VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
LU'U THI
THANH TU
AN INVESTIGATION INTO CULTURAL MEANING OF
LOVE DECLARATIONS IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE FOLKLORES
A
f
j^
^
ft
A.'>^
(TIM
HIEU
Y
NGHIA
VAN HOA CUA LOi TO
TINH
TRONG CAC
BAI
DAN CA
TIENG ANI1
VA
TIENG
VIET)
M.A THESIS
Field: English Linguistics
Code: 5.04.09
Supervisor: Assoc.
Prof.

1.4.2 Love declarations in folklore as a genre
15
1.5
Summary
18
Chapter two: Love declarations in English folklores
19
2.1
Introduction
19
2.2 Nature, Culture and Language used in love declarations
19
2.3 Tropes of love declarations in English folklore 25
2.3.1 Simile used in love declarations in English folklore 25
2.3.2 Metaphor used in love declarations in English folklore 25
2.4 Summary 26
Chapter three: Love declarations in Vietnamese folklore 27
3. 1 Introduction 27
3. 2 Cultural images used in love declarations 28
3. 3 Tropes of love declarations in Vietnamese folklore 36
3.3.1
Simile
in love declarations in Vietnamese folklore 37
3.3.2 Metaphor in love declarations in Vietnamese folklore 38
3.4 Summary 40
Part three: Conclusion 41
3.1 Comparison between English and Vietnamese
love
declarations in folklore 41
3.1.1

people's
viewpoints which are presented quite
differenth
in the two languages. Hence,
what
needs
to be
carried
out in this study will be an investigation of cultural meaning of love
declarations in folklores of the two
languages
in order
U) llnd
out the similarities and
differences between
them,
fhc
thesis also
attempts
to explain what are behind
the
differences uncovered in the investigation.
Our thesis is entitled "An investigation into the cultural meaning of love declarations
in English and Vietnamese folklores". The choice of the thesis is generated from two
reasons: Firstly, as Swales (1990: 34) stated that "the concept of genre has maintained a
central position in folklore studies ever since the pioneering work in the earl\ nineteenth
century". The functionalist in folklore would rather stress
socio-cullural
value. For
Malinowski

and students of
culture as it could provide an insight into the similarities and differences of love
declarations in English and Vietnamese folklores.
1.2
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
A popularized view of emotion is that it is a physiological process associated with
the nervous system. Located all the core of the nervous system is a universal and essential
set of emotional states. One of these could be said to be love.
Ever>body
experiences the
state of being in love at least once in a life time. While the universality of some emotional
state may not be in dispute, how person interprets and manifests those emotional
experiences will differ across cultures.
Hence,
this paper aims to advance an understanding
of emotion expression as a
de-essentialised
domain and to
view
it as "a cultural and
interpersonal process of naming, justifying, and persuading by people in relationship to
each other" (Lutz, 1998:5). We will take "love declaration" in Vietnamese and English
folklores as a point of access into cultural communication systems.
L3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Within cultural
meaning,
our
anahtieal
task was therefore: a) describing the locution
"I

that give force and meaning to intimate personal relationships.
In
intercultural
relationship it is our h>pothesis that love declarations also function to locate and gi\e voice
to cultural
idcntit\.
Put simpl\. to say or not to
sa\
"I lo\e you" can also be
communicating much
atx)ul
communal
understandings
of
socialit},
of person, and their
strategic activities.
Within the scope of the thesis, the author investigates 100 love declarations in
English folklore and 100 love declarations in Vietnamese folklore.
1.4 METHOD OF THE STUDY
To fulfill the aim of the study, the main methods used are descriptive and
comparative.
The study deals with love declarations in English and Vietnamese folklores,
therefore, a great number of love declarations in English and Vietnamese folklore were
collected then 50 love declarations in each language have been carefully selected, after that
we try to analyse the love declarations in terms of cultural meanings, genre and tropes and
then synthesize the result to find out the similarities and differences of people's auitudes in
the two languages. In fulfilling the focuses of the study in comparing the two
languages'
love declarations, descriptive method has been applied to present prominent features of

one presents the theoretical background to the
stud\.
the relationship of
language and culture and language cultural
identit>
introduced
b>
Claire Kramsch (2000)
and Robert Lado (1960) and some Vietnamese researchers such as Vu Ngoc Phan. Lu Huy
Nguyen, Dang Van Lung and Tran Thi An. It also presents the theoretical background of
tropes
written
b\ Leech (1969), Dennis Freeborn and some Vietnamese researchers such as
Dinh Gia Khanh
et.al
(2003), Chu Xuan Dien (2003). Le Van Chuong (2004) etc. This
chapter also consider folklore as a genre based on the idea presented
b\
Swales
(1990).
Chapter two describes love
declarations
in English folklore from two perspectives:
culture, and versification. In
terms
of
culture,
the description will be concerned with the
relationship between language used in love declaration and culture/cultural
identit).

