(LUẬN văn THẠC sĩ) a contrastive analysis of idioms containing the parts of animals in english and vietnamese

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

VÕ THỊ NGỌC LIÊN

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF IDIOMS
CONTAINING THE PARTS OF ANIMALS
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8220201

Supervisor: TRUONG VAN DINH, Ph.D

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BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

VÕ THỊ NGỌC LIÊN

PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁC THÀNH NGỮ CHỨA CÁC BỘ
PHẬN CỦA ĐỘNG VẬT TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT
Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh
Mã số: 8220201

Người hướng dẫn: TS. TRƯƠNG VĂN ĐỊNH

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I hereby certify that all work in this thesis is my original work and the
substance of this thesis has not been submitted to any other university or
institution. Therefore, I am fully responsible for the contents of the thesis.
The research reported in this thesis was approved by The Department
of Foreign Languages, Quy Nhon University.
Binh Dinh, August 30th, 2021

VO THI NGOC LIEN

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My minor thesis has been successfully completed thanks to the
assistance and guidance of my teachers, classmates and relatives.
Firstly, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my
supervisor, Mr Trương Văn Định, Ph.D for his 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, Department of foreign languages, Quy
Nhon University, whose lectures and guidance have helped me so much while
carrying out this study.
Thirdly, my deepest thanks are for my lovely colleagues and my
friends have helped and encouraged me during my preparation until I

complete my study.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the considerate support and
indispensable assistance of my parents, my husband and my children while
the work was being done.
One more thing I would like to say is that despite all the efforts, I have
made and the advice and assistance I have received, I am sure my minor
thesis is far from perfect. Therefore, there are a lot of inadequacies and
shortcomings that are unavoidable in my minor thesis, which is my
responsibility.

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ABSTRACT
One of the most important elements in implication of culture and
language is the use of idioms. In daily communication, both English and
Vietnamese people often utilize a large number of idioms. However, learners
in both languages have a lot of difficulties in using them. Therefore, English
teachers have to teach the students not only the knowledge of language but
also that of culture, which enable them to communicate languages
proficiently.
Animals plays an integrate role in both English and Vietnamese culture.
There are a huge number of idioms relating to animals in both languages.
However, the number of idioms containing the parts of animals is quite small
and the study of them is rare. Therefore, the study of idioms relating to the
parts of animals will contribute to the full collection of works on animal
idioms. Moreover, this study clarifies the syntactic and semantic features in
both languages, which help learners to use them more easily and effectively.

Finally, the findings analyzed in the study reveal that there are some
similarities and differences about structural and semantic peculiarities of
idioms containing the parts of animals in English and Vietnamese. In respect
of syntactic features, both languages have idioms under a variety of phrase
and sentence structures. Semantically, there are more idioms containing the
parts of animals implicating human than non - human in both languages.

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TABLES OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................ ii
ABSTRACT ................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................. Error! Bookmark not defined.iv
ABBREVIATIONS....................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.v
LIST OF TABLES ....................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.vi
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale ................................................................................................. 1
1.2. Significance of the study ......................................................................... 2
1.3. Aim and objectives of the study.............................................................. 2
1.3.1. Aim of the study ............................................................................... 2
1.3.2. Objectives of the study ..................................................................... 3
1.4. Research questions .................................................................................. 3
1.5. Scope of the study ................................................................................... 3
1.6. Organization of study .............................................................................. 4
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 5
2.1. PREVIOUS STUDIES ............................................................................... 5

2.2. Theoretical background .......................................................................... 6
2.2.1. Definitions of idioms ........................................................................ 6
2.2.2. Idioms and Other Language Units .................................................... 8
2.2.3. Idiom relation to Language and Culture ........................................... 9
2.2.4. Characteristics of idioms ................................................................ 11
2.2.5. Overview of Phrase and Sentence Structures ................................. 18
3.1. Research Methods ................................................................................. 23
3.2. Data collection ...................................................................................... 23
3.3. Data analysis ......................................................................................... 23

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3.4. Procedures ............................................................................................. 24
3.5. Validity and Reliability ......................................................................... 24
CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ............................................ 26
4.1. SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE
PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE .................... 26
4.1.1. Phrase Structures............................................................................. 26
4.1.2. English and Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals
of Sentence and clause Patterns ................................................................ 34
4.2. Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing the
parts of animals in English and IN Vietnamese ........................................... 36
4.2.1. Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing
the parts of animals in English .................................................................. 38
4.2.2. Overview of general semantic mechanisms of idioms containing
the parts of animals in Vietnamese ........................................................... 39
4.3. SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING THE

