i UNIVERSITY, HANOI
VIETNAM NATIONAL

UNIVERSITY LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
--------------------------------------

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF PROVERBS AND IDIOMS
RELATING TO ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
EQUIVALENTS
(Phân tích đối chiếu các câu tục ngữ, thành ngữ liên quan đến các động vật
trong tiếng Anh và cách biểu đạt tương đương trong tiếng Việt)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15

HANOI - 2011


ii
Acknowledgements
My minor thesis has been successfully completed thanks to the assistance and guidance
of my teachers, classmates and relatives.
First of all, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs.
Đào Thu Trang, MA for her enthusiastic assistance, academic guidance, good suggestions and
critical comments on my study.
Secondly, I would also like to show my gratitude to all the teachers of the Faculty of
Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National
University, Hanoi whose lectures and guidance have helped me much while carrying out this

proverbs, and they are used very often in everyday conversation. The use of proverbs and
idioms causes many troubles for English learners because sometimes they are very confusing.
Therefore, English teachers have to teach the students not only the knowledge about the
language but also the knowledge about English culture so that the students can communicate
well.
Animals play a very important role in many cultures including English culture and
Vietnamese culture. A large portion of proverbs and idioms in English as well as in
Vietnamese contain the images of animals. There are some outstanding similarities and
differences between them. Within understanding this, English teachers and English learners
can deal with proverbs and idioms much more easily. However, there are so few works
focusing on this issue. For this reason, this paper aims at categorizing the similarities and
differences of proverbs and idioms relating to animals in English and Vietnamese as well as
giving out some explanation. On this basis, it also offers some educational implications for
English teachers and learners to make their teaching and learning more effective.

TABLE OF CONTENTS


v
DECLARATION

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ii

ABSTRACT

iii

5

1.2 Literal meanings and idiomatic meanings

7

1.2.1 Literal meaning

7

1.2.2 Idiomatic meaning

7

1.2.2.1 Definitions of idiom

7

1.2.2.2 Some features of idiom

10

1.2.2.3 Types of Idiom

12

1.3 Proverb in relation to idiom

13


2.2.2 Based on cognitive culture

22

2.3 Animal images in proverbs and idioms
2.3.1. Animal images in Vietnamese proverbs and idioms

25

2.3.2 Animal images in English proverbs and idioms

27

CHAPTER 3
A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH PROVERB AND
IDIOM RELATED TO ANIMALS VERSUS THE ONES IN VIETNAMESE
3.1 The cognitive similarities

31

3.1.1. Same expressions same meaning

32

3.1.2. Different expressions close meaning

32

3.2 The cross-cultural differences


INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Nowadays, English has been widely used in Vietnam. It is also a compulsory subject in
high schools.
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 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 and proverbs.
English and Vietnamese are two different languages, that is, each of them embodies in
itself the cultural factors which characterize one culture from the others.
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 the understanding of English communication manner. They write English with
little knowledge of English cultural background. Consequently, it causes misunderstanding or
even communicative breakdown. Clearly, without cultural 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 standards, religious beliefs, customs
and traditions, social convention, etc. Words and expressions including idioms and proverbs
have formed the vocabulary system of a language. Idioms and proverbs are regarded as
special factors of a language’s vocabulary system because they reflect cultural specific


2

3
and translators avoid difficulties in realizing and translating English proverbs and idioms into
Vietnamese and vice versa.
2. Aims of the study
The aims of the study are:
-

To discover cultural values through proverbs and idioms

-

To investigate the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms

denoting human characteristics through images animals.
-

To help the Vietnamese learner of English be more aware of English and Vietnamese

proverbs and idioms and how to use them in appropriate and interesting way.
-

Provide some suggestions for the teaching/learning and translation of the English

proverbs and idioms relating to animals.
3. Scope of the study
- Proverbs and idioms are large parts in both English and Vietnamese; thus it is
impossible for the author to carry out a comprehensive study on them; thus, he just focuses on
some proverbs and idioms relating to animals.
- In this study, the cross-cultural differences view from customs, religion are
extensively discussed; English idioms denoting human characteristics through the images of

further studies. The study ends with the “References”