start,
we will present some aspects of the
theorj
of language and
culture such as the relationship between language and culture/ cultural identity etc.
Besides, as the thesis deals with love declaration in
folklores,
it
will
be better when other
aspects of concepts such as genre,
cohesion,
tropes are also taken into consideration.
1.2
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
According to Claire Kramsch. language is the principle means we conduct our social
lives.
When language is
used
in contexts of communication it is bound up with culture.
Firstly, the words people
utter
refer to common
experience.
The>
express facts,
ideas,
or
events
that are communicable because

or sending an e-mail message The wa> in which people use the
spoken,
written, or visual medium itself creates meanings that arc understandable to the
group
the\
belong to. for example, through a speaker's tone of
voice,
accents,
conversational st\le, gestures and facial expressions. Through all as verbal and non-verbal
aspects,
"language embodies cultural realit>" (C. Kramsch. 2000).
Finally,
language
is
SNStem
of signs that is seen as having itself a cultural value.
Speakers identity
themselves
and other through their use of language:
the\
\iew their
language as a
s>mbol
of their social idenlit\.
I
he prohibition of its use is often perceived
by its speakers as a rejection of their social group and their culture. Thus we can say that
"language
symbolizes cultural reality".
We shall deal with these three aspects of language and culture by considering the

Beautiful but faceless and nameless among others of the same species. Nature alone cannot
reveal nor preserve the particular
beaut)
of a particular rose at a chosen moment in lime.
Powerless to prevent the biological "deca\" and the ultimate death of roses and of ladies,
nature can only make summer when the season is right.
Culture, by contrast, is not bound by biological time. Like
nature,
it is a
"gift",
but of
difTerent
kind.
Through a sophisticated technological
procedure,
developed especiall\ to
extract the essence of roses, culture forces nature to reveal its "essential" potentialities. The
word "screws" suggests that this process is not without labour.
B\
crushing the
petals,
a
great deal
of the rose must be lost in order to get at its essence. The
technolog)
of the
screws constrains the exuberance of
nature,
in the same manner as the
teehnolog\

perfumes Similarly, let us consider the poem "Tat
nuoc
d^u
dinh". a Vietnamese folklore
to see the relationship between culture, nature and language:
''Horn
qua tat
nm'rc ddu
dinh
Bo quen chiec
do
tren canh hoa sen.
Em
duac
thi cho anh xin
Hay la em de lam tin
irong
nha
do anh
sirt
chi
dmrng
td
Vo
anh dura
co.
me gia dura khdu.
do anh
si'rt
chi

"
According to Vietnamese culture, "ganh xoi \6",
'con Ion
beo'.
"vo rugu
tam". 'doi
chieu',
'doi
chan', 'quan tam tien treo'. 'quan nam tien
ciroi'.
'buong
cau" are s\mbols of
a wedding. Those
who
share Vietnamese culture
ina>
understand that the man in the poem
borrows cultural s\mbols to express his love to his woman.
So let us come to the next concept.
L2.2
Communities
and
their effects
on Language Users.
According to C. Kramsch, "Social
conventions,
norms of social appropriateness,
are the product of communities of language users". As in the Dickinson's poem, poets and
II
readers, florists and lovers, horticulturists, rose press

blind, and those that
folUnv him
too often lose their way"
Collev Cibler
Or:
"But
love is blind and lovers can not see
The pretty Jollies that themselves
commit'
Shakespeare
Or:
"If love he
blind.
It best agrees with night. "
Shakespeare
Whereas, Vietnamese people tend to associate love with the image of
"irau
cau"
For example:
Yeu nhau trdu vd cung say,
Ghet nhau cau ddu day khay chdng mdng.
Or:
12
Trdu hoc khan trdng cau
tirai,
Trdu boc khan trdng dai
ngir&i
xinh xinh
An cho no thod tdm
tinh.

