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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In the world today, there are 5,000 to 6,000 living languages, of which English is by far
the most widely used. Approximately 350 million people speak English as their first language.
About the same number use it as a second language. It is the English language that is used as the
language of aviation, international sport and pop music. 75% of the world's mail is in English,
60% of the world's radio stations broadcast in English and more than half of the world's
periodicals are printed in English. It is also the English language that is used as an official
language in 44 countries, and as the language of business, commerce and technology in many
others. English is now an effective medium of international communication.
In Vietnam, English has long been considered as a tool of international communication,
and together with its rising importance, the need of learning English is becoming more and more
urgent. It can't be denied that all foreign learners in general and Vietnamese learners in
particular desire to master English as the native speakers; however, they usually face a lot of
difficulties that prevent them from gaining successful conversations. One of the reasons for
these problems lies in the way people perceive and use idioms.
Each nation's language lies in itself similar and different concepts on many fields of life
such as humane values, ways of thinking, behavior standards, religious beliefs, customs and
traditions, social conventions, etc. Words and expressions including idioms have formed the
vocabulary system of a language. Idioms are considered as special factors of a language's
vocabulary system because they reflect cultural specific characteristics of each nation, including
material and spiritual values. Therefore, a lot of researchers have long shown their concerns for
idioms.
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Idioms are used to express ideas in figurative styles. They bring the vividness and richness
to the speakers' speeches. This is the reason why the more skillfully a person use idioms in his
conversations, the more effectively he can establish his communicative relationship. One more
important thing is that the general present tendencies are towards idiomatic usage; therefore,
knowing how to use idioms effectively in the right situations is becoming essential. Moreover,
the most distinguished advantage of idioms is that they do provide users with a whole new way

The study, as entitled, focuses on the idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms in
English and Vietnamese. Therefore, the study is aimed to:
- Present some theoretical background on idioms.
- Establish some possible criteria for the distinction between idiomatic variants and
synonymous idioms.
- Gain an insightful look at idioms in general and idiomatic variants and synonymous
idioms in particular in both English and Vietnamese.
- Work out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in terms of
idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms.
3. Scope of the study
Due to the duration of time and the length as well as the references available, this thesis
does focus on the forms and contents of idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms in English
and Vietnamese. The author would like to pay attention to the following questions:
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- "Comparison" can be considered as a cognitive procedure, a scientific thought used in
all processes of perception. It means that it is different from a basic linguistic method.
- "Contrastive analysis" is a method which has its own principles and techniques.
- "Semantics-Pragmatics", according to Do Huu Chau, is a mergence of semantics and
pragmatics (semantics containing pragmatics and on the contrary).
Due to the aims and objectives of the thesis, the scope of contrastive analysis is based on
the following principles and aspects:
- Contrastive analysis of signs and appearances.
- Contrastive analysis of meanings of components.
- Contrastive analysis of forms.
4. Methods of the study
Due to the main aims and objectives of the study, description, componential analysis and
contrastive exploitation would be mainly carried out throughout the process. Also, the thesis
makes use of the English language as the target and the Vietnamese one as the source language
(the base language). The process, in general, can be divided into two stages which are always
applied in a quick-minded and active way.

variants and synonymous idioms in English and Vietnamese. This part is divided into three
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chapters including chapter I: Literature review and theoretical background, chapter II: Major
characteristics of English and Vietnamese idioms, and chapter III: Idiomatic variants and
synonymous idioms in English and Vietnamese.
The last part is the conclusion of the study as well as some suggestions for implications
achieved from the discussion in the thesis and for further studies.
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
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CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. Literature review
There have been a lot of authors whose studies generally relate to idioms. Hoang Van
Hanh (1973), Nguyen Thien Giap, Le Nhu Tien (1988), Nguyen Khac Hung (1988), Hoang Van
Thang (1992), Trinh Duc Hien (1995), Phan Van Que (1995), Dang Anh Dao (1997) showed
their concerns for the ways how to use idioms in literature and in different kinds of act. Studies
on the roles of idioms in traditional culture were carried by some authors such as Duong Quang
Ham (1956), Pham The Ngu (1969), Dinh Gia Khanh, Chu Xuan Dien (1972, 1973), Cao Huy
Dinh (1974), Le Chi Que, Vo Quang Nhon (1990) etc. Nguyen Xuan Hoa (1995), Phan Van Que
(1996), Ngo Minh Thuy (2005) gave their own studies on idioms in Vietnamese in comparison
to Russian, English and Japanese.
Here are some studies directly relating to the field of the study:
A Study on Vietnamese Idioms (Hoang Van Hanh, 2004)
Hoang Van Hanh is a well-known Vietnamese linguist who had spent a lot of time and
energy on this research. This study specialized in the objectives, the aims, the tasks, the
problems, etc. of Vietnamese idioms. The author analyzed idioms based on different aspects,
synchronically and diachronically, on the view of functional and structural system as well as
from cultural, social and psychological perspectives. The research also introduced a systematic
collection of Vietnamese idioms in forms of three main types.
A contrastive analysis on animal-based comparison idioms in English and
Vietnamese (Nguyen Thi Nga, 2003, VNU-CFL)

