Luận văn thạc sĩ a contrastive study of conceptual metaphors in english and vietnamese family idioms

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN MINH TÂM

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF
CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
FAMILY IDIOMS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Hà Thanh Hải, Ph.D.

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BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

NGUYỄN MINH TÂM

NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH ĐỐI CHIẾU VỀ PHÉP
ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM TRONG THÀNH NGỮ VỀ GIA ĐÌNH
TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh
Mã số: 8.22.02.01

Người hướng dẫn: TS. Hà Thanh Hải

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I guarantee that the study entitled A Contrastive Study of Conceptual
Metaphors in English and Vietnamese Family Idioms is my own work.
Additionally, I certify that this work has not been submitted, in whole or in
part, for the award of any other degree or diploma, and it does not include any
material that has been previously published or written by another person
without appropriate acknowledgement.
Binh Dinh, 2021

Nguyen Minh Tam

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This graduation thesis was completed not only through my own efforts,
but also with the assistance of many organizations and individuals, to whom I
would like to express my deepest gratitude.
First of all, I am sincerely grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Hà Thanh Hải
for the careful supervision, critical comments, and invaluable advice he
provided for me to complete this thesis. Without his endless patience and
continuous support throughout the course of this study, the task would have

never been finished.
Secondly, I wish to pay my special regards to the lecturers of my
master’s degree for their insightful lectures and deep knowledge of
linguistics. In addition, I also want to send my warmest thanks to the
Department of Foreign Languages of Quy Nhon University for granting me
permission to pursue this project.
Last but not least, I wish to acknowledge the support and great love of
my family and friends, who have always believed in me and given me
strength to overcome all the difficulties I encountered while carrying out this
study.

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ABSTRACT
This study was conducted to investigate the similarities and differences
in the formation of conceptual metaphors in family idioms in English and
Vietnamese. Based on the theory of conceptual metaphors of Cognitive
linguistics prosed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003), this study examined
mappings from the source domain to the target domain on a compilation of
240 idioms in both languages. To fulfill the research objectives, quantitative,
qualitative, descriptive, and contrastive approaches are employed throughout
the research. The findings show a small disproportion in how the two
languages conceptualize the notion of family. These conceptual metaphors are
primarily created on the basis of the source domains, which are the essential
needs of daily life as well as on the embodied perception. In addition, certain
types of metaphors are more prevalent in one language than another and vice
versa, which may be attributed to cultural and geographical variations. This

thesis is hoped to contribute to teaching and learning as well as translating
English and Vietnamese idioms based on understanding of conceptual
metaphors.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ............................................................................ i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... iv
LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... vi
LIST OF FIGURES.................................................................................................. vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................1
1.1.Rationale 1
1.2.Aim and Objectives ........................................................................................4
1.2.1.Aim ..........................................................................................................4
1.2.2. Objectives ...............................................................................................4
1.3.Research Questions.........................................................................................4
1.4. Scope of the Study .........................................................................................4
1.5. Significance of the Study...............................................................................5
1.5.1. Theoretical significance .........................................................................5
1.5.2. Practical significance .............................................................................5
1.6. Organization of the Study ..............................................................................6
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................9
2.1. Theoretical background .................................................................................9
2.1.1. Basic concepts of Conceptual metaphors ..............................................9

2.1.2. Classification of metaphor according to cognitive functions ..............15
2.1.3. Idioms ...................................................................................................18
2.2. Previous studies ...........................................................................................23
2.2.1. Metaphor studies in traditional view ....................................................23
2.2.2. Metaphor studies in cognitive view .....................................................25
2.2.3. Previous studies of idioms ...................................................................30
2.3. Summary ......................................................................................................32
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................34
3.1. Research Design ..........................................................................................34