PARTS OF ANIMALS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE .................... 41
4.3.1. Idioms having Human Implication ................................................. 41
4.3.2. Idioms having non-human implications ......................................... 53
4.4. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN SYNTACTIC AND
SEMANTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS CONTAINING TpsOAs IN
ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ................................................................ 57
4.4.1. Similarities ...................................................................................... 57
4.4.2. Differences ...................................................................................... 59
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS................................. 63
5.1. Conclusion ............................................................................................ 63
5.2. Implications ........................................................................................... 64
5.2.1. Implication for learning idioms contaning TpsOAs ....................... 64
5.2.2. Implication for teaching idioms contaning TpsOAs....................... 65

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5.2.3. Implication for translating idioms contaning TpsOAs……………61
5.3. Limitations and suggestions for further studies .................................... 67
5.3.1. Limitations of the study……………………..………………… . ...67
5.3.2. Suggestions for Further Research ................................................... 67
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 69
APPENDIX
TOPIC ASSIGNING CERTIFICATE

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ABBREVIATIONS
1. Adj

Adjective

2. Ap

Adjective Phrase

3. Article

Art

4. CW

Comparison word

5. N

Noun

6. NP

Noun Phrase

7. N

Number

8. O

Object

9. Preposition

Prep

10. PrepP

Prepositional Phrase

11. S

Subject

12. TpsOAs

The parts of animals

13. V

Verb

14. VP

Verb Phrase

15. Vpred

Verbal predicate

16. %

Percent

17. &

And

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LIST OF TABLES
Order
Name of tables
Table 4.1 Noun Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs

Page
26

Table 4.2 Verb Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs

28

Table 4.3 Adjective Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs

31

Table 4.4 Preposition Phrases of the idioms containing TpsOAs

32

Table 4.5 Phrase Structures of the idioms TpsOAs

33

Table 4.6 Sentences of the idioms containing TpsOAs

34

Table 4.7 Frequency of the Parts of animals in English
Table 4.7

Table 4.8

and Vietnamese Idioms

36

Frequency of Semantic Features of Idioms containing
TpsOAs in English and Vietnamese

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1

CHAPTER1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. RATIONALE
Idioms play an important part in the linguistic development of a
country and have a close relationship with folk verses and proverbs. They
make up of a large number of vocabularies in many countries, especially in
Vietnam and in England. For a long time, idiom is also a means of
communication in people‟s daily routine. Moreover, most poets and writers
use a various kinds of idioms in literature to contribute to making clear the
content of their works. In recent years, idioms have often appeared in English
tests but not many students realize and comprehend all their meanings in the
context or only know them through the separate words. According to
Summers (2001), “idiom is a phrase that has a meaning different from the
meanings of its individual parts”. This helps to explain why it is often
difficult to translate an idiom from one language to another without incurring
some change in meaning or usage.
Additionally, there are many interesting things when we discover the
different cultures in both languages to know the idioms containing the images
of animals clearly. According to Judith Siefring (2005), each idiom has a
story or a cultural feature besides their meaning. For example, the idiom “in
the catbird seat” is said to have originally referred to baseball player in the
fortunate position of having no strikes and therefore three balls still to play (a
reference made in James Thurber‘s short story The Catbird Seat).
In

Vietnamese

culture,

a

culture

of

distinctive

community

characteristic, caring for the idioms containing the images of animals which
have a close-knit with people‟s life. For instance, while Vietnamese people
tell about pets like dog with both positive and negative meaning (“Mèo đến

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nhà thì khó, chó đến nhà thì sang‖- It's difficult for a cat to come home, but
for a dog to come home) and ―thằng chó chết‖ (a dead dog), the English
people consider it as a loving or appreciation in the idiom “a lucky dog”.
However, there have been many theses relating to analysing idioms
containing the images of animals before. The idioms containing the parts of
the animals have not been mentioned and researched deeply on their
structures and meanings in both English and Vietnamese.
In this thesis, I have decided to choose the topic “A contrastive
analysis of the parts of animal idioms in English and Vietnamese”.
1.2. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Our thesis on study idioms containing the parts of animals has the
following importance:
Theoretically, this study provides a better insight into analysing the
semantic and syntactic features of English and Vietnamese idioms. The
findings of the research can contribute to explaining the linguistic similarities
as well as differences between the two languages.
Practically, thanks to this study, Vietnamese learners can not only
realize how to use the idioms containing the parts of animals appropriately
but also have a clear insight into the custom and the social behaviour of
native speakers in both languages from the result found in the study. What
is more, learners can master a source of English and Vietnamese idioms
containing the parts of animals (TpsOAs) to use them in reality.
1.3. AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1.3.1. Aim of the study
The study aims to make a comparison between English and Vietnamese
idioms containing the parts of animals on the basis of the analysis of their
semantic and syntactic features in order to find their similarities and