5
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.4 Relationship between language and culture
It is said that language is the highest and the most amazing achievement of human mind.
Most linguists currently regard the faculty of language as “ a defining characteristic of being
human” because it is what best distinguishes man from ogres and other animals.
Language is a creative product of human kind that helps to distinguish them from other
creatures on the earth and that serves the main purpose of communication. Language is not
occurring in isolation because human beings are not separate islands in the world of social
activities.
It is shown that the word ‘culture’ is used frequently in our daily life but ‘culture’ is not
easily defined, nor is there a consensus among scholars, philosophers and politicians (nor,
probably, among a rest of us) as to what exactly the concept should include. Despite a century
of efforts to define culture adequately, there was in the early 1990’s no agreement among
anthropologists regarding its nature.
Another common way of understanding culture

is seeing it as consisting of three

elements: values, norms, artifacts. Values comprise ideas about what in life seems important.
They guide the rest of the culture. Norms consist of expectations of how people will behave in
different situations. Each culture has different methods, called sanctions, of enforcing its
norms. Sanctions vary with the importance of the norm; norms that a society enforces formally
have the status of laws. Artifacts-things or material culture-derive from the culture’s values
and norms.

though it may take a longer time and make language teaching and learning more challenging
than ever.


7
1.5 Literal meanings and idiomatic meanings
According to Dr. Duong Ky Duc (2003), the meanings of a word are not only the literal
meaning, but also the figurative meaning. These meanings of the word do not exist separately
but together as a perfect whole. In this sense, the literal meaning is the center and the
figurative meaning is the extension, which shows the cultural distinction of using the word
between this commodity and others. However, we focus much on idioms relating to animals,
therefore, besides the literal meanings of the words containing ‘animals’, we mainly study the
figurative meanings of these idioms which are, in the study, called the idiomatic meanings.
1.5.1

Literal meaning
The literal meaning of a word is the strict dictionary meaning of a word, the ‘dictionary

definition’. For example, if you look up the word ‘snake’ in a dictionary, you will discover that
one of its literal meanings is ‘any of numerous scaly, legless, sometimes venous reptiles having
a long, tapering cylindrical body and found in most tropical and temperate regions’.
Obviously, idiom has its idiomatic meaning. Many idioms, however, can also have
both the literal and idiomatic meanings. In the study, the author does not focus on the literal
meanings of all the idiomatic expressions containing the words relating to ‘animals’ but ones
of the words relating to ‘animals’, which are, somehow, related to the idiomatic meanings of
the idiomatic expressions containing the words relating to ‘animals’.
1.2.2 Idiomatic meaning
1.2.2.1 Definitions of idiom
English idiom
In Cambridge International Dictionary of idioms, idiom is defined as a colorful and

In these examples, it is clear that the idiom is a whole expression. This is the
traditional view of idioms.
We are familiar with the idea of heavy rain causing a stream to overflow and flood
the surrounding area; crowds are often described as water and the same verb flood is used.
The literal meaning of a hot potato, it is not for eating; it means a controversial issue. Idioms
are very important because they are commonly used in daily life. It is nearly impossible to
speak, read or listen to English without meeting idioms. The next reason is the metaphorical


