Đề tài A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese

PART I INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In Vietnamese, the verb ‘chạy’ does not only indicate a physical activity only but also imply other situations in real life communication. To some extent, it is not too difficult to find such circumstances in which people use the verb ‘chạy’: ‘chạy ăn từng bữa toát mồ hôi’, ‘chạy làng’, ‘chạy triện đồng’ etc. Especially, modern Vietnamese language, which has developed and reflected the life in its own way, has been supplemented with many new words, or new interpretations to the existing words such as ‘chạy điểm’, ‘chạy trường’, ‘chạy án’, ‘chạy thận, ‘chạy sô’, etc. The verb ‘run’ in English, similarly, is rich in meaning which can be listed some expressions like ‘run in the race’, ‘run a company’, ‘run a risk’, ‘run a temperature’, ‘run the risk’ etc. How do English people find equivalents for such expressions like ‘chạy tang’, ‘chạy làng’, ‘chạy mả’, etc. in their language, and how do Vietnamese people translate such expressions like ‘run guns’, ‘hit and run’, etc? This is the very question that seriously runs in the author’s mind. Language is widely accepted as the reflection of life. By comparing languages, the similarities and differences not only between the languages but also between the speakers of the languages as well as their cultures can be revealed. R.J. D Pietro (1971:12), a French educational linguist, believed that CA was founded on the foreign language teaching experiences. Each language has its own phonological, morphological and syntactical features that could present difficulties for language learners. To help overcome specific teaching and learning predicaments, this thesis has been made with an attempt to create a definite pedagogical value with its presentation of effective teaching strategies. On these points of departure, the author has conducted the study entitled “A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese”. 2. Aims of the Study The study is aimed at: * Finding the similarities and differences between the verb ‘run’ in English and the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese mainly in terms of MiCA and briefly in term of MaCA; * Providing recommendations for the teaching and learning as well as some tips when translating ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ into the target language. To fully achieve these aims, the study should answer the following questions: What are the grammatical and semantic features of each verb and how are they similar and different in terms of these features? What are their synonyms and idioms? What are the implications of the study for EFL teaching/learning and translation? 3. Scope of the Study This is a minor thesis. Consequently, it is unfeasible to discuss both the verbs in terms of MiCA and MaCA in details. Therefore, within this study, the author focuses on analyzing and contrasting them in terms of MiCA (concerning grammatical and semantic features of the two verbs), and just briefs the similarities and differences between them concerned with MaCA. The verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ have numerous synonyms and are used in relevant idioms. Thus, after an overview on them is given, some most common ones shall be introduced. 4. Methods of the Study The study has been carried out based on a combination of different methods as follow: - Document; - Synthesize and; - Analyze and contrast; The procedures of the study are: - To synthesize meanings of ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ as well as examples to illustrate from different sources such as from dictionaries, literary works, newspapers, magazines, films, native speakers and websites. - To collect synonyms of each verb as well as idioms in which they are used. - To analyze and contrast each verb in terms of MiCA and MaCA respectively to make clear the similarities and differences between them. - To suggest how to apply these findings to the language teaching/learning and translation. 5. Design of the Study The study consists of three parts organized as follows: Part I entitled “INTRODUCTION” outlining the background of the study in which a brief account of relevant information such as the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study are provided. Part II, the “INVESTIGATION”, is subdivided into two chapters. The first Chapter is discussed the “THEORETICAL BACKGROUND” which provides necessary and relevant theoretical concepts for the main contents of the study, covering a series of concepts ranging from CA, contrasts between MiCA and MaCA, verbs in English and in Vietnamese, a brief introduction of synonyms, and idioms. Chapter 2: “A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN THE VERB ‘RUN’ IN ENGLISH AND THE VERB ‘CHẠY’ IN VIETNAMESE” discusses the two verbs in terms of MiCA and MaCA in succession. Each chapter ends with some concluding remarks. Part III, the “CONCLUSION”, which provides recapitulation, implications of the study for EFL teaching and learning and to translation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa, and recommendations for further research. The “REFERENCES” and “SOURCES OF THE DATA” mark the end of the thesis. PART II INVESTIGATION CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1. An Overview on Contrastive Analysis 1.1.1. Definition The modern foreign language teaching tendency requires the teachers not only to teach their learners about the language but also how to use the language. To a certain extent, CA was established to meet that requirement. According to Richards, J.C et al (1992), CA is “the comparison of the linguistic systems of two languages, for example the sound system or the grammatical system,” From Carl James’ view (1980:2) CA is “a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted (i.e. contrastive, not comparative) two values typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the assumption that languages can be compared.” CA describes similarities and differences among two or more languages at such levels as phonology, grammar, pragmatics, and semantics. According to Carl James (1980), CA is both a form of pure linguistics and applied linguistics. However, CA is only a peripheral enterprise in pure linguistics. CA is central concern of applied linguistics. So the term CA we use within this study intends “Applied CA”. 1.1.2. CA and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Charles Fries (1945:9) wrote: “The most efficient materials are those that are based upon a scientific description of letthe language to be learned, carefully compared with a parallel description of the native language of the learner”. Robert Lado (1957) thought: “Individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture- both productively and when attempting to speak the language and to act in the culture and receptively when attempting to grasp and understand the language and culture as practiced by natives.” Then Lado made a conclusion that “those elements which are similar to the learner's native language will be simple for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult". Obviously, teachers can make use of CA to minimize the effects of that interference. Contrastive Analysis is not merely relevant for second language teaching and learning but it can also make useful contributions to machine translating and linguistics typology. It is relevant to the designing of teaching materials for use in all age groups. Le Quang Thiem (2004:69) confirmed that CA helps to find out the root of mistakes that language learners may make. 1.1.3. MiCA versus MaCA MiCA and MaCA are broad terms, which refer to two major types of linguistics. Microlinguistics refers to phonetics, phonology, grammar and semantics, whereas Macrolinguistics covers sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and other related disciplines. In sociolinguistics, the micro level is often equated with variation and face-to-face communication, whereas macro sociolinguistics involves language planning and sociology of language. In microlinguistics’ view, languages should be analyzed for their own sake and without reference to their social function, to the manner in which they are acquired by children, to the psychological mechanisms that underlie the production and reception of speech, to the literary and the aesthetic or communicative function of language, and so on. For example, a study of this kind often finds out what the consonant phonemes in languages X and Y are, how they differ in inventory, realization and distribution; what the tense system of language X and Y, etc. The main aim of MiCA is a formal description of the language system based on the interrelationships and independencies of its elements without any recourse to external factors. Obviously, the translation situation which involves equivalent messages, that is speech units or texts, in two different languages is not part of the system of either of these languages and can not be studied and described in terms of microlinguistics. Macolinguistics is the term that Yngve (1975) calls ‘broad’ or ‘human’ linguistics aiming at achieving a scientific understanding of how people communicate or we may define macrolinguistics as a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense and including cultural and behavioral features associated with language. Carl James (1980) suggested that “the communicating individual must be able to identify the situational constraints to which speech events are subjects and produce utterances that conform to them.” Hymes (1974) identifies six variables which he suggests the ethnographer of speaking must refer to in characterizing any particular event, they are setting, participants, purpose, key, content, and channel. Whereas, Carl James (1980:101) simplified these six variables in to “who says what to whom, where and when, how and why” 1.2. A Brief Description of Verbs In most languages, verbs are part of speech expressing existence, action, or occurrence. According to Jack C. Richards et al (1992:398), a word is a verb when it satisfies these following criteria: Occurs as part of the predicate of a sentence; Caries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, person, number, and mood; and Refers to an action or state. Generally in English, the verb tense shows the time of the action or state; the aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state. In English, for example, the past-tense sentences ‘I swam’ and ‘I was swimming’ differ in aspect (the first sentence is in what is called the perfective or completive aspect, and the second in what is called the imperfective or durative aspect); voice is used to show relationships between the action and the people affected by it; mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal modality. It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English. To some extent, the same word patterns are used to express more than one of these concepts at the same time, mood shows the attitude of the speaker about the verb currently identified moods include conditional, imperative, indicative, injunctive, optative, potential, subjunctive, and more. Verbs can be affected by person and number to show agreement with the subject. Some English verblike forms have properties of two parts of speech (e.g., participles may be used as adjectives and gerunds as nouns). On the contrary, verbs in Vietnamese do not have the concord with other parts of speech. In other words, they are not affected by number, person, gender, mood, voice, and tense. In Vietnamese, “A sentence refers to the basic time of the context—that is the time which has been made clear in the context up to that point." (Thompson 1965:209), in addition, when functioning as central component of a verb phrase, verb can combine with other modal auxiliary components before it to indicate scope of the action or activity such as ‘cũng’, ‘đều’, ‘cứ’, etc. to indicate continuation like ‘còn’, ‘vẫn’, etc.; to indicate tense, aspect such as ‘sắp’, ‘đang’, ‘sẽ’, ‘đã’, etc.; to refer to negative meaning, for example: ‘chưa’, ‘không’, ‘chẳng’, etc.; to indicate advice or prohibit such as: ‘hãy’, ‘đừng’, ‘chớ’, and so on. However, as Cao Xuan Hao suggested, such auxiliary components, especially ‘sắp’, ‘đang’, ‘sẽ’, ‘đã’ should be used with great care because in some cases these auxiliaries do not at all indicate the tense. For instances, a soldier reunited with his family for five days, and the next day when he had to come back to his military unit. His wife said to him: “Ngày mai anh đã đi rồi à?”, “đã” here does not indicate tense, it just helps to show regret. Obviously, in Vietnamese, context holds the key factor to define tense of the verbs. In each language, there are different ways to classify verbs, however, in this thesis, the classification of which verbs are divided into transitive and intransitive verbs shal be applied, which would be convenient to compare the two verbs ‘run’ in English and ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese. According to Diệp Quang Ban and Hoàng Văn Thung, intransitive verb does not need a direct object to function, for examples: Dung đang chạy tung tăng trong công viên (Dung is running here and there in the park); Bé Ball ngủ say trong vòng tay mẹ (Little Ball is fast sleeping in her mother’s arms), He is running in a park near by, etc., transitive verbs, in contrast, can not stand alone, they need help from other words to complete their meaning as in: Anh ta đã bán cổ phần của mình cho tôi (He sold me his stocks); Họ soạn thảo lại hợp đồng (They redrafted the contract); Chị ta đang bàn giao sổ sách cho người kế nhiệm (She is handing over the records for the successor); or They ran their own company for years. In both languages, verbs indicating movement can combine with words of directions. For example: run upstairs; come down; go over; or chạy lên; đi xuống, etc. However, in Vietnamese, there exist directional verbs in their own sense such as: ‘ra’, ‘vào’/‘vô’, ‘lên’, ‘xuống’, ‘qua’, and so on as in: - “Đường vô xứ Nghệ quanh quanh Non xanh nước biếc như tranh họa đồ” (Vietnamese proverb) 1.3. Meanings of Meaning Meaning refers to what a language expresses about the world we live in or any possible or imaginary world. The theories of meaning and its types can be found in the literature of Leech (1974), Lyon (1977), (1995), Palmer (1981), and Crystal (1995). There are two types of meanings: grammatical meaning and lexical meaning. According to Lyons (1995:52) a lexeme may have different word-forms which will generally differ in their grammatical meaning. For example, the forms of ‘teacher’ and ‘teachers’ differ in respect of their grammatical meaning. ‘Teacher’ is singular form (of a noun of a particular class), and ‘teachers’ is plural form (of a noun of a particular class); and the difference between singular forms and plural form is semantically relevant: it affects sentence meaning. The meaning of a sentence is determined partly by the meaning of the words of which it consists and partly by its grammatical meaning. Baker (1992:12) stated that lexical meaning of a word may be viewed as the specific value it has in a particular linguistic system. It is the most outstanding individual property of words, and in contrast with grammatical meaning, it can stand on its own. Different types of lexical meaning as recognized by Leech (1974) are: (1) Conceptual meaning: Logical, cognitive, or denotative content. (2) Associative meaning - Connotative meaning: What is communicated in terms of what language refers to. - Social meaning: What is communicated of the social circumstances of language use. - Affective meaning: What is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer. - Reflected meaning: What is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression. - Collocative meaning: What is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word. (3) Thematic meaning: What is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis. Do Huu Chau (1999:111-130) uses the terms ‘ý nghĩa biểu vật’ (denotational meaning) and ‘ý nghĩa biểu niệm’ (connotational meaning) to generalize the meanings of words in Vietnamese. According to him, entities and phenomenon in the objective world are reflected in the mind as the concepts and reflected in the language as the denotational meanings which lead to the relevant connotational meanings. Therefore, to some extent, in terms of lexical meaning, verbs in English and in Vietnamese are similar. However, they differ in respect of grammatical meaning. English verbs carry two kinds of meanings; meanwhile, Vietnamese verbs themselves do not carry grammatical meaning such as tense, aspect, etc. 1.4. Synonyms Synonyms are different words with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. Synonymy is a kind of sense relation or more specifically, one of the substitutional sense relations. Jack C. Richards et al (1992:368) defined synonym as a word which has the same or nearly the same meaning as another word. It should be noted that two words which are synonymous must belong to the same part of speech. Lyon (1995:60) divides synonyms into three kinds: absolute synonyms, near synonyms and partial synonyms. However, some linguists such as Jack C. Richards et al (1992:368), Palmer (1981:88) argue that no two words have exactly the same meaning (denotational and connotational meanings). Absolute synonyms, according to Lyon (1995:61), must satisfy three conditions: all their meanings are identical; they are synonymous in all contexts; they are semantically equivalent (i.e. their meaning or meanings are identical) on all dimensions of meaning, descriptive and non-descriptive. Some lexicographers claim that in English, no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. make them unique. Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long and extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm is not the same as an extended arm). Therefore, in this study, only partial synonyms of “run” are dealt with. However, absolute synonyms can be found in Vietnamese as in: ‘sân bay’ and ‘phi trường’; ‘ti vi’ and ‘máy vô tuyến’, ‘bóng đá’ and ‘túc cầu’, etc. 1.5. Idioms Idioms are widely defined as words collocated together that happen to become fossilized, becoming fixed over time. This collocation words commonly used in a group and changes the definition of each of the words that exist. The collocated words develop a specialized meaning as a whole and an idiom is born. An expression is an idiom, described by Jon Wright (1999:7), when it carries the following features: 1. It is fixed and it is recognized by native speakers. You cannot make up your own! 2. It uses language in a non-literal-metaphorical-way. According to Jack C. Richards et al (1992:172), idiom is an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from its separate parts. This view is shared by Robins (1989), Palmer (1981), Jackson and Evenla (2000), Seidle (1978), Jack C. Richards et al (1992:172), and Cruse (1986). For example, ‘Still waters run deep’ - the collocation of ‘still’, ‘water’, ‘run’ and ‘deep’ is an idiom meaning ‘something thay you say which means people who say very little often have very interesting and complicated personalities’ (suggested Vietnamese equivalent idiom is ‘thẩm lẩm, thầm lầm mà đấm chết voi’ which is not systematically determinable from the meaning of its constituents. Palmer (1981) states that an idiom is semantically like a word but it does not function like a word. For example, if an idiom may be inflected, the inflectional affixes are carried by the grammatical appropriate elements within the idioms whether or not they are semantic constituents. To put in a nutshell, discussion on idioms explains one of the reason why we conduct this thesis which help to reduce difficulties that learners of the second language may face when dealing with idioms with “run” and “chạy”. 1.6. Concluding Remarks Theoretical background for the contrastive analysis between the verb “run” in English and the verb “chạy” in Vietnamese in terms of Mic and Mac has been introduced in this chapter. Readers are provided with an overview on CA, brieft contrasts between MiCA and MaCA, and between verbs in English and verbs in Vietnamese. Moreover, different kinds of meaning, synonyms and idioms are also discussed. Based on this theoretical foundation, we will commence chapter 2 “A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese”. CHAPTER 2 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN THE VERB ‘RUN’ IN ENGLISH AND THE VERB ‘CHẠY’ IN VIETNAMESE With the aims of drawing an overall picture of the two relevant verbs in the English and Vietnamese languages, the author made effort to deeply investigate into the objective verbs by analyzing and synthesizing basing on more than twenty English dictionaries; over ten Vietnamese dictionaries; hundreds of writing works; valuable addition from colleagues and revision from the respected supervisor. In this part, we firstly study the two verbs in terms of MiCA. The verbs will be studied separately within two of the three aspects of MiCA: the grammatical features, the semantic features which are focused to figure out their general meanings and meanings in some idioms respectively, the synonyms of each verbs are also discussed. Then the findings are reached with the statements on the similarities and differences between the objects of the study. This chapter is followed up with the analysis and contrast the “run” and “chạy” in terms of MaCA which is much related to extralinguistic components. 2.1. A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘Run’ in English and the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese in Terms of Microlinguistics As we already mentioned in the early parts, in terms of microlinguistics the verb ‘run’ in English will be worked with three features: grammatical features (including syntactic and morphological features) and semantic features. 2.1.1. An Investigation into the Verb ‘Run’ in English 2.1.1.1. Grammatical Features 2.1.1.1.1. Syntactic Features ‘Run’ is an ordinary verb, sharing the typical syntactic functions of a verb, as following: Being part of the predicate of a sentence. For example: - Barack Obama's campaign ran a 30-minute advertisement simultaneously on multiple television networks in an attempt to reach and sway a large number of undecided voters. (17:1) - It's hard to explain, but you must run as fast as you can using as little energy as possible. (24:2) - If you don't run very fast in practice, you won't be able to run very fast in races. (17:3) (b) Derivates of ‘run’ have different grammatical functions such as subjects, objects, or complements, etc. as in: - Running so fast made him exhausted. - Not everybody is fast enough to run in the Olympics. (2:48) - When U.S. inflation was running at 20 percent, he forecasted that inflation would remain in the double digits. (8:67) - So who is the greatest runner of all time? That would have to be Michael Johnson. (24:5) (c) Carries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspects, person, number and mood as in: - As I said, all of this ran through my mind as I sat in my airplane seat high over the Atlantic. (7:289) - And she was running, running for her life, her feet flying across the fields. (14:65) (d) ‘Run’ is both a transitive and intransitive verb. This means ‘run’ can work with or without objects. As an intransitive verb: - I am always running about, looking for my glasses. - Sorry, I have to run. As a transitive verb: - Disney runs a training program that lasts a week in order to convey what experience the company wants customers to have at Disneyland. (12:33) 2.1.1.1.2. Morphological features The verb ‘run’ consists of one morpheme as a root. According to Quirk et al (1987), like many other English verbs, it has five typical forms: the base ‘run’, the –s form ‘runs’, the past form ‘ran’, the past participle stays ‘run’, and the –ing participle ‘running’. By means of derivation, the verb ‘run’ itself is also a noun and an adjective, as in ‘It is a two minutes' run from the subway’ or ‘Put some more run butter on the vegetables’. Besides, it has several derivates as follow: Runner (noun): one who runs; candidate, competitor. Running (noun): act of jogging or moving quickly; act of competing in a race or election, as in ‘Running in the early morning is my hobby’ Runnable (adjective): may be run, as in ‘The car is still runnable.’ Runny (adjective): characteristic of a fluid; capable of flowing and easily changing shape, as in ‘runny jam’. Rerun (verb): run again; reshowing of a program or film Overrun (verb/noun): invade; infest; swarm; triumph; exceed; print excess amount, etc. Underrun (verb): pass below, run underneath; pass below and inspect something from beneath in a water vessel, etc. Runnel/runlet (noun): rivulet, small brook, stream. Run is also used in such many compounds as ‘runaway’ (an airstrip, strip of pavement on which airplanes take off and land); ‘hit-and-run’ (automobile accident in which a driver who hits a pedestrian or a car drives off to avoid taking responsibility); ‘runtime’ (time of operation of computer software); runway (a hard surface along with aircraft take off and land); runner up (candidate, contestant; one who finishes second in a competition); runaround (evasive act, stalling tactic ; run down criticize); run over (hit with a vehicle; chase and capture; become exhausted; make less valuable); chicken run (an enclosed yard for keeping poultry); etc. 2.1.1.2. Semantic Features On the ground of semantic features, the author attempts to discuss different senses of ‘run’ in general, and in idioms as well as its synonyms. Like any other lexical verbs, ‘run’ indicates an action or state, e.g. - Now with me you won't have to run for your money, all you have to do is to hold out your hand." (6:27) - To escape from his look I ran into the garden. (6:36) - The veins in his forehead stood out, the tears ran from his eyes,.. (6:155) 2.1.1.2.1. General Meanings Together with the development of the Information Technology, nowadays, the knowledge resources are available in any corners of the world. Statistics on www.answer.com show a huge numbers of dictionary services which are mainly the English dictionaries. Therefore, defining the meaning of a single word is very convenient. Hereby, the most popular and reliable ones are attempted to select by the author. Moreover, the illustrative examples are also cited from trustworthy and famous works. Therefore, by collecting, synthesizing and analyzing from diversified resources we categorize the general meanings of the verb “run” into twenty-seven groups which are described as follows: (1). To move quickly According to the www.wikipedia.org (open Encyclopedia), originally, the verb “run” derive etymologically from the Germanic root *rūnō. Cognate with the Old Saxon rūna, Old High German rūna (and German Raun), and Old Norse rūn. Probably, running rapidly and more rapidly is always one target of the living. Early men tried to run fast for hunting and in the current time people keep running even faster for modern needs. To define this basic meaning of the verb “run”, the Wikidictionary generalizes ‘to go at fast pace, to move quickly’; the Encarta Dictionary gives a similar definition that shows the physical feature of the action ‘to move rapidly on foot so that both feet are momentarily off the ground in each step’. For example: "Walk quick, but don't run," he whispered. (6:486) Run, Sarah, run! Quickly, run and tell your father what has happened. (9:106) You can swim, run, or rollerblade. (2:66) Also referring to this meaning, ‘run’ can be understood as to cover a specified distance by running; to practice running as a sport; to take part or complete in a running race; to cause a race to take place: - Who was the first man to run a hundred metes under 10 seconds? - The Grand National will be run in spite of the bad weather. Besides, ‘run’ expresses the act of moving freely and without restrain or act as if running around in an uncontrolled way, e.g. Dr. Hutchins running around the room, aimlessly, attempting to gather himself, his things, and escape all at the same time. (13:108) I have three of them. All day they are running around, troubling their mother. (11:312) (2). To be hurried In order to shorten the time and distance or to get out of the bad situations, instinctively, people run (away). Bellow examples well describe the uses of ‘run’ in this meaning. - Sampson ran as he never had before, in the grip of the coldest fear of his life. His feet pounded heavily on the side walk stone. His heart felt heavy, ready to break. He couldn’t catch a breath, and he was certain he would throw up if he didn’t stop running this second. (7:220) - Fortunately, I had reached the bottom of the hill and I could run quicker across the grass. Although I raced at the top of my speed, the Thing was gaining upon me. There was no need for me to look behind, I knew that it was just at the back of me. I could scarcely breathe. My race had almost exhausted me; my breath came in gasps. (6:113) The earlier is quoted from one of most famous novel by American writer James Patterson ‘Cat and Mouse’, the latter from the immortal “Nobody’s boy” by Hector Mailot. Relating to this group, ‘run’ is also used to indicate the act of moving around asking for help, i.e. turn to somebody for assistance, especially in desperation of as a dependant to a protector, as in ‘I often ran to my brother for money when I was a student 5 years ago.’ (3). To spread This meaning refers to things that cannot run physically, but actually, they could spread very quickly. Vietnamese equivalent should be ‘lan ra’, ‘tràn ra’, ‘lan tràn’… For instance, ‘There’s a strange story running around the neighborhood.’ should be understood that the story cannot run around the neighborhood at all, but the strange feature makes people spread it all around. Another case like ‘The flu is running through my daughter’s kindergarten.’, ‘running’ should be understood as ‘spreading’. (4). To cause/make move quickly This meaning is normally used when we make something move quickly as we need: - I was going to win, and I was going to run that last kite. (11:50) - For example, speed is useful only if you are running in the right direction.(12:70) Moreover, ‘run’ can be understood as travelling regular over a set route, or causing somebody or something to travel regularly over a set route, as in ‘run a shuttle between stations’. (5). To control or manage This meaning is widely found in business language, e.g.: - You don’t run a business solely dependent on finding new customers (4:58) - Running Chrysler has been a bigger job than running the country… (10:29) - When you run an honest business you stand a much better chance at success. Vietnamese equivalents should be ‘điều hành’; ‘quản lý’; ‘chịu trách nhiệm’. (6). To flow This meaning normally refers to the flow of a liquid, especially in a steady stream, for example: - The river runs through the forest. - Your nose is running. Relating to this sense, ‘run’ can also be understood as to be wet or covered with a liquid; to melt and flow; or to have a liquid flowing from an object. - The mourners’ eyes ran with tears. - A hot flame will make the solder run. Moreover, ‘run’ in this group should be interpreted as to make a liquid flow or to make a liquid flow from an object, as in ‘You’ll have to run the water for a while before it gets hot.’ ‘Run’ also denotes the state of releasing mucus or discharging a fluid such as pus or mucus, as in ‘His lip was bloodied and more of the same was running from his nose in a thick trickle.’ (13:65) Interestingly, ‘run’ show the ‘flow’ of time, e.g. Mallory was getting desperate. His time was running out too fast. (15:40) (7). To move forward When describing the act of moving forward smoothly or easily, especially on wheels we can use ‘run’: “Hey,” she said breathlessly, having clearly just run up the stairs. “Can I borrow your calculator?” (5:87) Describing the act of quick moving in the specified direction or the cause of something to move in the specified direction, we also use ‘run’: …Wladek, whom he clasped on to firmly, running his fingers over the boy's chest as if to be sure that it was him. (9:108) (8). To extent, to last, to continue There are four sub-groups relating to this meaning of the verb run. First, this denotes the extension in space through a range of possibilities that often combine with a measure phrase: The border runs for 3000 kilometers. It ran in quality from excellent to substandard. Second, ‘run’ describes the extension, duration and continuing of time which also used with measure phrase: The sale will run for ten days. Election campaigns in Britain run for three weeks. Third, ‘run’ can be understood as to be valid for the specified period of time: The contract runs through 2009. The lease on my house has only a year to run. Last, ‘run’ should be understood as to make something extent in space, as in ‘I need to run this wire along the wall.’ (9). To be operating/working Run, in term of the language of engineering or the language of information technology, can be widely used to denote the operation of a machine or a computer program, for examples: My motorbike stopped running because of the heavy rain. "You can forget about running a computer. They're not going to hire anybody with a record...." (14:238) Functioning as transitive, run means to make something operate or function, as in: Do not run the engine again until it completely cools, usually overnight is best. (23) (10). To execute/perform/organize Run is normally used to mean that a plan, procedure or program is executed, e.g. - They have run twenty blood tests on me and they still don’t know what’s wrong. - Do not run that software unless you have the silence key. Similarly, something is made available to people we can also use run to describe, e.g. - The college runs summer courses for foreign learner of Vietnamese. (11). To be a candidate/ to stand If someone is a candidate in an election for a political position we can use the verb ‘run’ to describe, as following: - Reagan ran a second time in 1980. - The Hollywood Reporter claimed shortly after that Schwarzenegger sought to end speculation that he might run for governor of California. (22) Transitively, ‘run’ herewith means to make run in a race or an election, e.g. - McKinney is running for president as Green candidate. (19) - "You sure set this town on its ass. They oughta run you for people's mayor." (12). To print and publish When we want to mean that something is offered in one of the media, then use ‘run’: - Fortunately, most papers prefer to run stories that include real news, not stuff about some prep school’s efforts to get ready for a presidential visitation. (3:112) - As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to run stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq. (18) Vietnamese equivalent should be ‘đăng’; ‘đăng tải’; ‘giật tít’, etc. (13). To convey or transport We can use the verb run when we want to express act of taking someone to a place by a certain means of transportation, e.g. Can you run me to the station? I will run you home. Ok? (14). To be affected/ be subjected to This is a quite special meaning of the verb ‘run’. Normally, referring the same sense, people use the verb ‘have’. By using ‘run’ we put the emphasis on the progress of the effect: She found him covered in little red spots and running a temperature of one hundred and three. (6:46) When she tucked William up in bed that night, she found that he had been as good as his word and was running a slight fever. (9:78) (15). To think about When talking about ideas that suddenly happen to the mind or mentioning the process of thinking we can make use of the verb ‘run’, for examples: - Orsatti sat there, running the name through the computer in his brain. (14:178) - Paranoia was starting to run a little wild in my head. (7:142) - It was two cases, both running concurrently in my mind. (7:260) (16). To smuggle To the author’s surprise, the verb ‘run’ can be use to describe the act of bringing or taking something into a country illegally and secretly, e.g. - He used to run arms across the border of Cambodia. - Obama win triggers run on guns in many stores. (17) (17). To pass/ to become The verb ‘run’ is also used to denote the act of passing into or reaching the specified state. In other words, it can be understood as becoming in cases below: - The river ran dry during the drought. - I’ve run short of money. - A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry. (1:2) ‘Run’ is also used to show the tendency, such as: - Finally, my music style runs to classical. - The fashion will run to yellow this season. Vietnamese equivalent should be ‘trở nên’ or ‘trở thành’, ‘có xu hướng’, etc. (18). To dissolve/melt This meaning is often used to refer to the state of dye of color in a piece of clothing: - She was afraid the color ran when she washes her new skirt. By means of a solid substance, run can be understood as melting, e.g. - The tears blurred her eyes and the words of his letter began to run into one another. (19). To pursue The verb ‘run’ is well defined for the meaning of pursuing or chasing. We can use ‘run’ in ‘man runs after woman’; the poor runs for a better life; or even dog runs after deer; etc. (20). To cost By means of costing, we often use ‘run’ to imply that we have to spend a large amount of money buying or getting something, e.g. - Buying a house in Hanoi this time will run you years in debt. - The luxurious wedding runs him a million USD. (21). To be valid With this meaning, run can be used to show the state of being valid in a given area or being present as a valid accomplishment, e.g. The speed limit runs only in the town line. The benefits run together with the duties. (22). To be stated or worded (in a certain manner) ‘Run’ can be used to show the particular form, order, or expression, e.g. The report runs as follows. The story ran a very happy ending. (23). Other meanings ‘Run’ can be understood as to say (in a certain manner). We discover this interesting meaning in the novel ‘The big rusty lie’ by American writer Ryan Speck shown in the sentence: You might get in less trouble if you learned not to run that mouth, boy.” (13:83) Run can be used to describe the state of unraveling of such types of material as nylon; silk, cloth or cotton, e.g. Her nylons were running. Her stocking ran. Sometimes, people use ‘run’ to indicate the state of appearing recurrently as a feature or quality, e.g. - Musical talent runs in the family - Stubbornness runs in the class. 2.1.1.2.2. Meanings in Some Idioms Being a typical action verb, ‘run’ does not only function as polysemy but also the root of many related idioms. The combination of ‘run’ with its favorite words makes a lot of senses for the treasure of the English language. In the table below, the author tries to list some of the most popular idioms that run with ‘run’. No Idioms Meanings Examples 1 A run for one’s money - Strong competition - Decent compensation - Running for money doesn’t make you run fast. It makes you run first. (Jipcho, Ben) - I feel I've had an excellent run for my money and now I'm happy to retire. 2 In the long run In the final analysis or outcome ‘An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run. ’( Harris, Sidney J). 3 Hold with the hare and run with the hounds - To oppose an action or behavior and yet engage in the same action or behavior - To remain neutral by attempting to placate two factions or both sides of a controversy. - Well, if you ask me, Pastor Hawkins is trying to hold with the hare and run with the hounds by opposing casino gambling when his church operates a bingo game every Thursday night. - Julianna needs to be careful if she keeps holding with the hare and running with the hounds; she might wind up making enemies of both labor and management. 4 (One) can run but (one) can't hide There is nothing someone can do to evade something. - You can run away but you can't hide. (Cry on my shoulder’s lyric) 5 Make somebody's blood run cold To frighten or horrify somebody - Her voice makes his blood run cold. 6 Run a risk Expose oneself to the possibility of something unpleasant occurring.   - It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home. (Roosevelt, Theodore) 7 Run deep If a feeling or a problem goes deep, it is very strong or serious and has existed for a long time - Still waters run deep (English proverb) 8 Run before you can walk To try to do something complicated and difficult before you have learned the basic skills you need to attempt it. - I think you should stick to a simple menu for your dinner party. There's no point trying to run before you can walk 9 Run like the wild To run very fast. She's very slight in build and she can run like the wind. II.1.1.2.3. Synonyms of ‘Run’ When the Creator brought human being to this world, the language was born simultaneously. It is the demand for people’s communication that enriches the treasury of vocabulary. English itself does not run off these common rules. The verb ‘run’ in the English language, as we mentioned previously, functions typically as a polysemantic word. This naturally brings about great numbers of other relevant words or phrases that conform to the synonymic features of the verb ‘run’ Theoretically, synonyms can be classified into five main kinds: semantic synonyms, stylistic synonyms, semantic-stylistic synonyms, phrase-logical synonyms and territorial synonyms. Here, we would like to focus its semantic synonyms of eighteen basic meanings of the verb ‘run’ (1). With the sense of moving fast by using one's feet, with one foot off the ground at any given time run is synonymous with ‘travel rapidly’, ‘speed’, ‘hurry’, ‘zip’, ‘run away’. For example: - Don't hurry! You will be out of breath. - I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move. (Stevenson, Robert Louis) (2). Concerning the act of stretching out over a distance, space, time, or scope; run or extend between two points or beyond a certain point, ‘run’ has such synonyms as ‘go’, ‘pass’, ‘ lead’, ‘extend’, ‘be’, ‘run along’. For examples: - His knowledge does not go very far. - My memory extends back to my fourth year of life. - The facts extend beyond a consideration of her personal assets (3). In respect to describing the act of directing or controlling projects, businesses, etc, ‘run’ is similar to ‘operate’, direct’, ‘manage’, ‘control’. - She is controlling/running a relief operation in the Sudan. - If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself. Do that well and you'll be ready to stop managing. And start leading. (4). With regard to the state of having a particular form, ‘run’ can be replaced by ‘go, be’, as in ‘the story/argument is/goes/runs/ as follows’; ‘as the saying goes/runs...’ (5). By the meaning of moving along (of liquids), such words as ‘flow’, ‘feed’, ‘course’, ‘move’, ‘run over’ can be used instead of ‘run’: - Water flowed into the cave. - The Missouri feeds into the Mississippi. (6). When using ‘run’ to mean performing as expected when applied, user can also make use of words like ‘function’, ‘work’, ‘operate’, ‘go’: - The washing machine will not go unless it is plugged in. - This old radio doesn't work anymore. (7). With the meaning as to change or be different within limits, ‘run’ is synonymous with ‘range’, ‘be’ - Estimates for the losses in the earthquake range as high as $2 billion. - Interest rate is from 5 to 10 percent. (8). Concerning the act of standing or competing for an office or a position, user can replace ‘run’ by ‘campaign’, ‘race’ - He campaigned for governor of Florida while running his company. (10:46) - Although I raced at the top of my speed, the thing was gaining upon me. (6:70) (9). Relating to the sense of having a tendency or disposition to do or be something, ‘run’ has such synonyms as ‘ tend’, ‘be given’, ‘lean’,’ incline’, ‘be’ - The same corrupt dispositions which incline men to sinful ways of getting, will incline them to the like sinful ways of spending." (Henry, M.) (10). In order to show the act of processing or carrying out a program or a machine, ‘run’ can be replaced by such synonyms as ‘execute’, ‘enforce’, ‘implement’, ‘explore’, ‘apply’: - A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week. (Patton, George S.) (11). ‘Run’ is synonymous to ‘become’, ‘go’, ‘get’ in case that we define the state of changing from one state to another: - Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. (12). With the meaning ‘continue to exist’, ‘run’ is quite perfectly replaced by ‘prevail’, ‘persist’, ‘die hard’, ‘endure’, ‘continue’: - It is well, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go. (Washington, George ) - I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. (Faulkner, William) (13). When being understood as to guide or pass over something, ‘run’ has such synonyms as ‘guide’, ‘draw’, ‘pass’: - Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners. (Sterne, Laurence) (14). If we use ‘run’ to describe the act of bringing or taking something into a country illegally and secretly; just exploit ‘traffic’, ‘trade’, ‘merchandise’, ‘smuggle’, as in ‘By law, it’s illegal to traffic in drugs.’. (15). ‘Run’ is a synonym of such words and phrases as ‘bleed’, ‘diffuse’, ‘spread’, ‘spread out’,and ‘fan out’ when referring to the sense ‘be diffused’: - The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a community, are essential to the preservation of a free government. (Houston, Sam) (16). Expressions like ‘melt’, ‘melt down’, ‘dissolve’, ‘resolve’, ‘break up’ can replace ‘run’ in the case of showing the state of reducing or causing to be reduced from a solid to a liquid state, usually by heating: - Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate. (Schweitzer, Albert) These synonyms of the verb ‘run’ can be used to replace for each other in certain contexts. However, when they are near synonyms, our choices must be selected with great care if not you may misinterpret what we actually want to indicate. To put in a nutshell, by studying the verb ‘run’ in the English language the author has attempted to figure out the overall grammatical features as well as semantic features of the verb ‘run’. Perhaps, it’s unfeasible to draw a perfect picture about the meanings of a single word. Together with the development of society, on one hand, a sense of a word might be dead, on the other hand, many others might be born. Therefore, it is noteworthy that the topics which we mentioned previously are the most popular ones and they are easily to be found in everyday communication. 2.1.2. An Investigation into the Verb ‘Chạy’ in Vietnamese 2.1.2.1. Grammatical Features 2.1.2.1.1. Morphological features ‘Chạy’ is a monosyllabic word like any other Vietnamese word. It has only one form in any mood, voices and tenses. It has no derivates. This means there is no change in its form in any statement or sentence. For examples: - Ðến một cái cổng gạch lớn có dây leo, anh Hoàng giật dây chuông. Một thằng bé chạy ra, lễ phép chào: (38: 58) - Mọi việc đều sẵn sàng để nếu có động sẽ chạy luôn vào rừng. (27:225) In Vietnamese, the verb ‘chạy’ is able to combine with other words to create principle and accessory compound words and jargons belonging to different parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, or adjectives such as ‘chạy việt dã, chạy liên tỉnh’ chạy trốn, chạy vạy, chạy đua vũ trang, chạy làng, chạy tuồn tuột, etc. The following paragraph quoted from the novel ‘Luật đời và Cha con’ by Nguyễn Bắc Sơn shows the typical examples for the combining ability of the verb ‘chạy’ in the Vietnamese language: - Em nghe Đài Truyền hình giới thiệu cuốn sách của một nhà báo tên tuổi có cái tên rất ấn tượng là Chạy. Theo cuốn sách đó, bây giờ ở ta, chả có cái gì là không phải chạy: Chạy chức, chạy quyền, chạy bằng, chạy tuổi, chạy cô ta, chạy án, chạy tội… Đến huân chương cũng phải chạy. Sắp đến kỳ đại hội lại càng chạy tợn. Luật chơi nó thế mà. Thế giả dụ, với chức vụ của mình, họ chạy đến anh, anh có nhận không? (41:401) 2.1.2.1.2. Syntactic Features (a) In a verb phrase, like other verbs in Vietnamese, ‘chạy’ can function as the central component and combine with other auxiliary components as follow: * With auxiliary components before verbs. For example: - Không biết khi xả súng vào tôi, vào một con người nhỏ bé đang chạy cuống cuồng trên bãi trống, chúng có nghĩ gì không? (27:214) - Không chạy hả. Bốp. Không chạy nè. Bốp. Thằng Điền gào lên. (43:245) - Ngay từ lúc ấy, tôi đã muốn chạy về và nói với cha… (43:213) * With auxiliary components after verbs. They may be nouns, adjectives, expletives, numbers, adjuncts or conjuncts. As in: - Những nếp nhăn chạy dài trên vầng trán rộng ưu tư. (34:156) - Các sản phẩm liên quan đến Becks đều bán chạy như tôm tươi… (46:1) (b) The verb ‘run’ has many grammatical functions listed as follow: * As direct, independent predicative. For example: - Những đòn giáng trả cộng với tiếng anh kêu, đã làm cho hai bóng đen hốt hoảng vùng chạy ra ngoài. (34:78) * As subjects, e.g. - Chạy chức, chạy quyền đã trở thành một vấn nạn của toàn xã hội. (47) - Ngoài ra, chạy đà còn có thể giúp cho cầu thủ tạo ra một tốc độ nhất định để từ đó gia tăng sức mạnh của cú sút. (39:64) * As complements. e.g. Hồi tham gia cuộc thi chạy vũ trang 10.000 mét. (41:45) (c)‘Chạy’ is both a transitive and intransitive verb. This means that it can be followed or not by an object. For example: - Mươi phút sau như có linh tính, mọi người cùng bứt lên chạy, mặc cho cành lá quật vào người rào rào… (27:49) - Cuộc thi hoa hậu vừa rồi, nó bỏ tiền ra chạy Ban tổ chức cho con Phương được hoa hậu đấy chứ. (44:61) (d) ‘Chạy’ can be used in indicative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative sentences. For example: - "Chúng tôi rất muốn biết người bỏ tiền chạy chọt để được thăng chức là ai?", ông Tuấn tỏ thái độ cầu thị. (47) - Khốn nạn... Ông giáo ơi! Nó có biết gì đâu! Nó thấy tôi gọi thì chạy ngay về, vẫy đuôi mừng. (48:56) - Chạy ngay đi! Mày muốn chết à. 2.1.2.2. Semantic Features Perhaps, when the first “Quốc ngữ” dictionary was published in the seventeenth century by Vicar Alexan Derot, he could not imagine such a great development of the vocabulary in the modern Vietnamese language. Among the development of Vietnamese vocabylary, the verb ‘chạy’ is used by Vietnamese people in everyday communication in many contexts and usages. 2.1.2.2.1. General Meanings In terms of general meanings, the verb ‘chạy’ has associated to the development of Vietnamese history. During the wartime in twentieth century, ‘chạy’ tied to the act of ‘chạy bom’; ‘chạy đạn’; ‘chạy giặc’ (generally mean running away from war danger); etc, later on closed to the state of ‘chạy ăn’; ‘chạy gạo’; ‘chạy chợ’, etc. (generally mean earning for one’s living), and nowadays, ‘chạy’ indicates the act of ‘chạy tội’; ‘chạy quan’; ‘chạy chức’, etc (generally reflect the act of bribing). By analyzing and synthesizing from the mentioned sources, we have brought out the following general senses of the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese language. (1). To run Basically, ‘chạy’ denotes the act of running. Both Nguyễn Lân (2000) and Nguyễn Như Ý et all (1999) similarly define ‘chạy’ as the act of moving quickly by both feet. For examples: - Rồi Đào đi. Rồi Đào chạy… (42:153) - Chạy sút cầu môn khi bóng đang lăn về phía trước. (39:78) - Thằng thì chạy gần hộc máu mồm ra để tranh một cái giải chẳng thấm tháp vào đâu với số tiền bỏ ra để làm diều, để mua dây… (40:112) Relating to this meaning, ‘chạy’ can be used to show the act of moving fast from this place to others. - Chả là khi mọi người nháo nhác chen vai, huých cả vào bụng nhau để chạy xuống bếp, thì lão Quềnh thủng thẳng ra về. (42:49) - Trời ơi, sao mình chạy đi đâu nó cũng rượt theo vậy cà. (43:7) Besides, ‘chạy’ can be understood as moving from usual location to different ones, as in ‘Nhà tôi vừa chạy ra chợ.’ or ‘Nó đã chạy đến trường rồi ư!’. (2). To run away (from possible danger) The verb ‘chạy’ is often used to describe the act of running away, especially from danger. For examples: Khó khăn này dù sao cũng không hơn những ngày đi dân công chiến dịch, chạy giặc luồn càn hồi kháng chiến. (34:90) Anh thấy mình thật lạ lùng, và tự hỏi sao mình lại trở về cái nơi mà mọi người phải chạy? Để chuốc lấy cái gì nếu không phải là một cuộc sống gian khổ và cái chết tất nhiên? (28:12) Thế rồi đùng một cái, đánh nhau. Chúng tôi chạy được người chứ của thì chạy làm sao kịp? (40:45) (3). To be hurried Perhaps, this action can be interpreted in any language like ‘run (English); courir (French); begat (Russian) etc, as well as ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese: Chúng tôi chúi đầu chạy thục mạng về hướng khu rừng trước mặt. Tôi vấp chân vào một hòn đá suýt ngã giập xuống, may gượng lại được lảo đảo chạy tiếp, mặc cho ngón chân tóe máu đau nhói. (27:56) Họ vội vã, hấp tấp, hốt hoảng. Họ cuống cuồng bước lên thềm, chạy vào ga lấy vé, mặt tái nhợt, hơi thở dốc ra. (28:11) (4). To travel (of transportation) Referring to transportation, ‘chạy’ can be used to show the action of means of transportation in traffic system. Some typical cases below: - Một cái đầu tàu đang phì phì chạy một mình dồn những toa còn đẫm sương đêm cho chuyến tàu Nam. (28:3) - Còn một thân một mình, tôi bỏ đồn điền vô Sài Gòn, kiếm chiếc xích-lô chạy kiếm ăn qua ngày.. (34:58) - Nhưng ngoài đường tiếng xe chạy rầm rầm, tiếng giày đinh cồm cộp, tiếng súng lên đạn rôm rộp. (29:413) (5). To earn (for a living) In order to show that somebody needs to work very hard to earn a living, we should use the verb ‘chạy’ - Lo kiện cáo, lo thằng nhỏ bịnh, lo chạy chợ, người ốm tong ốm teo, bà con ai nhìn cũng thương. (34:86) - Anh ta mới chạy được một trăm bạc cho vợ con về quê. (28:102) (6). To ask or look for help ‘Chạy’ in this case should be understood as when somebody is in difficult, he runs around looking for help or support. For example: - Chị chạy tới sở, chạy tới những bạn bè, người quen, “hỏi thăm” có thấy anh ở đâu không, hy vọng làm như vậy sẽ báo được tin anh bị bắt cho những “người cần biết” mà chị không rõ họ là ai. (28:112) - Các ông đang cho người chạy khắp nơi tìm sự ủng hộ. (28:201) - Vâng, tuy về hưu nhưng quyền lực chị ấy to lắm. Các doanh nghiệp gặp khó khăn gì, toàn chạy cửa ấy thôi. (44: 29) (7). To try to get something (with a bribe) To reflect the status of bribing in order to achieve something ( a job, a social position, or property, etc.), we can exploit the use of the verb ‘chạy’. For example: - Rồi thiên hạ cũng biết lão Thanh bỏ tiền ra chạy cho mày chức hoa hậu...