A study on idiomatic expressions containing
words denoting weather in English and
Vietnamese from cultural perspective

Vũ Thị Sinh

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Assoc.Prof.Dr. Vu Ngoc Tu
Năm bảo vệ: 2013 Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Thành ngữ; Từ chỉ thời tiết

Content
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Nowadays, English is obviously considered as the international language that is a tool for global
connection and development. Idioms, a special part of languages in general and English in
particular, seem to be the familiar element which occurs not only in daily conversations but also
in literature works. People are likely familiar with idioms which are used to express ideas in an
attractive and figurative way. Therefore, understanding the meaning of idiomatic expressions is
essential and useful for English users. However, understanding an idiom by understanding its
components is not enough because the meanings of idioms are unpredictable, which derive from
unusual forms, stylistic devices and knowledge on culture.
Although idioms are not easy to comprehend, it is necessary for learners not to disregard idioms
in studying languages because idioms are an unseparated element of languages and so common
in daily use. As a second language teacher, this urges me to conduct the thesis entitled “A study
on idiomatic expressions containing words denoting weather in English and Vietnamese from
cultural perspective” to find out the similarities and differences between English idioms
containing the words denoting weather (EIWW) and Vietnamese idioms containing the words

websites, newspapers and from observation in daily life. Then, the data are analyzed and
synthesized to find out the similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese idioms
containing words denoting weather.
6. Design of the study
The thesis is divided into three main parts:
- The first part is the Introduction, which includes rationale, aim, scope, methods and design of
the study
- Part 2 is the Development, which comprises three chapters. Chapter one, as implied by the title
“Theoretical background”, reviews the literature related to language, culture and idioms in
general. Chapter two is concerned with “English and Vietnamese idioms containing words
denoting weather” in which syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese idioms
containing words denoting weather are investigated. The last chapter in this part deals with
“Findings and discussion” with the analysis of similarities and differences between EIWW and
VIWW from the cultural view.
- Part 3 is the Conclusion and Implications for teaching and learning as well as some suggestions
for further study.
The thesis is concluded by the appendix and references.

REFERENCES
In English:
1. Brown, H. D. (1994). Principles of language learning and teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
2. Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms. (1998). Cambridge University Press
3. Collins COBUILD Dictionary of idioms (2002)
4. Cowie, A.P., Mackin, R. and Mc Caig, I.R. (1993). Oxford Dictionary of English idioms.
Oxford University Press.
5. Hall, E.T. (1976). Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday
6. Harrison, L.E. and Huntington, S.P. (2000). Culture matters: How values shape human
progress. New York: basic books.
7. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work related