PART I INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In Vietnamese, the verb ‘chạy’ does not only indicate a physical activity only but also
imply other situations in real life communication. To some extent, it is not too difficult to
find such circumstances in which people use the verb ‘chạy’: ‘chạy ăn từng bữa toát mồ
hôi’, ‘chạy làng’, ‘chạy triện đồng’ etc. Especially, modern Vietnamese language, which has
developed and reflected the life in its own way, has been supplemented with many new
words, or new interpretations to the existing words such as ‘chạy điểm’, ‘chạy trường’,
‘chạy án’, ‘chạy thận, ‘chạy sô’, etc.
The verb ‘run’ in English, similarly, is rich in meaning which can be listed some
expressions like ‘run in the race’, ‘run a company’, ‘run a risk’, ‘run a temperature’, ‘run
the risk’ etc.
How do English people find equivalents for such expressions like ‘chạy tang’, ‘chạy
làng’, ‘chạy mả’, etc. in their language, and how do Vietnamese people translate such
expressions like ‘run guns’, ‘hit and run’, etc? This is the very question that seriously runs in
the author’s mind.
Language is widely accepted as the reflection of life. By comparing languages, the
similarities and differences not only between the languages but also between the speakers of
the languages as well as their cultures can be revealed.
R.J. D Pietro (1971:12), a French educational linguist, believed that CA was founded on
the foreign language teaching experiences. Each language has its own phonological,
morphological and syntactical features that could present difficulties for language learners.
To help overcome specific teaching and learning predicaments, this thesis has been made
with an attempt to create a definite pedagogical value with its presentation of effective
teaching strategies. On these points of departure, the author has conducted the study entitled
“A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in
Vietnamese”.
2. Aims of the Study
The study is aimed at:
* Finding the similarities and differences between the verb ‘run’ in English and the verb
‘chạy’ in Vietnamese mainly in terms of MiCA and briefly in term of MaCA;

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5. Design of the Study
The study consists of three parts organized as follows:
Part I entitled “INTRODUCTION” outlining the background of the study in which a brief
account of relevant information such as the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the
study are provided.
Part II, the “INVESTIGATION”, is subdivided into two chapters. The first Chapter is
discussed the “THEORETICAL BACKGROUND” which provides necessary and relevant
theoretical concepts for the main contents of the study, covering a series of concepts ranging
from CA, contrasts between MiCA and MaCA, verbs in English and in Vietnamese, a brief
introduction of synonyms, and idioms. Chapter 2: “A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS
BETWEEN THE VERB ‘RUN’ IN ENGLISH AND THE VERB ‘CHẠY’ IN
VIETNAMESE” discusses the two verbs in terms of MiCA and MaCA in succession. Each
chapter ends with some concluding remarks.
Part III, the “CONCLUSION”, which provides recapitulation, implications of the study
for EFL teaching and learning and to translation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa,
and recommendations for further research. The “REFERENCES” and “SOURCES OF THE
DATA” mark the end of the thesis.
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PART II INVESTIGATION
CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. An Overview on Contrastive Analysis
1.1.1. Definition
The modern foreign language teaching tendency requires the teachers not only to teach
their learners about the language but also how to use the language. To a certain extent, CA
was established to meet that requirement.
According to Richards, J.C et al (1992), CA is “the comparison of the linguistic systems
of two languages, for example the sound system or the grammatical system,”
From Carl James’ view (1980:2) CA is “a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing
inverted (i.e. contrastive, not comparative) two values typologies (a CA is always concerned

In microlinguistics’ view, languages should be analyzed for their own sake and without
reference to their social function, to the manner in which they are acquired by children, to
the psychological mechanisms that underlie the production and reception of speech, to the
literary and the aesthetic or communicative function of language, and so on. For example, a
study of this kind often finds out what the consonant phonemes in languages X and Y are,
how they differ in inventory, realization and distribution; what the tense system of language
X and Y, etc.
The main aim of MiCA is a formal description of the language system based on the
interrelationships and independencies of its elements without any recourse to external
factors. Obviously, the translation situation which involves equivalent messages, that is
speech units or texts, in two different languages is not part of the system of either of these
languages and can not be studied and described in terms of microlinguistics.
Macolinguistics is the term that Yngve (1975) calls ‘broad’ or ‘human’ linguistics aiming
at achieving a scientific understanding of how people communicate or we may define
macrolinguistics as a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense and
including cultural and behavioral features associated with language.
Carl James (1980) suggested that “the communicating individual must be able to identify
the situational constraints to which speech events are subjects and produce utterances that
conform to them.”
Hymes (1974) identifies six variables which he suggests the ethnographer of speaking
must refer to in characterizing any particular event, they are setting, participants, purpose,
key, content, and channel.
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Whereas, Carl James (1980:101) simplified these six variables in to “who says what to
whom, where and when, how and why”
1.2. A Brief Description of Verbs
In most languages, verbs are part of speech expressing existence, action, or occurrence.
According to Jack C. Richards et al (1992:398), a word is a verb when it satisfies these
following criteria:
- Occurs as part of the predicate of a sentence;