This is a study written in Vietnamese. In the study, the author gave some theoretical
background relating to Vietnamese idioms in general and their idiomatic variants and
synonymous idioms in particular. Basing on the forms and contents, some criteria were given to
make a clear distinction between idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms in Vietnamese. She
also carried an investigation on these due to their forms and meanings.
1.2. Theoretical background
1.2.1. Culture and the relationship between language and culture
Culture has a great influence on the origin and development of language. This is the
season why content of language is closely linked to culture. Besides words and expressions,
idioms are considered as special language units because they reflect cultural characteristics of
different countries.
1.2.1.1. Culture and its characteristics
Culture is what makes you a stranger when you are away from home. It includes all
beliefs and expectations about how people should speak and act which have become a kind of
second nature to you as a result of social learning.
A way of thinking about culture is to contrast it with nature. Nature refers to what is born
and grows organically (from the Latin nascere "to be born"); culture refers to what has
been grown and groomed (from the Latin colere "to cultivate")
(Kramsch, 2000: 4)
According to Goodenough's famous definition (1957: 167), the term "culture" is used in
the sense of whatever a person must know in order to function in a particular society.
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Society's culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate
in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any
one of themselves.
Culture, therefore, is the "know-how" that a person must possess to get through the task of
daily living; only for a few does it require a knowledge of some, or much, music, literature, and
the arts.
Some scientists also compare the nature of culture to an iceberg, which is mostly hidden
under water. The part of culture that is exposed is not always that which creates cross-cultural

ways of producing and cooking food, religion, and political and economic systems.
1.2.1.2. Characteristics of British culture
The United Kingdom, constitutional monarchy in Northwestern Europe, is officially the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain is the largest island in the
cluster of islands, or archipelago, known as the British Isles. England is the largest and most
populous division of the island of Great Britain, making the South and East. Wales is on the
West and Scotland is to the North. Northern Ireland is located in the Northeast corner of Ireland,
the second largest island in the British Isles. Among these four cultural regions, the English
culture is considered a representative and often used to refer to the entire country's culture.
To other Europeans, the best known quality of the British, especially of the English is
"reserve". They are people who often keep certain distance to strangers, do not talk much about
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themselves, do not show much emotion and seldom get excited. This fact tends to give their
communicators the impression of coldness.
Apart from "reserve", a typical English man is expected to be modest and humorous. Any
self-praise is felt to be ill-bred and it is ideal to laugh at oneself- at one's own faults, one's own
failures and embarrassment. He also tends to expect those characters in others and distrusts
exaggerated promises and shows of affection, especially if they are expressed in flowery
language.
Politeness is a hallmark of British society though their habits of politeness are on the
whole very informal. There are no complicated greetings, for instance, a simple "good morning"
or a cheery wave of the hands across the street is quite satisfactory; handshakes are only
exchanged on a first introduction, or on special occasions, or as a token of agreement or
congratulation. All politeness is based on the elementary rule of showing consideration for
others, and fitly acknowledging the consideration they show to you.
Moreover, sportsmanship is highly valued in Britain with rules showing generosity to
one's opponent and good temper in defeat. It is also an ideal that is applied to life in general.
This is proved by the number of sporting terms used in ordinary speech. One of the most
elementary rules of life is "never hit a man when he's down", in other words, never take
advantage of another's misfortune.

