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Running head: Body Part Idioms in English and Vietnamese

Body Part Idioms in English and Vietnamese:
A Contrastive Analysis and Teaching Implications



Student: Nguyen Ai Minh Uyen
University of Pedagogy



Lecturer: Nguyen Ngoc Vu, Ph.D



December 26, 2010


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Abstracts
Learning idioms is an important way to master language. They are a typical
component of English, and spoken English in particular, and are used more and
more widely in everyday conversations. A large portion of idioms contains the
image of human body parts. English and Vietnamese are two different languages
with their own cultural backgrounds. Besides, language and culture are closely
related. An understanding of common idioms will increase comprehension and
make conversations more natural. However, students of English realize that
idioms present a problem in their learning. They find it hard to figure out the
meaning of idioms due to their unawareness of and confusion about the
similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms. As a result,
they instinctively avoid trying to produce idioms themselves. This paper aims at
providing students and teachers with necessary information so that they can
benefit in their learning and teaching English, particularly in the field of translation
and cross-cultural communication. Furthermore, suggestions to solve the
problem as well as implications for teaching idioms are also given.

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Nguyen Ai Minh Uyen
Nguyen Ngoc Vu, Ph.D
Contrastive Analysis
December 2010
Body Part Idioms In English And Vietnamese:
A Contrastive Analysis And Teaching Implications
Literary review
Culture
What is culture? The word culture has many different meanings. For some
it refers to an appreciation of good literature, music, art, and food. For a biologist,
it is likely to be a colony of bacteria or other microorganisms growing in a nutrient
medium in a laboratory Petri dish. However, for anthropologists and other
behavioral scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns.
As Ting-Toomey and Chung (27) suggested, culture is a learned meaning
system that consists of patterns of traditions, beliefs, values, norms, meanings,
and symbols that are passed on from one generation to the next and are shared
to varying by interacting members of a community.
From the standpoint of contemporary cultural anthropologists, culture is
characterized by the following four basic features. First, culture is a kind of social
inheritance instead of biological heritage. Second, culture is shared by the whole
community, not belonging to any particular individual. Third, it is a symbolic
meaning system in which language is one of the most important ones. Then,
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culture is a unified system, the integral parts of which are closely related to one
another.
Language
Many animal and even plant species communicate with each other.
Humans are not unique in this capability. However, human language is unique in
being a symbolic communication system that is learned instead of biologically
inherited.
According to Sapir (1921), language is a purely human and non-
instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desire by means of
voluntarily produced symbols. Language is a part of culture and a part of human
behavior.
Meanwhile, Ting-Toomey and Chung (141) hold it that language is an
arbitrary, symbolic system that names feelings, experiences, ideas, objects,
events, groups, people, and other phenomena.
The major functions of language are:
1) Language is the primary vehicle of communication;
2) Language reflects both the personality of the individual and the culture
of his history. In turn, it helps shape both personality and culture;
3) Language makes possible the growth and transmission of culture, the
continuity of societies, and the effective functioning and control of social group.
(Ewata, n.d.)
The relationship between culture and language
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It is generally agreed that language and culture are closely related.
Language frames our perceptions and interpretations of everyday events that are
happening in our cultural community. It is a taken-for-granted aspect of our
cultural lives. Without a language, we cannot make sense of the cultural world
around us. We cannot pass the wisdom of our culture from one generation to the
next. Therefore, language is a part of culture and culture is a part of language.
The two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without
losing the significance of either language or culture (Brown, 1994). We can say
that language is the verbal expression of culture.
Idioms and their features
An idiom is generally a colloquial metaphor a term requiring some
foundational knowledge, information, or experience, to use only within a culture,
where conversational parties must possess common cultural references.
Therefore, idioms are not considered part of the language, but part of the culture.
As culture typically is localized, idioms often are useless beyond their local
context; nevertheless, some idioms can be more universal than others, can be
easily translated, and the metaphoric meaning can be deduced. (Wikipedia,
Relation with Culture).
The following are some features of idioms.
Firstly, an idiom is a multiword expression. Individual components of an
idiom can often be inflected in the same way individual words in a phrase can be
inflected. This inflection usually follows the same pattern of inflection as the
idiom's literal counterpart.
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E.g.
To chance your arm
He chanced his arm on the horses.
Secondly, an idiom behaves as a single semantic unit.
It tends to have some measure of internal cohesion such that it can often
be replaced by a literal counterpart that is made up of a single word.
E.g.
The long arm of the law = the police
I told him not to do it. You never escape the long arm of the law.
It resists interruption by other words whether they are semantically
compatible or not.
E.g.
A shot in the arm
His son's visits were a real shot in the arm for the old man.
It resists reordering of its component parts.
E.g.
To be thick skinned
If you work as a salesperson, you soon develop a thick skin.
The images of parts of body in idioms
People are familiar with their own bodies. A lot of idioms are from human
body. Head, eye, ear, mouth, arm, leg, etc. are some common organs that are
used in idioms. For instance, to drag your feet means to be deliberately slow,
usually because you don't want to do something, to see eye to eye means to
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share the same opinion, keep your chin up means something that you say to
someone in a difficult situation in order to encourage them to be brave and to try
not to be sad and so on. Body-related idioms reflect the functions of major
organs and are frequently used in daily life.
Cognitive metaphor
Language is a tool for interpreting reality. Body part images appear
frequently in Vietnamese and English idioms carrying simile and metaphor
meanings and ontological metaphors are used widely. Ontological metaphor is a
metaphor in which an abstraction, such as an activity, emotion, or idea, is
represented as something concrete, such as an object, substance, container, or
person. Lets take a look at the following examples.
HEAD IS A PERSON
E.g.
The tickets were only a few dollars a head.
HEAD IS A CONTAINER
E.g.
have ones head full of sth; have a head like a sieve; drum/hammer sth into ones
head; etc.
FACE STANDS FOR HONOR
E.g.
Lose face; laugh in ones face; a slap in ones face
EYE IS A FEELING / EMOTION
E.g.
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eyes pop out of ones head; give sb an evil eye
EYE IS CONTROL / ATTENTION
E.g.
keep an eye on something; from the corner of ones eye
An image underlying a phrase may express either approval or disapproval
depending on how a body part functions: a functional use of a body-part
suggests approval. On the contrary, if there is an inappropriate function of a body
part, it creates disapproval. For instance:
(*) The head is a container for the brain and head-idioms are evaluated
positively as in be able to do something standing on one's head (be able to do
something very easily and quickly); to get into someone's head (to understand
what someone thinks and feels so that you can communicate well with him or
her); etc.
(*) We have many hand-idioms denoting positive meaning, such as to
someone a hand means to give help; a firm/steady hand on the tiller (if
someone has a firm hand on the tiller, they have a lot of control over a situation);
an old hand (someone who has done a particular job or activity for a long time
and who can do it very well); etc.
(*) Some negative idioms carrying the image of nose are can't see
beyond/past the end of your nose (if you can't see beyond the end of your nose,
you think so much about yourself and what affects you that you do not see what
is really important); brown-nose (to try too hard to please someone, especially
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someone in a position of authority, in a way that other people find unpleasant);
etc.
(*) We also have mouth-idioms referring negative meaning, such as a big
mouth (if you have a big mouth, you talk too much, especially about things that
should be secret); be down in the mouth (to be sad); foot-in-mouth disease
(the tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time) and so on.
It is easy to see that negative evaluation prevails. It is also noteworthy that
positive evaluation equals negative evaluation in phrases with a component
lexeme that denotes a relatively more important organ (head, hand, leg, eye, ear,
etc.). Meanwhile, negative evaluation increases in phrases referring to a less
functional body part (nose, neck, elbow, etc.).
A contrastive analysis of body part idioms in English and Vietnamese
Similar expressions
English and Vietnamese are two different languages with different cultural
backgrounds but human beings have similar process of thought. Talking about
language and idioms in particular, we can recognize a great deal of equivalence
between the two languages idioms, namely in images and implied messages.
Lets look through the following examples:
English Vietnamese
poke ones nose into somebodys affairs ch mi vo chuyn ngi khc
give somebody a hand gip mt tay
lose face mt mt
laugh in ones face ci vo mt ai
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lead someone by the nose x mi dt i
behind ones back (ni xu) sau lng ai
keep an eye on someone/something mt ti, ch ti
with the naked eye mt trn / mt thng
in the blink of an eye trong nhy mt
make someone's hair stand on end dng tc gy
Different expressions with close meanings
Due to the differences in culture, with the same values of content, the way
of expressing ideas through comparative idioms varies among cultures. Such
pairs of idioms have the same meanings but different images are used. For
example:
English Vietnamese
out of sight, out of mind xa mt cch lng
at my finger tips nh lng bn tay
turn ones back tr mt
Cross-cultural differences
Language is always a result of social, cultural, historical and political
values. Despite the universal features, there still be distinct features that
differentiate one culture from another. Beside the similarities, there are a lot of
expressions that exist in English but not in Vietnamese and vice versa. We
cannot find any equivalence of those idioms. To make it clear, let us consider
some examples.
pay an arm and a leg
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live from hand to mouth
live a bad taste in someones mouth
foam at the mouth
have legs
He puts his pants on one leg at a time.
in a pigs eye
keep a civil tongue in your head
dead from the neck up
turn up one's toes
Teaching implications
As a Vietnamese student who has learned English for quite a long time, I
find that many students, like me, have an obsession with slang and idioms.
Idioms are difficult to understand and use correctly.
Because the relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted,
we can say that learning a new language involves the learning of a new culture.
Consequently, teachers of a language are also teachers of culture (Byram 1989).
Teachers must instruct their students on the cultural background of language
usage. If one teaches language without teaching about the culture in which it
operates, the students are learning empty or meaningless symbols or they may
attach the incorrect meaning to what is being taught. The meaning is bound in
cultural context. One must not only explain the meaning of the language used,
but the cultural context in which it is placed as well. Often meanings are lost
because of cultural boundaries which do not allow such ideas to persist. An
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important step is exposing learners to idioms in context for contextual clues are
useful to learners in comprehending unknown idioms. Learners should be
encouraged to infer the meaning of the idiom by using contextual clues,
background knowledge or first language equivalents. Teachers may help
learners during this process, especially if the idiom is not easily worked out.
Also, teachers need to teach students to use language appropriately for a
variety of purposes, accepting that their students view of the world is as valid as
their own.
As for learners, the best time to address the complexity of idioms is at
upper-intermediate and advanced levels, when they already have a certain
grammatical and lexical foundation. In my experience, there are three steps to
bear in mind when learning a new idiom. First of all, it is advisable for learners to
find equivalent Vietnamese idioms of the English ones. In this way, they can
install the relation between the two languages; thus, can put them into their long-
term memory. Second, learn how to use the idiom in a particular situation. Then,
start using the idiom in conversation with others as soon as possible. If we dont
start using it immediately, we will soon forget it. Frequent application of idioms is
of great help.
Conclusion
Hopefully this paper can provide teachers with some suggestions and
ideas so that they could take them into account to effectively teach idioms, raise
the learners awareness of idioms so that they should develop a habit of noticing
them in everyday situations, including reading and listening. As for learners, a
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contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese idioms, to some extent,
can help them understand metaphor and idioms more deeply, use them more
correctly and efficiently, particularly read between the lines.

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References
Brown, H. Douglas (1994). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (3
rd

ed). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Byram, Michael (1989). Cultural studies in foreign language education. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
Emmitt, Marie, Linda Komesaroff and John Pollock (2006). Language and
Learning: An Introduction for Teaching (4
th
ed). Melbourne: Oxford
University Press.
Ewata, Thompson Olusegun (2010). Relationship between language and
communication. Retrieved December 23, 2010, from
http://www.scribd.com/doc/42837966/Relationship-Between-Language-
and-Communication
Idiom. (2010). In Wikipedia. Retrieved December 9, 2010, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago:
University of Chicago.
Mutohhar (n.d.). Material Final Test: By Mr. Mutohhar. Retrieved December 24,
2010, from http://ccuumk.blogspot.com/2010/01/material-final-test-by-mr-
mutohhar.html
Toomey, Stella T., and Leeva C.Chung (2005). Understanding Intercultural
Communication. Los Angeles, California: Roxbury Publishing Company.