LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PROVERBS EXPRESSING WISDOM AND FOOLISHNESS IN ENGLISH VERSUS VIETNAMESE

Abstract

This study has been done in an effort to study semantic and syntactic features of proverbs expressing wisdom and foolishness in English versus Vietnamese, employing the functional viewpoint suggested by Halliday. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis is conducted basing on the investigation of 400 proverbs expressing wisdom and foolishness together with numerous number of samples from various linguistic books, dictionaries, and from the Internet. The findings of this study show that proverbs expressing wisdom and foolishness have remarkable semantic and syntactic features and there are some similarities and differences in some features. The study also deals with the cultural features regulating the way the use of proverbs expressing wisdom and foolishness in terms of syntactic and semantic features. In addition, the implications for teaching and learning English and Vietnamese as a foreign language as well as for further study are put forward.