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3.2. Research Methods ........................................................................................34
3.3. Data Collection ............................................................................................35
3.4. Data Analysis ...............................................................................................36
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................38
4.1. Conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese family idioms ..............38
4.1.1. FAMILY IS A HOUSE........................................................................38
4.1.2. FAMILY BONDS ARE FOOD ...........................................................41
4.1.3. FAMILY IS A BODY..........................................................................44
4.1.4. FAMILY MEMBER IS AN ANIMAL................................................48
4.1.5. FAMILY IS A CONTAINER ..............................................................50
4.1.6. FAMILY IS A NEST ...........................................................................51
4.1.7. FAMILY IS A TREE ...........................................................................53
4.1.8. FAMILY HAPPINESS IS WARMTH ................................................54
4.1.9. FAMILY RELATIONSHIP IS A ROPE .............................................55
4.1.10. FAMILY IS A BOAT ........................................................................56
4.1.11. MARRIAGE IS THE WORK OF GOD ............................................57

4.1.12. FAMILY IS A HOUSEHOLD ITEM................................................58
4.1.13. LOVE IS A GAME ............................................................................60
4.1.14. MARRIAGE IS A WAR....................................................................60
4.1.15. MARRIAGE IS A JOURNEY ...........................................................61
4.1.16. MARRIAGE IS A TRANSACTION.................................................63
4.1.17. LOVE IS POSSESSION ....................................................................64
4.2. Similarities and differences between conceptual metaphors in English and
Vietnamese family idioms ..................................................................................65
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ..................................................................................70
5.1. Conclusions .................................................................................................70
5.2. Implications .................................................................................................71
5.3. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research .....................................72
REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................74

APPENDICES

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1. The Occurrence And Percentage Of Conceptual Metaphors
Denoting Family In English And Vietnamese Idioms.................. 65

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1. The mappings of conceptual metaphors THEORIES ARE
BUILDING ................................................................................... 13
Figure 2.2. The mappings of conceptual metaphor ECONOMY IS WAR .... 14
Figure 2.3. The mappings of conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY . 15
Figure 4.1. The mappings of conceptual metaphor A FAMILY IS A
HOUSE ......................................................................................... 38
Figure 4.2. The mappings of conceptual metaphor FAMILY IS A BODY ... 45

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale
Metaphor has emerged from ancient times, in many fields, especially in
poetry with great aesthetic values. Metaphors can be found all around us in
our everyday lives. They improve the effectiveness of language, make it more
beautiful, and can emphasize the implied meanings that speakers want to
express. This linguistic phenomenon, first put forward by Aristotle, has
gained much attention from linguists. According to Aristotle (as cited in Trần
Văn Cơ, 2009), the principal feature of metaphor is the name transference or
the comparison between two things. Metaphor used to be seen as only a
rhetorical device or a method of developing meaning to make language more
artistic. However, the modern perspective on cognitive linguistics was first
proposed by Lakoff and Johnson in their groundbreaking study Metaphors We

Live By (1980). This revolutionary work is such a crucial contribution to
cognitive linguistics, which paves the way for further studies in this linguistic
field. Through the view of cognitive linguistics, metaphor is considered as a
means to conceptualize or cognize the world. Metaphor can express as well as
reflect human perception of abstract ideas or any thought about the world
around us concretely through practical experiences by linguistic expressions.
This information transfer in perception is seen as a metaphorical mapping that
enables the presentation of one object via the usage of the idea of another
item. Being in the limelight for ages, metaphor shows an important role not
only in poetic language but also in thinking and action (Lakoff & Johnson,
2003). In daily life, metaphor is used so naturally and automatically that we
cannot either recognize the employment of them or point out the meaning
transference from different domains clearly. Thus, there is a need to have

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thorough research on metaphors under the view of cognitive linguistics to
explore how a concept is transferred from disparate fields into language.
In addition, language is not only a means for interaction but also a great
way to express its country’s culture, tradition and thought. It can be a
challenging task to conquer a language and initiate successful conversations
with native speakers from different language users. Thus, interaction
problems concerned cultures may arise when different people try to use the
same language. There may be some misunderstandings due to not only the
below-average language competencies but also the shortage of knowledge of
various cultural - social factors. As can be seen that, it is essential to get
insight into distinctive cultures, histories, or ideology in order to use language

