1 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF DANANG NGUYỄN THỊ MINH THƯ AN INVESTIGATION INTO SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS DENOTING WORK IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Field: THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Code: 60.22.15 M.A. THESIS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (A Summary) DANANG – 2011 2 This thesis has been completed at the College of Foreign Languages – the University of Danang Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. TRUONG VIEN Examiner 1: Duong Bach Nhat, Ph. D. Examiner 2: Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa, Ph. D. The thesis was presented at the Examining Committee at the University of Danang Time : 08 Jan 2012 Venue : University of Danang This thesis is available at: • The library of the College of Foreign Languages, the University of Danang • Information Resources Center, the University of Danang 3 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. RATIONALE Language is considered as a system of communicating among people who use sounds, symbols and words in expressing a meaning, idea or thought. This language can be used in many forms, primarily through oral and written communications as well as using expressions through body language. Moreover, language is considered as a way to communicate ideas comprehensibly from one person to another in such a way that the other will be able to act exactly accordingly. And idiom is one of the exciting and popular languagephenomenons. Therefore, to learn a language, a person needs to learn the words in that language, and how and when to use them. But people also need to learn idioms separately. And idioms reflect accumulated human experiences and are built on frequently occurring situations that demonstrate human behavior, social traits, certain habits or tradition in a country. Every country or nation has got their own idioms that are specific to their own culture, while many idioms have synonyms in several countries what refers to the equal shared human nature in many cultures. Every country or nation has got their own idioms that are specific to their own culture, while many idioms have synonyms in several countries what refers to the equal shared human nature in many cultures. Learning the specific idioms reFor example, "Ideally he'd like to find himself a plum job in New York." A desirable position which is well-paid and considered relatively easy 4 is called a plum job. That is what the above idiom wants to convey. Or "Clinton and Obama teaming up for the general election would be a dream ticket for many Democrats”. In considering “dream ticket”, what people want to mean this idiom is not dream or ticket. Actually, this meaning is that two people who work well together and be successful. Or “Con trai tôi là niềm tự hào của cả nhà, cả họ, cùng với tiến bộ của nó trong sự học hành hi vọng trong lòng tôi cứ lớn dần, ñời nó sẽ thoát ñược cái cảnh chân lấm tay bùn, một nắng hai sương, bán mặt cho ñất bán lưng cho trời, suốt ñời lẽo ñẽo theo sau ñít trâu cày và tầm mắt chỉ thấy những gì quanh luỹ tre làng.(Huỳnh Văn Úc,2009) Being aware of the importance of idioms in learning language as well as in daily life, here and there, many researchers have investigated the syntactic and semantic features of idioms denoting the topics such as weather, money, body parts, animals, colours, causes and effects, verb of motion, etc. . . Nevertheless, an investigation into idioms denoting work at language levels has not been deal with so far. VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 25 (2009) 165-173 Grammatical and semantic features of some English words and idioms denoting happiness - the feeling of great pleasure Nguyen Thi Van Lam* Department of Foreign Languages, Vinh University, Nghe An, Vietnam Received February 2009 Abstract This article is intended for the discussion of the lexemes denoting the feeling of great pleasure sub-classified into four groups of adjectives (‘delighted’, ‘elated’, and ‘jubilant’); nouns (‘bliss’, ‘ecstasy’, ‘euphoria’, ‘glee’, ‘joy’, and ‘rapture’); verbs (‘exult’ and ‘rejoice’); and idioms (‘walk on air’, ‘in seventh heaven’, ‘on cloud nine’, ‘on top of the world’, ‘over the moon’ and ‘thrilled to bits’) They are dealt with in respect of their grammatical features including the syntactic functions and morphology, and their semantic structures including lexical meaning, synonyms, collocational range, words and idioms of which the word denoting the feeling is a constituent Some suggestions in the teaching and learning of as well as in the translation concerned with the lexemes are finally provided Introduction* meaning, synonyms, collocational range and idioms with the words as well as words related to them in terms of form are to be of our concern based on the information collected from the English native speakers and such dictionaries as Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English [6], The American Heritage Dictionary of The English Language [7] and Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms [8] The feeling of happiness ranges from the least pleasure to the greatest one, which can be expressed by different linguistics items in the English language Each linguistic item has