Báo cáo thực tập tốt nghiệp tiếng anh (26)

VINH UNIVERSITY
FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT
**********

A STUDY ON THE CONCEPT OF “HAPPINEES” IN ENGLISH
AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS
( MỘT SỰ NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ “HẠNH PHÚC” TRONG THÀNH
NGỮ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

Student:

Nguyen Thi Hanh - K53B2
Pham Thi Cuc - K53B2
Supervisor: MA.Nguyen Thi Bich Hien.

Vinh, 4/2015
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For the completion of this work, we have been fortunate to receive
invaluable contributions from many people. First of all, we should like to
express our deepest gratitude to our supervisor, Nguyen thi Bich Hien.MA for
her absolutely indispensable assistance, excellent suggestions, her immense
encouragement, and detailed critical guidance, without which the work would
not have been complete.
We are greatly grateful to my teachers of English language department,
Vinh university for their powerful knowledge and useful guidance us in doing
the research.
In addition, we would also like to extend my sincere thank to our
classmates for helping us to give the invaluable comments and suggestions when

we were carried out our research.
Last but not least, our warmest thanks are due to our loving family
members for their support, love and encouragement to help us complete this
research.
Vinh, 4, 2015
Pham Thi Cuc
Nguyen Thi Hanh.

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ABSTRACT
The importance of “Happiness” in expressing emotion, language teaching
and learning has stimulated the author in the study on English and Vietnamese
idioms. In addition, the study is concerned with contrastive analysis as well as
the distinction of “Happiness” in English idioms and Vietnamese idioms.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 RATIONALE
“Happiness” is a sacred and secular concept. People even give a particular
day to memorize and share the happiness called “The international happiness
day”. However, exactly what is it? We know that people expected and searched
the meaning of happiness at the dawn. They have improved and perfected
themselves to aim this, even it is for them or their relatives. It can’t be denied
that people have chance to listen to sweet folk-songs, poems relevant to
happiness since they were in their childhood. For instance, family’s happiness of
Vietnam in the folk verse: “anh thuận em hịa là nhà có phúc” or in poems:

“bài thơ về hạnh phúc” (Bùi Minh Quốc, 1969), “hạnh phúc” (Trần Hữu
Nghiêm, 1998)….And in English like “ happiness” (Jane Kenyon, 1995), “how
can I then return in happy plight” (William Skakespeare, 1609)… Especially, the
idioms about happiness occupy a big part in both English and Vietnamese,
therefore, we are interested in this topic.
We think that this research will be helpful to give human being the
comparison and contrast between English and Vietnamese idioms. In addition,
learners usually misunderstand the meaning of “Happiness” in idioms so by
studying this topic, we give them the tactics to cope with the learning and
translating.
Last but not least, we find some interesting similarities and differences
between English’s and Vietnamese’s norms about “happiness”. Also, we want to
make a small contribution to the knowledge about cross cultural values.
1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY
The aims of the study are as follow:
-To provide readers, English learners with fundamental understanding
about happiness, and their meaning in idioms.
-To help the readers, English learners understand deeply about idioms in
Vietnamese and English.
-To enrich the learner’s culture and custom languages of English and
Vietnamese.
-To avoid some errors in studying major skills.
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To cope with all the purposes , the study must answer the following
questions:
-What are the common concepts of “Happiness” in English and
Vietnamese dictionary?
-What are the representation of “Happiness” in English and Vietnamese