According to Kramsch (2000:3) language is the principle means whereby we conduct our
social lives. When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in
multiple and complex ways.
Kramsch argued that the words people utter express facts, ideas or events that are
communicable. Words also reflect their authors' attitudes and beliefs, their points of view, which
are also those of others. In both cases, language expresses cultural reality.
However, members of a community belonging to different social groups do not only
express experience, they also create experience through language. They give meanings to it
through the medium they choose to communicate with each other, for example, speaking face to
face, writing a letter or reading a newspaper. The way in which people use the spoken, written or
visual medium itself creates meanings that are understandable to the groups they belong to, for
example, through the speaker's tone of voice, accent, conversational style, gestures and facial
expressions. Through all its verbal or nonverbal aspects, we find that language embodies
cultural reality.
Language is also a system of signs that is seen as having itself a cultural value. Speakers
identify themselves and others through their use of language as a symbol of their social identity.
The prohibition of its use is often perceived by its speakers as a rejection of their social group
and their culture. Therefore, we can say that language symbolizes cultural identity.
The theory of linguistic relativity does not claim that linguistic structure constrains what
people can think or perceive, only that it tends to influence what they routinely do thing. In this
regard, the work of Sapir and Wholf has led to two insights:
- There is nowadays recognition that language, as code, reflects cultural preoccupations
and constrains the way people think.
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- More than in Wholf's days, however, we recognize how important context is in
complementing the meanings encoded in the language.
In brief, language and culture always exist together and reinforce each other. The
relationship between them is so inextricable that we could not understand or appreciate the one
without the knowledge of the others.
1.2.2. Idioms

As can be seen from the above definitions, there are different ways of defining an idiom.
In general, most of the linguists share the same point that an idiom is a fixed expression whose
meaning can not be worked out by looking at the meaning of its individual words.
1.2.2.2. What is meant by “idiomatic variants”?
In “Bases of General Linguistics”, Ju.X. Xtepanov partly dealt with variants. He said that
phonetic variation of words had its own limitation performed by synonyms. It means that the
forms of the words change but their meanings are the same. That a word is pronounced in two
ways makes two phonetic variants of a word. [31: 42]
"Variant" is something which differs in form from another thing, though really the same;
as, a variant from a type in natural history; a variant of a story or a word. [47]
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Basing on these, we can say that idiomatic variants are idioms having the same meanings
and grammatical structures or having different components belonging to the same field of
meaning.
1.2.2.3. What is meant by “synonymous idioms”?
"Synonym" is one of two or more words (commonly words of the same language) which
are equivalents of each other, one of two or more words which have very nearly the same
signification, and therefore may often be used interchangeably.
(http://www.usingenglish.com/synonym)
It can be said that Russian linguists have recorded great achievements of synonymy,
especially synonymous idioms. T.A. Bertagaep and V.I Zimin referred to synonymous idioms
(synonymous idiomatic groups of words) in modern Russian. Basing on the structures of
synonymous idioms, they gave the concept of idiomatic variants and the opposite of idiomatic
variants and synonymous idioms. They supposed that synonymous idioms were idiomatic
groups of words which had the same meanings but different expressive colours belonging to
different functional styles of the language. [27: 55]
In Vietnam, Do Huu Chau has partly referred to the synonymous idioms. He said “The
idioms which are about the same as words are mainly synonymous, colorific and descriptive”.
[7] It means that synonymous idioms are idioms having the same meanings but different
structures or having the same structures but different components belonging to different fields of

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From the pragmatic point of view and discourse, some linguists, including Fernando
(l996) speak about:
- "ideational" idioms ("the state and way of the world" idioms, expressing namely:
actions, events,. situation, people, things, attitudes, emotions, etc.): red herring, bury the
hatchet, as white as a sheet
- "interpersonal" idioms (expressing greetings, agreement, rejections, etc.): so long,
never mind
- "relational” idioms (ensuring cohesion, etc).: by the way, in addition to, last but not
least
Other linguists give more detailed categorization of idioms. Some idioms may have more
than one function. Moon (1998), for example, distinguishes the following groups of idioms:
- informational (conveying information of different kind: in the red, rub shoulders with,
one’s kith and kin)
- evaluative (giving the speaker’s attitude to the situation: works wonders, wash one’s
hands of sth, a different kettle of fish)
- situational (expressing conventions, clauses, exclamation, relating to extralingual
context: walls have ears, so long, talk of the devil, long time no see)
- modalizing (expressing modality, truth values, advice, request: mark my words, more or
less, at all, in effect)
- organizational (organizing the text, signaling discourse structure: by the way, all in all,
let alone, in the light, on the other hand, in other words)
1.3. Summary
There have been a lot of authors whose studies generally relate to idioms. However, no
studies directly relating to idiomatic variants and synonymous idioms in English and
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Vietnamese are known to us. This is the reason why we carry a study on idiomatic variants and
synonymous idioms in both English and Vietnamese.
It can be said that culture has a great influence on the origin and development of
language. Content of language is closely linked to culture. Besides words and expressions,

not all. The alteration of component words can help to form a different idiom of the same or
different meaning. Appearing on the mass media is in this way of using. They no longer keep
the full form of the idiom but add some more components to make it more vivid, particularly
effective when writing articles. We can change the tense of the verb in the idiom to give
someone the cold shoulder (to treat someone in a cold or unfriendly way), or the verb in to have
one’s finger with to get one’s finger.
In addition, idioms may take many different forms or structures. Some idioms are noun
phrases such as tender age, a black sheep, forty winks, etc. Some are verb phrases such as to
spare one’s blushes, to do someone proud, to cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth, etc. The
most important thing is that an idiom can have its own regular, irregular or even incorrect
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grammatical structure. to be at large is an example of grammatical irregularity. The idiom is
formed by verb + preposition + adjective. In English, no structure like this is normally accepted
because an adjective doesn’t usually come after a preposition singly. However, this can be
considered as an exception in language.
2.1.1.2. Semantic features
When mentioning the semantic features of an idiom, we often talk about its meaning. A
linguist said “the meaning of an idiom is the special chemical mixture of all components’
meaning, which is completely new in quality”. This means that it is very important to
understand idioms metaphorically. We can not usually discover the meanings by looking up the
individual words in a dictionary when studying idioms; most of the idioms are metaphorical
rather than literal. For example, in order to understand the idiom (to feel) like fish out of water,
we have to consider its meaning metaphorically as to feel uncomfortable because of unfamiliar
surroundings.
Another feature concerning itself with semantics is that idioms can range from positive,
neutral to negative meaning. Some idioms have positive meanings such as a willing horse (a
keen worker), to get it into one’s head (to deeply understand), or to warm the cockles of one’s
heart (to make someone feel pleased or happy). Some have neutral meanings as to watch the
world go by (to observe the others while doing nothing oneself), etc. And many other idioms are
negative. For instance, crocodile tears means insincere tears, to waste one’s breath means to

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There have been a lot of different opinions about the semantic features of Vietnamese
idioms. According to Nguyen Van Menh [21], an idiom introduces an image, a phenomenon, a
state, a personality, an attitude, etc. This opinion is quite simple and general. In 1986, he gave
his own new point of view: Idioms have their own meanings and nominative functions, and are
used in daily speaking. Nguyen Van Tu [28] said “The meaning of an idiom does not come from
individual components which may have their images or not. Its meaning can be different from
the meaning of each component or does come from each original word”.
Nguyen Thien Giap [13] focused on the basic semantic features of idioms: Being rich in
imagery is a basic feature of idioms. Idioms express concepts basing on specific images and
symbols. The imagery of idioms is made from its metaphor and comparison.
Although there have been different ideas about the semantic features of idioms,
Vietnamese linguists have all shared the same point of view as follows:
- Firstly, the meaning of an idiom is a perfect whole which does not come from the
meanings of individual components added.
- Secondly, the meaning of an idiom expresses the reflection of things or concepts.
- Thirdly, the meaning of an idiom is usually figurative and descriptive.
Although many linguists affirm that idioms have their own figurative and imaginary
meanings, we shouldn’t consider this as an absolute fact. In Vietnamese, there are also some
idioms which have literal sense coming from the meanings of their components. They may be
comparative idioms such as nát như tương (as pasty as soy), đen như cột nhà cháy (as black as
a sweep) and bám như đỉa đói (to stick like a limpet), whose imagery comes from the images
compared with activities or properties. Some Sino-Vietnamese idioms such as nhất cử lưỡng
tiện (to kill two birds with one stone), bán tín bán nghi (half doubtful) and bách phát bách trúng
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(to hit the mark one hundred times out of one hundred) also have literal sense basing on the
meanings of their components.
2.2. Classification of idioms
In both English and Vietnamese there exist many different ways of idiom classification
among linguists who have based on different categories such as motivation, function, origin,