its subtle nuance of meaning in terms of grammar and semantics In this article, we are to discuss the grammatical features [1,2] and semantic structures [3-5] of the English words and idioms denoting the feeling of great pleasure sub-classified into four groups of adjectives (‘delighted’, ‘elated’, and ‘jubilant’); nouns (‘bliss’, ‘ecstasy’, ‘euphoria’, ‘glee’, ‘joy’, and ‘rapture’), verbs (‘exult’ and ‘rejoice’), and idioms (‘walk on air’, ‘in seventh heaven’, ‘on cloud nine’, ‘on top of the world’, ‘over the moon’ and ‘thrilled to bits’) All the lexemes listed are the headings of each sub-section, in which the grammatical features, lexical Adjectives Denoting Great Pleasure All the adjectives discussed here denote the property of feeling the pleasure to the extreme degree; they, therefore, cannot be modified by intensifiers of degree such as ‘very’, ‘too’, ‘extremely’, etc [1] They can function as head of adjectival phrases, pre-modifier of noun phrases, and complement of such verbs as ‘be’, ‘become’, ‘feel’, ‘look’, ‘appear’, ‘seem’ and ‘make’ with or without taking complementation [1] * Tel.: 84-(038)3555656 E-mail: nguyenthivanlam@gmail.com 165 166 N.T.V Lam / VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 25 (2009) 165-173 2.1 ‘Delighted’ 2.1.1 Grammatical Features and Semantics of ‘Delighted’ ‘Delighted’ is an adjective having an identical form with, but different features from, the past participle of the verb ‘delight’, having the syntactic functions as head of adjectival phrases, pre-modifier of noun phrases and complement Morphologically, it has two morphemes: the root delight and suffix-ed By means of derivation, the adverb ‘delightedly’ is formed It has no inflected word-forms for comparative and superlative In terms of semantics, ‘delighted’ is specific and frequently used It denotes the property of feeling great pleasure about something good that has happened It has the same descriptive meaning with ‘happy’, ‘glad’ and ‘pleased’ in their first sense - denoting the feeling of pleasure about something good that has happened, but different in term of degree of feeling - expressive meaning, thus being their descriptive synonyms It can be modified by ‘absolutely’ in its restricted collocation ‘absolutely delighted’, and by ‘quite’ meaning “totally” ‘Delighted’ can function as complement When it is a subject complement, it can take complementation types of prepositional phrases with ‘about’, ‘at’, ‘by’ and ‘with’; that-clauses and to-infinitive postmodification as in: His parents were absolutely delighted about the baby I am delighted at your success / to hear of your success He felt quite delighted to think that they were safely gone [9] ‘Delighted’ in part of the sense of “showing the feeling of great pleasure” can be used as pre-modifier of noun phrases as in collocations with such typical nouns as ‘child’, ‘lady’, ‘look’, ‘smile’, ‘spirit’, etc 2.1.2 Words Formed from ‘Delighted’ ‘Delightedly’ (adv) means “in a delighted manner” and functions as adverbial as in: She jumped up and took me delightedly in her arms, just as she used to [10] ‘Delight’ (v) can be intransitive and monointransitive, meaning “give great pleasure (to somebody), please (somebody) greatly” as in ‘a book that is certain to delight’ It is a component of an ... 1 2 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. RATIONALE Language plays an important role in human evolution and history. Since language developed, many fields of science have developed at the same time. English vocabulary is plentiful with thousands of words and idioms among which words and idioms denoting unhappiness are commonly used in daily life. However, hardly any study of these words and idioms has been carried out by Vietnamese linguists. Mastering such a plentiful source of vocabulary is not an easy task for learners of a foreign language including English and Vietnamese. As a result, this study is carried out to make a contrastive analysis of the words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English and in Vietnamese in these two aspects. In this way, the study could help learners of English or Vietnamese as a foreign language have a good insight into the words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English Vs Vietnamese (WIEUEV). Thanks to this, these learners could learn English and Vietnamese better. 1.2. AIMS The aims of this study are to: - Investigate the syntactic and semantic features of words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English Vs Vietnamese. - Find out the syntactic and semantic similarities and differences between words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English and Vietnamese. - Offer some suggestions for teaching and learning English and Vietnamese in general and for the translation work of words and idioms in these languages expressing unhappiness in particular. 1.3. OBJECTIVES The study is designed to: 2 - Describe the syntactic and semantic features of words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English. - Describe the syntactic and semantic features of words and idioms expressing unhappiness in Vietnamese. - Make a contrast of the syntactic and semantic features of these words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English Vs Vietnamese. 