(44:285) - Các vị cán bộ ở nhà xây, nhà lắp ghép giờ mới thấy thất cách, liền chạy đất để làm nhà… Thế là những cuộc chạy xin cấp đất bắt đầu. (41:246) - Thuế một năm có một lần nếu chỉ trông vào đấy thì bán cha đi cũng không đủ để bù vào chỗ ba, bốn nghìn bạc chạy chọt để tranh triện đồng.. (40:45) (8). To try to escape (with a bribe) In contrast with the eighth meaning, in this group ‘chạy’ is used to reflect the social problems, that is taking the advantage of material or relation to escape from a judgment or to get out of bad situation, etc. For example: - Nhưng tên phó trưởng Ty công an đòi tôi phải bán rẻ cho hắn ngôi nhà ở Huế thì mới chịu chạy cho tôi ra. (34:120) - Nếu để lộ ra, cha Thanh chạy lên cấp trên ngay. Các ông ấy lại gọi điện thoại xuống can thiệp là hỏng hết. (44:175) (9). To operate/function We can also use the verb ‘chạy’ to describe the operation of a machine, a device, a computer program, etc. For examples: - … tận dụng khí biogas để chạy máy phát điện. - Đầu tiên, bạn chạy chương trình Microsoft Word. (10). To extend When describing the position of direction of something that extends from this place to another, we can make use of the verb ‘chạy’. For example: - Những nếp nhăn chạy dài trên vầng trán rộng ưu tư. (34:56) - Con đường xép chạy giữa cánh đồng nối liền hai làng này mới có từ khi hợp nhất hợp tác xã toàn xã,.. (42:134) - …trên nóc tường còn chạy quanh một hàng cọc sắt cao gần một mét, giăng đầy dây điện. (29:10) (11). To give up When somebody stops doing something, or dare not deal with a problem, we can use the verb ‘chạy’ to describe. For example: - Bị tố cáo, gã trưởng phòng đã bỏ của chạy lấy người. (40:18) - Nó lấm lét lảng dần cũng không dám chạy một cách thẳng thắn để đi trốn nữa. (12). To be in advantageous (in business) We use the verb ‘chạy’ to denote the advantageous status in business and management: - Sự thật là, dưới quyền điều hành của Weissman, Marlboro trở thành thuốc lá bán chạy nhất trên thế giới ba năm trước khi nó trở thành nhãn hiệu số 1 trên thị trường Mỹ. (37:112) - Công việc không chạy đều vì không có nhóm lãnh đạo. (13). To follow/to incline The verb ‘chạy’ can be used to show the tendency. For example: - Tướng Chiểu trước kia là người của cha Lê, sau khi lực lượng tự vệ Phát Diệm bị đàn áp, chạy sang quy thuận Diệm – Nhu. (34:155) - Cứ chạy theo mấy thầy trọc đầu, có ngày mất nước. (34:201) - Nhưng cũng không ít trường hợp mải chạy theo nhạc của thơ mà đánh rơi mất bản thân thơ. (32:46) - Tôi chỉ còn biết chạy theo dòng người, làm theo mọi người, không phải hô hào, chỉ huy, chỉ đạo gì hết. (31:89) (14). To pursue By this meaning, ‘chạy’ often combines with the word ‘theo’ to indicate that somebody chases after something blindly. For example: - Cứ mãi chạy theo một bóng hồng, hắn đã quên cả vợ con hắn ở nhà. - Tôi sẽ không bỏ phí thời giờ của tôi để chạy theo mấy anh láng giềng mỗi khi họ trở lại sau khi đã ra đi. (35:574) - Việc Cao Đức Lâm phạm tội là một bài học cảnh tỉnh cho các gia đình giàu có, vì mải mê chạy theo đồng tiền mà họ quên mất rằng việc giáo dục con cái đó là bổn phận của chính họ. (44:618) (15) Other Meanings In addition to the basic meanings of the verb ‘chạy’ mentioned above, we discover some minor ones in the following contexts: Bãi tha ma của làng ở đấy! Ông Phúc vừa chôn cụ Cố ở đấy! Đó là ông ngoại của Tùng. Một tia lạnh bỗng chạy dọc người Tùng. (42:151) Nhưng toàn thân anh bỗng nháy một cái như có tia điện chạy lướt từ chân lên đầu. (42:244) ‘Chạy’ in the above situation does not denote the physical feature of the action, but it denotes the feeling or it emphasizes the feeling. Bao nhiêu năm chạy trốn kỷ niệm cứ tưởng không thể quên, hóa ra mình đã quên hết mọi người, cái mình nhớ chỉ còn lại là cảm giác tủi thân và sự tổn thương. Also carry part of the meaning ‘run away’, but in the above case ‘chạy’ should be understood as ‘forget’. Dạo đó, đơn vị thiếu một liên lạc chạy công văn giấy tờ. (29:36) Ban chỉ huy chỉ giao cho bốn em những công việc vặt như chạy liên lạc về các trung đội, đưa công văn thư từ lên Chỉ huy sở... (29:153) Trước anh chỉ đóng những vai chạy cờ. (28:137) Vợ chồng Ích chỉ lăng xăng chạy ngoài. (42:108) In the two examples above, ‘chạy’ does not indicate the action but it function like the so-called ‘verbal noun’. ‘Chạy công văn giấy tờ’; ‘chạy liên lạc’ ‘chạy cờ’ or ‘lăng xăng chạy ngoài’ refer to the characteristics of the duty of the pesons who run . To put in a nutshell, listing out all the meanings of the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese language is rather difficult. Basing on the available sources, we have made effort to draw out at least seventeen meanings in use of the verb ‘chạy’. However, languages develop inceaselly as time goes by. Some of meanings might no longer exist and some new meanings come to life which dictionaries have not updated. The word ‘chạy’ is not an exception. 2.1.2.2.2. Meanings in Some Idioms To a certain extent, for being a typical polysemantic word ‘chạy’ is brought about a great number of idioms that contain the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese language. Hereinafter, some of the most popular ones are looked at in the following grid. No Idioms Meanings Examples 1 Chạy như ma đuổi Run very fast, run in a panic manner - Vừa hỏi, Thó vừa bước giật lùi. Được mấy bước, Thó quay cổ vùng chạy. Đúng là chạy như ma đuổi. (10:85) 2 Chạy lên trời Be hard to escape Dạ chú cứ yên tâm. Phen này thì con Lư có mà chạy lên trời! (33) 3 Chạy  vạy  mửa  mật Run around asking for help or support Đi  Tây  “đường  thẳng”  cũng  phải  chạy  vạy  mửa  mật, chui cửa trước, luồn cửa sau, huống hồ “chen ngang”. (38:23) 4  Chạy  chợ Do business; engage in small trade (buying and selling in thet market) Tuy bệnh tật những ngày con nhỏ, ăn uống  kham  khổ  và  làm  lụng  vất  vả  nhưng  cũng  do  tần tảo,  kiếm  củi,  chạy  chợ  mà  người chị  nở  nang. (18:107) 5 Chạy rống Bái công Flee in confusion (adapted from Chinese classic reference) Mày không chạy rống Bái công như mấy thằng tự vệ phố này là được rồi. (28:78) 6 Chạy long tóc gáy Be hard working, running around to get something Y tá Sỹ chạy long tóc gáy mới được một ít bông băng. (28:121) 7 Chạy như cờ lông công Run fast and hard Cả hai phải chạy như cờ lông công suốt ngày trên khắp mặt trận, liên lạc, truyền tin, trinh sát, đưa công văn giấy tờ... (29:294) 8 Chạy theo một bóng hồng Chase a beautiful girl … kể cả có thời kỳ chính ông đã toan phá giới, trút bộ áo nhà tu để chạy theo một bóng hồng. (34:436) 9 Chạy làng Refuse to pay, breach the commitment - Ông chạy làng đấy à? Được thôi. Nhưng tên vợ ông thì tôi cứ để đấy… (44:656) 10 Chạy trời không khỏi nắng Be unable to avoid a bad situation Nó đã trốn đi rồi, nhưng vẫn sợ rằng chạy trời không khỏi nắng. 2.1.2.2.3. Synonyms of ‘Chạy’ The word ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese with various senses as we have analyzed above, naturally, has countless synonyms. With each sense alone, it is really hard to list its synonyms. Hence, we do not have ambition of discussing all; we just try to make an overview on them. Basically, when ‘chạy’ denotes the act of running we can replace it by such expressions as ‘phóng’, ‘phi nhanh’, ‘co giò’,‘ lao nhanh’,etc . It is noteworthy that we are unable to find an exactly the same meaning with ‘chạy’. Therefore, the placement should be careful. Such as: It is fine to say ‘Anh ta đang lao nhanh về đích’ but it is unreasonable to describe ‘Anh ấy thường co giò trong công viên vào mỗi buổi sáng’. When we use ‘chạy’ to show the act of moving, we can exploit expressions like ‘di chuyển’, ‘chuyển đi’, ‘đi khỏi’, ‘dời đi’, ‘đi’, etc instead of ‘chạy’. For example: Sao mình đi đâu nó cũng bám theo vậy? Anh ấy đang di chuyển rất linh hoạt trên sân. Concerning the sense ‘running away from possible danger’, the verb ‘chạy’ is equivalent with ‘đi vội’, ‘lánh đi’, ‘lẩn đi’, ‘di tản’, ‘trốn’, ‘lánh nạn’, ‘cao chạy xa bay’, etc. For example: Rồi Lạc đi vội vã tránh cái ánh mắt soi mói của lão. (42:380) Để  giữ  cái  bộ  mặt “nhân  nghĩa”,  nó  đã  lánh  đi  từ  sớm  tinh  mơ. (38:349) When referring to the state of hurrying, expressions like ‘vội vã’, ‘nhanh chóng’, ‘hối hả’, ‘gấp rút’, etc can be used to replace ‘chạy’. For instance: - Hiếu vội vã đi lên gặp cụ. (38:33) - ...  