An investigation into cultural meaning of love declarations in english and vietnamese folklores

1 CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I certify my authorship of the Thesis submitted today entitled: AN INVESTIGATION INTO CULTURAL MEANING OF LOVE DECLARATIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FOLKLORES in terms of the Statement of Requirement for Theses and Field Study Reports in Masters’ Programmes of English Linguistics issued by the Higher Degree Committee. ................................................. Luu Thi Thanh Tu July, 2009 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguy
n Vn , my supervisor, for his invaluable guidance, comments and corrections during the time I carried out my thesis. I would like to take this chance to thank all the lecturers in the Post Graduate Department for helpful lectures that have helped me in gaining the background knowledge to work on the thesis. And my gratitude also goes to my beloved family who have supported me during the time I completed the thesis. Hanoi, July 2009 Lu Th Thanh Tú 3 ABSTRACT The communication of love is an important aspect of interpersonal relationships across cultures. But saying “I love you” can be very delicate walk, with much gray area, regarding what can and should be communicated about love, when, by whom and to whom. Love is sometimes felt but not expressed, other times, love is expressed only nonverbally; and still other times, it is communicated verbally, with or without nonverbal manifestations. In English and Vietnamese, the way people choose to express love is not the same as it is affected by cultural values. Love declarations include in themselves people’s viewpoints which are presented quite differently in the two languages. Hence, what needs to be carried out in the study entitled “An investigation into the cultural meaning of love declarations in English and Vietnamese folklores” will be an investigation of cultural meaning of love declarations in folklores of the two languages in order to find out the similarities and differences between them. The thesis also attempts to explain what are behind the differences uncovered in the investigation. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Part one: Introduction…………………………………………….5 1.1 Justification……………………………………………………………….5 1.2 Aim and objectives of the study………………………………………….6 1.3 Scope of the study………………………………………………………...6 1.4 Methods of the study……………………………………………………...7 1.5 Design of the study………………………………………………………..7 Part two: Development…………………………………………….9 Chapter one: Theoretical background…………………………………………9 1.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………….9 1.2 The relationship between language and culture…………………………..9 1.2.1 Nature, culture, language………………………………………………10 1.2.2 Communities and their effects on language users…………………… 11 1.3 Tropes.........................................................................................................13 1.3.1 Simile.......................................................................................................13 1.3.2 Metaphor..................................................................................................14 1.4 Folklore as a genre......................................................................................14 1.4.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………..14 1.4.2 Love declarations in folklore as a genre……………………………… 15 1.5 Summary………………………………………………………………….18 Chapter two: Love declarations in English folklores…………………………19 2.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………….19 2.2 Nature, Culture and Language used in love declarations…………………19 2.3 Tropes of love declarations in English folklore…………………………...25 2.3.1 Simile used in love declarations in English folklore……………………25 2.3.2 Metaphor used in love declarations in English folklore………………...25 2.4 Summary………………………………………………………………….26 Chapter three: Love declarations in Vietnamese folklore……………………27 3. 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………27 3. 2 Cultural images used in love declarations……………………………….28 3. 3 Tropes of love declarations in Vietnamese folklore……………………..36 3.3.1 Simile in love declarations in Vietnamese folklore…………………..37 5 3.3.2 Metaphor in love declarations in Vietnamese folklore……………….38 3.4 Summary………………………………………………………………..40 Part three: Conclusion…………………………………………..41 3.1 Comparison between English and Vietnamese love declarations in folklore………………………………………………...41 3.1.1 Similarities…………………………………………………………….41 3.1.2 Differences…………………………………………………………….42 3.2 Summary of the thesis…………………………………………………..42 3.3 Implications from the study……………………………………………..43 3.4 Suggestions for further study……………………………………………43 References………………………………………………………..45 6 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 JUSTIFICATION The communication of love is an important aspect of interpersonal relationships across cultures. But saying “I love you” can be very delicate walk, with much gray area, regarding what can and should be communicated about love, when, by whom and to whom. Love is sometimes felt but not expressed, other times, love is expressed only nonverbally; and still other times, it is communicated verbally, with or without nonverbal manifestations. In English and Vietnamese, the way people choose to express love is not the same as it is affected by cultural values. Love declarations include in themselves people’s viewpoints which are presented quite differently in the two languages. Hence, what needs to be carried out in this study will be an investigation of cultural meaning of love declarations in folklores of the two languages in order to find out the similarities and differences between them. The thesis also attempts to explain what are behind the differences uncovered in the investigation. Our thesis is entitled “An investigation into the cultural meaning of love declarations in English and Vietnamese folklores”. The choice of the thesis is generated from two reasons: Firstly, as Swales (1990: 34) stated that “the concept of genre has maintained a central position in folklore studies ever since the pioneering work in the early nineteenth century”. The functionalist in folklore would rather stress socio-cultural value. For Malinowski (1960, cited in Swales 1990:35) “folklore genres contribute to the maintenance and survival of social groups because they serve social and spiritual needs”. Perhaps inevitably, to assign cultural value also requires the investigator to pay attention to how a community views and itself classify genre. This idea will lead to the fact that love declaration is a mode of social communication and is only a genre among others, therefore, we would like to investigate love declaration in English and Vietnamese folklores to see the similarities and differences of this genre in the two languages. Secondly, love declarations, as mentioned above, reflect human’s ideology, so we wish to see how the ideologies represented in the two languages. 