A STUDY OF LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PROVERBS RELATED TO GAIN AND LOSS IN ENGLISH VERSUS VIETNAMESE

Abstract

In linguistics, the proverbs are the object of numerous studies not only because they are generally known as the quintessence of a people’s collective wisdom but also because they are form-meaning units which exhibit the traditional status, the prosodic form, the didactic value, the rustic imagery. Thus, the purpose of this study is to conduct a contrastive analysis on proverbs related to gain and loss in English and Vietnamese. This study focuses on the semantic and syntactic features of proverbs related to gain and loss in the two languages to find out the similarities and differences between them. However, some stylistic devices are also presented to clarify sense relations of proverbs. A number of samples from dictionaries, magazines, books and the internet are selected and categorized in terms of syntactic, semantic and stylistic devices to serve the purpose of study stated. On the basis of findings, some implications for teaching and learning in both languages are suggested. This thesis is significant in providing some linguistic and pedagogical contributions. Linguistically, the study yields a better insight into structures and meanings of proverbs in general as well as the syntax and semantics of money related proverbs in English and Vietnamese in particular. Pedagogically, the study result can be helpful to teachers and learners of English.