idioms?
-What is the norm of “Happiness” the English and Vietnamese via
idioms?.
-What is the similarities and differences between “Happiness” in English
and Vietnamese ?
1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Due to the limitation of time, it is difficult and impossible to cover all
areas of “Happiness”. Therefore, the study only focuses on the contrastive
analysis of “Happiness” between English and Vietnamese in terms of idiom
aspect.
1.4 DESIGN OF THE STUDY
Chapter 1: Introduction
The first chapter deals with rationale, aims, scope and design of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Background
In this chapter, the author would like to briefly present some knowledge
about contrastive analysis, idiom, happiness and definition of these words.
Chapter 3: Contrastive analysis of happiness between English and
Vietnamese idioms
Chapter 3 will be about aims and objectives, research methodology, research
questions, description of participants and sample, instruments, data collection, data
analysis, limitations
Chapter 4: Method
This chapter will compare the differences and similarities of “Happiness”
in English and Vietnamese idioms.
Chapter 5: Conclusion
The final part will give some suggestions for using idioms in studying,
translating, and expressing emotion.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORITICAL
BACKGROUD
2. CONCEPT OF HAPPINESS
In life, there are many people engrossed in the road of achieving
happiness. Some of them believe that happiness is the great, complex things,
besides the other suppose it is close and casual. So which one is the right
definition about happiness? And what aspects do the happiness cover? They are
absolutely a big question researched and explained by lots of scholars.
According to the definition in Wikipedia: “ Happiness is a mental or
emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging
from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological ,
religious and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and
indentify its sources. Various research groups, including positive psychology, are
employing the scientific method to research questions about what “happiness” is
, and how it might be attained”.
Mahatma Grandhi, who was the preeminent leader of Indian, said : “
Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you are in
harmony”. So his point is typical for his country’s culture. Meanwhile, the
philosopher Anyn Rand stated: “happiness is that state of the consciousness
which proceeds from the achievement of one’s value”.
People know “happiness” when they feel it. There are some other words
describing a range of positive emotions like : joy, pride, contentment and
gratitude. In the book of psychology researcher Sonia Lyubomissky named “ the
how of happiness” (2007) considered happiness as: “ the experience of joy ,
contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is
good, meaningful, and worthwhile”.
Overall, in our study, we support strongly that happiness has lots of terms.
When people achieve success in some aspects such as love, family, job,
friendship, wealth… However, it does not mean that happiness is when people

fulfill their demands sufficiently.
2.1 CONCEPT OF IDIOM
Idiom is an important part of vocabulary of linguistics. It is very varied
and diverse, accompanied with the development of linguistics, people have
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tendency to use the idioms more frequently, and it becomes the general tool for
communication. Because of the deep history, idiom has lots of aspects and
many semantic meanings. There are many definitions of idiom, according to
Nguyen Nha Ban (characteristic structure of idiom and saying, 2005) “An idiom
is a number of words which take together means something different from the
individual words of the idiom when they stand alone” the idiom is created from
individual words, but when we make the combination for these word it can
change meaning of the sentence.
Ex: “get into hot water” means people have face or cope with the difficult,
or someone gets into trouble.
Ex: “To shed crocodile tears” means someone cries something but it is not
real, they just cry but without caring
An idiom is a word or phrase that is not taken literally like “bought the
farm” it has mean that there is nothing to do.
According to Cruse “An idiom is an expression the meaning which can’t
inferred from it parts”. It can be understood that idiom is a word, or phrases
which means something different from its literal meaning is not real but can be
known by their popular use.
What people need to learn is idiom separately because there are some
certain words together or some certain time can be different meanings so in
order to understand thoroughly about idioms people need to know deeply the
culture of the idiom comes from.

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CHAPTER 3: CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF “HAPPINESS”
BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IDIOMS
3. Similarities of “ happiness in English and Vietnamese idioms.
The happiness usually attaches to success, it means people get the
objectives which they want . Some psychological theories are stated that
happiness is pleasure and comfort. However, the experience of happiness is
combined in both the nice and the unexpected time or occasion.
3.1 Happiness is up and imaginative.
The notion “ Happiness is up” relates to space and orientation. In this
term, the erect posture is considered the positive emotion. Both English and
Vietnamese believe that the things which are in higher position than their head is
a good place to put their feeling. So they think to the verbs to achieve this space
like: jump, be in, be up, walk… There are many such expressions can be found
in English idioms:
Jump for joy
Walking on air
With a light heart
Get one’s tail up
The other samples from Vietnam such as:
Sướng cực điểm,
Vui đến tột cùng…
In addition, the human beings imagine to the immense spaces which are
far from their location for their feeling. These spaces are relevant with the image
of something moving upward. For instance, in English they are:
In high spirit
Over the moon
In the seventh heaven

On the top of the world
A ray of sunshine
On cloud nine
And in Vietnamese they are:
Trên chín tầng mây
Lâng lâng trên mây
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Như đi trên mây
Sướng như tiên.
These forms of expression are based on human’s experience about
universe at the dawn. Because they did not have the modern technologies, they
can only suspect, image, and intuit the world. They believed that in a different
immense space, their life would be better so they expect to get there.
3.2 Happiness is not material wealth, it is the close things.
A long time ago, in both English and Vietnamese idioms, people had ideas
to support the theory that happiness is not material wealth. We can find it in
English idioms:
Comfort is better than pride.
Better joy in a cottage than sorrow in a palace.
Better go to heaven in rags than to hell in embroidery.
In Vietnamese they are also shown that:
Ăn chắc mặc bền.
Tốt danh hơn lành áo
Ba gian nhà ra lòa lào
Phải duyên coi từng chin tòa nhà lim.
In the words which people consider about happiness, they make the
comparison between joy and rich, they high appreciate the joy. This is proven
via words like: “better”, “than”, or “tốt hơn” , “coi từng”.