9
use of a word is more common today than its literal meaning. However, it is important to
know its literal meaning because it creates a picture in our mind and this picture enables us
to understand other meanings more easily. The last reason why idioms are so important is
that they are fun to learn and to use. If the language you want to learn is more colorful and
interesting, there is more chance that we will remember it clearly. Our English will sound
more natural.
Vietnamese idioms
According to Hung, in Vietnamese, idioms frequently use fixed expressions;
grammatically, they are not complete sentences, which mean they are only words or phrases.
Idioms do not show any comments, experiences, ethnical lesson or critics, so they often have
figurative function, not educational function. For example, in Vietnamese we say “mặt hoa
da phấn”. This idiom only brings us a picture of a beautiful and charming woman but not
lesson about ethnics or critics.
Most of idioms are formed from incomplete meaning words; they cannot stand
alone but in a sentence. Vietnamese idioms are often used in proverbs, folk songs, or
literature works. That makes idioms meaningful only when they are in sentences. Take this
as an example, “công dã tràng”, at least, it has to be in sentence: “đúng là công dã tràng”
or “chuyện anh làm chỉ là công dã tràng”. Instead of expressing an idea literally, people
tend to use idiom to make their speech more beautifully or funnier. For example, to express
the idea of a person who sometimes works, sometime does not, we use this idiom “hắn ta

idiomatic meaning. Furthermore, the context in which the idiom occurs also play an important
role in the reduction of this potential ambiguity.
Another noticeable

semantic feature of idiom is affirmed by Cruse (1986: 37-38):

“although idiom consists of more than one word, it displays to some extent the sort of internal
cohesion that we expect of single words”. In order words, idiom may be characterized as “a
lexical complex, which is semantically simplex”. And this semantic integrity of idiom leads to
its lexical integrity. It means that idiom has a number of syntactic (grammatical) constraints:
•

The first constraints are on replacements or substitutions. Fernando (1996:43-45)
shows that an idiom may be varied in terms of number and tense (inflectional changes)


11
or the replacement of one structure word like an article by another or by zero. He gives
some examples:
+ “ He smelt a rat and he kept mum” (past tense, past time)
( The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English 1983)
“Everybody smells a rat in a doctored obituary, even the window”
(Present tense indicating a timeless truth)
( The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English 1983)
However, these replacements can be only applied to a small number of idioms. In
general, most idioms are indivisible units whose components can’t be varied. Some do not
permit pluralization like in “kick the buckets” (kick the bucket) or “smell the rats” (smell a
rat); some do not permit singularization such as “twiddle one’s thumb” (twiddle one’s thumbs)
or “ raining a cat and a dog” (raining cats and dogs). In addition, replacement of
characteristic lexis in idiom isn’t possible even synonymous words. For example, in “we look

(*John has bees-in-his bonnets about many things)”; this expression is wrong because the
grammatical appropriate elements “ have a bee in one’s about something” is invariant, it
does not permit pluralization.
1.2.2.3 Types of Idiom
Fernando (1996:35-36) states that idiom can be divided into three sub-classes: pure idiom,
semi-idiom, and literal idiom.
A pure idiom is “a type of conventionalized, non-literal multiword expression”; that is
to say the meaning of a pure idiom has nothing to do with the meaning of its constituents.
Hence, “spill the beans” has nothing to do with ‘beans’ . In contrast to its literal counterpart
meaning, “letting fall leguminous seeds”, a non-literal meaning is imposed on the idiom as a
whole: “commit an indiscretion”.
A semi-idiom “has one or more literal constituents and at least one with a non-literal sub
sense, usually special to that co-occurrence relation and no other”. Examples of semi-idiom
are “catch one’s breath” (check one’s breath) or “foot the bill” (pay the bill) in which “catch”
and “foot” are non-literal constituents .
Literal idiom (on foot, waste not, want not, on the contrary, a happy birthday, a merry
Christmas and a happy New Year, etc.) “meet the salient criterion for idiom: invariance or
restricted variation. They are, however, less semantically complex than pure and semi-idiom”.


