MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HUỆ

A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC
FEATURES OF ENGLISH PROVERBS AND IDIOMS
DENOTING WEATHER WITH REFERENCE
TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA TỤC NGỮ VÀ
THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH VỀ THỜI TIẾT TRONG SỰ LIÊN HỆ
TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 60220201


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HUỆ

A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC
FEATURES OF ENGLISH PROVERBS AND IDIOMS
DENOTING WEATHER WITH REFERENCE
TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA TỤC NGỮ VÀ
THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH VỀ THỜI TIẾT TRONG SỰ LIÊN
HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TIẾNG VIỆT)
M.A THESIS

Nguyen Thi Bich Hue

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Nguyễn Đăng Sửu
Date:……………………

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support
from a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to
Nguyen Dang Suu - Ph.D, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly
supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas,
expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an
academic researcher.
During this work, I have collaborated with many postgraduates, for they
have helped me with my work. Finally, my special thanks go to my family
members, especcially my husband for supporting and encouraging me to
pursue this degree. Without their encouragement, I would not have finished the
degree.

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EWPI: English Weather Proverbs , Idioms
VWPI: Vietnamese Weather Proverbs , Idioms.

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Semantic fields of Weather Conditions in EWPI and VWPI
Table 2: Weather’s influence on Production and Human Health

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TABLES OF CONTENT
Certificate of originality.................................................................................. iii
Acknowledgements......................................................................................... iii
Abstract .......................................................................................................... iv
List of abbreviations ........................................................................................ v
List of tables ................................................................................................... vi
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale. .................................................................................................. 1
1.2. Aims of the research. ................................................................................ 2
1.3 Objectives of the research .......................................................................... 2
1.4. Scope of research ...................................................................................... 3
1.5. Significane of the research ........................................................................ 3
1.6. Structure organization of the thesis ........................................................... 3
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................... 5
2.1. Review of previous studies ....................................................................... 5
2.2. Review of theoretical background ............................................................. 6
2.2.1. Theory of syntax .................................................................................... 6

APPENDIX 1 ................................................................................................ 54
APPENDIX 2 ................................................................................................ 63

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale.
We have no doubt about the importance of foreign languages, especially
English. In Vietnam, English has long been regarded as a tool of international
communication, and together with its rising importance, the need of learning
English is become 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 and proverbs.
Therefore, it is unquestionable that to learn a foreign language also means to
gain benefits from its great stock of proverbs and idioms in which most cultural
values are reflected. However, most Vietnamese learners are taught English mainly
with the knowledge of language, not culturally appropriate factors embedded in the
teaching language. They speak English without understanding of English
communication manner. They write English with little knowledge of English
cultural background. Consequently, it causes appropriateness, learning English in
general and learning English proverbs and idioms in particular seem to be a
challenging process. It is really a risky road for learners to understand and translate
English proverbs and idioms into Vietnamese.
Each nation’s language has its own similar and different concepts on
many fields of life such as humane values, ways of thinking, behavior. Words
and expressions including idioms and proverbs have formed the vocabulary

proverbial treasure, “A study on semantic and syntactic features of English
proverbs and idioms denoting weather with reference to the Vietnamese
equivalents”.
The reason for me choosing weather, as we know, has been closely
associated with us since we appeared in the world.Our life, our work, our
feeling….are often in fluenced by weather. Weather idioms and proverbs make
us much more aware of our environment so we can observe and appreciate the
many wonderful and intricate things going on in our natural surroundings.I hope
this thesis would help English learners as well as Vietnamese learners improve
their ability understanding and using proverbs and idioms in daily
communication.
1.2. Aims of the research.
The research aims at studying the the syntactic and semantic features of
English and Vietnamese idioms and proverbs denoting weather and helping
Vietnamese learners of English be more aware of English and Vietnamese
proverbs and idioms and how to use them in appropriate way. On that basis, the
writer suggests some implications for teaching and learning English idioms and
proverbs denoting weather.
1.3 Objectives of the research
The objectives of the study are:
- Describing the syntactic and semantic features of
Vietnamese proverbs and idioms denoting weather.
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English and


- Comparing and contrasting syntactic and semantic features of English
and Vietnamese proverbs and idioms denoting weather to investigate the
similarities and differences between them.