in an effective way. The research by Kövecses (2005), which shows an
agreement with this view, also emphasizes the need to have a thorough
investigation into the impact on the way native speakers employ metaphors.
To discover how conceptual representations vary across language and
cultures, a contrastive analysis on metaphors under the viewpoint of cognitive
linguistics of two languages is considered to be the most powerful method to
find out the similarities and differences of cultural features.
Moreover, on the journey of conquering new foreign languages,
learning and using idioms proficiently is such a big goal for learners due to
the fact that understanding idioms is based on different aspects. As Gibbs et
al. (1997) state, to be an effective and natural speaker, there is a need to
master English idioms. Indeed, for an English learner, communicating
effectively with idioms requires enormous effort to study both the knowledge
of linguistic and knowledge of cultural reality. Since the idioms’ meanings
cannot be inferred from the components’ meanings and the idioms,
furthermore, are derived from each nation’s long-standing culture, learning

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how to use the idioms properly in each context can cause certain obstacles for
learners. Through the conceptual process of social relations in daily lives,
idioms can aid in the realization of native speakers' national cultural image.
Idioms are an essential part in any languages all over the world. They are
widely investigated in linguistics from different perspectives such as syntax,
semantics, or pragmatic (Alousque, 2011; Trần Ngọc Quế Châu, 2011;
Trương Thị Tiểu Vi, 2011; Phạm Thị Thùy, 2017). These research mainly
focus on linguistic features like structure or function. These days, along with

the expansion of cognitive linguistics, idioms are investigated and developed
as a new school of research in linguistics based on human experiences,
perception, and cognition about the world. Family is a familiar, meaningful,
and sacred matter to every individual, however, it is observed, realized and
perceived differently in different nations. Therefore, conceptual metaphors
about family idioms are examined to look at how these idioms reflect the
natives’ perspectives on material life and spiritual life. To be the best
knowledge of the author, just one research of family idioms has been
conducted using cognitive linguistics theory, which focused exclusively on a
single conceptual domain (HOUSE) in Vietnamese idioms (Vũ Hoàng Cúc,
2020), despite the fact that numerous studies about conceptual metaphors
investigated in various subjects such as poems, speeches, journals and others
(Li & Xiao, 2017; Lưu Quý Khương & Nguyễn Võ Thị Thu Hiền, 2016; Phan
Ngọc Trần, 2014; Nguyễn Tiến Dũng, 2019, Nguyễn Ngọc Ái Quỳnh, 2013;
Khudoliy, 2018; Farrokhi, Ansarin & Ashrafi, 2019).
All these things have taken my focus of attention and inspired me to
carry out the research entitled A Contrastive Study of Conceptual
Metaphors in English and Vietnamese Family Idioms. It is expected that
the issues addressed in this research could partially fill in the gap of this
domain, and, to some extent, contribute to further research on this field.

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1.2. Aim and Objectives
1.2.1. Aim
The fundamental aim of this research is to investigate conceptual
metaphors in English and Vietnamese family idioms in the light of cognitive

linguistics to learn how the conceptual metaphors function in conveying the
meaning of idioms. Besides, it also identifies the similarities and differences
of conceptual metaphors employed in idioms denoting family relationships in
these two languages.
1.2.2. Objectives
To achieve the aims above, the study focuses on the objectives as follow:
 Identify and classify the conceptual metaphors used in both English and
Vietnamese family idioms.
 Analyze the similarities and differences between family idioms in both
languages and examine the impact of language, culture and thought on
formation and usage of conceptual metaphors.
1.3. Research Questions
To fulfill the above aim and objectives of the study, the following
questions have been raised and answered.
1. What types of conceptual metaphors are employed in English and
Vietnamese family idioms? What is the frequency of these
conceptual metaphors?
2. What are the similarities and differences between English and
Vietnamese family idioms in term of conceptual metaphors? How
can these similarities and differences explain the relationship
between language, culture and thought?
1.4. Scope of the Study
While idioms can be studied from the perspectives of grammar,