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differences ones between the two languages.
1.3.2. Objectives of the study
To achieve the aim of the study, the researcher tried to fulfill two
following objectives:
+ To study the semantic and syntactic features of idioms
containing the parts of animals in both English and Vietnamese.
+ To compare and contrast the semantic and syntactic features of
idioms containing the parts of animals in both English and Vietnamese.

1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
To achieve the aim and objectives mentioned above, this study
addresses the following research questions:
1. What are the syntactic and semantic features of English and
Vietnamese idioms containing the parts of animals?
2. What are similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic
features of idioms containing the parts of animals in English and Vietnamese?
1.5. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Idioms have become an attractive subject of many recent researches in
various languages. Therefore, the similarities and differences in syntactic
and semantic features extracted from the study of idioms containing the
parts of animals could be explained on the basis of cultural features of the
language in comparison. Especially, with the aspect of semantic features, the
author does not aim at finding the equivalents of all English animal idioms
in Vietnamese, but focuses only on analysing idioms containing the parts of
animals having human implications or not . For instance, idioms having
human implications often show human‟s characteristics, emotion, or
appearance, etc. and idioms having non- human implications are like
quantity, size, or opinion etc.

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Last but not least, the study is concerned with idioms and proverbs
containing the parts of animals, but not with all animal idioms because some
previous thesis mentioned idioms relating animals in general.
1.6. ORGANIZATION OF STUDY
The thesis is divided into five chapters.

Chapter 1, THE INTRODUCTION, presents rationale which paves
the way for the next aims, objectives of the research, research questions,
scope of the study, along with the organization of the study.
Chapter 2, THE LITERATURE REVIEW, introduces theory of
syntactic and semantic features of idioms containing the parts of animals, and

the prior researches related to this study so that the author can find out
their research gaps.
Chapter 3, RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY, is the
description of the research method, the data collection and data analysis.
Chapter 4, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION, is related to our Findings
and Discussion on the similarities and differences about syntactic and
semantic features expressed in idioms containing the parts of animal
between English and Vietnamese.
Chapter 5, CONCLUSION, summarizes the conclusions drawn out
from the study and some suggestions for further study.

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CHAPTER2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. PREVIOUS STUDIES
Idiom is considered as a scientific language because it is used as an
object to study. Idiomaticity appeared at the beginning of the 20th century
with the famous Swiss linguist, Charle Bally, who establish a scientific base
for the necessity to research the fixed phrases in language. Therefore, there
are many dictionaries of idioms produced to serve the purpose of learn and

study such as Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms by Cowie, A.Petal,
NTC‟s American Idioms Dictionary by Spears, R.A, The Cassell Dictionary
of English Idioms by Fergusson, R., From the Horse‟s Mouse: Oxford
Dictionary of English Idioms by Ayto, J. Besides, there are a lot of works on
it such as “Essential Idioms in English Phrasal Verbs and Collocations by
Robert J. Dixson”, or “Idioms for Everyday Use” by Broukai, M. etc…
Vietnamese linguists are also concerned about idiomaticity, which
plays an important role in studying and developing Vietnamese language. The
pioneers are Nguyễn Lực and Lương Văn Đang. Nguyễn Lực published a
useful book “Thành Ngữ Việt Nam”.
There have been a plenty of contrastive studies on idioms in
Vietnamese and other languages with many kinds of idioms. Here are some
studies relating to the field of the study: “A Contrastive study of connotation
of Vietnamese Zodiac Animal in English and Vietnamese Idioms and
Proverbs”; ―Thành ngữ chứa từ gọi tên Ðộng vật trong tiếng Việt‖; ―Đối
chiếu thành ngữ trên báo chí Tiếng Trung và Tiếng Việt‖; ―Attitudes toward
idioms and idiom learning strategies‖; and ―Ngữ Nghĩa của từ ngữ chỉ động
vật trong thành ngữ Tiếng Việt so sánh với thành ngữ Tiếng Anh‖.
Nguyen Quoc Toan (2011) focused on researching connotation of

