On June 6th 2023, the seminar entitled “Figures of speech in English and Vietnamese: An overview” was presented by Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy – a senior lecturer of Department of Professional English, Faculty of Tourism & Foreign Languages.
Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy presented
A figure of speech is ‘‘a word or phrase which is used for special effect, and which does not have its usual or literal meaning’’ (Richards et al., 1987, p.105). Language that uses figures of speech is known collectively as figurative language. The opposite of figurative language is literal language which is the type of straightforward writing. The aim of this study is to give an overview of figures of speech in English and Vietnamese so as to find out the similarities and differences. It is believed that those elements which are similar to the learner’s native language will be easy for him/her, and those elements that are different will be difficult (Lado, 1957). This study is chiefly a library-based one, which means the data were mainly collected from books and literary works in comtemporary English and Vietnamese. The results of the study show that both English and Vietnamese use figures of speech such as Simile, Metaphor, Personification, Metonymy, Synecdoche, Hyperbole (Overstatement), Litotes (Understatement), Irony, Euphemism, Onomatopoeia (Sound imitation) to create figurative meanings beyond literal meanings. However, the study also find out a lot of differences between English and Vietnamese in terms of classifications and shades of meanings of these figures of speech. These findings have great significance in language teaching and learning.
Tiếng Việt