7 We optimistically hope that the thesis will help students of English, and students of culture as it could provide an insight into the similarities and differences of love declarations in English and Vietnamese folklores. 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY A popularized view of emotion is that it is a physiological process associated with the nervous system. Located all the core of the nervous system is a universal and essential set of emotional states. One of these could be said to be love. Everybody experiences the state of being in love at least once in a life time. While the universality of some emotional state may not be in dispute, how person interprets and manifests those emotional experiences will differ across cultures. Hence, this paper aims to advance an understanding of emotion expression as a de-essentialised domain and to view it as “a cultural and interpersonal process of naming, justifying, and persuading by people in relationship to each other” (Lutz, 1998:5). We will take “love declaration” in Vietnamese and English folklores as a point of access into cultural communication systems. 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY Within cultural meaning, our analytical task was therefore: a) describing the locution “I love you” in love declaration with reference to its occurrence and non-occurrence, where it occurs, with whom?, in what language(s) and dialect(s), in which verbal forms, about which topics, as part of what interactional sequences, and with what observable consequences; and b) interpreting the participants understandings of the love declaration given the patterned contingencies under a) above. It is through holding the phenomena of emotion expression as a constant that we will search the cultural variability in order to understand the general forces and particular features of emotion expression. Our focus here will be on the performance of communication patterns within intimate/personal relationships. Our interest then falls on the expression of love within intimate/personal relationships. Our expectation is that the expression of love will be of those communicative activities that give force and meaning to intimate/personal relationships. In intercultural relationship it is our hypothesis that love declarations also function to locate and give voice to cultural identity. Put simply, to say or not to say “I love you” can also be communicating much about communal understandings of sociality, of person, and their strategic activities. 8 Within the scope of the thesis, the author investigates 100 love declarations in English folklore and 100 love declarations in Vietnamese folklore. 1.4 METHOD OF THE STUDY To fulfill the aim of the study, the main methods used are descriptive and comparative. The study deals with love declarations in English and Vietnamese folklores, therefore, a great number of love declarations in English and Vietnamese folklore were collected then 50 love declarations in each language have been carefully selected, after that we try to analyse the love declarations in terms of cultural meanings, genre and tropes and then synthesize the result to find out the similarities and differences of people’s attitudes in the two languages. In fulfilling the focuses of the study in comparing the two languages’ love declarations, descriptive method has been applied to present prominent features of love declarations in the two languages, the results achieved, in turn, are then compared and contrasted to see the similarities and differences between the two languages in expressing love. The fundamental theories that are applied in the study is the cultural study of Robert Lado (1960); Claire Kramsch (2000); and the linguistic study of poetry by Leech (1968) and other Vietnamese researchers such as inh Gia Khánh, Chu Xuân Diên and others. 1.5 DESIGN OF THE STUDY The study is divided into three parts. Part I- Introduction- introduces the justification, the aims, the objectives, the method, the scope and the design of the study. Part II- Development- consists of three chapters: Chapter one presents the theoretical background to the study, the relationship of language and culture and language cultural identity introduced by Claire Kramsch (2000) and Robert Lado (1960) and some Vietnamese researchers such as Vu Ngoc Phan, Lu Huy Nguyen, Dang Van Lung and Tran Thi An. It also presents the theoretical background of tropes written by Leech (1969), Dennis Freeborn and some Vietnamese researchers such as Dinh Gia Khanh et.al (2003), Chu Xuan Dien (2003), Le Van Chuong (2004) etc. This chapter also consider folklore as a genre based on the idea presented by Swales (1990). Chapter two describes love declarations in English folklore from two perspectives: culture, and versification. In terms of culture, the description will be concerned with the 9 relationship between language used in love declaration and culture/cultural identity. And last but not least, in studying the versification, tropes are taken into consideration, and we bring about an insight into the aspects such as metaphor, simile. Based on the above perspectives, we try to find out people’s attitudes and feelings lying behind the expression of love declaration in English folklore. The resources for love declaration in English folklore are taken from traditional ballads, tales, love songs and sayings. Chapter three describes corresponding perspectives of love declaration in Vietnamese Folklore. Part three- Conclusion- compares cultural meanings of love declaration in English and Vietnamese folklores to establish the similarities and differences of emotion expressions across the two languages. We also summarize the issues studied in the thesis, the implications and suggestions for further study. 