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Vietnamese Zodiac Animal based on the contrastive methods so as to realize
the similarities and differences meanings of English and Vietnamese idioms
and proverbs, but only related to twelve animals.
Nguyen Thi Trung Anh (2019) made a contrastive analysis of English and
Vietnamese idioms about dogs in terms of syntactic and semantic aspects. The

findings obtained from the data analysis of 110 English and Vietnamese idioms
related to dogs show that syntactically, there are a variety of phrasal structures
and sentence structures appearing English and Vietnamese idioms about dogs,
and semantically, the data was studied and analyzed positive, negative and
neutral meanings about human characters, luck and life conditions.
Ho Thi Thuc Nhi (2020) showed the metaphorical meaning of animal
idioms in relation between human beings and animals.
Moreover, the above-mentioned studies focus only on the meaning of
the animal idioms or the statistics about the number of idioms containing
names of animals. Not many studies analyzed animal idioms and proverbs,
especially idioms containing the parts of animals under the aspects of
semantic and syntactic features. That is the reason why the author chooses
this topic. The researcher can make a contrastive analysis on semantic and
syntactic characteristics of English and Vietnamese idioms containing the
parts of animals.
2.2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.2.1. Definitions of idioms and proverbs
2.2.1.1. Idioms
Langacker (1987, p.25) shared the similar opinion that “To regard an
idiom as opaque or as primarily a fixed phrase is [...] simplistic. It is more
accurately seen as a complex of semantic and symbolic relationships that
have become conventionalized and have coalesced into an established

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configuration.” For example: Vietnamese idiom has a sentence “Mẹ tròn con
vuông”, but we cannot turn it into “Mẹ vuông con tròn”.
Additionally, according to the Oxford English Dictionary and the

Longman Dictionary of Idioms, ―the idiom originates from an ancient method
for slaughtering pigs. Before being killed, the pigs‘ feet were tied to a beam –
the bucket – to prevent them from kicking out and to hang them up by the
heels after being killed. At the moment the pigs were killed, they kicked the
bucket for a last time. Therefore, this movement was seen as an indicator of
their death.” (cited in “Idiom creativity” by Langlotz (2006, p.134))
Many Vietnamese linguists also have the same concepts of idiom.
Hoang Van Hanh (2004) defines that idioms are a group of words in a
fixed order about the characteristic structures and complete and figurative
meanings which is ultilized widely in daily communication, especially in speech.
Nguyễn Đức Dân (1986) states that idiom is an element in a fixed form
and it reflects the notions, the ways of speech, the ways of thought and
people‟s specific characteristics.
Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Đức Nghiệu and Hoàng Trọng Phiến (1997, p.153 –
165) give the following definition “idioms are groups of words which are
syntactically restricted and have particular meanings. Their meanings are
often imaginative and figurative”
In short, most of the linguists abroad and at home proposed that idiom
is a fixed phrase which is used commonly.
2.2.1.2. Proverb in relation to idiom
Mieder (1993, p.5) has proposed the following definition, "A proverb is
a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth,
morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorizable form
and which is handed down from generation to generation".

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According to Hornby (1995), proverb is defined as “a short well-known
sentence or phrase that states a general truth about life or giving advice, ie:
“Better safe than sorry or Don‘t put all your eggs in one basket‖. Moreover,
according to Vu Ngoc Phan (2000), proverb was known as “a complete saying
expressing one idea of comment, experience, morality, justice or criticism”.
It can be seen from the above-mentioned researchers‟ notions that
idioms and proverbs have many similar characteristics and that is why
researchers usually study together. First of all, both idioms and proverbs are
ready-made. They are made from human‟s thought, cultures and processes of
hard working and studying. They are orally passed from generation to
generation and naturally accepted in public. Secondly, in the aspect of
structural features, both of them are fixed expressions and their components
are not substituted. Therefore, people cannot infer from individual words,
which must be understood as a whole. In addition, most of idioms and
proverbs, whose unaccepted changes in the meaning of whole group make
them nonsensical, are often discovered metaphorically.
However, there are some differences between idiom and proverb. The
proverb is a complete sentence with a firm structure that is based on an
unchangeable foundation. In contrast, idioms are not syntactically
independent because they cannot always occur as full sentences, but as a part
of a sentence. Therefore, people said that the differences between idiom and
proverb are structure, form and function.
2.2.2. Idioms and Other Language Units
2.2.2.1. Idioms and phrases
People might misunderstand some idioms as phrases and vice versa.
Fromkin, Rodman, Collins and Blair state that “Idioms are similar to ordinary
phrases except that they tend to be frozen in form and do not readily enter

