Đặc trưng ngữ nghĩa nhóm tính từ chỉ kích thước (trên ngữ liệu tiếng nga và tiếng việt bản tóm tắt tiếng anh

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INTRODUCTION
1. Necessity of the Study
1.1. Adjectives of size are one of the basic lexical fields in the
Russian and Vietnamese lexicon. They are the special quality adjectives
denoting the entities’ properties conceived and divided by human
beings. They have both general and specific features in terms of
cognition and the culture and language of each nation.
1.2. The real world is like a picture perceived by human and recreated through language and the language mapping. That picture of the
world and the view associated with it in the peoples speaking different
languages have similarities and differences. Through the survey and
contrast analysis, the dissertation is to find out these similarities and
differences in the structuring of the relations and the spatial properties in
general and those of size in particular.
1.3.Presently, the requirements for the intensive teaching and
learning of foreign languages demand a comprehensive and thorough
analysis of the lexical fields, in which the lexical subfield of spatial size
exists. The results of the dissertation are to make some contributions to
making Russian and Vietnamese teaching more effective for the students
of Russian as well as the Vietnamese ones.
2. Literature review
- With the introduction of Cognitive Linguistics in the world, many
works based on the cognitive views have proposed the basic principles of
Cognitive Linguistics, of which the most important is “Language is not a
self-governing
ability of cognition; semantics and grammar are
conceptualization; language knowledge arises from the use of language.
- In Vietnam, since the early 1990s, Cognitive Linguistics has
become a new linguistic tendency. Many research projects on space from
a cognitive perspective have gone beyond the scope of traditional
linguistics and have raised many important points such as:

+ Cognitive Linguistics aims to conduct an overall comprehensive
study on the cognitive functions of language.


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+ Cognitive Linguistics is a door to people’s spiritual and intellectual
world, and a means to achieve the secrets of the thinking process, the
focus of the study shifted from thinking to consciousness, concerned with
the conceptualisation and categorization of the objective world.
+ The formation of the conceptual structure is closely related to
people’s experience and cognitive strategies.
+ The meaning of language is not limited within the language system
itself, but derives from the experience gained in the interaction between
people and the world, between their knowledge and belief systems.
3. Objectives, Scope and Data Sources of the Study:
The dissertation deals with adjectives of size in Russian: высокий низкий, глубокий – мелкий, толстый - тонкий, длинный - короткий,
широкий - узкий, большой - маленький in contrast with equivalent
ones in Vietnamese: cao (high) - thấp (low),sâu (deep) – nông (shallow) ,
dày (thick) - mỏng (thin), dài (long) - ngắn (short) , rộng (wide) - hẹp
(narrow), to (big) - nhỏ (small).
The dissertation focuses on the semantic features of the adjectives of
size, the size location mechanism, the size cognition mechanism and the
uses of the above adjectives.
The data used in the study are collected from the Russian –
Vietnamese Dictionary, Vietnamese – Russian Dictionary or other
Russian and Vietnamese dictionaries, coursebooks, textbooks, studies,
doctoral dissertations, master theses, the literary works, etc.
4. The Aims and Tasks of the Study
4.1. The Aims of the Study
The study aims to:

a. Contribute to clarifying the semantic features of adjectives of size
in Russian and Vietnamese, especially to identifying the meanings and
meaning traits which have not been provided in dictionaries, or have not
been clarified, or have been generalized but need describing in more
details.
b. Contribute to clarifying the cognition mechanism of space in
general and that of size in particular by the Russian and Vietnamese.


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c. Apply the research results to the teaching and learning of Russian
in Vietnam, and propose suggestions to correct errors in using size
adjectives by learners of Russian.
4.2. Tasks of the study
The study is conducted with the following tasks:
a. Describing and analyzing the semantic features of adjectives of
size in Russian and Vietnamese on the basis of linguistic data from the
dictionaries to clarify the systematic relations between words and their
meanings.
b. Contrasting the meanings and expression manners of the spacial
properties of the adjectives of size in Russian and Vietnamese through
their collocations with spatial entities with a view to pointing out
similarities and differences in the semantic structure of these adjectives.
c. Identifying the similarities and differences in the mechanism and
manners of spacial cognition by the Russian and Vietnamese through the
relations between thought, culture and language.
d. Pointing out cultural and linguistic cross-sections and causes of
errors by learners of Russian, and proposing solutions to restricting errors
and error correction in Russian teaching and learning.
5. Methodology of the Study:

To implement the study, we use the following basic methods:
5.1. Description and analysis
5.2. Contrastive analysis
5.3. Statistics and classification
5.4. Survey and experimental method
6. Contributions of the dissertation
- This is the first dissertation dealing with adjectives of size in
Russian and Vietnamese in the bilingual and inter-cultural patterns.
These adjectives are studied in the light of the spacial cognition in threeaspect relationships: thought, language and culture.
- The dissertation has a practical value not only of helping
understand more deeply with a deeper look at the spacial cognition of
Russian and Vietnamese nations, but also making some contributions to


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improving the quality of Russian teaching and learning, the translation
from Russian into Vietnamese and vice versa.
7. The Design of the Study
The dissertation has four chapters:
Chapter 1: Concepts and Basic Premises related to the dissertation
Chapter 2: Semantic Features of Adjectives of Size in the Vertical
Direction
Chapter 3: Semantic Features of Adjectives in the Horizontal Direction.
Chapter 4: An Application of the study to teaching and learning Russian
and Vietnamese.
- The dissertation ends up with the introduction, conclusion,
references, appendices and other related research.

CHAPTER 1
CONCEPTS AND BASIC PREMISES RELATED TO THE

DISSERTATION
1.1. Contrastive Analysis of Language from the Perspectives of
Language, Thought and Culture
The objective world is a continuous chain, but that world, as it is
reflected in thought and consciousness, is restructured in each specific
language of each nation and bear idiosyncratic characteristics.
Language, thought (or broader: cognition) and culture have a close
relationship with each other. Language is the place where to store and
express the characteristics of the national culure, and it is a criterion to
identify the nation. Language is a real mirror of the national culture.
We contrast languages in a certain aspect to figure out the similarities
and differences between them, and discover
useful and valuable
information for the understanding of national identity and the cognition
of different nations with their languages
Semantics and Lexical-semantic fields


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Congnitive Linguistics considers language a mental competence, and
human language ability is defined as a cognitive ability, process and
strucutre in interaction with other abilities, processes and structures (such
as perception, thought, memory, attention, and learning).
Cognitive Semantics stresses the role of human factors in the
language, paying attention to the experience, and focusing on the analysis
of concept and conceptualization, category and categorization. The
semantics of each language reflects the outlook, thinking, or perception
manners and conceptualization of the native speakers’ objective world
and their cultural-lingustic community. Different nations may see the
world with some dissimilarity through their language prism. The

semantic structure, therefore, is both universal and idiosyncratic
Cognitive Semantics particularly investigates some “lexical-semantic
fields”(such as of space, time, colour, emotions, etc.), which have their
idiosyncratic characteristics.
Spacial field is one of the lexical-semantic fields bearing their
peculiar national culture in language thought, expressed through the
spatial structure. The group of size adjectives which we investigate in
this dissertation is a lexical sub-field of the spatial field.
Adjectives and those of size
Russian adjectives have the following properties: denoting the state
and quality of people, objects and phenomena in the objective world, e.g.
белый, длинный, etc.; gradable and nongradable, e.g.: очень хороший,
etc.; adjective – noun agreement in morphology, e.g.синнее небо,
большой дом, etc.; adjectives used as nouns: новое, данное, столовая,
etc. Apart from the descriptive meaning, adjectives have pragmatic
meaning, the relation between language units – adjectives and the users.
Unlike Russian, Vietnamese adjectives are characterized by: The
lexical and grammatical meanings without their own morphological
structure and without adjectives of relations and belonging
Adjectives of size in Russian have the same morphological,
syntactical and semantic features as other adjectives. They also denote
peculiar properties such as quality – evaluation (качественно -


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оценочное); the relative properties of objects classified by human in
evaluative location; in the contrast of each pair in terms of meaning; as
polysemantic adjectives with open structure for a certain number of
senses.
Language space from the perspective of linguistic cognition

Adjectives of size are used to denote the properties of spacial entities.
Space conceived in human thought and conciousness is not the
objective physical space but the space refracted through the human
perception influenced by cultural factors and experiences of the
community and the individual human beings.
Space in general include objective physical space, space (be)
conceived and space (expressed) in language. Language space differs
from objective physical space in the outside world as well as from space
which is reflected in the human brain as a cognitive subject. Language
space is the result of selective reflection of space conceived, which
means that language space does not reflect the whole cognitive space.
Related to the common properties of language space (such as shape,
distance, posture, location, direction, etc) and spatial dimensions, the
dissertation has identified and clarified the following concepts:
1.4.4. The Concept of Reference points
1.4.5. The Concept of Direction
1.4.6. The Concept of Position
1.4.7. The Concept of Size Scale
1.4.8. Properties of Identified Standard Objects
1.4.9. Especially H. Clark’s theory about:
- Identification of objects in space
- People as the center of space cognition
- Peculiar biologial formation by which human beings can perceive
themselves, objects, space, time and relationships between them.
- Referring to the outlook of people and space from many angles.
According to the geographers: people’s location and their surroundings,
gravity and Earth’s plane. In physicists’ and geometricians’ viewpoint,
the location of an object in space is always in consideration with other

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objects in space. From the biologists’ standpoint: the human body and
many parts of the human body are nearly symmetrical with each other on
the right and left sides by a vertical line, along the center of the body.
Human beings have a complex cognitive structure with symmetrical
sides.
- The concept of language space “L-Space”, the concept of reference
point…

CHAPTER 2
SEMANTIC FEATURES OF THE ADJECTIVES OF SIZE IN
THE VERTICAL DIRECTION
высокий – низкий, глубокий – мелкий,
cao thấp, sâu nông, dày máng (High – Low, Deep – shallow,
thick – thin)
Semantic features of adjectives of size denoting the concepts of
height - low: высокий – низкий; cao (high) – thÊp (low)
The semantic contrast of the adjectives of size высокий – низкий;
cao – thÊp on the basis of linguistic data from Russian and Vietnamese
dictionaries shows:
+ There is a relatively large difference in the numbers of meanings in
general.
высокий (7) (∗) - Cao (4); низкий (6) - ThÊp (3)
+ A distinction lies in the numbers of spatial denotations : высокий
(1) - Cao (2).
+ There is no difference in the positions in the order of spatial
denotations, which are in the first place.
Adjectives высокий – низкий; cao – thÊp denote the concepts of
height and low with the basic properties: stretch; location; space from
one to three dimensions; upward – an object measured from bottom to

top or from top to bottom; reference point in space considered the
unmarked original plane, (незaметная плоскость): ground, the plane of
(∗)

The number in brackets is the number of senses.


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the water in the seas, rivers, lakes, … and marked derivative plane,
(заметная плокость) the planes of the furniture, the floor, the book in
horizontal dimension, etc…
Regarding the uses of the adjectives denoting the concepts of
HEIGTH, LOW, we can see that: the adjectives высокий – низкий; cao
– thÊp combine with the words denoting different entities in space:
human, animals, hills, mountains, mounds;
trees and grasses;
construction works; labour tools, entertainment, activities, means of
transport; sky, clouds, moon, stars etc.
From the spacial cognitive perspective on the senses and uses of the
two pairs of Russian – Vietnamese adjectives it can be shown that:
- Man is the most complex entity compared with other animal species
and inanimate objects: man is both the subject directly involved in the
process of space location and an objective entity located.
- The standard of height – the implicit standard has the variability,
changing over time, social conditions and economy. The standard of
height is influenced by human feelings and depends on many factors
such as human shape, clothes, color and subjectivity. The observer takes
himself as a basis for evaluation and comment.
- In Russian and Vietnamese, the meanings of stretch and position are
explicit.

- In some cases, the contexts of the meaning of the object’s position
are “hidden”, which causes ambiguity in cognition, especially when the
Vietnamese do not use prepositions.
- The phenomena of meaning shift, implicitness, and implication
from Russian into Vietnamese are interesting. In these cases the
Vietnamese have to use similar adjectives to express the similar sense of
size.
Semantic features of adjectives of size denoting the concepts of
DEPTH and SHALLOWNESS: глубокий – мелкий; sâu nông
It is revealed in the semantic contrast of the adjectives of size
; sâu nông (deep – shallow) on the basis of
linguistic data from Russian and Vietnamese dictionaries that:


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+ There is a difference in the numbers of meanings in general
- The adjective pair мелкий - n«ng (shallow) bears a relatively large
difference in the number of meanings: мелкий (6) - nông (2)
- The adjective pair - sâu has the same number of
meanings: глубокий (6) - s©u (6), but the numbers of spatial deconcepts
are different: глубокий - s©u
The adjective глубокий - s©u is rich in the range of expression,
carrying the meaning traits which do not exist in Vietnamese.
+ The order of size sense of the two adjectives глубокий - s©u is
different: мелкий with the sense “shallow” is at the sixth position, but in
Vietnamese nông in the same meaning is in the first one.
The adjectives глубокий – мелкий; s©u – n«ng denoting the
concept of DEPTH and SHALLOWNESS have the basic properties: the
stretch, the distance from the surface to the bottom, or to a certain point
downwards, the distance to the surface, edge; three-dimensional space,

hollowness, concaveness, depth.
With regard to the uses of adjectives denoting the concepts of
DEPTH and SHALLOWNESS , it can be seen that: the adjectives
; sâu nông have collocations with words
denoting the following spatial entities: the entities with great depth:
пруд - ao (pond), река - s«ng (river), море - biÓn (sea), пучина - vùc
(abyss)...; the entities with a depth, stretching horizontally: ров - hµo
(trench), долина - thung lịng (valley), канава - m¬ng (dike) ; ; entity
with a depth, self-containedness, containing: - hang (cave),
- côngtenơ (container) ..; entities as human body, parts:
носовая впадина - hèc mòi (nasal cavity), ротовая полость - khoang
miÖng (oral cavity), …
It can be seen in the senses and uses of the two pairs of RussianVietnamese adjectives from the spacial cognitive perspective that:
- When denoting the concept of DEPTH, the Russian and Vietnamese
have the same way to look at things: containedness, three-dimensional


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space, hollowness, concaveness, inwardness, a mouth edgedness,
distance from top to bottom, depth and stretching depth.
- The description of the spatial entities of self-containedness and
containing depends on the positions of the observer – the objects
described as s©u (deep) or s©u (long), depending on the observing
position.
- The entities such as trời (sky), vũ trụ (universe) are both high and
far, vast, and difficult to imagine, but in the human mind, “trời”, and “vũ
trụ” are limited (horizon), looking like a building dome, towards the
mouth, edging toward the Earth, with a depth - shallowness, height lowness.
- When denoting the LENGTH and position of these adjectives,
Russian people’s expression of meaning is more explicit than the

Vietnamese’s in many cases.
Semantic features of adjectives of size denoting the concepts of
THICKNESS and THINNESS: толстый – тонкий; dµy – máng
The semantic contrast of the adjectives of size толстый –
тонкий; dµy – máng (thick - thin) on the basis of linguistic data from
Russian and Vietnamese dictionaries indicates that:
+ The numbers of senses in general of толстый – тонкий; dµy –
máng are not similar: толстый ( 3) – dµy (4); тонкий (5) – máng (2)
+ The positions and numbers of spatial denotations bear similarity:
both in the first position; толстый - dµy, has two senses; тонкий –
máng one.
Adjectives толстый – тонкий; dµy – máng denoting the concepts
of THICKNESS and THINNESS have basic properties of: stretch,
distance between two surfaces or edges, vertical, three-dimensional,
external, deep, no properties of the position.
The uses of the adjectives denoting the concepts of THICKNESS
and THINNESS can be shown that the adjectives толстый – тонкий;
dµy – máng can be collocated with spatial entities of the following
types:


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Strata, layers, blocks: - băng (ice), - đất (soil), - bê
tông (concrete), - tuyết (snow); bc: - bøc têng (wall),
картина - bøc tranh (picture); thanh: полено- thanh cñi (wood chip of
wood), меч - thanh kiÕm (sword); tm: - tấm ván (plank),
- tấm gạch lát (floor tiles); viờn: - viên
gạch (brick), - viên thuốc (tablet); lỏ: - lá th (letter),
- l¸ cê (flag), селезёнка - l¸ l¸ch (spleen); cây, cọc, gy:
- cọc gỗ mun (ebony pile), - cây sào (pole),

- gậy tre (bamboo stick), lỏt: - lát
giò (slice of lean pie), - lát bánh ga tô (slice of gateau); air,
fog, mist, smoke: дымовая завеса - mµn khãi (smoke screen), столб
дыма - cét khãi (column of smoke), росинка - giät s¬ng (dewdrop).
It can be seen in the senses and uses of the two pairs of RussianVietnamese adjectives from the spacial cognitive perspective that:
- Spatial perceptions of the Russians and the Vietnamese are basically
similar in nature. the sense of dµy (thick) denotes size, shape of the
object and ordered first in the dictionary.
- The numbers of senses of тонкий – thin in Russian and Vietnamese
are different, indicating the implications of cognition, thoughts, and
associations
When describing the human body, body parts and objects of
cylindrical shape cây, cọc, gậy, there are differences in spatial perception
by the Russian and Vietnamese. The Russian regarded human body, and
body parts as cylindrical objects, and thickness as a two-plane section,
while the Vietnamese notice the breadth of a cylindrical object, thus
causing the meaning shift; unlike Russian, the Vietnamese often use: to,
lớn, to bè, mập béo, rộng, or nhỏ, gầy, mỏng, etc. to describe.
- Objects denoting the sense of thickness in Russian and Vietnamese
people’s congition and classification are various in types, sizes and
materials. To denote the objects with a size, thickness – thinness,
Vietnamese has an extremely abundant system of nouns denoting units,


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creating more flexibility, definiteness, and imagery … From the above
survey of the semantic features of adjectives
of size in the vertical direction высокий – низкий, глубокий –
мелкий, толстый – тонкий // cao thấp, sâu nông, dày mỏng
(high low, deep – shallow, thick – thin), we can conclude that:

The cognition and determination of the size of spatial objects depend
on the speaker’s position, reference plane elements, posture, sight, and
observation as well as each nation’s “outlook”, perception, and thought.
The spatial cognition by the Russians and the Vietnamese is basically
similar but in some cases not identical, causing the phenomenon of
meaning shift.
CHAPTER 3
SEMANTIC FEATURES OF THE ADJECTIVES OF SIZE IN
THE HORIZONTAL DIRECTION
длинный – короткий, широкий – узкий, большой –
маленький//
dài- ngắn, rộng – hẹp, to – nhỏ (long – short , wide – narrow, big –
small)
Semantic features of adjectives of size denoting the concepts of
LENGTH – SHORTNESS :
According to the semantic contrast of the adjectives of size
; dài ngắn (long – short) on the basis of linguistic data
from Russian and Vietnamese dictionaries:
+ The numbers of senses of длинный – короткий; dài ngắn are
different: (3) - dài (5); (4) - ng¾n (2)
+ The numbers of senses denoting the basic size properties of spatial
objects are similar (2 senses) and are ordered first and second.
Adjectives длинный – короткий; dµi – ng¾n denote the concepts
of LENGTH and SHORTNESS with the basic properties: stretch is the
length in horizonal direction; reference plane; one dimension length;
position: two points, reference points, and distance.


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Regarding the adjectives denoting the concepts of LENGTH and

SHORTNESS, we can see that adjectives - ; dài
ngắn can be collocated with the following spatial objects: a vertical
cylindrical shapes: холм - ®åi (hill) , холм - ®åi (mountain), дом - nhµ
(house); (human body parts), (thing), plants, trees: лицо - mặt (face),
- mắt (eyes), - chân (legs), - tãc (hair); as lakes, rivers
and the sea: пруд - ao (ponds), озеро - hå (lakes), река - s«ng (river),
море - biÓn (sea); route, airport, beaches, fields: путь - con đờng (roads),
- sân (yard), - cánh đồng (field); clothing, tools of labor,
daily life: - quần dài (trousers), - áo sơ mi (shirts),
- khăn quàng (scarves), лопата - xỴng (shovels); villages, cities,
towns and hamlets: деревня - lµng (village), город - thµnh phè (City) ,
деревушка – xãm (hamlet) …
It can be seen in the senses and uses of the two pairs of RussianVietnamese adjectives from the spatial cognitive perspective that:
Method and mechanism of cognition, description, denotations of
LENGTH and SHORTNESS by the Russians and the Vietnamese are
fairly similar.
- The adjectives ; dài - ngắn denote such
general properties of objects as length, horizontal direction, point of
reference, and distance. There is no big difference in defining the size of
the objects: person / body, lakes, rivers, sea, road, clothing, tools of
labor, cities and villages … no big difference.
- In Russian, nouns denoting things, such as some species of animals,
especially clothes, are divided into two types:
* nouns denoting things with no element of size.
* nouns denoting things with elements of LENGTH.
The nouns denoting things contain these elements of LENGTH, which
the Russian language does not need to use adjectives of length to
describe, but when they are transferred into Vietnamese, Vietnamese
must use the adjectives dài ngắn to describe.

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Semantic features of adjectives of size denoting the concepts of
WIDTH - NARROWNESS : широкий – узкий; réng – hÑp (wide –
narrow)
According to the semantic contrast of the adjectives of size широкий
– узкий; réng – hÑp (wide – narrow) on the basis of linguistic data
from Russian and Vietnamese dictionaries:
- The numbers of senses of adjective pairs in Russian and Vietnamese
are almost the same: широкий (7) - réng (6); узкий (4)- hÑp (3).
The numbers of senses denoting the basic size properties of width
are nearly similar and ordered from the positions 1 to 4: широкий (4) réng (4).
Adjectives широкий – узкий; réng – hÑp denoting the concepts of
WIDTH - NARROWNESS have the basic properties:
- Rộng is the distance from one end to the other in the direction
opposite to the length (i.e. width of the object).
-The length, position, two dimensions, width, reference points, wide
distance, or horizontal or dependent posture occupying a large space,
having edges.
As far as the uses of these adjectives are concerned, it can be seen that
широкий – узкий; réng – hÑp can be collocated with the following
spatial objects :
The adjectives denoting WIDTH can combine with nouns denoting
entities of some types below:
Objects as roads, ports, yards: дорога - con ®êng (roads), objects as
houses, caves, caverns: дом, пещера, грот; objects as rivers, ditches,
canals, tunnels, trenches, sea, lake: - hầm (tunnels), - mơng (ditches), - hào (trenches), - kênh (channel); objects
as wood plank, ….., plates, strips, pictures: доска - tÊm v¸n (plank),
стена - bøc têng (walls), ковёр - tÊm th¶m (carpet); object is a human
and animal body parts: глаз - m¾t (eyes), - chân (legs), - răng

(teeth); objects as doors, windows, gates: дверь - cưa chÝnh (doors), арка
- cỉng tß vß (archway), окно - cưa sỉ (windows); objects as villages,


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cities, hills and mountains: деревня - lµng (village), город - thành phố
(city), - đồi (hills),
It can be indicated in the senses and uses of the two pairs of RussianVietnamese adjectives from the spatial cognitive perspective that:
- The Russian and Vietnamese have the same mechanism to locate and
determine the width: the maximum size of an object is the length, and the
other of the two no larger than the maximum size is the width.
Regarding the difference in cognition of spatial objects in term of
the concept of WIDTH, the Russians are concerned with the side
dimension of the object and consider width as a result measured from
this side to the other; thus, so some human body parts such as đầu, mặt
(head, face) cannot be told long and wide but regarded as plane and
described by широкий. Vietnamese people consider rộng (wide) the
distance from one end to the other in the direction opposite to the length.
Therefore, to (big) is often be collocated with the nouns denoting body
parts such as head and ears: đầu to (big head), tai to (big ears), etc.
Besides, the Vietnamese use rộng (wide) to describe such body parts as
forehead, shoulder, jaw, and chest at a higher rate with the “aims” to
express some cultural implications: loftiness, responsibility, scholarship,
and vastness.
Semantic features of adjectives of size denoting the concepts of
BIG and SMALL SIZE: большой – маленький; to – nhá
According to the semantic contrast of the adjectives of size большой
– маленький; to – nhá on the basis of linguistic data from Russian
and Vietnamese dictionaries:
- The numbers of senses of adjective pairs in Russian and Vietnamese

are similar:
большой (5) - to (4); маленький (3) – nhá (3)
The numbers of senses denoting the size of the objects are the same
(one sense) and ordered first of all senses
The numbers of senses denoting the basic spatial properties of big
size: In terms of the stretch and position senses, the properties of
большой – маленький; to - nhá are: vertical, horizontal, upward, three-


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dimensional, reference plane, and background plane. Objects often have
a block shape, three-dimensional space, occupying a large space, upright
or horizontal direction and independent of the speaker’s observation
position.
With regard to the uses of adjectives denoting the concepts of BIG
and SMALL SIZE, it can be revealed that:
the adjectives большой – маленький; to - nhá can be collocated
with the following objects: types of house, car, container: дом - nhµ
(house), машина - xe (car), машина - xe (container); types of human,
animals, bars, piles, trees, columns: человек - ngêi (people), гиббон con vỵn (ape), дуб - c©y såi (oak), меч - thanh kiÕm (sword), весло - m¸i
chÌo (oars), подпора - cäc (pile); type of chunk, block, heap, mound,
hillock, slab: кусок - khóc (chunk), глыба - t¶ng khèi (block) , куча ®èng (heap), редут - ơ (mound), нанос - cån (hillock); type of lump,
piece, piece, , bulb, drops ; body parts of human and animals: сердце qu¶ tim (heart), - tai (ears), - bắp chân (calf), легкие - phæi
(lung); costumes, clothes, shoes, sandals, caps: пальто - chiếc áo bành tô
(overcoat), - đôi ủng (boots), - mũ sắt (helmet), găng tay (gloves); sky, cloud, smoke, planet: - Trái đất (Earth),
- Mặt trăng (Moon), - sao Kim (Venus) etc.
The spatial cognitive perspective on the senses and uses of the two
pairs of Russian-Vietnamese adjectives shows that:
- The “big” size of objects have the common properties: threedimensional space, block shapes, occupying a large space, vertical or
horizontal direction and unaffected by the speaker’s observation position.

When combined with the adjectives большой – маленький; to nhá, the spatial objects has been classified by means of types and
shape, e.g. the properties of block shapes, three-dimensional cover,
through entities, styles: house, car, mass, heap, mound, rock, piece,
human body parts
- Vietnamese people’s classification is more detailed, sophisticated
and clear-cut than the Russians. The Vietnamese often rely on the


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"dominance" of things to create opposition, and sometimes on the
simulation of images of other things, e.g., fruit - just fruit, round blocks
-> quả đồi (hill), quả tim (heart )...
From the survey on the e semantic features of adjectives of size in
horizontal direction длинный - короткий, широкий – узкий, большой
– маленький // dài- ngắn, rộng hẹp, to nhỏ we can conclude that:
- In terms of the number and position of senses, adjectives of size in
horizontal direction in Russian and Vietnamese bear the similarities and
differences but the similarities outweigh the differences.
In terms of the uses, the universal abnormal meaning traits of dài
(ngắn), rộng (hẹp), to (nhỏ) have a high frequency in Russian and
Vietnamese.
- Russian and Vietnamese people’s spatial cognition is only different
in detail of determining the “large” size.
In terms of size denotation, as Russian has nouns denoting objects
which imply the senses and properties of space, in the translation into
Vietnamese, the Vietnamese adjectives of size are used for description.

CHAPTER 4
AN APPLICATION OF THE STUDY TO TEACHING AND
LEARNING RUSSIAN AND VIETNAMESE

The similarities between adjectives of size in Russian and
Vietnamese:
- The numbers of basic adjectives denoting the concepts of
HEIGHT, LENGHT, DEPTH, WIDTH, THICKNESS, and BIG SIZE
vertically and horizontally in Russian and Vietnamese are the same,
including 12 adjectives of size.
* 6 adjectives in the vertical direction: высокий – низкий, глубокий
– мелкий, толстый – тонкий // cao thấp, sâu - nông, dày
mỏng (high – low, deep – shallow, thick – thin)
* 6 adjectives in the horizontal direction:


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длинный – короткий, широкий - узкий, большой - маленький //
dµi – ng¾n, réng – hĐp, to – nhá (length – short, wide – narrow,big –
small)
Although the numbers of senes of some words are different, they are
similar in the position of senses denoting size in order in the Russian and
Vietnamese dictionary.
- There are similarities in the denotation of the spatial properties of
size adjectives.
- The similarities lie in the cognition of the shape and size of objects.
The basic differences in the cognition of objects by the Russian
and Vietnamese
1 – The difference in the reference standard and implicit standard
when denoting the concept of HEIGHT.
2 – The difference in some words denoting objects with or without
implied meaning of size.
3 – The difference in the classification system of words and words
denoting units describing the spatial properties: the delimitation criteria,

the basis of their classification.
Russian has three criteria:
+ denoting entities as a separate section, divided, physical and raw
materials.
+ denoting entities with geometric shapes: circular plane, block,
square.
+ denoting spatial objects as a complete whole, implying spatial
properties in themseves, represented by nouns, no adjectives,
accompanying words denoting units as in Vietnamese .
Vietnamese has 4 criteria (delimited according to space features):
+ “Shape” of things.
+ “Direction” of space: three-dimensional, two-dimensional, onedimensional.
+ “Posture” of things: from the vertical “hanging” posture, horizontal
posture. The delimitation based on the criterion of “posture of things” is


19
a relative spatial orientation to an object with many words denoting
unit.
+ Division into “sections”
Smaller units of a complete thing based on the shape, size,
dimensions: blocks, flat, long form, small size .
The systems of words denoting units and types in Russian and
Vietnamese are different. Words denoting units and types in Vietnamese
are more plentiful and diversified than in Russian: In Vietnamese any
spatial object is “associated” with one or more units of space, while
Russian has many nouns denoting things with implied spatial properties
in the objects themselves, without being expressed by means of words.
Survey and experimental research
In the dissertation, we have conducted experimental research on texts

intended for students, Russian and non-Russian majors.
The purpose of the survey: to aim at the interference causing areas,
with the focus on negative interference leading to errors – mostly implicit
ones; thus finding solutions to correct errors, contributing to improve the
effectiveness in comprehension and transmission of Russian in teaching
and learning, and in the translation of adjectives of size.
The scope and objectives of the survey: Russian – Vietnamese prose
translations and Vietnam – Russian ones. These translations contain
Russian size adjectives translated into Vietnamese and Vietnamese size
denoting words translated into Russian; and include texts of a political
scientific styles and those of art and journalism.
The number of sentences incluing adjectives of size in the survey is:
1200 sentences, which are selected and classified for the purpose of the
survey.
Error causing areas
Based on the description, and analysis of the error types, the
dissertation points out the error causing areas:
a. The Vietnamese language itself; systems of conceptual words
reiterating with the roots as adjectives of size; adjuncts.


20
b. The subjectivity of Russian learners and users; difference in level,
thought and culture.
CONCLUSION
1. Adjectives of size are one of the basic word groups belonging to
the lexical-semantic field denoting space in the lexicon of a language.
These adjectives describe one of the important properties of spatial
entities – the size. They help people describe, evaluate, visualize and
make comments on the size of the objects in the objective world.

The dissertation as the first study have surveyed, analyzed and
contrasted the adjectives of size on the basis of linguistic data in Russian
and Vietnamese: denotation of the space concept in the vertical and
horizontal diections, their semantic features and uses – especially from
the cognition perspective on their uses in collocation with words
denoting spatial entities from many angles, the properties of the size
concept of objects in space, etc.
The adjectives of size in Russian and Vietnamese, though not much,
are able to denote the size of all the entities in the objective world, from
the smallest to the largest ones, from the one-dimensional to threedimensional entities.
2. The dissertation has described the adjectives of size under six
groups of concepts of height – low, depth – shallowness,
thickness- thinness, length - short size, width –
narrowness, big – small size, analyzing their semantic
features, uses and cognition basis in the vertical and horizontal
directions. On the basis of data summarized and generalized in the
Russian and Vietnamese dictionaries, the dissertation has specified and
clarified the meaning of the adjective group, focusing on two of the basic
properties of the adjectives of spatial size: stretch and position.
3. Through the analysis, contrast and comparison of the adjectives of
size in Russian and Vietnamese, the study has drawn some conclusions
as follows:


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(i) First, the adjectives of spatial size, as a sub-system within the
system of adjectives, are complex, diverse and rich in usage. The analysis
of senses and uses of this adjective group, their combination to form
collocations reveals that despite similarities, there are differences,
proving that each nation has their own perspective and way of thinking

about the world in general and the relationships and spatial properties in
particular.
Therefore, if we only consider and look at the properties of the group of
size adjectives under the prism of linguistic structure it is not adequate,
but we should consider them from the cognitive perspective.
(ii) Second, the description, analysis, comparison and contrast of the
semantic features, uses collocations, etc. of the adjectives высокий низкий cao - thÊp; глуболий - мелкий s©u - nông; -
dày - mỏng; - dài - ngắn; - rộng hẹp; - маленький to - nhá make more noticeable the cognitive
mechanisms of space by the Russian and Vietnamese. Every nation has
the practices and habits in their own cogntive culture,which strongly
affects the cognitive manner of space and their expressions in language.
(iii) Third, in the cognitive mechanism of space, people as individuals
cognitive of space, are a measurement of all things, as well as an "
physical object" with the structure, shape and motion manners. Human
beings are central in determining the direction and size in space and is
also a reference point for determining the position and distance of objects
in space. This conclusion has the same opinion with the research
tendency of modern linguistics in general and cognitive linguistics in
particular - that is the research waveof language closely tied to people –
cognitive subjects. Language is the third world lying between the world
of external phenomena and people’s inner world.
4. The dissertation investigates the features of the adjectives of spatial
dimensions only on the basis of the relationship between language and
culture and cognition, based on the theoretical achievements of modern
linguistics, a new approach of cognitive linguistics, to find out the
similarities and differences in the cognitive mechanism of space,


22
clarifying agents creating these similarities and differences. The results

are expressed as follows:
4.1. Similarities
Russian and Vietnamese both contain adjectives denoting size formed
in semantic oppositeness within pairs. Both the languages do not have a
great number of these adjectives, but they can express all the basic
properties of linguistic space in terms of direction, dimension, location
and degree scale - of which stretch is considered a common measurement
and also a basic property of linguistic space. They both have
equipollency in expressions of concepts in the horizontal and vertical
directions.
With regard to form and semantic features, the size adjectives in
Russian and Vietnamese have common universal traits in terms of the
semantics, grammar, and pragmatics. Specifically, the semantic features
of adjectives of size in both languages are highly abstract and
generalized, but their uses are very specific, rich and varied.
The results of the study on size adjectives denoting the concepts of
height – low, depth – shallowness, thicknessthinness, length - short size, width – narrowness,
big – small size in Russian and Vietnamese indicate a very
interesting issue: although the two Russian and Vietnamese nations have
many differences in the types of culture and language, their cognitive
mechanisms are relatively similar. For example, the Adjectives of size in
the vertical direction in the two languages have the semantic property of
length in the similar direction, requiring the observer’s reference plane,
posture, location and direction
4.2. Differences
The cognitive manners by the Russians and the Vietnamese have
distinct characteristics with their own cultural identities, which has been
mentioned in the tables of the number of meanings, the presence or
absence of senses of space, order and their collocations, etc.
As far as the number of senses is simply considered, Russian is, in

general, richer than Vietnamese. For instance, Russian collocations with


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adjectives denoting the concepts of high – low size shows that the
Russian’s cognition of space has different features: нижнее бельё - quần
áo lót (underwear), - quần áo mặc ngoµi (outside
clothes). Or the difference in spatial cognition by the Russian and the
Vietnamese lies in the group of adjectives denoting the concepts of
LENGHT and WIDTH:
In their perception, the Russians often make an objective physical
distinction in their cognition of width. The concept “wide” by the
Russian is associated with a plane, measured from side to side;
meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, the width of an object is the distance
from this end to the other, as opposed to the length.
The meaning shifts in Russian and Vietnamese adjectives of spatial
dimensions are also different. When the meaning shift occurs, the
Vietnamese often use extra words, reiterations and other adjectives of
size to describe an object in space. In addition, the Vietnamese lexicon
denoting units and types of objects in space is extremely rich, helping the
Vietnamese to describe the spatial objects in detail, from many different
angles. This shows that Vietnamese people have observant minds with
very specific and detailed thoughts.
5. The dissertation proposes some solutions which teachers and
learners could apply in teaching and learning foreign languages in
general and Russian and Vietnamese in particular.
Although the dissertation only does experimental research on a group
of size adjectives, it could make some contributions to achieving the right
perspective, and good solutions to help learners reduce the impact or
influence of negative interference from their mother tongue into a foreign

language in the process of learning and translation. Also, the dissertation
contributes to enhance learners’ understanding about the distinctive
cognitive cultural traits, especially in the spatial cognition by the two
Russian and Vietnamese nations.