Chapter III: Methodology
Chapter IV: Findings and Discussion
Chapter V: Conclusion
Chapter 1: Introduction, includes the rationale, aims, research questions, scope
of the research, significance of the research, and structure of the research.
Chapter 2: Literature Review, reviews some publications on weather proverbs,
idioms and previous studies as well as establishes the theoretical background for
the study as the firm foundation with definitions of proverbs, idioms and
weather proverbs, idioms. The distinctive and remarkable characteristics of these
phenomena will also be unearthed in order to provide a clear concept from the
beginning.
Chapter 3: Methodology, deals with the research design and procedures. In this
chapter, description of the sampling, instruments, the procedure of data
collection and analysis for implementing the thesis are mentioned.
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions, is the main part of the research, which
includes a generalization about the semantic and syntactics features of weather
proverbs,idioms in both languages - English and Vietnamese - and in what ways
they are similar to or different from each other. The latter discusses some
weather proverbs,idioms that are not reliable in both languages.
Chapter 5: Conclusions, summarizes the main content of the research and
draws out conclusions. This part also gives implications for teaching and
learning. Moreover, a statement of limitations and suggestions for further
research are also indicated in this chapter. Apart from that, references and
appendices are enclosed for those who are interested in studying the same issues.

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Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

resemblances, differences as well as some gaps between the proverbs in two
languages: English and Vietnamese via explanations and examples.
Some studies focus on proverbs denoting different semantic fields and their
characteristics, but there have not been studies on weather proverbs with reference to
Vietnamese equivalence. For examples, the thesis” An investigation into linguistic
features of money related proverbs in English and Vietnamese”.Ngo Thi Quynh
Hoa( 2011) does not study proverbs denoting weather but she focuses on idioms in
her thesis.
So far

there have no studies engaged in the syntactic and semantic

features of proverbs and idioms denoting weather in English and with reference
to the Vietnamese equivalents. This study is implemented to find out the abovementioned features, thus proposing some possible applications for teaching and
learning.
The studies mentioned above are helpful to this study in terms of
providing the theoretical background for the thesis
2.2. Review of theoretical background
This chapter addresses the theoretical background of the study. In each
section, the definition or explanation of the key terms is presented together with
the studies worldwide.
2.2.1. Theory of syntax
There are many reasearcher who have studied syntax. After investigating,
we have concluded some theories syntax from famous philologist.
Morris ( 1938 ) organized emiotics, the study of signs, into three areas:
syntax(the study of the interrelation of the signs), semantics( the study of the
relation between the signs and the objects to which they apply), and pragmatics(
the relationship between the sign system and the user). According to Moris,
syntax is the grammar, structure,or order of the elements in a language statement
(semantics is the meaning of these elements). Syntax applies to computer

syntactic categories. The position in which a given word may occur in a
sentence is determined by the syntactic rules of a language.These rules make
reference to words and the class they belong to. For example, “the” is said to
belong to the class called articles, and there are rules which determine the
position in a sentence such words, ie.articles, may occur( usually before nouns
and their modifiers, as in “the big house”).We can therefore test whether
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something is a word by checking if it belongs to such a word class.If the item in
question, for example, follows the rules for nouns, it should be a noun, hence a
word. Or consider the fact that only words( and groups of words), but no smaller
units can be moved to a different position in the sentence. For examples,in “yesno” questions, the auxiliary verb does not occur in its usual position but it
moved to the beginning of the sentence ( You can read my textbook vs. Can you
read my textbook?). Thus syntactic criteria can help to determine the wordhood
of a given entity.
2.2.2.Theory of semantics
Semantics (as the study of meaning) is central to the study of
communication and as communication becomes more and more a crucial factor
in social organization, the need to understand it becomes more and more
pressing. Semantics is also at the center of the study of the human mind –
thought processes, cognition, conceptualization – all these are intricately bound
up with the way in which we classify and convey out experience of the world
through language.
Because it is,in these two ways, a focal point in man’s study of man,
semantics has been the meeting place of various cross – currents of thinking and
various disciplines of study. Philosophy, psychology, and linguistics all claim a
deep interest in the subject. Semantics has often seemed baffling because there
are many different approaches to it, and the ways in which they are related to
one another are rarely clear, even to writers on the subject (Leech 1990).