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into other combinations or allow the other to change”.
2.2.2.2. Idioms and Collocations
Cruse (1986, p.40) found that “collocation will be used to refer to
sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur, but which are not
nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also
a semantic constituent”.
2.2.2.3. Idioms, saying and Clichés
According to Cambridge

dictionary,

“a

saying

is

a

well-

known wise statement that often has a meaning that is different from
the simple meanings of

the

words

it contains”

(cited

in

/vi/dictionary/English/saying). All proverbs
are sayings but idioms are neither proverbs nor sayings.
“A cliché is a phrase or idea that has been used so often that it no
longer has much meaning and is not interesting.‖ (Hornby, 2000, p.218). In
spite of having some relevance to idioms, clichés are not idioms.
2.2.3. Idiom relation to Language and Culture
“Idiomatic expressions offer a unique opportunity to teach and learn
about the vocabulary richness of the target language as well as the cultural
aspects hidden behind those fixed expressions. Every culture has developed
its own expressions, which second (SL) and foreign language (FL) learners
should acquire if they wish to exhibit a ―native-like command‖ of the target
language‖ (Wray, 2000, as cited in Asl, 2013).
In current tendencies of daily conversation, English people mostly use
idioms. Therefore, idioms are not separate parts of the language, which
originate necessary parts of the vocabulary of English and Vietnamese
language.
According to Richards (1992), language often consists of three main
functions such as descriptive, expressive, and social. Idioms and proverbs

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have all these functions. Proverb not only has descriptive function, which
conveys factual information, but also has expressive function i.e. to express
people‟s preference, feelings, characteristics etc. It implies many things such
as experience and morality. Besides, it also expresses social function, which
reflects people‟s relation in society.

For all these things above, we can

conclude that language, culture and proverb and idiom are close-knit. Both
proverb and idiom reflect values, beliefs across culture.
2.2.3.1. Characteristics of Vietnamese Culture
Vietnam is a country where there are plenty of ethnics and cultural
diversity. Each of the ethnic minorities has made their important contribution
to Vietnam‟s culture. However, Vietnamese cultural diversity is considered to
be unity. Throughout many work-hard wars, Vietnamese people has become
determined, hard-working and solidary in maintaining and preserving the
belief, customs and family values. Therefore, we have made unique cultural
identity of Vietnam.
Vietnamese people work hard with their fields and raise buffaloes, pigs,
cows, chickens, etc. throughout the year. Therefore, images of animals as well
as their parts often appear in their idioms in Vietnam in order to describe
Vietnamese people‟s cultural life lively.
2.2.3.2. Characteristics of English Culture
According to Jonathan Crowther and Kathryn Kavanag (1999), the
British are famous for being a nation of animal lovers, and most families have
at least one pet. Therefore, they are sentimental about and often treat them as
people or human‟s best friends, “a man's best friend is his dog‖. Additionally,
the British names some types of animals for competition sports such as dog
races. Last but not least, England, a Western country, has the nomadic culture.
They have different concepts about the world, especially the animal world.

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Each culture highly values the animals that have more contribution to their
life, so the images of animals in idioms in England are various; mainly their
pets such as dogs, cats, etc. or the animals for the race or the hunt, horses,
sheep and etc. In short, it is those characteristics that create a unique culture
of the English.
2.2.4. Characteristics of idioms
Although the term “idiom” is defined from different aspects, lexicographers
and linguists share some points of view about typical features of idioms.
2.2.4.1. Structural Stability
Idioms present structural diversity and combinations that are mostly
unchangeable and often not logical and may not follow basic rules of
grammar.
Idioms can be quite clear (Miệng hùm gan sứa, Ngồi trên lưng cọp) or
slightly unclear (A flea in one‘s ear, Have eyes like a hawk, Make sheep‘s
eyes at somebody). Some idioms have the comparison (Rối như ruột tằm).
The components in idioms can neither be added nor replaced. They can
be unchanged or unvaried in the way that literal expressions are normally
varied both in speech and in writing.
Another noticeable semantic feature of idiom is affirmed by Cruse
(1986): “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 other
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) shows that an idiom may be varied in terms of number and tense