**a
trope is a device that involves meaning". The most familiar tropes in literary criticism
are simile, metaphor and metonymy.
However,
in this
thesis,
we will deal with simile and
metaphor for these
tropes
manifest in love declarations.
1.3.1 Simile
The Oxford learner's dictionary (2003:
1526)
detlnes that simile is a figure of
speech
in which two things are compared using the word "like ". or
"as",
or
"as
if. Simile is like
a metaphor except that it makes the comparison explicit
b\
using
"like",
or "as", or
"av
//".
In simile the comparison between the two things is made explicit
b\
an indirect

Chiec khan doi ddu
nhir
the hoa sen.
Or:
Doi ta
nhir
the con
ong.
Con qudn con quyt, con trong con ngodi.
A simile, therefore, is explicit, the very circumstantiality of simile is limitation.
1.3.2 Metaphor
Leech (1969:
151)
argued that "metaphor is so central to our notion of poetic
creation that it is often treated as a phenomenon in its own right, without reference to other
kinds of transferred meaning".
In
considering a metaphor, we may consider the formula:
F
= "Like
L". This implies that, the figurative meaning F is deriving from the literal
meaning L in having the sense "like L".
However,
the simplest kind of metaphor is the use
of
"be"
in clause structure, for
example:
Love is a boy, by poets
styled.

1.4.1 Introduction
According to Swales (1990) a genre "comprises a class of communicative
events, of which the
memliers
share some sets of communication purposes. These purposes
constitute the rationale for the genre, the rationale, in its turn, shape the schematic structure
14
of discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and st\'le. In addition to
purpose, the exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of
similarit\
in terms of
structure, style content and intended audience".
In folklore study, according to Swales (1990: 34) "the concept of genre has
maintained a central position in folklore studies ever since the pioneering work in the early
nineteenth century". The functionalist in folklore would rather stress
socio-cultural
value.
For Malinowski (1960, cited in Swales 1990: 35) "folklore genres contribute to the
maintenance and survival of social groups because they serve social and spiritual needs.
Perhaps inevitably, to assign cultural value also requires the investigator to
pa\
attention to
how a community views and itself classify genres". Therefore, many folklore genres are
not so labeled according to the form itself but according to how it is received by the
community.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia defines folklore as a genre and it includes
ballad, tales, epic poem, song and saying (proverb and aphorism).
Now we
will
consider love declaration in folklore as a

Vietnamese:
Qua dinh nga ndn trdng dinh.
Dinh
bao nhieu ngdi
thmnig minh
hdy nhieu.
Or:
Or:
Cam an mdi
bira
mot
himg
Nm'rc udng
cdm
chimg
de da
thmwg
em.
Co kia do trdng
Ida
Ida,
15
Lai day dap ddt, trdng cd
vai
anh.
In
English
Love imposes impossible
tasks.
Parsley, sage, rosemary and

Liule
Snow-While
Or:
Many thanks for redeering me. You were the wife of an enchanted prince. Xow
we can celebrate our wedding properly, for now I am the King of this
land.
The Bear Prince
In addition to
the
issue of expressing lo\e and proposing a wedding. lo\e
declaration in relation to gender is the subject of the studies. For
instance,
males seem to
16
express their love more often than females. We can find love declarations said by men in
both English and Vietnamese folklores
easily.
In Vietnamese:
Gid dua
corn
buon
ngii len
b&
Miing ai cd
rgng
cho ngu nhd mot dem.
Or:
7oc
ngang
limg vira chimg

thyme.
Which never bore blossom since Adam was horn,
And then she'll he
a
true love of mine.
Scarborough Fair
In consideration love declarations in English and Vietnamese
folklores,
the
author has found out
that,
there are two ways of expressing love between men and women
in Vietnamese folklores: direct
wa\
and indirect
ua>.
If
a direct love declaration can
prevent its audience from
misunderstanding,
it is
likel\
to make its audience embarrassed.
Whereas, an indirect love declaration can pre\enl its audience from being embarrassed and
it also brings an insight that the proposer is a
delicate,
polite and intelligent person. We can
find a lot of indirect love declaration in Vietnamese folklore:
Bdv gid man
nidi

muai,
Mot ngudi
vira
dep
vira tuai
nhu minh.
However, this phenomenon is not universally recognized in English folklores, many
of love declaration in English folklores seem to concentrate on the importance of love for
the establishment and maintenance of marriage and general attitudes. For example:
/ love you more than anything else in the
world.
Come with me to my
father's
castle. You shall become my wife.
Little
Snow-White
Or:
Many thanks for redeering me. You were the wife of an enchanted prince. Now
we can celebrate our wedding properly, for now I am the King of this
land.
The Bear Prince
In a word, from the description of lo\e declaration above, it is suitable to consider
love declaration in English and Vietnamese folklores as the claims to feel an
emotion,
and
it is also a study of cultural
life
of English and Vietnamese people.
1.5 SUMMARY
We have gone through chapter one. in this chapter, we ha\e been concerned