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semantics, and pragmatics, this thesis focuses solely on the semantic level,

namely conceptual metaphors. To achieve the thesis goal, the study
investigates only the similarities and differences in family idioms in English
and Vietnamese in the light of cognitive linguistics, based on the Lakoff and
Johnson’s theoretical framework of conceptual metaphors. Important data of
the thesis are idioms denoting family in English and Vietnamese. The scope
of the study is restricted to select data from dictionaries written in English
and Vietnamese. For a clearer understanding of the use of metaphors,
English - Vietnamese bilingual idioms dictionaries are also taken into
consideration. Within the scope of thesis, the data source is limited to 240
idioms in both languages.
1.5. Significance of the Study
1.5.1. Theoretical significance
Although there has been various research on cognitive linguistics,
especially on conceptual metaphors with great achievements in this domain,
this study should be seen as a further contribution to this linguistic area to
investigate family idioms in English and Vietnamese based on cognitive
linguistics theory. The conduct of this paper is expected to lay the foundation
for further enquiries into conceptual metaphors in family idioms in these two
languages.
1.5.2. Practical significance
The results of conceptual metaphors study are hoped to make
contribution to the English teaching methodology. Considering the
relationship between thought and idioms formation as well as the way the
human thinking generates idioms, educators can get an insight into
theoretical bases in order to offer such effective idioms teaching methods.
Additionally, the research findings may assist in the translation of

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idioms from English to Vietnamese. At the same time, the study can also be
applied to develop the teaching of idioms in schools and other educational
institutions.
1.6. Organization of the Study
The study is organized in five chapters as follow:
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter describes the rationale for the research which provides
background information also the knowledge gap to be filled, and the
motivation to conduct the research. The study’s aim, objectives are then
identified. Next, research questions are raised to meet the aim and objectives
of the study. After that, the scope of the research is followed by the
significance discussed in both theoretical and practical features. In addition,
the general overview of the structure of the study is outlined in the
organization part.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
In this chapter, the main concepts related are synthesized and discussed. The
fundamental knowledge of cognitive linguistics in this research is based on
Lakoff and Johnson's (1980, 2003) and Kövecses's (2002, 2010) theoretical
frameworks. This chapter also looks at the background of the study or
theoretical framework the study applied, including the basic of conceptual
metaphor theory, definitions and arguments on the theory or the
classification of conceptual metaphors. This chapter also gives a general
overview of metaphors in both traditional and cognitive views. Another
important part of the chapter is to introduce the system and classification of
conceptual metaphors. In this thesis, we concentrate on three main kinds of
metaphors, namely structural metaphors, orientational metaphors, and
ontological metaphors. Following that, cognitive perspectives on idioms are

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discussed to provide a framework for data collection. The study proceeds
with a synthesis and analysis of prior studies that motivated the authors to do
this research, as well as a general understanding of conceptual metaphors to
set the stage for the investigation.
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
This chapter gives a description of research methods, the procedure of the
study which are specific plans on how the research is conducted. In this
chapter, the quantitative, descriptive, and contrastive methods are three major
ones to carry out the research to examine conceptual metaphors employed in
family idioms in the two languages as well as to give a comparison between
related domains of conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese. This
chapter also deals with data collection and data analysis. This section provides
the readers with a description of the samples in English and Vietnamese as
well as comprehensive instructions on how to interpret the data gathered.
Validity and reliability are also briefly mentioned in this chapter to guarantee
the research’s quality.
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion
This chapter is a major part which presents and discusses the research findings
with illustration, interpretation based on the theoretical frameworks. Particularly, this
chapter demonstrates analysis of conceptual metaphors in English and
Vietnamese family idioms to find out the similarities and differences between
them. Conceptual mappings are mainly investigated to illustrate the
connection between domains so that the similarities and differences of
conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese family idioms can be
readily seen based on the examined source domains.

Chapter 5: Conclusion
This part summarizes the study’s findings of the thesis, suggests implication

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for teaching, learning, and translating idioms, gives suggestions for further
research and also points out the limitations of the study.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter establishes the theoretical foundation for data analysis by
outlining the research's underlying theoretical framework. As the background
for the thesis, this chapter gives a brief introduction of the theory such as
cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphors, metaphorical mappings, etc.
These are followed by an account of discrete types of conceptual metaphors
namely structural, ontological, and orientational metaphors. The chapter’s
next focus is the distinguishment of metaphors from metonymy or idioms
from proverbs to support the process of identifying metaphors in idioms. This
chapter is also a critical analysis of previous, relevant studies concerning both
theoretical and empirical studies.
2.1. Theoretical background
2.1.1. Basic concepts of Conceptual metaphors

2.1.1.1. Conceptual Metaphor
Conceptual metaphor is defined by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p.5) as
conventionalized cognitive structures which are “understanding and
experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”. It is seen as a mechanism
to perceive things and to create new ideas based on the experience of native
speakers to understand one object through another. People have a tendency to
use a familiar or easier concept to understand to refer to another complicated
concept. For example, idea is an abstract notion with no easy method of
grasping it. To make this concept clearer or simpler to understand, individuals
use different terms to describe or explain it, such as food, plant, product, and
so on. Taking the notion idea and food into consideration, we may come
across many phrases such as a bad taste in my mouth, raw facts, half-baked
ideas and warmed-over theories. These are referred to as metaphorical

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expressions or linguistic metaphors, and IDEAS ARE FOOD is a conceptual
metaphor.

So,

metaphor

is

employed

to

make

abstract

concepts

understandable via the lens of a particular topic (Lakoff, 1993, p.245).
Lakoff (1993) sees metaphor as a metaphorical mapping rather than a
product or linguistic expression. He also emphasizes the role of the process of
conceptualizing one field to another. Therefore, conceptual metaphor is
considered as a cognitive tool or one of the forms of conceptualization of the
world which metaphorically map a domain into another conceptual domain.
Through the example of love relationship as our relationship has hit a
dead-end street, Lakoff and Johnson (2003, p.55) identify the idea of love as a
journey that requires lovers to decide whether to continue or terminate their
connection. This is just one of the different expressions to conceptualize love
as a journey because it is pervasive in daily discourse. There are several
additional ways to express this conceptualization (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003,
p.55) as below instances.
Look how far we’ve come.
It’s been a long, bumpy road.
We can’t turn back now.
We’re at a crossroads.
We may have to go our separate ways.
I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere.
We’re stuck.
This relationship is a dead-end street.
We’re just spinning our wheels.

Our marriage is on the rocks.
We’ve gotten off the track.
This relationship is foundering.
Unlike the traditional view of metaphor, these expressions are used in

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daily life without regard for aesthetics or rhetorical effect. The employment of
the term journey to express the concept of love in this case raised him a question
of how linguistic expressions about journeys can be used to talk about love. As
can be seen, metaphor is a tool that enables the transformation of complicated
and difficult ideas into simple, familiar, and easily understood notions.
In modern view of metaphor, cognitive scientists consider metaphor in
a relation with human thoughts and understanding (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980;
Gibbs, 1994). According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), metaphors have the
great impact on our ideas, everyday activities, and experiences. Thus, the
language we use or the linguistic expressions reflecting our perspectives is
recognized with the pervasiveness of metaphors. Lakoff and Johnson assert in
their work that we speak metaphorically about things in everyday life based
on our perceptions (1980). This viewpoint is shared by Geary (2012), who
claims that metaphors are formed in a person's thinking prior to being
articulated in words. Thus, metaphor is not primarily a product of language
but is produced by ideas about people's activities. Metaphor is a powerful tool
for simplifying and clarifying complicated and difficult ideas.
2.1.1.2. Domains
As an essential element of conceptual metaphor, domain is thoroughly
discussed and investigated by various linguists. According to Kövecses

(2015), metaphor is considered to conceptualize one domain of perception in
relation to another domain of conceptual metaphor theory.
According to Kövecses (2002), the source domain may be thought of as
a tangible and comprehensible object that can be identified or experienced
using all six senses. The target domain is an abstract notion with few concrete
representations that is neither tactile nor perceptible. The source domain is the
domain chosen as the standard for the projection of the phenomenon and the

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