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(inflectional changes) or the replacement of one structure word like an article
by another or by zero, as in.
+ “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 inseparable 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
―rain a cat and a dog‖ (rain cats and dogs). In addition, replacement of
characteristic lexis in idiom is not possible even synonymous words. For
example, in ―we look forward to meeting you‖, “look” cannot be replaced by
“see” or “watch”. Hence, ―we see/watch forward to meeting you‖ is not
idiomatic. Similarly, in ―wash one‘s dirty linen in public‖, „linen‟ cannot be
replaced by „socks‟, neither can ‗thought‘ be replaced by ‗idea‟ in „have
second thoughts‟.
• Idiom also resists re-ordering of its parts. We consider “He would
make a good politician – he could talk the hind legs off a donkey.‖ In the
literal sense, this expression has a passive variant, ―The hind legs could be

talked off a donkey‖. But in its idiomatic use, i.e. when ―talk the hind legs off
a donkey‖ means ―talk for a long time‖, the expression does not allow the use
of the corresponding passive alternative. Other changes of the order of the
words like in ―The short and the long of it‖ (The long and the short) or in
―What Peter pulled was his sister‘s leg‖ (What Peter did was pull his sister‘s

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leg) are impossible.
• Additions and deletions are also not normally permitted within idiom.
Thus, we can‟t say ―To pull someone‘s left leg‖ and “To kick the large
bucket”, they have no normal idiomatic interpretation because of the addition
of ‗left‘ and ‗large‘, whereas ‗straight from horse‘s mouth‘ and ‗turn a new
leaf‘ are both unacceptable because ‗the‘ and ‗over‘ have been omitted.
Such constraints make idiom fixed or invariant and separate them from
non-idiom. Cruse (1986) recognizes another feature of idiom which shows its
status as phrases in a way that “if idiom may be inflected, the inflectional
affixes are carried by the grammatically appropriate elements within the
idiom, whether or not they are semantic constituents; that is to say, the
elements of idiom retain at least some of their grammatical identity:
“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.
To sum up, in terms of syntax, first of all, an idiom is a set-expression.
We cannot make any changes to them without losing the idiomatic meaning.
Secondly, idioms may take many a variety of forms or structures. In terms of
structure, an idiom can have a regular structure, an irregular or even a
grammatically incorrect structure.

2.2.4.2. Semantic Opacity
Idioms, as means of non-literal language, have a great extent use in
everyday language. They contain a metaphorical sense that makes their
comprehension difficult, since their meaning cannot be inferred from the
meaning of their component parts. Their meanings are more than simply the
entirety of their individual parts.
In terms of opacity, idioms are categorized in a continuum from

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transparent to opaque called the spectrum of idiomaticity. According to Gairin
and Redman, “Semantic opacity is one of the characteristic aspects of idiom
of any given language.”
Fernando (1996) states that idiom can be divided into three subclasses: 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 nonliteral 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”.
Hoang Van Hanh (2002) divides idioms into three main kinds: idioms
of symmetry (idioms with two members which have the same form or
balanced contents opposite or supplement of each other): e.g. “đầu voi đuôi
chuột‖, idioms of comparison (thẳng như ruột ngựa) and ordinary idioms
(vuốt râu hùm).
2.2.4.3. Symbolism/ Stylistic Features
+ Simile

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According to Hornby (2006, p.1369), “simile is a word or phrase
that compares sth to sth else, using the words ―like‖ or ―as‖, for example
―a face like a mask‖ or ―as white as snow‖; the use of such words and
phrases”. In Vietnamese, comparison are made by a lot of linking words
such as như, bằng, tựa, hệt, giống, most of which are used in Vietnamese
idioms, known as “như”.
Here are some examples:
“like a dog with two tail”

: very happy

“Thẳng như ruột ngựa”

: very frank

+ Metaphor
Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005, p.13) states “A metaphor consists of a

comparison between two dissimilar notion where one notion is to be
understood in terms of the other notion”. Đỗ Hữu Châu (1986) defines
metaphor as a way of naming one object by another object based on the
similarity of properties. For example, “a cunning person” is referred to as “a
fox”.
Metaphor may be based on a variety of types of similarity, for instance,
similarity of shape: “head of cabbage”, “the teeth of a saw”, “an eye of a
needle”. The similarity may be of function as in “the head of school”, “the key
of a mistery” or of position, as in “food of a page, of a mountain”.
Therefore, it can be known that a large number of idioms in English
have metaphorical meaning, especially those containing the parts of animals
denoting people.
+ Metonymy
According to Galperin (1977, p.144), “metonymy is based on a different
type of relation between the dictionary and contextual meanings, a relation
based not on identification, but on some kind of association connecting the

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