day when he had to come back to his military unit. His wife said to him: “Ngày mai anh đã
đi rồi à?”, “đã” here does not indicate tense, it just helps to show regret. Obviously, in
Vietnamese, context holds the key factor to define tense of the verbs.
In each language, there are different ways to classify verbs, however, in this thesis, the
classification of which verbs are divided into transitive and intransitive verbs shal be applied,
which would be convenient to compare the two verbs ‘run’ in English and ‘chạy’ in
Vietnamese. According to Diệp Quang Ban and Hoàng Văn Thung, intransitive verb does
not need a direct object to function, for examples: Dung đang chạy tung tăng trong công
viên (Dung is running here and there in the park); Bé Ball ngủ say trong vòng tay mẹ (Little
Ball is fast sleeping in her mother’s arms), He is running in a park near by, etc., transitive
verbs, in contrast, can not stand alone, they need help from other words to complete their
meaning as in: Anh ta đã bán cổ phần của mình cho tôi (He sold me his stocks); Họ soạn
thảo lại hợp đồng (They redrafted the contract); Chị ta đang bàn giao sổ sách cho người kế
nhiệm (She is handing over the records for the successor); or They ran their own company
for years.
In both languages, verbs indicating movement can combine with words of directions. For
example: run upstairs; come down; go over; or chạy lên; đi xuống, etc. However, in
Vietnamese, there exist directional verbs in their own sense such as: ‘ra’, ‘vào’/‘vô’, ‘lên’,
‘xuống’, ‘qua’, and so on as in:
- “Đường vô xứ Nghệ quanh quanh
Non xanh nước biếc như tranh họa đồ” (Vietnamese proverb)
1.3. Meanings of Meaning
Meaning refers to what a language expresses about the world we live in or any possible or
imaginary world. The theories of meaning and its types can be found in the literature of
Leech (1974), Lyon (1977), (1995), Palmer (1981), and Crystal (1995). There are two types
of meanings: grammatical meaning and lexical meaning.
According to Lyons (1995:52) a lexeme may have different word-forms which will
generally differ in their grammatical meaning. For example, the forms of ‘teacher’ and
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‘teachers’ differ in respect of their grammatical meaning. ‘Teacher’ is singular form (of a

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Synonyms are different words with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are
synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy.
Synonymy is a kind of sense relation or more specifically, one of the substitutional sense
relations.
Jack C. Richards et al (1992:368) defined synonym as a word which has the same or
nearly the same meaning as another word. It should be noted that two words which are
synonymous must belong to the same part of speech.
Lyon (1995:60) divides synonyms into three kinds: absolute synonyms, near synonyms
and partial synonyms. However, some linguists such as Jack C. Richards et al (1992:368),
Palmer (1981:88) argue that no two words have exactly the same meaning (denotational and
connotational meanings). Absolute synonyms, according to Lyon (1995:61), must satisfy
three conditions:
(i) all their meanings are identical;
(ii) they are synonymous in all contexts;
(iii) they are semantically equivalent (i.e. their meaning or meanings are identical) on all dimensions
of meaning, descriptive and non-descriptive.
Some lexicographers claim that in English, no synonyms have exactly the same meaning
(in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic
qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. make them unique. Different words that are
similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long and
extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm is not
the same as an extended arm). Therefore, in this study, only partial synonyms of “run” are
dealt with.
However, absolute synonyms can be found in Vietnamese as in: ‘sân bay’ and ‘phi
trường’; ‘ti vi’ and ‘máy vô tuyến’, ‘bóng đá’ and ‘túc cầu’, etc.
1.5. Idioms
Idioms are widely defined as words collocated together that happen to become fossilized,
becoming fixed over time. This collocation words commonly used in a group and changes
the definition of each of the words that exist. The collocated words develop a specialized