1.4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY Due to the time and resource constraints, this study is confined to the study of words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English Vs in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features. 1.5. RESEARCH QUESTIONS In order to achieve the above aims and objectives, the following research questions could be put forward: 1. What are the syntactic and semantic features of words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English? 2. What are the syntactic and semantic features of words and idioms expressing unhappiness in Vietnamese? 3. What are the similarities and differences in the syntactic and semantic features of words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English Vs Vietnamese? 1.6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY The study could help cross- cultural communicators use the words and idioms expressing unhappiness in English and Vietnamese better. Moreover, the study could help 1 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF DANANG ---***--- LE XUAN THANH GIANG A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF WORDS AND IDIOMS RELATED TO “HEARING” IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE M.A THESIS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Danang - 2011 2 The study has been completed at the College of Foreign Languages, Danang University ---***--- Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. TRẦN VĂN PHƯỚC First examiner: Tran Quang Hai, Ph.D. Second examiner: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ngo Dinh Phuong The thesis will be presented at the Examining Committee of the Master Thesis Graduation in the English Language at the University of Danang on 31/08/2011. The origin of the thesis is accessible of purpose of reference at: - The College of Foreign Language Library, Danang University - Danang University Information Resources Centre 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. RATIONALE Language is an essential form of communication. It allows people to convey and elaborate their perspective. It means that language is the bridge to connect people all over the world. Therefore, language is a subtle and complex instrument used to communicate an incredible number of different things. Being a basic component of language, word plays an important role in communication. Word helps us to express many shades of meaning at different levels of style. It means that word-meanings can be understood in different ways depending on contexts. For that reason, learners, users or translators of English often meet a lot of difficulties in expressing what need to be said or written. Secondly, in our daily communication, we realize words related to senses of human beings are used regularly. And in five senses, we really concern with hearing because they not only have meanings as shown in dictionaries but also relate to attitudes and feelings that are not easy for us to understand. Furthermore, hearing may be expressed by different linguistic items. For instance, talking about hearing with attention English people use listen, to be all ears, to prick up one’s ear, whereas Vietnamese people say lắng nghe, chăm chú nghe. Last but not least, as a teacher of English, we find learners may know a lot of English lexical items by learning vocabulary word-lists by heart but they do not know how to use them in 2 appropriate contexts. As a result, they often have failure in communication. For all reasons, we decided to make a contrastive analysis of grammatical and semantic features of words and idioms related to “hearing” in English and Vietnamese. By this topic we hope that we can help the teachers, the learners and the translators understand and use words and idioms related to hearing in English and Vietnamese. 1.2. SCOPE OF THE STUDY Each language has its own number of vocabulary. And the number of English and Vietnamese related to hearing are so large that we cannot cover all of them in this study. Thus, this study is restricted to the grammatical and semantic features of some verbs and idioms related to hearing (WIRHs) in English and Vietnamese. VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 24 (2008) 157-166 157 Grammatical and semantic features of some adjectives denoting happiness - the feeling of pleasure Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong 1 , Nguyen Thi Van Lam 2, * 1 Department of English - American Language and Culture, College of Foreign Language, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, 2 Department of Foreign Language, Vinh University Received 29 February 2008 Abstract. The topic of happiness draws a lot of attention from different types of people. In fact, there are so many ways to express our happiness, one of which is employing words and idioms denoting happiness. In this article, the authors discuss five adjectives denoting happiness - the feeling of pleasure: “cheerful”, “gay”, “glad”, “merry” and “pleased” in terms of grammar and semantics. Their grammatical features include syntactic functions and morphological features, and the semantics includes lexical meaning, synonyms, antonyms, collocations and idioms of which these words are a component. The authors finally provide some suggestions in the teaching and learning of as well as in the translation concerned with the words. 