The existence of these common idioms is based on the same experience.
In real life, they remark that the material wealth can’t fulfill their emotions, and
even the other close thing such as: family relationship, friends… could make
them contented.
3.1.3 Happiness is in social background.
Both England and Vietnam are famous for the monarchy. In these
societies, people divided into many different classes, and people who are in the
higher position are more respected by the other . At that time, people consider
kings, queens or ministers…as their desire. In English, this is demonstrated via
idioms:
The royal family
Happy as a king
And in Vietnamese is:
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Sướng như vua
Sướng như quan
Ơng hồng bà hồng.
3.2 The differences in “Happiness” English and Vietnamese idioms
Besides having a lot of similarities, there are some main differences
between “Happiness” in English and Vietnamese idioms.
3.2.1 The feature of country
First of all, according to concept “Happiness” of Vietnamese is:
“Happiness is attached to the feature of country- Vietnam is agriculture country
with avariety festivals, so “Happiness” is expressed by some entities which have
the closest relationship of agriculture. For example, vui như địa chủ được mùa,
it can be understood that happy as landlord has a good harvest. “landlord”,
“harvest” are the common concepts in some agricultural countries. Another
example is “mừng như đại hạn gặp mưa” it means that happy as the rain comes

after long term drought. Two natural phenomenan “ drought, rain” occur
frequently every year and they have a huge effect on the crops of people in the
countries. Vui như điền viên it can be known that when people want to avoid the
busy life or they finish their work and they are retired, they expect to return to
their homeland to do the gardening and simply to do the farming. However,
Basing on the ways of life, there is no relationship between “Happiness” and
agriculture
3.3 Using body parts
Another difference in using body parts to express “happiness”. In English
idioms people often using the entities “heart”, “eye”, “ear”.
Grin from one ear to ear
Starts in somebody’s eyes
In good heart.
However Vietnamese prefer to use the entity “gut” to show their
happiness for example:
Hả lòng hả dạ
Nở mặt nở mày
Tay bắt mặt mừng
Như nở từng khúc ruột
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Why they have the different between them? Because of the concept of
happiness in two coun tries and the way of life, the English is exstrorse, they
have intention to show off their attitudes, and their emotions on their face, their
eyes and their ears grin from ear to ear is an example. On the other hand , people
in Asian countries, in general, and in Viet Nam people is instrorse, they donot
want to express themself and just keep it inside. The reason, that English is very
independent and active and focus on results, is peole live in individualism life
style.Vietnamese is high uncertanty, carefull and metaculous because of the

affect collectism life.
3.2.3 Human’s demand
English is develop country, and the living standard is much higher than
Vietnamese, so they do not worry about the food or money, “Happiness” is
something relates to spirit, dream.... however Vietnamese people is hardworking and saving , and affect of the poor condition, people always worry
about food, money to afford their life. It can be expressed throght some idioms:
Mừng như bắt được tiền
Mừng như bắt đuợc của
Mừng như trúng số độc đắc

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CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION
1 Summary of the study
From the analysis above, we have presented some knowledge about the
concept “happiness” in English and Vietnamese idioms. The study helps us have
an overview of the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese
idioms.
Basing on the knowledge of the research, we can help the learners feel
interesting in this issue and find it easy to understand. Also, it can help English
learners with fundamental understanding about happiness, idiom, and
contrastive analysis, and meanings of some words, related to “Happiness”to help
the readers, English learners understand deeply about idioms in Vietnamese and
English.
The important purpose is to enrich the reader’s culture and custom
languages of English and Vietnamese.
2 Limitation and suggestion
Due to the limitation of time, in this research we only focus on some
similarities and differences in the concept of “happiness” in English and

Vietnamese idioms.

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References
Books:
[1]. Nguyễn Minh Tiến. (2005), Từ điển thành ngữ Anh- Việt.
[2]. Nguyễn Đình Hùng. (2007), Tuyển tập thành ngữ tục ngữ ca dao ViệtAnh thong dụng.
[3]. Nguyễn Nhã Bản. (2005), Đặc điểm cấu trúc thành ngữ và tục ngữ
Việt Nam.
[4]. Lê Đình Tường. (2015), An introduction to contrastive linguistic.
[5] .A.P.Cowie, R.Mackin, I.R.Mc Caig. (1994), Oxford Dictionary of
English Idioms.
Websites:
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%20dao.pdf
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