CHAPTER 2 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN THE VERB ‘RUN’
IN ENGLISH AND THE VERB ‘CHẠY’ IN VIETNAMESE
With the aims of drawing an overall picture of the two relevant verbs in the English and
Vietnamese languages, the author made effort to deeply investigate into the objective verbs
by analyzing and synthesizing basing on more than twenty English dictionaries; over ten
Vietnamese dictionaries; hundreds of writing works; valuable addition from colleagues and
revision from the respected supervisor.
In this part, we firstly study the two verbs in terms of MiCA. The verbs will be studied
separately within two of the three aspects of MiCA: the grammatical features, the semantic
features which are focused to figure out their general meanings and meanings in some
idioms respectively, the synonyms of each verbs are also discussed. Then the findings are
reached with the statements on the similarities and differences between the objects of the
study. This chapter is followed up with the analysis and contrast the “run” and “chạy” in
terms of MaCA which is much related to extralinguistic components.
2.1. A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in
Vietnamese in Terms of Microlinguistics
As we already mentioned in the early parts, in terms of microlinguistics the verb ‘run’ in
English will be worked with three features: grammatical features (including syntactic and
morphological features) and semantic features.
2.1.1. An Investigation into the Verb ‘Run’ in English
2.1.1.1. Grammatical Features
2.1.1.1.1. Syntactic Features
‘Run’ is an ordinary verb, sharing the typical syntactic functions of a verb, as following:
(a) Being part of the predicate of a sentence. For example:
- Barack Obama's campaign ran a 30-minute advertisement simultaneously on
multiple television networks in an attempt to reach and sway a large number of
undecided voters. (17:1)
- It's hard to explain, but you must run as fast as you can using as little energy as
possible. (24:2)
- If you don't run very fast in practice, you won't be able to run very fast in races.

• Runner (noun): one who runs; candidate, competitor.
• Running (noun): act of jogging or moving quickly; act of competing in a race or
election, as in ‘Running in the early morning is my hobby’
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• Runnable (adjective): may be run, as in ‘The car is still runnable.’
• Runny (adjective): characteristic of a fluid; capable of flowing and easily changing
shape, as in ‘runny jam’.
• Rerun (verb): run again; reshowing of a program or film
• Overrun (verb/noun): invade; infest; swarm; triumph; exceed; print excess amount,
etc.
• Underrun (verb): pass below, run underneath; pass below and inspect something
from beneath in a water vessel, etc.
• Runnel/runlet (noun): rivulet, small brook, stream.
Run is also used in such many compounds as ‘runaway’ (an airstrip, strip of pavement on
which airplanes take off and land); ‘hit-and-run’ (automobile accident in which a driver who
hits a pedestrian or a car drives off to avoid taking responsibility); ‘runtime’ (time of
operation of computer software); runway (a hard surface along with aircraft take off and
land); runner up (candidate, contestant; one who finishes second in a competition);
runaround (evasive act, stalling tactic ; run down criticize); run over (hit with a vehicle;
chase and capture; become exhausted; make less valuable); chicken run (an enclosed yard for
keeping poultry); etc.
2.1.1.2. Semantic Features
On the ground of semantic features, the author attempts to discuss different senses of
‘run’ in general, and in idioms as well as its synonyms. Like any other lexical verbs, ‘run’
indicates an action or state, e.g.
- Now with me you won't have to run for your money, all you have to do is to hold
out your hand." (6:27)
- To escape from his look I ran into the garden. (6:36)
- The veins in his forehead stood out, the tears ran from his eyes,.. (6:155)
2.1.1.2.1. General Meanings

- Dr. Hutchins running around the room, aimlessly, attempting to gather himself,
his things, and escape all at the same time. (13:108)
- I have three of them. All day they are running around, troubling their mother.
(11:312)
(2). To be hurried
In order to shorten the time and distance or to get out of the bad situations, instinctively,
people run (away). Bellow examples well describe the uses of ‘run’ in this meaning.
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- Sampson ran as he never had before, in the grip of the coldest fear of his life. His
feet pounded heavily on the side walk stone. His heart felt heavy, ready to break. He
couldn’t catch a breath, and he was certain he would throw up if he didn’t stop running this
second. (7:220)
- Fortunately, I had reached the bottom of the hill and I could run quicker across the
grass. Although I raced at the top of my speed, the Thing was gaining upon me. There was
no need for me to look behind, I knew that it was just at the back of me. I could scarcely
breathe. My race had almost exhausted me; my breath came in gasps. (6:113)
The earlier is quoted from one of most famous novel by American writer James Patterson
‘Cat and Mouse’, the latter from the immortal “Nobody’s boy” by Hector Mailot.
Relating to this group, ‘run’ is also used to indicate the act of moving around asking for
help, i.e. turn to somebody for assistance, especially in desperation of as a dependant to a
protector, as in ‘I often ran to my brother for money when I was a student 5 years ago.’
(3). To spread
This meaning refers to things that cannot run physically, but actually, they could spread
very quickly. Vietnamese equivalent should be ‘lan ra’, ‘tràn ra’, ‘lan tràn’…
For instance, ‘There’s a strange story running around the neighborhood.’ should be
understood that the story cannot run around the neighborhood at all, but the strange feature
makes people spread it all around. Another case like ‘The flu is running through my
daughter’s kindergarten.’, ‘running’ should be understood as ‘spreading’.
(4). To cause/make move quickly
This meaning is normally used when we make something move quickly as we need:

can use ‘run’:
- “Hey,” she said breathlessly, having clearly just run up the stairs. “Can I borrow
your calculator?” (5:87)
Describing the act of quick moving in the specified direction or the cause of something to
move in the specified direction, we also use ‘run’:
- …Wladek, whom he clasped on to firmly, running his fingers over the boy's chest
as if to be sure that it was him. (9:108)
(8). To extent, to last, to continue
There are four sub-groups relating to this meaning of the verb run. First, this denotes the
extension in space through a range of possibilities that often combine with a measure phrase:
- The border runs for 3000 kilometers.
- It ran in quality from excellent to substandard.
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Second, ‘run’ describes the extension, duration and continuing of time which also used
with measure phrase:
- The sale will run for ten days.
- Election campaigns in Britain run for three weeks.
Third, ‘run’ can be understood as to be valid for the specified period of time:
- The contract runs through 2009.
- The lease on my house has only a year to run.
Last, ‘run’ should be understood as to make something extent in space, as in ‘I need to
run this wire along the wall.’
(9). To be operating/working
Run, in term of the language of engineering or the language of information technology,
can be widely used to denote the operation of a machine or a computer program, for
examples:
- My motorbike stopped running because of the heavy rain.
- "You can forget about running a computer. They're not going to hire anybody with
a record...." (14:238)
Functioning as transitive, run means to make something operate or function, as in:

- I will run you home. Ok?
(14). To be affected/ be subjected to
This is a quite special meaning of the verb ‘run’. Normally, referring the same sense,
people use the verb ‘have’. By using ‘run’ we put the emphasis on the progress of the effect:
- She found him covered in little red spots and running a temperature of one
hundred and three. (6:46)
- When she tucked William up in bed that night, she found that he had been as good
as his word and was running a slight fever. (9:78)
(15). To think about
When talking about ideas that suddenly happen to the mind or mentioning the process of
thinking we can make use of the verb ‘run’, for examples:
- Orsatti sat there, running the name through the computer in his brain. (14:178)
- Paranoia was starting to run a little wild in my head. (7:142)
- It was two cases, both running concurrently in my mind. (7:260)
(16). To smuggle
To the author’s surprise, the verb ‘run’ can be use to describe the act of bringing or taking
something into a country illegally and secretly, e.g.
- He used to run arms across the border of Cambodia.
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- Obama win triggers run on guns in many stores. (17)
(17). To pass/ to become
The verb ‘run’ is also used to denote the act of passing into or reaching the specified state.
In other words, it can be understood as becoming in cases below:
- The river ran dry during the drought.
- I’ve run short of money.
- A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry. (1:2)
‘Run’ is also used to show the tendency, such as:
- Finally, my music style runs to classical.
- The fashion will run to yellow this season.
Vietnamese equivalent should be ‘trở nên’ or ‘trở thành’, ‘có xu hướng’, etc.

- Her nylons were running.
- Her stocking ran.
Sometimes, people use ‘run’ to indicate the state of appearing recurrently as a feature or
quality, e.g.
- Musical talent runs in the family
- Stubbornness runs in the class.
2.1.1.2.2. Meanings in Some Idioms
Being a typical action verb, ‘run’ does not only function as polysemy but also the root of
many related idioms. The combination of ‘run’ with its favorite words makes a lot of senses
for the treasure of the English language.
In the table below, the author tries to list some of the most popular idioms that run with
‘run’.
N
o
Idioms Meanings Examples
1
A run for one’s
money
- Strong competition
- Decent compensation
- Running for money doesn’t make
you run fast. It makes you run first.
(Jipcho, Ben)
- I feel I've had an excellent run for
my money and now I'm happy to
retire.
2 In the long run In the final analysis or
outcome
‘An idealist believes the short run
doesn't count. A cynic believes the

(one) can't hide
There is nothing someone
can do to evade
something.
- You can run away but you can't
hide. (Cry on my shoulder’s lyric)
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Make somebody's
blood run cold
To frighten or horrify
somebody
- Her voice makes his blood run
cold.
6 Run a risk
Expose oneself to the
possibility of something
unpleasant occurring.