10 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 INTRODUCTION “Language is the principle means whereby we conduct our social lives. When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways” (C. Kramsch, 2000). As the study deals with love declaration in English and Vietnamese folklores, this chapter is concerned with establishing a theoretical framework for the study, as a way to start, we will present some aspects of the theory of language and culture such as the relationship between language and culture/ cultural identity etc. Besides, as the thesis deals with love declaration in folklores, it will be better when other aspects of concepts such as genre, cohesion, tropes… are also taken into consideration. 1.2 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND CULTURE According to Claire Kramsch, language is the principle means we conduct our social lives. When language is used in contexts of communication it is bound up with culture. Firstly, the words people utter refer to common experience. They express facts, ideas, or events that are communicable because they refer to a stock of knowledge about the world that other people share. Words also reflect their authors’ attitudes and beliefs, their points of view etc. In both cases “language expresses cultural reality” (C.Kramsch, 2000). But members of a community or social group do not only express experience; they also create experience through language. They give meaning to it through the medium they choose to communicate with one another, for example, speaking on the telephone or face to face, writing a letter or sending an e-mail message… The way in which people use the spoken, written, or visual medium itself creates meanings that are understandable to the group they belong to, for example, through a speaker’s tone of voice, accents, conversational style, gestures and facial expressions. Through all as verbal and non-verbal aspects, “language embodies cultural reality” (C. Kramsch, 2000). Finally, language is system of signs that is seen as having itself a cultural value. Speakers identify themselves and other through their use of language; they view their language as a symbol of their social identity. The prohibition of its use is often perceived 11 by its speakers as a rejection of their social group and their culture. Thus we can say that “language symbolizes cultural reality”. We shall deal with these three aspects of language and culture by considering the following poem by Emily Dickinson Essential oils- are wrung- The attar from the Rose Be not expected by Suns- alone- It is the gift of Screws- The General Rose- decay- But this- in Lady’s Drawer Make Summer- When the lady lie In Ceaseless Rosemary (Adapted from C. Kramsch, 2000) 1.2.1 Nature, culture, language One way of thinking about culture is to contrast it with nature. According to C. Kramsch “Nature refers to what is born and grows organically; culture refers to what has been grown and groomed”. Emily Dickinson’s poem expresses well the relationship of nature, culture and language. A rose in a flower bed, says the poem, a generic rose is a phenomenon of nature. Beautiful but faceless and nameless among others of the same species. Nature alone cannot reveal nor preserve the particular beauty of a particular rose at a chosen moment in time. Powerless to prevent the biological “decay” and the ultimate death of roses and of ladies, nature can only make summer when the season is right. Culture, by contrast, is not bound by biological time. Like nature, it is a “gift”, but of different kind. Through a sophisticated technological procedure, developed especially to extract the essence of roses, culture forces nature to reveal its “essential” potentialities. The word “screws” suggests that this process is not without labour. By crushing the petals, a great deal of the rose must be lost in order to get at its essence. The technology of the screws constrains the exuberance of nature, in the same manner as the technology of the world. Culture makes the rose petals into a rare perfume, purchased at high cost, for the particular, personal use of a particular lady. The lady may die, but the fragrance of the rose’s essence can make her immortal, in the same manner as the language of the poem 12 immortalizes both the rose and the lady, and brings both back to life in the imagination of its readers. The poem itself bears testimony that nature and culture both need each other. The poem wouldn’t have been written if there were not natural roses; but it not be understood if it didn’t share with its readers some common assumptions and expectations about rose gardens, technological achievements, historic associations regarding ladies, roses, and perfumes... Similarly, let us consider the poem “Tát nc  u ình”, a Vietnamese folklore to see the relationship between culture, nature and language: “Hôm qua tát n
c u ình B quên chic áo trên cành hoa sen. Em 
c thì cho anh xin Hay là em  làm tin trong nhà áo anh s t ch 
ng tà V anh ch
a có, m già ch
a khâu. áo anh s t ch ã lâu Mai nh cô y v khâu cho cùng. Khâu ri anh s tr công, n khi l y chng, anh s giúp cho, Giúp cho mt gánh xôi vò, Mt con ln béo, mt vò r
u tm. Giúp em ôi chiu em nm, ôi chn em p, ôi chm em eo. Giúp em quan tám tin treo, Quan nm tin c
i li èo bung cau.” According to Vietnamese culture, “gánh xôi vò”, ‘con l n béo’, ‘vò r u tm’, ‘ôi chiu’, ‘ôi chn’, ‘quan tám tin treo’, ‘quan nm tin ci’, ‘bu ng cau’... are symbols of a wedding. Those who share Vietnamese culture may understand that the man in the poem borrows cultural symbols to express his love to his woman. So let us come to the next concept. 1.2.2 Communities and their effects on Language Users. According to C. Kramsch, “Social conventions, norms of social appropriateness, are the product of communities of language users”. As in the Dickinson’s poem, poets and 13 readers, florists and lovers, horticulturists, rose press manufacturers, perfume-makers and users, create meanings through their words and actions. Likewise, the man and the woman in “Tát nc  u ình” use their words and actions to express their meanings. Kramsch said that “people who identify themselves as member of social group (family, neighborhood...) acquire common ways of viewing the world through their interactions with other members of the same group” (C. Kramsch, 2000, 6). These views are reinforced through institutions like the family, the school, the workplace... through their lives. Common attitudes, beliefs and values are reflected in the way members of the group use language - for example, what they choose to say and how they say it (C. Kramsch, 2000, 6). Thus, in addition to