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Familial and social behavior expressed in
Vietnamese’s idioms and proverbs
Trần Thị Phượng
Viện Việt Nam học
Luận văn ThS ngành: Việt Nam học; Mã số: 60 22 01 13
Người hướng dẫn: Prof. Dr. Vũ Đức Nghiệu
Năm bảo vệ: 2013
Abstract. Through surveying reliable linguistic data of idioms and proverbs, the
thesis relatively presents systematically and particularly the content of Vietnamese behavior
in familial and social relationships in idioms and proverbs. Initially, the thesis raises
outstanding features of Vietnamese behavior as well as determines their attitude of praising
or criticizing towards detailed ways of behavior. Bu doing this, the thesis adds real
information about behavioral conception of Vietnamese people which is recorded and
reflected in selected ancient linguistic data. It is indispensable information for researching
Vietnamese culture which the thesis achieves. With detail and particular appendix, the thesis
provides linguistic data source of idioms and proverbs with the content of Vietnamese
behavior in familial and social relationships for people who are interested in learning or
researching.
Keywords. Thái độ ứng xử; Văn hóa dân gian; Thành ngữ
Content
MỤC LỤC
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DECLARATION
INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale and aims of thesis. ................................................................... 1
2.History os issue .......................................................................................... 2
3. Objectives and scope of thesis ................................................................. 5
4. Research tasks .......................................................................................... 6
5. Research methods of thesis ..................................................................... 7
6. Contribution of the thesis ........................................................................ 7
7. Organization of the thesis ........................................................................ 8
CHAPTER 1: SOME BASIC THEORETICAL ISSUES OF THE
THESIS
1.1. The relationship between language and culture ................................ 9
1.2. The concepts of “behavior” and “cultural behavior” ..................... 13
1.2.1 The concept of “behavior” ............................................................... 13
1.2.2. Concept of “Behavioral culture” .................................................... 14
1.3. Proverb and idiom .............................................................................. 16
1.3.1. Concepts of proverb and idiom....................................................... 16
1.3.1.1. Concept of proverb ................................................................... 16
1.3.1.2. Concept of idiom ...................................................................... 17
1.3.1.3. Distinction between proverb and idiom ................................... 17
1.3.2. Proverb and idiom in the relationships with folklore and folk
literature .................................................................................................... 20
1.3.3. Reflecting contents proverb and idiom ........................................... 22
1.3.3.1. Reflecting contents of proverb ................................................. 22
1.3.3.2. Reflecting content of idiom ...................................................... 25
1.3.4. Role of proverb and idiom in preservation folk knowledge and
experiences ................................................................................................ 25
CHAPTER 2: VIETNAMESE BEHAVIOR IN FAMILIAL
RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH IDIOMS AND PROVERBS
2.1. Familial relationships of Vietnamese ................................................ 29
2.2. General characteristics of Vietnamese family .................................. 31
2.3. Behavior in basic familial relationships of Vietnamese people ...... 33
2.3.1. Relationship between wife and husband ........................................ 33
2.3.1.1. Generalization of relationship between wife and husband ....... 33
2.3.1.2. Behavior in conjugal relationship ............................................. 37
2.3.2. Relationship between parents and their children ............................ 50
2.3.2.1. The role of parents towards their children ................................ 50
2.3.2.2. The role of children towards their parents ................................ 52
2.3.2.3. Behavior in relationship between parents – children ............... 53
2.3.3. Relationship among brothers and sisters ........................................ 64
2.3.3.1. Relationship among siblings ..................................................... 65
2.3.3.2. Relationships among sisters-in-law; between husband’s siblings
and wife; among brothers-in-law ........................................................... 69
2.3.4. Behavior in relative relationships (with uncles and aunts) ............. 70
CHAPTER 3: VIETNAMESE BEHAVIOR IN SOCIAL
RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH IDIOMS AND PROVERBS
3.1. Overview of social relationships ........................................................ 73
3.2. Vietnamese behavior in equal relationships ..................................... 75
3.2.1. Behavior in relationships among friends ........................................ 75
3.2.2. Behavior in the relationship among neighbors ............................... 77
3.2.3. Behavior in the relationship between male and female .................. 79
3.2.4. Relationship among individuals in society ..................................... 81
3.3. Vietnamese behavior in unequal relationships ................................ 93
3.3.1. Behavior between teachers and students ........................................ 93
3.3.2. Behavior in the relationship between courtiers and civilians ......... 95
3.3.3. Behavior in the relationship between employers and employees ... 98
3.3.4. Behavior in the relationship with old people and children ........... 100
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 103
REFERENCES ............................................................................................ 107
INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale and aims of thesis.
Being a social phenomenon, language functions as the most important
tool of human communicating. Simultaneously, it implements function of
reflecting - function as a tool of human thought. The knowledge, experiences
and perception of people about the physical and spiritual world of humanity
are all preserved in language in the form of concepts, contents "contained" in
the words.
Since ancient times, folk knowledge is mainly handed down by word
of mouth method. Thus, the lessons and behavioral experiences in life were
stored, summarized in the idioms, proverbs, folk songs,… the elements of
folk literature. Therefore, in order to find out the behavioral traditional way
of Vietnamese (this conception is considered as Viet people or Kinh people)
in the family and society, doing research the source of linguistic data from
folk literature proves more effective and predominant compared with the
source of other written ones. Moreover, folk literature, including idioms and
proverbs is precious literary treasure which has overcome challenges of time
to become an important element in the national cultural heritage. Especially,
through the art of using words, proverbs have summarized people's intellect,
reflecting the diversified relationships in society as well as the way of
behavior showing national spirit and moral standards. For this reason,
research Vietnamese familial and social behavior expressed in folk literature
does contribute to seeking the national cultural identity, thinking and lifestyle.
For years, researching treasure of Vietnamese idioms and proverbs, the
authors focused only on mining and unraveling the varied contents that are
reflected with the characteristics of the structure, prosody of proverbs.
1
Problems of behaving and handling the relationships between man and nature,
man and society, man and themselves expressed in folk literature have
recently attracted the interest in further research of scholars. However, in
researches of familial and social relationships expressed in proverbs and folk
songs, by reading the relevant documents, we found that they mainly clarified
reflection of particular relationships without highlighting Vietnamese
behavior in those relationships. Therefore, in this thesis, through studying
linguistic data of idioms and proverbs, we will go deep into clarifying the
Vietnamese behavior in particular relationships and, simultaneously, will
indicate assessments and direct or indirect attitude of praising or criticizing of
folk to behavior mentioned.
According to the policies and guidelines of the Party and State,
Vietnam is in the process of building an advanced culture imbued with
national identity. Along with the momentum of integration, acquirement the
quintessence of world-wide culture, it is extremely critical to look back, to
preserve fine traditional culture of the nation. So researching behavioral
culture of the Vietnamese people to find cultural inherence for practical
national development is urgently necessary.
2. History of issue
Recently, the issue of "behavioral culture" has been much interested in
Vietnam. In perspectives of sociology, culture or psychology, there are
researches on this topic. For examples: “Behavioral culture of the ethnics in
Vietnam” written by author Pham Vu Dung [16]; “Behavioral culture of
Hanoi people with the natural environment” written by author Nguyen Viet
Chuc [45]; “Discuss the behavioral culture of Vietnamese people” written by
author Nguyen Tat Thinh [53]; “Behavioral psychology” written by author Le
Thi Bung[5]… Depending on the requirements of each specialty, the authors
2
have studied the behavioral culture from the different perspectives of
approach and because of being a different major compared with those, we do
not mention them in our study. We only preliminarily point the main contents
of some research in which authors more or less exploited this subject through
the resource of folk literature, especially idiom and proverb as elements of
folk literature:
Tran Thi Thuy Anh, the author of study: “Traditional social behavior of
the Vietnamese people in Northern delta” [1] “tried to build a model of
traditional social behavior of the Vietnamese people in Northern delta …
determined that the value system of Vietnamese behavior is “lưỡng đoan” (or
“đa đoan”) with spiritual values, including: friendliness – tolerance –
simplicity – happiness …”. Behavioral model that the author wanted to
identify and name is "the model of affection and gratitude". The author gave
very accurate conclusions (some of which are results of research disciplines
previously confirmed). New thing we find in this research is that the author
used a research method of region- splitting, or research method of “Cultural
geography”, the concept of researchers of culture studies. The writer divided
into sub-regions in the northern delta such as: the North, the South, Đoài, the
East; however, she did not explicitly make mention of characteristics of
behavior in each region, only paid attention to aspects of material culture. The
author writes: "The North is high Delta with a lot of seasonal fields, craft
villages, trade villages and vivid network of rural markets, numerous
festivals, pagodas, temples and communal houses. Features of identity are “cỗ
ba tầng”, “nón ba tầm”, “áo mớ ba mớ bảy”, “quan họ”, Gióng festival, “Ăn
Bắc mặc Kinh”. The South is the sunken delta, with shrimp paste, shrimp
sauce (very small shrmips), digging to expend soil, water puppetry (Nguyen
Xa), working austerely, “Xắn váy quai cồng”, “Sống ngâm da, chết ngâm
3
xương” but the spirit is comforted by Holy Mother Lieu Hanh, the fairy Chu
Dong Tu, hầu bóng, chau van singing …” [1, p. 38]. Using folk songs,
proverbs as "tools" (the word used by the author), but sources of folk songs,
proverbs are actually few. Main approach of this study leans toward history
and culturology … Thus, the extensiveness of the study is quite high,
especially in the perspectives of history, cultural study and sociology.
With research: “Behavioral culture of women through Vietnamese folk
song treasure” [17], after outlining the behavioral culture of the Vietnamese
people in general the author Pham Vu Dung went deep into a particular
women subject. This is due to that they "are full of inherent characteristics of
the Vietnamese people as well as Vietnamese culture throughout
establishment history and development of the country" [17, p. 43]. Although
the author only outline, he emphasized some of the contents, outstanding
qualities of Vietnam and Vietnamese people: “Those are patriotism, diligence,
sense of community and national solidarity, harmony, moderation;
consistency, being easy to amalgamate without conservatism; creativity and
acumen; being full of affection, appreciation of benevolence and
righteousness; living and behaving based on affection; tolerance and harmony
…”. [17, p. 39].
With research: “Proverbs, folk songs about familial relationships” [34],
the author Pham Viet Long indicated that there are four basic familial
relationships in proverbs. They are relationships of: husband-wife, parents children, siblings, daughter in-law and son in-law – family. In which, the
husband-wife relationship is reflected the most compared with other
relationships. “On the overview of the Vietnamese familial relationships,
except the tensional relationship between the daughter in law and mother in
law, other ones are reflected with warm look, highlighting cohesion, harmony
4
and responsibility which are considered as criteria to build cozy and
sustainable family. Thanks to this, the main flow of familial proverbs has
created the sonority of humanitarianism encouraging love and attachment
among people.” [34, p. 111].
With research: “Reflection of familial and social relationships in
proverbs, folk songs”[3], the author Do Thi Bay pointed out the Vietnamese
familial relationships reflected in proverbs including the relationships of:
grandparents - grandchildren, parents - children; husband - wife; siblings;
mother in law - daughter in law, parents in law – son in law, stepmother –
stepchildren, stepfather - stepchildren; relatives: uncles, aunts. The social
relationships include the ones of: teacher-student; friends; compatriots;
owners - employees; kings and mandarins - masses. Overall, this study
comprehensively reflected Vietnamese familial and social relationships;
However, because of such largeness the author has not carefully analyze to
show dominant relationships as well as behavioral characteristics of the
Vietnamese people have not been clearly focused.
3. Objectives and scope of thesis
The main objective of this thesis is behavior in the family and society
of Vietnamese people. We take idioms, proverbs as research materials to find
out how Vietnamese people behave in relationships; this is different from
taking these elements of folk literature as the objective of thesis. Therefore, in
this study, we will not explore the art of expressions of idioms and proverbs.
It can be said that behavioral culture is related to many fields such as:
culture studies, psychology, sociology, economics, education and history… in
direct or indirect form. However, in this thesis, we try to approach the subject
based on exploiting treasure of idioms and proverbs of the Vietnamese
people, localized with the treasure of idioms and proverbs of other ethnic
5
groups; which means traditional behavioral culture of the Vietnamses people
recorded in these two elements of folk literature.
Contents of behavioral culture are determined according to system of
interactions between people and the natural environment, people and the
others, people and themselves. Accordingly, generally, it is considered in
detail systems: behaving towards natural; behaving in the family (husband wife, parents - children, among siblings, among relatives) and behaving in
society (among friends, teachers - students, among neighbors ...), which mean
the behavioral relationships among members of community; behaving
towards self (the conception of human life). However, in this thesis, we only
consider the way of behavior between members in the community of Viet
people. Thus, two main research objectives and scope corresponding to two
chapters of this thesis are: behavior of Vietnamese pople in familial
relationships and behavior of Vietnamese people in social relationships.
Linguistics data used in the thesis are collected from "Dictionary of
Vietnamese Idioms” included 728 pages written by the authors Nguyen Nhu
Y, Nguyen Van Khang, Phan Xuan Thanh [61]; “Treasure of Vietnamese
proverbs” written by the authors Nguyen Xuan Kinh (chief editor), Nguyen
Thuy Loan, Phan Lan Huong, Nguyen Luan [30] with 8194 units of proverb.
These are two relatively abundant and comprehensive data source compiled
according to a scientific, modern method being convenient for lookup.
However, in this linguistics data source there are units which are not
completely proverbs or idioms, but because of respecting for the actual
collection of the authors, we accept without comment, exclusion.
4. Research tasks
We define the first task of research in this thesis is survey idioms, proverbs
recorded in reliable sources. After that, we collects idioms, proverbs
6
expressed Vietnamese behavior in the family and society. Then, we analysis
to find out that in which correlation these behaviors are expressed, how
behavior among people is described and how the folk assess and show attitude
of praising or criticizing to the behavior mentioned.
5. Research methods of thesis
In this thesis, we apply and combine research methods of disciplines: folk
literature, sociology, culture studies and especially interdisciplinary research
methods.
Being an expression of culture, thought of a community, social behavior
should be considered as a general social phenomenon; thus to approach it, we
need a synthesis method. To achieve the target of the thesis which is both
description of behavior in particular familial and social relationships, and
generalization to clarify the characteristics behavioral culture of Vietnamese,
Viet ethnic group, synthetic interdisciplinary research method will provide
more considerable efficiency.
After collecting linguistic data, deriving from them, we go to classify,
describe, analyze and give comments. Manipulation of verification through a
few quantities is also implemented.
6. Contribution of the thesis
We hope that this thesis will achieve some results as follows:
6.1. The thesis presents relatively particularly and systematically contents
of Vietnamese familial and social behavior reflected in idioms, proverbs.
6.2. Initially, the thesis shows prominent features in Vietnamese way of
behavior recorded in idiom and proverb, since then, it contributes to
research, identify their characteristics of thinking, lifestyle and affection.
7
7. Organization of the thesis
Besides the introduction, conclusion, references, appendix the thesis is
divided into three chapters.
Chapter 1: Some basic theoretical issues of the thesis
Chapter 2: Vietnamese behavior in familial relationships through idioms
and proverbs
Chapter 3: Vietnamese behavior in social relationships through idioms
and proverbs
8
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