- It is impossible to win the great
prizes of life without running risks,
and the greatest of all prizes are
those connected with the home.
(Roosevelt, Theodore)
7 Run deep
If a feeling or a problem
goes deep, it is very
strong or serious and has
existed for a long time
- Still waters run deep (English
proverb)

- Don't hurry! You will be out of breath.
- I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is
to move. (Stevenson, Robert Louis)
(2). Concerning the act of stretching out over a distance, space, time, or scope; run or
extend between two points or beyond a certain point, ‘run’ has such synonyms as ‘go’,
‘pass’, ‘ lead’, ‘extend’, ‘be’, ‘run along’. For examples:
- His knowledge does not go very far.
- My memory extends back to my fourth year of life.
- The facts extend beyond a consideration of her personal assets
(3). In respect to describing the act of directing or controlling projects, businesses, etc,
‘run’ is similar to ‘operate’, direct’, ‘manage’, ‘control’.
- She is controlling/running a relief operation in the Sudan.
- If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself. Do that well and you'll be
ready to stop managing. And start leading.
(4). With regard to the state of having a particular form, ‘run’ can be replaced by ‘go, be’,
as in ‘the story/argument is/goes/runs/ as follows’; ‘as the saying goes/runs...’
(5). By the meaning of moving along (of liquids), such words as ‘flow’, ‘feed’, ‘course’,
‘move’, ‘run over’ can be used instead of ‘run’:
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- Water flowed into the cave.
- The Missouri feeds into the Mississippi.
(6). When using ‘run’ to mean performing as expected when applied, user can also make
use of words like ‘function’, ‘work’, ‘operate’, ‘go’:
- The washing machine will not go unless it is plugged in.
- This old radio doesn't work anymore.
(7). With the meaning as to change or be different within limits, ‘run’ is synonymous with
‘range’, ‘be’
- Estimates for the losses in the earthquake range as high as $2 billion.
- Interest rate is from 5 to 10 percent.
(8). Concerning the act of standing or competing for an office or a position, user can

- The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a
community, are essential to the preservation of a free government. (Houston, Sam)
(16). Expressions like ‘melt’, ‘melt down’, ‘dissolve’, ‘resolve’, ‘break up’ can replace
‘run’ in the case of showing the state of reducing or causing to be reduced from a solid to a
liquid state, usually by heating:
- Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness
causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate. (Schweitzer, Albert)
These synonyms of the verb ‘run’ can be used to replace for each other in certain
contexts. However, when they are near synonyms, our choices must be selected with great
care if not you may misinterpret what we actually want to indicate.
To put in a nutshell, by studying the verb ‘run’ in the English language the author has
attempted to figure out the overall grammatical features as well as semantic features of the
verb ‘run’. Perhaps, it’s unfeasible to draw a perfect picture about the meanings of a single
word. Together with the development of society, on one hand, a sense of a word might be
dead, on the other hand, many others might be born. Therefore, it is noteworthy that the
topics which we mentioned previously are the most popular ones and they are easily to be
found in everyday communication.
2.1.2. An Investigation into the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese
2.1.2.1. Grammatical Features
2.1.2.1.1. Morphological features
‘Chạy’ is a monosyllabic word like any other Vietnamese word. It has only one form in
any mood, voices and tenses. It has no derivates. This means there is no change in its form in
any statement or sentence. For examples:
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- Ðến một cái cổng gạch lớn có dây leo, anh Hoàng giật dây chuông. Một thằng bé
chạy ra, lễ phép chào: (38: 58)
- Mọi việc đều sẵn sàng để nếu có động sẽ chạy luôn vào rừng. (27:225)
In Vietnamese, the verb ‘chạy’ is able to combine with other words to create principle and
accessory compound words and jargons belonging to different parts of speech such as nouns,
verbs, or adjectives such as ‘chạy việt dã, chạy liên tỉnh’ chạy trốn, chạy vạy, chạy đua vũ