13
1.6 Proverb in relation to idiom
1.6.1

Definitions of proverb

There have been many definitions of a proverb but there is no standard one that can be
used to study all aspects of proverb. Let’s consider some definitions of proverb that
Vietnamese and foreign researchers have made.
-

and proverb use language in metaphorical way. We cannot usually discover their meanings by


14
looking up the individual words in a dictionary; their

meanings must be understood

metaphorically.
Beside those similarities, both of them still own typical features that distinguish one
from the other. The first and most obvious difference lies in their grammatical structures.
Idiom is a phrase which is a part of sentence; thus, it is equivalent to words only.
Proverb is a complete sentence or a phrase expressing the whole idea. Moreover, idiom
and proverb are also different in terms of their functions. Proverb is a short well-known
sentence or phrase that expresses a judgment, state a general truth about life or advice; it is
told to contain three main literature functions which are perceptive function, aesthetic
function, and educational function. For example, the proverb ‘Money makes the mare go’
demonstrates a remark as well as a criticism about the negative side of money. Its perceptive
function is to make people aware of the bad effect of money which can become the power
dominating the society, even the most inanimate things. The educational function is to criticize
the negative side of money and urge to be aware of that ill effect. And its aesthetic function is
to exaggerate in a picturesque way to help readers understand the proverb easily. In contrast,
idiom does not express judgments, give advice or state general truth about life, which means it
does not have functions of perception and education but only aesthetic function. For example,
the idiom “to eat like a horse “ merely describes the ability of eating strongly of someone
because of great hunger in figurative and imaginary way and does not point out

any

educational lesson or knowledge of life.



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2.4 Comparison between English and Vietnamese proverbs and idioms viewed from
cultural identities .
2.2.1 Based on principles of cultural types
Southeast Asia in general and Vietnam in particular are considered some of the earliest
agricultural centers of mankind. Vietnamese people live on land .Vietnam soil has thick strata
and high fertility which provides very favorable conditions for the development of agriculture
and forestry. Vietnamese people’s lives are closely linked with agriculture, or to be more exact,
with the cultivation of water rice and other plants, not only weather but some cattle are also
familiar with Vietnamese people. Cow and buffalo are the most common animals to
Vietnamese peasants because they bring about meat and milk and, to some extent, means of
transportation. Therefore, these two appear repeatedly in proverb and idiom. Buffalo is
considered as the biggest property of a peasant family:
“Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp”
(A buffalo is the most precious property of a peasant).
It is also the symbol of the water rice culture as the sentence:
“Con trâu đi trước, cái cày đi sau”
(To put the cart before the horse)
(A buffalo is ploughing the field)
Buffaloes are commonly seen in most Vietnamese villages. Cows are also Vietnamese
peasants’ good friends though they are not as popular as buffalo. Their appearance in the idiom
and proverb stock are fewer. Some of them can be led in as:
“Mất bò mới lo làm chuồng”
(It is too late to lock the stable when the horse is stolen)
implying that it is no use applying any preventive measure after the loss.
“Ăn cơm thịt bò lo ngay ngáy;



(when buying a buffalo, take close look at its legs, when choosing wife, take her family race
into consideration).
In conclusion, cow, buffalo are closely linked with Vietnamese lives, with water rice
culture.
Different from that of Vietnam, with dry and cold climate, England has a greater
proportion grassland than any other countries. And most of which is more suitable for
breeding, especially sheep farming than for rice growing. We can say that England economy in
the past depended much on sheep breeding for getting wool, milk and meat. So sheep can be
considered as the most popular cattle to the English. The image of sheep appears much in
proverb and idiom, however, the English attitudes toward this kind of animal are various.
Lamb is not the animal of high respect.
For English people, lamb is a mild animal as in :
“As mild as a lamb”
(Hiền như một chú cừu non) .
And because lamb is so mild, so naïve and a little fool, it often revokes in people’s hearts
the feeling of pity as :
“Like a lamb to the slaughter”
(Như cừu non đến lò mổ)
This idiom is used to describe the situation when you go somewhere dangerous without
any protection probably because you do not realize that you are in danger. Its meaning can be
illustrated clearly in following sentence:
“When the war started, thousands of young men went off to fight, like lambs to the
slaughter”.


19
( Khi có chiến xảy ra, hàng ngàn thanh niên lên đường nhập ngũ, như những chú cừu non
đến lò mổ)
The words ‘lamb’ and ‘mutton’ also acts as metaphors conveying critics to an older
person, usually a woman, who dresses like a younger person as in: