Familial and social behavior expressed in vietnamese’s idioms and proverbs (thái độ ứng xử gia đình, xã hội được thể hiện trong thành ngữ, tục ngữ của người việt)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
INSTITUTE OF VIETNAMESE STUDIES AND DEVELOPMENT SCIENCES

TRAN THI PHUONG

FAMILIAL AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR EXPRESSED
IN VIETNAMESE’S IDIOMS AND PROVERBS

MASTER THESIS
MAJOR: VIETNAMESE STUDIES

HANOI, 2013
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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
INSTITUTE OF VIETNAMESE STUDIES AND DEVELOPMENT SCIENCES

TRAN THI PHUONG

FAMILIAL AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR EXPRESSED
IN VIETNAMESE’S IDIOMS AND PROVERBS

Master thesis, major: Vietnamese studies
Code: 60 22 01 13

Supervisor: Prof.Dr. Vu Duc Nghieu

Hanoi, 2013

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MỤC LỤC

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis is the result of training process in Institute of Vietnamese
studies & Science of Development as well as my process of surveying and
researching last time.
First of all, my profound thanks are due to Prof.Dr. Vu Duc Nghieu
who guided me and spent valuable time to explain and make orientation for
my research. The thesis is successful thanks to his important help.
Secondly, I would like to give my sincere thanks to the teachers
presenting lectures at the sixth class of master’s degree as well to the teachers
in Management Board of the Institute and Training Department providing me
the best conditions in studying progress to complete this thesis.
Finally, I would like to give my thanks to my family, friends
encouraging me to study and research.
Sincerely!
Ha Noi, 05 May 2013
Student

Tran Thi Phuong

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DECLARATION

I certify that no part of this thesis is copied or reproduced by me from
any other someone’s work without acknowledgement and that the thesis is
originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor Prof.Dr. Vu
Duc Nghieu.
Student

Tran Thi Phuong

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INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale and aims of thesis.
Being a social phenomenon, language functions as the most important
tool of human communicating. Simultaneously, it implements function of
reflecting - function as a tool of human thought. The knowledge, experiences
and perception of people about the physical and spiritual world of humanity
are all preserved in language in the form of concepts, contents "contained" in
the words.
Since ancient times, folk knowledge is mainly handed down by word
of mouth method. Thus, the lessons and behavioral experiences in life were
stored, summarized in the idioms, proverbs, folk songs,… the elements of
folk literature. Therefore, in order to find out the behavioral traditional way
of Vietnamese (this conception is considered as Viet people or Kinh people)
in the family and society, doing research the source of linguistic data from
folk literature proves more effective and predominant compared with the
source of other written ones. Moreover, folk literature, including idioms and
proverbs is precious literary treasure which has overcome challenges of time
to become an important element in the national cultural heritage. Especially,
through the art of using words, proverbs have summarized people's intellect,

reflecting the diversified relationships in society as well as the way of
behavior showing national spirit and moral standards. For this reason,
research Vietnamese familial and social behavior expressed in folk literature
does contribute to seeking the national cultural identity, thinking and lifestyle.
For years, researching treasure of Vietnamese idioms and proverbs, the
authors focused only on mining and unraveling the varied contents that are
reflected with the characteristics of the structure, prosody of proverbs.

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Problems of behaving and handling the relationships between man and nature,
man and society, man and themselves expressed in folk literature have
recently attracted the interest in further research of scholars. However, in
researches of familial and social relationships expressed in proverbs and folk
songs, by reading the relevant documents, we found that they mainly clarified
reflection of particular relationships without highlighting Vietnamese
behavior in those relationships. Therefore, in this thesis, through studying
linguistic data of idioms and proverbs, we will go deep into clarifying the
Vietnamese behavior in particular relationships and, simultaneously, will
indicate assessments and direct or indirect attitude of praising or criticizing of
folk to behavior mentioned.
According to the policies and guidelines of the Party and State,
Vietnam is in the process of building an advanced culture imbued with
national identity. Along with the momentum of integration, acquirement the
quintessence of world-wide culture, it is extremely critical to look back, to
preserve fine traditional culture of the nation. So researching behavioral
culture of the Vietnamese people to find cultural inherence for practical
national development is urgently necessary.
2. History of issue

Recently, the issue of "behavioral culture" has been much interested in
Vietnam. In perspectives of sociology, culture or psychology, there are
researches on this topic. For examples: “Behavioral culture of the ethnics in
Vietnam” written by author Pham Vu Dung [16]; “Behavioral culture of
Hanoi people with the natural environment” written by author Nguyen Viet
Chuc [45]; “Discuss the behavioral culture of Vietnamese people” written by
author Nguyen Tat Thinh [53]; “Behavioral psychology” written by author Le
Thi Bung[5]… Depending on the requirements of each specialty, the authors

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have studied the behavioral culture from the different perspectives of
approach and because of being a different major compared with those, we do
not mention them in our study. We only preliminarily point the main contents
of some research in which authors more or less exploited this subject through
the resource of folk literature, especially idiom and proverb as elements of
folk literature:
Tran Thi Thuy Anh, the author of study: “Traditional social behavior of
the Vietnamese people in Northern delta” [1] “tried to build a model of
traditional social behavior of the Vietnamese people in Northern delta …
determined that the value system of Vietnamese behavior is “lưỡng đoan” (or
“đa đoan”) with spiritual values, including: friendliness – tolerance –
simplicity – happiness …”. Behavioral model that the author wanted to
identify and name is "the model of affection and gratitude". The author gave
very accurate conclusions (some of which are results of research disciplines
previously confirmed). New thing we find in this research is that the author
used a research method of region- splitting, or research method of “Cultural
geography”, the concept of researchers of culture studies. The writer divided
into sub-regions in the northern delta such as: the North, the South, Đoài, the

East; however, she did not explicitly make mention of characteristics of
behavior in each region, only paid attention to aspects of material culture. The
author writes: "The North is high Delta with a lot of seasonal fields, craft
villages, trade villages and vivid network of rural markets, numerous
festivals, pagodas, temples and communal houses. Features of identity are “cỗ
ba tầng”, “nón ba tầm”, “áo mớ ba mớ bảy”, “quan họ”, Gióng festival, “Ăn
Bắc mặc Kinh”. The South is the sunken delta, with shrimp paste, shrimp
sauce (very small shrmips), digging to expend soil, water puppetry (Nguyen
Xa), working austerely, “Xắn váy quai cồng”, “Sống ngâm da, chết ngâm

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xương” but the spirit is comforted by Holy Mother Lieu Hanh, the fairy Chu
Dong Tu, hầu bóng, chau van singing …” [1, p. 38]. Using folk songs,
proverbs as "tools" (the word used by the author), but sources of folk songs,
proverbs are actually few. Main approach of this study leans toward history
and culturology … Thus, the extensiveness of the study is quite high,
especially in the perspectives of history, cultural study and sociology.
With research: “Behavioral culture of women through Vietnamese folk
song treasure” [17], after outlining the behavioral culture of the Vietnamese
people in general the author Pham Vu Dung went deep into a particular
women subject. This is due to that they "are full of inherent characteristics of
the Vietnamese people as well as Vietnamese culture throughout
establishment history and development of the country" [17, p. 43]. Although
the author only outline, he emphasized some of the contents, outstanding
qualities of Vietnam and Vietnamese people: “Those are patriotism, diligence,
sense of community and national solidarity, harmony, moderation;
consistency, being easy to amalgamate without conservatism; creativity and
acumen; being full of affection, appreciation of benevolence and

righteousness; living and behaving based on affection; tolerance and harmony
…”. [17, p. 39].
With research: “Proverbs, folk songs about familial relationships” [34],
the author Pham Viet Long indicated that there are four basic familial
relationships in proverbs. They are relationships of: husband-wife, parents
-children, siblings, daughter in-law and son in-law – family. In which, the
husband-wife relationship is reflected the most compared with other
relationships. “On the overview of the Vietnamese familial relationships,
except the tensional relationship between the daughter in law and mother in
law, other ones are reflected with warm look, highlighting cohesion, harmony
and responsibility which are considered as criteria to build cozy and
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sustainable family. Thanks to this, the main flow of familial proverbs has
created the sonority of humanitarianism encouraging love and attachment
among people.” [34, p. 111].
With research: “Reflection of familial and social relationships in
proverbs, folk songs”[3], the author Do Thi Bay pointed out the Vietnamese
familial relationships reflected in proverbs including the relationships of:
grandparents - grandchildren, parents - children; husband - wife; siblings;
mother in law - daughter in law, parents in law – son in law, stepmother –
stepchildren, stepfather - stepchildren; relatives: uncles, aunts. The social
relationships include the ones of: teacher-student; friends; compatriots;
owners - employees; kings and mandarins - masses. Overall, this study
comprehensively reflected Vietnamese familial and social relationships;
However, because of such largeness the author has not carefully analyze to
show dominant relationships as well as behavioral characteristics of the
Vietnamese people have not been clearly focused.
3. Objectives and scope of thesis

The main objective of this thesis is behavior in the family and society
of Vietnamese people. We take idioms, proverbs as research materials to find
out how Vietnamese people behave in relationships; this is different from
taking these elements of folk literature as the objective of thesis. Therefore, in
this study, we will not explore the art of expressions of idioms and proverbs.
It can be said that behavioral culture is related to many fields such as:
culture studies, psychology, sociology, economics, education and history… in
direct or indirect form. However, in this thesis, we try to approach the subject
based on exploiting treasure of idioms and proverbs of the Vietnamese people,
localized with the treasure of idioms and proverbs of other ethnic groups;
which means traditional behavioral culture of the Vietnamses people recorded
in these two elements of folk literature.
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Contents of behavioral culture are determined according to system of
interactions between people and the natural environment, people and the
others, people and themselves. Accordingly, generally, it is considered in
detail systems: behaving towards natural; behaving in the family (husband wife, parents - children, among siblings, among relatives) and behaving in
society (among friends, teachers - students, among neighbors ...), which mean
the behavioral relationships among members of community; behaving
towards self (the conception of human life). However, in this thesis, we only
consider the way of behavior between members in the community of Viet
people. Thus, two main research objectives and scope corresponding to two
chapters of this thesis are: behavior of Vietnamese pople in familial
relationships and behavior of Vietnamese people in social relationships.
Linguistics data used in the thesis are collected from "Dictionary of
Vietnamese Idioms” included 728 pages written by the authors Nguyen Nhu
Y, Nguyen Van Khang, Phan Xuan Thanh [61]; “Treasure of Vietnamese
proverbs” written by the authors Nguyen Xuan Kinh (chief editor), Nguyen

Thuy Loan, Phan Lan Huong, Nguyen Luan [30] with 8194 units of proverb.
These are two relatively abundant and comprehensive data source compiled
according to a scientific, modern method being convenient for lookup.
However, in this linguistics data source there are units which are not
completely proverbs or idioms, but because of respecting for the actual
collection of the authors, we accept without comment, exclusion.
4. Research tasks
We define the first task of research in this thesis is survey idioms, proverbs
recorded in reliable sources. After that, we collects idioms, proverbs
expressed Vietnamese behavior in the family and society. Then, we analysis
to find out that in which correlation these behaviors are expressed, how

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behavior among people is described and how the folk assess and show
attitude of praising or criticizing to the behavior mentioned.
5. Research methods of thesis
In this thesis, we apply and combine research methods of disciplines: folk
literature, sociology, culture studies and especially interdisciplinary research
methods.
Being an expression of culture, thought of a community, social behavior
should be considered as a general social phenomenon; thus to approach it, we
need a synthesis method. To achieve the target of the thesis which is both
description of behavior in particular familial and social relationships, and
generalization to clarify the characteristics behavioral culture of Vietnamese,
Viet ethnic group, synthetic interdisciplinary research method will provide
more considerable efficiency.
After collecting linguistic data, deriving from them, we go to classify,
describe, analyze and give comments. Manipulation of verification through a

few quantities is also implemented.
6. Contribution of the thesis
We hope that this thesis will achieve some results as follows:
6.1. The thesis presents relatively particularly and systematically contents
of Vietnamese familial and social behavior reflected in idioms, proverbs.
6.2. Initially, the thesis shows prominent features in Vietnamese way of
behavior recorded in idiom and proverb, since then, it contributes to
research, identify their characteristics of thinking, lifestyle and affection.

7. Organization of the thesis
Besides the introduction, conclusion, references, appendix the thesis is
divided into three chapters.

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Chapter 1: Some basic theoretical issues of the thesis
Chapter 2: Vietnamese behavior in familial relationships through idioms
and proverbs
Chapter 3: Vietnamese behavior in social relationships through idioms
and proverbs

CHAPTER 1: SOME BASIC THEORETICAL
ISSUES OF THE THESIS
1.1. The relationship between language and culture
In recent years, the international exchange and cooperation in Vietnam
is becoming a popular trend. In this new development stage, national
characteristics are paid special attention more. Accordingly, it's a special
interest in culture, because culture is always considered as an important part
of the national characteristics.

Language is the objective of linguistics discipline, and culture is the
one of culture studies. However, considering the relationship between the two

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these concepts, it seems there is no equality between them. According to
Professor Nguyen Lai, when regarding the relationship between language and
culture, initial difficulties may be encountered: “a/ Objectives of culture are
naturally outspread, there has been no definition being entirely satisfactory; b/
In general understanding, language is contained by culture itself; but in fact,
in its practical operation, language governs cultural mechanism in many
respects and through many complicated levels”. [31, p.173]
Firstly, language and culture are products of man with their labor and
thinking; that is the human phenomenon. In the 50s of XX century, E.D. Sapir
– Professor of linguistics at Yale University wrote: “Le langage est un produit
de la culture, et non une fonction biologique” (Language is a cultural product,
is not a biological function). [6, p. 51]. Language is a cultural phenomenon, a
part of the culture. Culture has wide denotation while language has more
confined denotation but wider connotation. According to Nguyen Van Chien
[6, p. 51], the relationship between language and culture is the one of
containing each other; there are difficulties, intersection and similarity
between them. This relationship is showed with two circles:
AAvaA
B
A A
Language Văn hóa
Culture

The circle A larger represents the concept of culture and cultural

events. The circle B smaller represents language concept and language events.
However, according to Professor Nguyen Lai, with language contained
by cultural category, it is only a formal arrangement; there is an issue hidden
in it in the more depth. It is that the formation of language is the multiple
premise of the formation of culture. The formations of the two objects are not
the same in terms of mechanisms and specially, are unable to overlap in terms
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of time. He quoted the argument of Engles, a researcher respected the premise
role of language even in its function of stimulating the formation of "social
human": “Human overcame their animal natures to become social human.
Firstly, it is thanks to labor, after labor and at the same time with labor, it is
thanks to language.” [31, p. 175]. Thus, according to the emphasis of Engles,
clearly, language is not only the premise to create cultural objects but rather,
from its depth, it is the premise of man creation, since then human
continuously establish subjective and objective premises to form their cultural
objects. More particularly, if there had been not the first language form
creating and promoting people’s thinking, artist qualities of human could not
have been established in order to create many artist language types such as
music, painting, sculpture, architecture which are not under the first form and
belong to cultural objects. Thus, not coincidentally, in his "Curriculum of
General linguistics", Saussure made questions about this complexity:
“Linguistics is closely related to other scientific fields, but the boundaries
separating it from other scientific fields do not always emerge”, and according
to him, the clearest complexity is the boundary of linguistics and general
culture. So, at many levels, language is the premise for the development of
cultural objects. And the development of culture continues to provide
conditions to the language development.
Language and culture harmonize with each other to develop on the

principle of inheriting tradition; so, they contain themselves many of the most
unique features of ethnic community’s nuances. Culture and language are
social institutions with both particular and common specific characteristics.
To specify, awareness value of them is always defined by convention created
by a particular social community in concrete space and time. Spiritual
products associated with the awareness value are abstract but this abstraction

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is always expressed through physical signs for people to be able to feel based
on the conventions of community. Professor Nguyen Lai pointed detail
comparison as follows: a/ Language is the result of a series of mental activity.
This type of mental activity is eventually showed by physical signs although
awareness expressions among communities are not necessarily identical in
material as well as method. b/ Culture is a series of mental activity in general;
finally it is manifested directly or indirectly by conventional physical signs.
One way of greeting, a ritual custom, a folk dance, an architectural
shape, an archaeological relic…, in spite of such differences between them,
their value is more or less defined by the conventions within the scope the
community. If they are separated from the conventional and symbolic
meanings attaching spiritual life of the community from which it originates, it
is itself no longer cultural property. In other words, in general principle,
language activities as well as cultural activities are types of mental activity,
both of them are based on the conventionalizing process attaching to
psychological and social factors.
Unlike any other cultural phenomenon, language is a peculiar cultural
phenomenon because language is not only a cultural product but also a mean
of recording other cultural phenomena. In addition to this, language in which
cultural phenomena are reserved in a long time is a tool to show cultural

characteristics of the community. “By analyzing thoroughly, it must be said
that language is the most important factor among the factors that constitute
the ethnic culture”. [39, p. 24]. It is language which also plays role as a mirror
reflecting the cultural contents, as a preserver and transmitter culture from one
to another, from previous generation to the next. Ethnic establishment history,
the development of cultivation methods, production or transformation of
customs, habits, beliefs, lifestyle, behavior, housing, clothing, way of
cognizing the world... (both material and spiritual culture) of each ethnic
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people are unfailingly recorded and reflected in their language. Language and
cultural of ethnic people have a cohesive attachment but they are never
identical. It can be said that though each community of people have the
concept frame of space, time, people, familial and social relationships in
common with the others, each of them has view and concepts which do not
overlap. For example, the words denoting color, personal pronouns, kinship
relationships... of each language contain blanks when comparing them to each
other. The accurate understanding and using meanings of the words are
always associated with understanding the culture of the ethnic people
producing of that language. The formation process of words’ meanings is
closely connected to cultural and sociable experiences of human. Each
language is the unique system of signs and codes showing the way of
cognizing, approaching, dividing, organizing the actual events in objective
reality of different ethnic communities. So, in a certain aspects it can be
considered that language contains spirit and culture of ethnic people.
1.2. The concepts of “behavior” and “cultural behavior”
1.2.1 The concept of “behavior”
In the speech summarizing the "The decade of culture" (1987 - 1997),
the former General Director of the United Nations, De Cuellar stated:

“Culture is the way of life (how to behave) together”. [1; p. 16]. Therefore,
researching behavior means researching culture and the way of life. Behavior
is a system of interactions, reactions carried out by living things (including
human) to adapt to the natural and social environment. It is research object of
many sciences, including disciplines such as Habit studies, Psychology,
Sociology.
Author Le Thi Bung gave notion as follows: “Behavior is the reaction
of human to the impact of others on his in a certain situation. It means that

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these people are active in response selected and considered themselves instead
of being active in communication. Behavior is expressed through attitude,
action, gesture, manner of talking depending on knowledge, experiences and
personality to achieve the best result in communication.” [5, p. 12].
Consequently, according to this definition, the objective of behavioral
psychology is only necessary psychological knowledge to response the
influence of a certain situation, to select appropriate attitude, reaction, gesture
as well as manner of speaking to gain effective communication among
peoples. For this reason, it is not all communication in which behavior occurs.
Regarding “behavior” as a concept of Cultural anthropology, it can be
seen that: The object of Cultural anthropology is very large but mainly
contains research on human - creatures with their natural, social and cultural
personalities. Cultural anthropology studies behavioral models to prove that at
particular level, culture impacts on personality establishment and behavior
changes in accordance with each culture. Not focusing on isolated behavior,
Cultural anthropology deeply researches how natural – social – cultural
environment influences on people’s behavior. Leslie White wrote: “An
outstanding distinction of behavior between human and animal is high level

of human when living in the world of symbols and conventions.
Anthropologists call that culture. Culture is all traditional dogmas…
behavioral instructions propagated in society by variety ways.” [According to
1, p. 17].
Human behavior is not only confined to the selective response towards
communication partner to find out the best communication results, but it also
includes all actions, attitude of the man towards natural and social
environment and himself trough detail relationships. Human behavior
contains individual or social knowledge, thinking, psychology and feelings; in
addition to this, most of behavior is symbolization.
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1.2.2. Concept of “Behavioral culture”
From viewpoint of culture studies, the author Pham Vu Dung in
research “Behavioral culture of ethnic communities in Vietnam” [16] gave
notion as follows: “Behavioral culture is quintessential system of behavioral
habits, behavioral models, behavioral standards in the behavioral relationships
between people with other objects. It is showed through language, action,
attitude, life style, psychology… which are standardized to become standards
for each person, social groups and total society; are appropriate to social fife,
cultural identity of each ethnic community and each nation; are admitted and
followed by person, social groups, community and total society.” [16, p.19].
We believe that, this definition only focus on positive and good things
towards which all societies are directing. Reality of life continuously moves
complicatedly, behavioral culture not only includes such positive elements
but, in fact, it also contains negative ways of behavior.
Human behavior is the product of social consciousness and in each era,
each society also establishes a system for own behavior. Besides the features
of age, each behavior system carries inheritability. Each generation acquires,

filters, maintains the cultural values of the previous generation, contributes to
the creation of new standards adding to traditional values. Different ethnic
groups and ethnic community have not the same customs, habits, way of
behavior based on their natural, historical, social conditions, which creates
their cultural identity. Most of nations in the world all pass the same historical
stages and cultivation methods; therefore, besides typical characteristics, all
cultures of own general, human characteristics. We agree with the concept of
behavioral culture written by Nguyen Thi Hong Thu in doctoral thesis of
Literature: “Japanese proverbs of behavioral culture (in comparison with
Vietnamese proverbs)” [55]: “Behavioral culture is human’s manner of

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behavior towards their habitat (natural and social environment) and
themselves. It carries national features, inheritability, humanity, transforming
complicatedly through time”. [55, p. 38]. According to the author, behavioral
culture is recognized primarily in two forms:
In direct form, behavioral culture is showed particularly in habitat of
people (the environments of nature, society, spirit, essence...). In everyday
life, we can witness the expressions of behavioral culture anywhere, anytime
through behavior, gestures, language, ways of communicating ... between
people with the others in society and with natural world.
In indirect form, it means the contents of behavioral culture are
reflected in philosophy, psychology, sociology... in which artist culture,
especially folk literature is typical. In which, idioms, proverbs is the preserver
of parlance, behavior, experiential knowledge, lessons summarized in words
and mainly popularized by word of mouth. Therefore, we will be interested
in researching the behavior of Viet people through this linguistics data.
1.3. Proverb and idiom

1.3.1. Concepts of proverb and idiom
1.3.1.1. Concept of proverb
So far, in the world as well as in Vietnam, there are many definitions of
proverbs, but no one of them is considered standard to be able to apply in
researching all aspects of proverbs. For example:
Chu Xuan Dien in "Dictionary of Literature" [12] defined proverb: "As
the short statements with rhythm, sustainable form, used in everyday speech,
often having multiple meanings, formed by analogy association.” [12, p. 473].
Bui Manh Nhi in the "Studies of Vietnamese folk literature" [43]
defined: “Proverb being short and stable statements with rhythm, imagines
and many meanings of the folk reflects the experiences of the grassroots in all
fields (nature, labor, production and society), was applied to their lives,

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thought and everyday language. This is a genre of folk literature," [43, p.
254].
In "Morality in proverb," Nguyen Duc Dan also gave a definition:
“Proverb is a series of statements with structural stability, reflecting the
knowledge, the experience, the conception (of folk) of a nationality of
objective world, nature as well as society.” [10, p. 58].
“Proverb is a genre of folk literature with the main function of to
accumulating experiences, knowledge, to raise comments which are in the
form of short, simple, concise statements with rhythm, imagines to be easy to
remember, to popularize.” [59, p.129].
In spite of giving the concepts of proverb being not entirely the same,
the authors all paid attention to the "structural stability", "sustainable form" of
proverb. In our opinion, the definition given by author Nguyen Duc Dan in
"morality in proverb" is the most appropriate of all.

1.3.1.2. Concept of idiom
In "Fundamentals of Linguistics and Vietnamese language", the
authors defined: “Idiom is fixed phrases with complete structure and meaning.
Their meanings are iconic and suggestive.” [7, p. 157]
The author Hoang Van Hanh in “Vietnamese idioms” raised definition
as follows: “Idiom is kind of fixed word combination with stability of form structure, complete and polished meaning, being widely used in daily
communication, especially in oral language.” [24, p. 27]
The stability of form - structure of idiom is expressed in following
respects:
Firstly, lexical component of idiom, generally, is stable; it means that
elements creating idiom are virtually unchanged in using, in many cases it is
impossible to replace them with other ones.
Secondly, the structural sustainability of idiom is expressed with the
constant order of the components creating idiom.

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Completeness and ornateness of idiom’s meaning are showed in their
expression of concepts or symbols with full of characteristics, progress or
objects. In other words, idiom is the unit of naming in language.
1.3.1.3. Distinction between proverb and idiom
Duong Quang Ham was the first person raising the ideal of distinction
between proverb and idiom: “A proverb must fully have itself meaning,
counsel or direction while an idiom is only available statement to conveniently
express something or to ornately describe certain state.” [41, p. 41]
However, Vu Ngoc Phan does not agree with this distinction. He wrote:
“That distinction is not clear because if we distinguish like that, the effect of
proverb is not different from the one of idiom. [...]. Proverb is a sentence
displaying itself a full meaning, an assessment, an experience, a morality, a

justice, even a criticism. Meanwhile, idiom is a part of available sentence that
people get used to using, but it can itself express a full meaning. In terms of
grammatical form, each of idioms is a word group, is not a complete sentence
while a proverb, despite of shortness, is still a full sentence.” [41, pp. 41-42]
In the essay “Comments about distinction between idiom and proverb”,
the author Cu Dinh Tu used function as the criterion to distinguish idiom from
proverb. He stated: “Idiom being available units keep the function of naming,
in others words, it is used to name objects, characteristics, actions…”; and
“Considering linguistic respect, proverb has different function compared with
idiom. Proverb as well as other creations of folk literature such as folk songs,
fairy tales are all announcements. They announce a judgment, a conclusion
about a certain aspect of the objective world. So, each of proverbs is a
complete sentence, showing fully an ideal. It is the reason why proverb has
structure of two centers.” [41, p. 42]
Several other authors such as Chu Xuan Dien, Luong Van Dang,
Phuong Tri raised a new criterion to distinct: “Idiom is concepts and proverb
is judgments”. [13, pp. 27-28]. This conception is continuously reaffirmed by

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Nguyen Luc, Luong Van Dang: “We believe that the main connection
between these two genres is about meaning and awareness of people. It is able
to consider that the criterion to distinguish between them is: “the content of
idiom is notion, the content of proverb is judgment. [...] A part of proverb
genre is possible to become a part of idiom genre. When idiom is a unchanged
clause or sentence, it will be able to equivalent to an expression of thought
being judgment. So, idiom also has a part containing judgment content.” [35,
p. 21-23]
Hoang Van Hanh with the some other authors stated that in spite of

having many similarities to proverb, idiom is essentially different from
proverb. That difference is displayed like this: “Idiom is special groups of
words, ornately expressing conceptions while proverb is special sentence,
artistically expressing judgments.” [24, p. 31]. After that, he summarized the
similarities and differences in this table:

1.