CHAPTER
TWO:
LOVE DECLARATIONS
IN
ENGLISH
FOLKLORE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Love declarations are frequently found in relationships of lovers, married couples
and respondents of different ages. In this chapter, we will study some linguistic features of
love declarations of lovers in English folklore. We also try to discover cultural meaning of
love declarations through cultural images used in
love
declarations. In our study, as
mentioned in the methodology section, one hundred love declarations are taken into the
investigation.
2.2 NATURE, CULTURE, AND LANGUAGE USED IN LOVE
DECLARATIONS
The study of cultural
images used
in love declarations can help to show the cultural
meanings. In studying love declaration in
folklore,
it is
necessar\
to have a small
investigation into natural and cultural images used
b)
people in composing the love
declarations. Within one hundred love declarations investigated, the common cultural and
natural images can

blind,
and those that follow
hint
too
(fien
lose their way.
19
Or:
Or:
(Colley
Cibber)
If love be blind
It best agrees with night
(Shakespeare)
But love is
blind,
and lovers cannot see
The
pretty follies that themselves commit
(Shakespeare)
Or:
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the
mind.
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind
(Shakespeare)
The author has found out that when expressing love, English people often think
ol
life,
absence, happiness, relationship
between

(Francis Beaumont and John
l-letcher)
Or:
The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love.
20
Or:
Or:
(P.J. Bailey)
Oh,
when I was in love
with
you,
Then I was clean and
brca^e.
(A.E. Houseman)
If love were what the rose
is.
And I were like the
leaf.
Our lives would grow together
In
.sad
or singing weather.
(Swinburne)
Or:
There are no ugly loves, nor handsome prisons
(Pierre
Gringore)
Beside that, when talking about
love,

Absence lessens half-hearted passions, and increases great ones, as the
wind
puts
out the candle
and
yet stirs up the
fire.
(La Rochefoucauld)
Or:
Absence and time are nothing when one is in love.
(Alfred de Mussel)
Love often goes along with happiness. Obviously, when giving love declarations
people often have a built in need to make the person they are with really secure in their
love.
Again, they know how their partner feels, what their partner longs for. And happiness
is what people desire. That is the reason wh> people are aware of affirming that
the\
can
bring happiness to their partner. Within one hundred investigated love declarations by
English people, the author has found out that there are many of them talking about the
relationship between love and happiness. For example:
There is only
one hapjyincss
in
life,
to
h>vc
and
he loved
(George Sand)

"
(Anonymous)
Or:
Man
A
love is of man
's
life
a
thing apart,
Tis woman
's
whole existence.
(Byron)
Or:
o')
For man at most differ as Heaven and Earth,
But women, worst and
best,
as Heaven and
He IL
(Tennyson)
Or:
Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
(James Stephens)
Or:
Women represent the triumph of matter over
mind,
just as men
represent

"
(Queen
Elizabeth
1)
Or:
Many a man has been
a
wonder to the
world,
whose wife and valet have seen nothing
in him that was even remarkable. Few men have been admired by their
serx'ants.
(Michel de Montaigne)
One
of the most important cultural images that English people often use to talk about
love
is a kiss. The author has found out
man\
love declarations of English people with the
image of a kiss in love
declarations.
A kiss becomes a desire of both sexes, male and
female. For example:
Give me
a thouscuul
kis.ses.
then
a
hundred,
then

Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not
sure,
this eve,
How my
face,
your flower, had pursed
Its petals up.
The bee
\s
kiss now!
Kiss me as if you entered gay
My heart at some
noondcn'
(Robert Browning)
GencrallN,
through the cultural images, English people
tr\
to express their attitude
toward love. In our
stud\,
we have found out that there is a close relationship between love
expression
and cultural images.
Beside that, when expressing love, English people lend to speak
expliciil\.
that is the
reason why they use a lot of the word "love" in their expressions.
For example:
Escape

will
be
simile,
metaphor. As far as
the thesis is concerned, from a very general
viewpoint,
two popular types of trope in poem
will be taken into
consideration.
2.3.1 Simile used in love
declarations
in English folklores.
In
English love
declarations,
we do not llnd out man\ cases of
simile,
as the love
declarations
concentrate on expressing love toward
other,
the language used is
relali\el\
romantic, the comparison is not
ver>
popularized.
onl\
some cases of simile are found in
our study. For example:
Love is like the measles: we all

is a boy who is not mature.
Love is a boy,
by
poets
styled.
Then spare the rod, and spoil the
child.
(Samuel Butler)
But love in the next example is a great teacher who can teach us
ever>
thing:
Love is a great teacher who teaches all at once.
(Pierre Corneille)
And love can do things like human being:
Love is swift of foot;
Love
\s a
man of
war.
And can shoot
And can hit from far.
(G.
Herbert)
The metaphor may show the imaginations through very simple but delicate
comparison as:
Love is smoke made with the fume of sighs.
(Shakespeare)
Metaphor,
generally, is very important in English
love