proverb is defined as a typical spoken, conversational form with didactic function
and not associated with any particular source (Neal R. Norrick, 1985, p.51-55). In
other words, a proverb is a short traditional saying expressing a truth or moral
instruction. (Geddes& Grosset, 1994).
George D. Freier (1992, p.6) defines a weather proverb as a short,
sensible, salty statement about the weather. The study of weather proverbs is
known as paroemiology.
Mieder (1993, p.5) defines that “A proverb is a short, generally known
sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views
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in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorable form and which is handed down from
generation to generation.” "A proverb is a standard statement of moral and
colloquial imperatives in fixed metaphorical paradigmatic form; it deals with
fundamental logical relationships" (Barley 1972, p. 741).
As defined in the book "Tục Ngữ, Thành Ngữ Ca Dao và Dân Ca Việt
Nam" written by Trần Ngọc Ngải, Chicago, Illinois, USA 1997, a proverb is a
saying giving advice or satire. According to Lê Gia in his book "Tâm Hồn Mẹ
Việt Nam" (1994), a proverb is a saying based on the customs absorbed in
people’s thought and approved and used through generations. Vũ Ngọc Phan
indicates: “a proverb is a sentence that is complete in meaning itself and
expresses an idea, a comment, an experience, an ethics, a truth or a criticism”.
(cited in Tổng tập văn học dân gian người Việt Tập 1: Tục ngữ”, 2002, p.46). He
also distinguishes between a proverb and an idiom as follows: grammatically, a
proverb is a complete sentence regardless of how short it is, while an idiom is a
phrase or a word group; semantically, an idiom is a part of a sentence that
cannot express a complete idea by itself; as regards genre, an idiom is a set
expression while a proverb is a kind of folklore; and hierarchically, an
idiom is treated as a word while a proverb is considered to be a sentence.

Saeed (2003) gives a clearer definition of idiom, which is adopted for the current
thesis research. He defines an “idiom” as “words collocated that became affixed
to each other until metamorphosing into a fossilized term. This collocation —
words commonly used in a group — redefines each component word in the
word-group and becomes an idiomatic expression. The words develop a
specialized meaning as an entity, as an idiom.” (p.60)
2.2.4. Syntactic and Semantic features of proverbs and idioms in English.
2.2.4.1. Syntactic features of proverbs and idioms in English.
(i)- Proverb
As said above,… “a proverb is a complete sentence regardless of how
short it is”.So, we’ll look at proverbs in terms of characteristics of sentence.
(i) Simple sentences

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A simple sentence, according to Quirk et al,consists of a single
independent clause and there are seven clause types: SVA, SVC, SVO, SVOA,
SVOC, SVOO and SV.
SV
He has arrived
SVA
He is in the garden
SVC
He looks tired.
SVO
I read his letter.
SVOA
They put him in a good position
SVOC

(ii).Idiom
As mentioned in the previous part, “ idioms are fixed linguistic expressions, a
special kind of collocation involving two or more words in context, whose overall
meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of the constituent parts.”
Idiom is a set phrase which include:
a.Noun phrase; b.Verb phrase
c.Adj phrase;

d.Prepositional phrase

a.Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase is a whole head which is a noun or a pronoun,
optionally accompanied by a modifier set. In general, a noun phrase has its head
noun, a pronoun, a nominal adjective or a numeral. As all phrases, the structure of
the English noun phrase can be analyzed into both functional and formal
constituents. Based on functional point of view, noun phrase consists of four major
components in a fixed order:
The head is the central and indispensible component for other constituents to
cluster.

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The determiner is the component which determines the reference of the noun
phrase in its linguistic or situational contexts (a, the, this, her, his your…).
Pre-modification

is the component consisting of all the modifying or

describing constituents before the head other than the determiners.

phrases modify nouns.They may function attributively (standing before noun) or
predicatively(appearing after linking verb), but not all adjectives can be used in
both the positions.
Pre-modifications are the modifying, describing or qualifying constituents
preceeding the head.
The head, an adjective or a participle serves as the focus of the phrase.
Post-modifications are modifying constituents which follow the head.For
example:
She seems very
Pre-mod

happy.
head
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