1. Introduction * Linguistic items in English utilized to express happiness are numerous. As the feeling of happiness can range from the feeling of pleasure to that of great pleasure, the English language is not poor in the expressions of the feeling. More concretely, the feeling of happiness can be expressed by such adjectives denoting happiness as “happy”, “cheerful”, “gay”, “glad”, “merry”, “pleased”, “delighted”, “elated” and “jubilant”. They are sub-classified, on the basis of the degree of expression of pleasure they denote, into two groups: (1) “happy”, ______ * Corresponding author. Tel.: 84-4-(038)3555656 E-mail: nguyenthivanlam@gmail.com “cheerful”, “gay”, “glad”, “merry” and “pleased” (denoting pleasure) and (2) “delighted”, “elated” and “jubilant” (denoting great pleasure). In this article, the adjectives denoting pleasure, excluding “happy”, shall be explored in terms of grammar including syntactic functions [1] and morphological features [2], and semantics including lexical meaning, synonyms, antonyms, collocations [3,4] and idioms of which the adjectives denoting pleasure is a component [3-5]. 2. Grammatical features and semantics of adjectives denoting pleasure The adjectives “cheerful”, “gay”, “glad”, “merry” and “pleased” are to be discussed in N.T.T. Huong, N.T.V. Lam / VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 24 (2008) 157-166 158 this section in term of grammar and semantics based on the information collected from the English native speakers and such dictionaries as Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English [6], The American Heritage Dictionary of The English Language [7] and Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms [8]. These adjectives denote an emotion of pleasure people have, but in not the same ways. According to Quirk et. al. (1972), they can function as head of adjectival phrases, pre-modifier of noun phrases, and complement of such verbs as “appear”, “be”, “become”, “feel”, “look”, “seem” and “make”, with or without VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 25 (2009) 165-173 165 Grammatical and semantic features of some English words and idioms denoting happiness - the feeling of great pleasure Nguyen Thi Van Lam* Department of Foreign Languages, Vinh University, Nghe An, Vietnam Received 4 February 2009 Abstract. This article is intended for the discussion of the lexemes denoting the feeling of great pleasure sub-classified into four groups of adjectives (‘delighted’, ‘elated’, and ‘jubilant’); nouns (‘bliss’, ‘ecstasy’, ‘euphoria’, ‘glee’, ‘joy’, and ‘rapture’); verbs (‘exult’ and ‘rejoice’); and idioms (‘walk on air’, ‘in seventh heaven’, ‘on cloud nine’, ‘on top of the world’, ‘over the moon’ and ‘thrilled to bits’). They are dealt with in respect of their grammatical features including the syntactic functions and morphology, and their semantic structures including lexical meaning, synonyms, collocational range, words and idioms of which the word denoting the feeling is a constituent. Some suggestions in the teaching and learning of as well as in the translation concerned with the lexemes are finally provided . 1. Introduction * The feeling of happiness ranges from the least pleasure to the greatest one, which can be expressed by different linguistics items in the English language. Each linguistic item has its subtle nuance of meaning in terms of grammar and semantics. In this article, we are to discuss the grammatical features [1,2] and semantic structures [3-5] of the English words and idioms denoting the feeling of great pleasure sub-classified into four groups of adjectives (‘delighted’, ‘elated’, and ‘jubilant’); nouns (‘bliss’, ‘ecstasy’, ‘euphoria’, ‘glee’, ‘joy’, and ‘rapture’), verbs (‘exult’ and ‘rejoice’), and idioms (‘walk on air’, ‘in seventh heaven’, ‘on cloud nine’, ‘on top of the world’, ‘over the moon’ and ‘thrilled to bits’). All the lexemes listed are the headings of each sub-section, in which the grammatical features, lexical ______ * Tel.: 84-(038)3555656. E-mail: nguyenthivanlam@gmail.com meaning, synonyms, collocational range and idioms with the words as well as words related to them in terms of form are to be of our concern based on the information collected from the English native speakers and such dictionaries as Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English [6], The American Heritage Dictionary of The English Language [7] and Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms [8]. 2. Adjectives Denoting Great Pleasure All the adjectives discussed here denote the property of feeling the pleasure to the extreme degree; they, ... the English words and idioms denoting happiness - the feeling of great pleasure are very interesting to study As can be seen in the discussion, of all the lexemes denoting the feeling of great. .. ‘Jubilation’ (n) denotes the feeling of great happiness and pride in one sense and a celebration or other expression of great happiness in the other sense Nouns Denoting Great Pleasure Apart from the. .. grammatical features depend on the sub-classes they belong to, but each word may not have all the grammatical features that its sub-class has All of them can join the three word-formation processes of