COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS RELATED TO THE CONCEPT OF “BLACK” “WHITE” IN ENGLISH VERSUS VIETNAMESE

Abstract

Idioms could be considered to be an invaluable treasure in all languages among which English and Vietnamese is not an exception. Idioms as a crystallization of culture reflect the world view and perception of a community. As a result, idioms have an intertwined relationship with the cognition and the culture of a country. Indeed, when learning idioms we could understand the cultural features of the country in which the idioms are natively used. Nevertheless, this learning may be difficult for learners of a language in general and a foreign language in particular in that their meanings are unpredictable, the structures are fixed and noticeably they are inevitably underpinned by their cultural cognitive features. This paper is to contrast semantic and syntactic features and rhetorical devices of English idioms and Vietnamese idioms related to the concept of “Black”, “White” under the viewpoint of cognitive perspective. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis is conducted basing on 226 idioms (100 English idioms and 126 Vietnamese idioms) collected from many different resources such as English – Vietnamese dictionaries, Vietnamese-English dictionaries, books, short stories, newspaper and the Internet. The findings show that idioms related to the concept of “Black”, “White” in English and Vietnamese have remarkable semantic and syntactic features and rhetorical devices. According to the analysis of Cognitive perspective, they have some similarities and differences in some features. On the other hand, from the findings of this thesis, we can get insight understanding about the cultural origin of both English idioms and Vietnamese idioms related to the concept of “Black”, “White”. The paper also dealt with the implications for teaching, learning and translating English and Vietnamese idioms related to the concept of “Black”, “White” as well as put forward some suggestions for further study.