioms

Based on the scalar categorization, Fernando (1996: 35) divides idioms into three
types: Pure idioms, semi-idioms and literal idioms.
 Pure idioms: They are multi-word expressions whose meanings are not derived
from the meanings of their constituents or their syntactic structures. For example, idiom
“shoot the breeze” has the meaning which is not related to the meaning of the words
“shoot” and “breeze”.
 Semi-idioms: “A semi-idiom has one or more literal constituents and at least one
with a non-literal subsense, usually special to that co-occurrence relation and no other.”
In other words, the meaning of a semi-idiom consists of the meaning of one of its
constituents while the other constituent denotes a concept which it does not denote in
other linguistic context. For example, the meaning of greenhouse includes the literal
meaning of “house” but not the meaning of “green”. A greenhouse is not a house of
green color, but a house for growing plants. However, when “green” co-occurs with
other words like “window, door, trees, pencil…”, it is an adjective denoting color and
modifying these nouns.
 Literal idioms: “They are …less semantically complex than pure and semi-idioms”.
They accept restricted variation. For instance, some literal idioms are such as “on the
contrary, a happy new year…”

Characterizing the message involves:
 Newsworthiness: Guess what!, what do you know?
 Sincerity : As a matter of fact, believe you me
 Calls for brevity : Get to the point, cut the cackle
 Uncertainty : Mind you, I daresay
 Relational idioms: They make the discourse have coherence. Thus, they can be
“grouped with conjunctions” such as and, but, because as having a textual function.
They can also be divided into :
Integrative information:
 Adversative : On the contrary, far from
 Comparison : On the other hand, on the other
 Causal : So that when, no wonder

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 Concessive : At the same time
 Addition : What is more, in addition to
Sequencing or chaining information
 Sequencing meta-discoursal information : In the first place, last but not least
 Sequencing temporal information : One day, up to now

1.6. Idioms and proverbs

It is essential to distinguish idioms and proverbs because language users tend to
find it difficult to make differences.
In Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, a proverb is defined as “a well-known
phrase or sentence that gives advice or says something that is generally true, for example
„Waste not, want not‟”. In Cambridge Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, a proverb is “a short
sentence, etc., usually known by many people, stating something commonly experienced
or giving advice”. Another definition by Vu Ngoc Phan (2000: 39) is that a proverb as “a
complete saying expressing one idea of comment, experience, morality, justice or


Idiom and collocation have both similarity and difference. Howard Jackson (1990:
256) regards collocation as “a lexical relationship of mutual expectancy, the presence of a
particular lexical item gives the rise to the greater chance likelihood that other lexical items
belonging to the same area of meaning will also occur.” Mc Carthy (1996: 16) regards
collocation as corruption-occurrence between words. Besides, Chistra Fernando (1996:27)
views collocation as the company words keep. In terms of difference, the meaning of an
idiom can not literally derive from the meanings of its constituent; however, the meaning
of a collocation is the combination of the literal meanings of its separate words. Moreover,
collocations are not as restricted as idioms in terms of word substitution. Whereas, word
substitution can make an idiom lose its idiomatic meaning and no longer be an idiom, a
collocation accepts that despite the change in its meaning but remains as another
collocation. There are some examples such collocations „catch a bus/ a train, strong/ weak/
black/ white/ hot coffee, a cold/an icy/a chill/a biting etc wind‟.
Despite the differences, Fernando Chistra (1996: 36) suggests that both idioms and
collocations “show a habitual co-occurrence of words”. These combinations of words are
widely acknowledged naturally and can be recognized without difficulty such as idioms
„spill the beans, foot the bill‟ and collocations „heavy/torrential rain, heavy
/traffic/rain/snow‟. 13
1.8. Idiom and 'dead' metaphor

Cruse (1986) suggests that idioms and dead metaphor should be distinguished.
While a metaphor, a kind of hidden comparison is an expression referring to one particular
thing or object which is different from the thing or the object literally described in this
expression, a dead metaphor is a metaphor in which words lose direct meanings and have
only figurative meanings. In Hoa, Nguyen (2004), the word „ponder‟ originally meant
„weigh‟, but now it has the meaning „ consider thoughtfully‟. Thus, idioms and dead

