A study of linguistic features of expressions denoting happiness and anger in american and vietnamese short stories

Abstract

The thesis mainly studied syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of expressions denoting happiness and anger in American and Vietnamese short stories. Descriptive and comparative methods were used to classify, describe and analyze 400 samples selected from American and Vietnamese short stories to find out their similarities and differences in terms of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features. Syntactically, the thesis dealt with three main groups of expressions denoting happiness and anger (EsDHA) that were noun phrases, verb phrases and adjective phrases following the three models of syntactic structures: Premodifier + Head, Head + Postmodifier, and Premodifier + Head + Post modifier. Semantically, delightment, contentment, enthusiasm, a state of being high, a state of being light, a good mood, extreme happiness, color change, happiness as a sacred thing and happiness as valuable things of expressions denoting happiness (EsDH) in American and Vietnamese short stories were examplified. Moreover, irritation, harshness, bad feeling/ bad mood, a state of being very hot, uncontrollable feeling, restrained feeling, explosion, color change, swearing, seething and rage of expressions denoting anger (EsDA) in American and Vietnamese stories were clarified through examples. Pragmatically, it was context that had an influence on the understanding of EsDHA; therefore, pragmatic features of EsDH in American and Vietnamese short stories that were EsDH as a politeness strategy, EsDH showing compliment, EsDH showing mocking and EsDH showing contempt were found. In addition, pragmatic features of EsDA were also manifested in American and Vietnamese collected samples. In short, the study was carried out in the hope that it would be useful to the teaching and learning of American and Vietnamese expressions denoting happiness and anger in terms of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features.