2.

3.

Features used as
criteria to distinct
Feature
of
structural
morphology with
rhyme and parallel

Idiom
Unchanged groups
of words (or a
clause),
morphological
relationship

Proverb

Unchanged

sentence
(utterance)
(both
simple
sentence
and
complex
sentence), syntax
relationship
Function of naming Name
objects, Name
situations,
phenomena,
events and states
processes…
Function
of Express conceptions Express judgments
expressing
by
symbolic by symbolic logoes
awareness
imagines
morphology

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4.

Feature of meaning

Two
layers
of
meaning created by
method
of
comparison
and
metaphor

Two layers
of
meaning created by
method
of
comparison
and
metaphor

It can be seen that, so far, there are two conceptions raised to
distinguish idiom from proverb; one based on content and the other based on
function. However, considering two couples of “concept – judgment” (of the
first conception) and of “naming – announcing” (of the other conception), we
can see that couple “concept – judgment” is contained by couple “naming –
announcing”. Because concept is used to name and judgment is a form of
announcing. The authors acknowledge the intersection between idiom and
proverb, according to above quotations, intersection part is significantly large.
According to the author Trieu Nguyen: “Confusion between idiom and
proverb, in fact, has been considered as an obviousness, even no one assesses

it as a mistake. (This is expressed through collection and compilation of
idioms and proverbs so far, even that the confusedness of later ones is more
serious than the confusedness of previous published ones.” [41, p. 45]
From the opinions of authors, we claim that it is possible to distinguish
idiom from proverb on both respects of content and form as follows:
Formally, idiom and proverb are both available units; idiom is phrases or
lexical units while proverb is sentences, clauses or short text, being not verbal
units. Regarding the content, the content of idiom is equivalent to conception
of objects, properties or processes while the content proverb is judgments,
conclusions or experiences of the folk.
1.3.2. Proverb and idiom in the relationships with folklore and folk
literature
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Folklore consisting of the cultural materials of the pre-modern societies
with a pure agriculture but without script is popularized and preserved by
word of mouth through non-institutional and traditional channels of
communication.
Folk literature is a part of both national literature and folklore. As a
component of the folklore, folk literature is also one of the factors of
intangible culture. Some its respects are close to philosophy, chronicle, folk
beliefs, folk customs, and customary laws of traditional communities. These
genres of intangible culture have attachment and mutual relationship, affect
each other and interlock spontaneously; even it is sometimes difficult to
separate.
Proverb is a genre of folk literature. In it, we can find out the
recognition of folk knowledge and experience in labor, production, behavior,
customs, habits, beliefs or performing activities. “Phép vua thua lệ làng” (the
will of the king yields to people’s customs) is purely a proverb in folk

literature or an unwritten law of traditional society? Without cultural
knowledge, only basing on the words, it is difficult to understand the proverb
“Tua rua thì mặc tua rua, mạ già ruộng ngấu không thua bạn điền”. Proverb
also summarizes experience of religious practice (Cha chết gậy tre, mẹ chết
gậy vông/ Cha đưa mẹ đón ...); reminds everyone to take part in traditional
festivals (Mười một là hội Hương Nha, mười hai Gia Dụ, mười ba hội
Hiền...).
In classification of the folk literature into genres, the researchers do not
arrange idiom as the one. It is a special type of linguistic unit in a national
language. Idiom is arranged into the intermediate signs between the signs of
word level and sentence level. But in terms of content and meaning, idioms
carry value and function as the ones of a word and can replace words to name.
Hiding behind the cover of a communication language, idiom contains a large
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