involving the land, the sea and the sky; nature is consisted of three parts which are animals,
plants and minerals; the spirit, the flesh and the soul compose a human. Thus, number
“three” appears in quite a lot of sayings like „the third time is the charm‟, „number three is
always fortunate‟ and „all good things go by threes‟. “Three‟ is seen as a perfect number in
the eyes of Pythagoras, an ancient Greek philosopher because he suggests that everything
can be divided into numbers and the best number choice is the number „three‟ symbolizing
three stages of a process including the beginning, the middle and the completion.
According to Sin-wai Chan and David E. Polland ( 2001) in “ An encyclopedia of
translation : Chinese- English, English – Chinese”, there is another lucky number which is
“seven” because seven refers to the planets such as Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mercy,
Mars, and Saturn that are accompanied with the God. Furthermore, according to Christian
religion, it took the God seven days to create the world. Consequently, in the western
religion, there are seven virtues consisting trust, hope, tenacity, prudent, control, fair, and
benevolence and seven sins including gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, pride, lust, and envy.
On the contrary, the number „two‟ is considered as an unlucky number or as source of evil
so the meanings of English numerical idioms containing „two‟ are often something not
good such as two by four and two bits. Besides, thirteen is also the first avoided number in
western culture due to its unlucky meaning. That dated back to the old story from Holy
Bible that Jesus was betrayed by his thirteenth follower while having the last dinner with
the other twelve followers. Here are brief introduction about cultural significance in Bible
in the book “Numbers in the Bible: God‟s Design in Biblical Numerology” by Robert
Johnston (1999):
In Bible, the number “1” is the symbol of unity. As a cardinal number it denotes
unity; as an ordinal it denotes primacy. It can be inferred that in English culture, that
number can be seen a number with positive meaning or neutral meaning.

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Number „two‟ can be considered as an unlucky number or as source of evil so the
meanings of English numerical idioms containing „two‟ are often something not good such
as two by four and two bits.
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1.9.2. Numbers in Vietnamese

In daily life, we can see that numbers are usually used in Vietnamese daily
activities such as talking about age, sizes of shirts and shoes. In addition, they bring about
certain cultural colors. According to Mingtan (2002) in “How to attract Asian women”,
there are unlucky numbers such as three and four. It can be seen that number „three‟ is not
lucky number in Vietnamese culture. When people get married or start going out to do
something important, they avoid the date having „three‟. In addition to, the number „ four‟
represent many things such as natural phenomenon ( four directions : East, West, South,
North; weather : Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter ), social phenomenon ( job : solider,
farmer, cadre, business man ; art : music – chess – poetry ), human being ( moral,
citizen‟s responsibilities ). However, it can be seen as unlucky number because it is related
to „death‟. People often say „birth, age, illness, death‟. For example, people do not want
this number „four‟ appearing in their number plates. On the contrary, in the book “ Viet
Nam Culture” by Bobbie Kalman ( 2002) and the book “ The little Sai Gon cook book :
Vietnamese Cuisine and Culture in Southern” by Ann Le, Julie Fay (2006) , Vietnamese
consider numbers „six, eight, nine‟ are lucky numbers : The number „six‟ represents
luckiness, happiness and material benefits; the number „ eight‟ symbolizes achievements
and becoming rich ; the number „ nine‟ represents power.

1.10. Review of previous studies on idioms

Studies on idioms have been paid a lot of attention by many researchers. Thus, it
can be said that the collection of idioms researches is not small.
In Viet Nam, there have been studies on English and Vietnamese idioms. The
research “Idiomatic expressions containing the word „dog‟ in English and Vietnamese” by
Tu, Dao Thanh ( 2007) was aimed at studying idiomatic expressions containing the word


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CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

This chapter focuses on the discussion and analysis of the collected data to explore
the contributions of numbers to the meanings of idioms in English and Vietnamese. In
other words, numbers contribute to what types of idioms (ideational, interpersonal and
relational), contribute what types of connotative meanings (positive, neutral, negative) to
the overall meanings of idioms. Moreover, a brief comparison between English and
Vietnamese numerical idioms will be carried out to reveal similarities and differences
between the roles of numbers in non-literal meanings of idioms of two languages.

2.1. Research question

In order to the above aims, the study tries to find out the answers to the following
question:
What are senses do numbers contribute to the meanings of idioms in English and
Vietnamese?

2.2. Data collection


idiom „bye for now‟ is a farewell. Another example is „say no more‟ that means
„I agree; I will do it; I concede, no need to continue talking‟. Thus it is used to
express agreement.
- Relational idioms: Relational idioms provide integrative information such as
addition or comparison, adversative, causal, concessive and supply sequencing
meta-discoursal information and sequencing temporal information. For example,
„in addition to‟ means „furthermore, besides, moreover‟. Thus, it is an idiom that
denotes „addition‟. Another example is „in the first place‟ that is an idiom to denote
„the beginning‟. It has the function of pointing out the order of information
mentioned. Thus, it is called an idiom of sequencing meta-discousal information.
In order to explore the contribution of numbers to the connotative meanings of
idioms in English and Vietnamese, the study also takes the theoretical view of connotative
meanings by Spangler and Werner (1989). There are three types of attitudes when a word
or a phrase is used. Thus, the meanings of numbers in idioms in English and Vietnamese
are analyzed and divided into three types: Positive meaning (expressing favorable attitude),

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neutral meaning (expressing impartial attitude), and negative meaning (expressing
unfavorable attitude).

2.4. Data analysis

There are 157 idioms containing numbers which are collected. Among which, there are
72 English numerical idioms and 85 Vietnamese ones. Here are some results of data
analysis which will be discussed in the following each section. Comments will follow
tables of showing results of data analysis.

2.4.1. Ideational, interpersonal and relational numerical idioms in English and
Vietnamese