già trẻ, gái trai sấp ngửa nhanh chóng kéo nhau ra miếu để học tập (38:402) - Tùng đứng một mình một lúc để ngẫm nghĩ, rồi quay đầu hối hả về xóm Mới. (42:218) Referring to the operation of machinery or means of transportation, ‘chạy’ might be replaced by ‘lao’, ‘phi’, ‘phóng’, ‘bon’, ‘lưu hành’, ‘vận hành’, ‘hoạt động’, ‘điều khiển’, ‘băng qua’, ‘rầm rập’, etc. For example: - Người điều khiển phương tiện trên đường phải tuyệt đối tuân thủ luật lệ giao thông. - Tên lái cứ phóng xe, không thèm ngoảnh mặt lại. (28:63) With the meaning of ‘working hard to earn for a living’, ‘chạy’ is synonymous with ‘kiếm sống’, ‘mưu sinh’, ‘làm ăn’, ‘kiếm ăn’, etc. For example: - Cậu cả dùng cái sức cơ bắp của mình đi làm thuê làm mướn kiếm ăn. (42:13) - Quý vốn là người chỉ biết bới đất lật cỏ làm ăn, còn nguyên vẹn là một nông dân thuần phác, dễ phục tùng. (42:23) By the meaning of expecting for help, ‘chạy’ might be replaced by such expressions as ‘chạy chọt’, ‘nhờ vả’, ‘trông cậy’, ‘cậy nhờ, etc. For example: - Chắc hẳn vợ Tuyến đã nhanh chóng đánh hơi được mối quan hệ giữa cha Hoàng với chính quyền mới nên định nhờ vả cho chồng. (34:58) Reflecting the status of making use of materialistic matters for bribing in order to achieve something, ‘chạy’ is almost absolute synonymous with ‘đút lót’, ‘hối lộ’, ‘luồn cúi’, ‘chạy vạy’, ‘lợi dụng’, ‘mua’, ‘mua chuộc’, etc. For example: - Nghiêm…Làm gì có thứ đàn ông nào nghiêm được với vợ. bác còn là người tử tế, ít lợi dụng cái ô của chồng để làm ăn, … (44:245) - Ông ấy bảo cháu muốn đi thì ông ấy giúp, không phải mất đến một điếu thuốc đút lót. (42:457) When ‘chạy’ denotes the advantageous status in business and management, it can be a synonym of the expressions like ‘đắt (hàng)’, ‘thuận lợi’, ‘suôn sẻ’, ‘xuôi chèo mát mái’, ‘thuận buồm xuôi gió’, etc as in the contexts below: - Công việc kinh doanh của nhà hàng đang thuận buồm xuôi gió. - Được, rồi cô xem, lại chả đắt như tôm tươi. By indicating that somebody chases after something/someone ‘chạy’ is well substituted with ‘theo đuổi’, ‘săn đuổi’, ‘bám lấy’, ‘ám’, etc. For example: - Còn Ðiền lúc ấy có thể rảnh rang theo đuổi cái mộng của Ðiền... (40:147) - Tôi đang săn đuổi một thứ gì đó rất mơ hồ. To conclude, we would like to emphasize that discussing synonyms of ‘chạy’ itself is worth a separate study and that it is impossible to do this within this work. It is hoped that this humble overview can satisfy you to some extent. 2.1.3. Findings Visually, people may believe that ‘run’ in English is the same as ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese. The point is not wrong but it is not absolute. Actually, deep study on these two verbs has pointed out that they are similar but not exactly identical. On the scope of this part, we made an attempt to draw out similarities and differences between ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in which more emphasis on microlinguistic features than macrolinguistic ones are given. 2.1.3.1. In Terms of Grammatical Features 2.1.3.1.1. Similarities Firstly, in terms of grammatical features, both ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ have the following features in common: Both occur as a part of or a predicator of a sentence. For example: - When the ladies removed after dinner, Elizabeth ran up to her sister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the drawing-room. (8:67) - Sau bữa ăn tối, Elizabeth chạy lên phòng chị mình, chuẩn bị áo ấm cho cô, đưa cô ra phòng khách. (35:70) They can function as subjects, objects, or complements, etc. in a sentence. "This program will be built on the idea that running is fun, racing is fun, improving is fun, and winning is fun..’’ (23:206) Chạy thế thì tai nạn là phải. Everyone kept running, the goal quietly understood. (21:207) Cái Hoa cứ chạy. Vấp ngã, vực dậy lại chạy, chạy như bị đuổi bắt. (42:181) Rudy and Francois, of course, attempted to run away,… (13:197) Thuấn nhìn theo, nắm tay Huệ, nắm rất chặt, nửa như để an ủi, nửa lại giống như rịt lấy, như sợ Huệ bỏ chạy đi mất. (43:696) Moreover, both are transitive and intransitive verbs. Therefore, they can occur with or without subjects, consequently, they may be used in active or passive voices. Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites. (11:45) Đói mẹ, khát cha. Khi chưa biết chạy diều In the end, I ran. (11:45) Còn con khỉ, con gấu, hoảng loạn dựt đứt xích chạy biến. (29:92) In other words, the U.S. Census Bureau is run by radical leftists (16:5) Vẻ vàng gì! Gã ấy được bố vợ chạy cho chân trưởng phòng thôi. On the ground of morphological features, both ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are monosyllabic words. However, they are very flexible in compounding. Firstly, they are able to be followed with nouns to form compound words, such as ‘run a fever’; ‘run a temperature’; ‘run a risk’; ‘run an errand’, etc in English and ‘chạy chợ’; ‘chạy cô-ta’; ‘chạy trường’; ‘chạy điểm’; ‘chạy tang’; ‘chạy dự án’; ‘chạy sô’, etc in Vietnammese among which many compounds have become idioms. Secondly, they can combine with the so-call prepositions in English and ‘giới ngữ’ in Vietnamese (Diep Quang Ban: 2005) to form a great number of phrase verbs such as ‘run into; run for; run away, run out of; run up; run down; run over; run through; etc’ and ‘chạy vào; chạy ra; chạy lên; chạy xuống; chạy qua; chạy dọc theo; etc’. 2.1.3.1.2. Differences On the contrary, some differences between ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in terms of grammatical features can be described as following: First, ‘run’ carries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspects, person, number, etc. but ‘chạy’ does not. For example: He runs very fast. (Anh ấy chạy nhanh) He ran to the school yesterday. (Hôm qua anh ấy chạy tới trường) He is running like a wind. (Anh ấy chạy nhanh như gió.). ..do cure the younger girls of running after the officers. (8:85) (..anh hãy chấn chỉnh các cô em gái luôn chạy theo cách sĩ quan.) (35:112) However, nothing changes to ‘chạy’ in any tense, aspect, with any number or person, while ‘run’ has to change in accordance with different tenses, aspects, numbers and person. To indicate tenses in Vietnamese, people use such particles as ‘đã’, ‘đang’, ‘sẽ’, ‘mới’, ‘sắp sửa, ‘rồi’, etc and auxiliaries like ‘bị’, ‘được’ to indicate aspects. Second, on the ground of morphological features, the differences are found as follows: It is the basic differentiation between the two languages that makes ‘run’ and ‘chay’ differ in term of morphological feature. Vietnamese is widely considered the monosyllabic system while English is polysyllabic one. Therefore, ‘chạy’ is non-finite in any cases, but ‘run’ has five forms: the base, the s-form, the past form, the past participle and the –ing participle. Similarly, ‘chạy’ has no derivates whereas by means of derivation, ‘run’ has such derivates as runable, runner, runny, running, runs, etc. Besides, it is noteworthy that ‘chạy’ is more flexible than ‘run’ when ‘chạy’ combines with adverbs. For instance, ‘run’ is often followed with ‘fast’; ‘quickly’; rapidly and so forth while ‘chạy’ is quite diversified such as ‘chạy tán loạn’; ‘chạy rầm rập’; ‘chạy hối hả’; ‘chạy rầm rộ’; ‘chạy lăng quăng’; ‘chạy té tát’; ‘chạy lon ton’; ‘chạy lạch đạch’; ‘chạy chồm chồm’; etc. Moveover, ‘chạy’ is also more flexible when combining with nouns. The compound nouns of the verb ‘chạy’ can be devided into two groups. The first group should be ‘chạy + X’ like ‘chạy giặc, chạy lụt, chạy bão, chạy mưa, chạy tội, chạy án, etc’ which means that people ‘run’ to avoid the things followed after ‘run’, e.g. ‘chạy giặc’ means ‘to get out of war zone’; ‘chạy án’ refers to ‘avoid a judgment’. The second group is also ‘chạy + X’ like ‘chạy gạo’, ‘chạy tiền’, ‘chạy cô-ta’; ‘chạy thầy chạy thuốc, etc, however, it conveys the opposite meaning, that is people run for the things that go after the verb ‘chạy’. 2.1.3.2. In Terms of Semantic Features 2.1.3.2.1. Similarities In general, both ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are the typical verbs. Accordingly, they all have common semantic features of a verb, that is, both refer to an action, a state, an activity or a progress. More particularly, both ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ share at least thirteen similar general meanings, which are reflected in the following grid. No Means in common Examples in English Examples in Vietnamese 1 To move quickly on feet I can run very fast. Tôi có thể chạy rất nhanh 2 To move with haste; act quickly He ran as he never had before… Anh ấy chưa bao giờ chạy nhanh như thế… 3 To depart quickly; flee or escape He has run away from the city Nó đã chạy trốn khỏi thành phố. 4 To have recourse for aid, support, comfort, etc He should not run to his parents with every little problem. Anh ấy không nên chạy đến ba mẹ chỉ vì những chuyện nhỏ nhặt. 5 To make a quick trip or informal visit for a short stay at a place I just run up to Ball’s house for a while. Tớ chạy sang nhà Ball một lúc nhé. 6 to go around, rove, or ramble We run about on the street. Chúng tôi chạy thong thả trên đường. 7 To take part in a race I am not strong enough to run a marathon. Tôi chưa đủ sức để chạy thi ma-ra-tông. 9 To operate or function How does your new watch run Chiếc đồng hồ mới của cậu chạy tốt không? 10 To extent in a given direction This road runs along the park. Con đường này chạy dọc theo công viên. 11 To pass quickly A cold ray runs along my body. Một tia lạnh chạy dọc người tôi. 12 To tend She keeps running after modern fashion. Cô ấy mải miết chạy theo các mốt tân thời. 13 To campaigh (for election) Jack Eckerd ran for senator and joining the president Ford administration in Washington. Jack Eckerd chạy đua chức thượng nghị sĩ và tham gia vào chính quyền tổng thống Ford ở Washington. Idiomatically, ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ may have some meanings to coincide which means that the idioms contain both ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ using the same expression to actually indicating hides behind their appearances. Therefore, these idioms are not difficult for the users of both languages to recognize and interpret. Below, we list some equivalences of the idioms derived from ‘run’ and ‘chạy’: - Run like the wind çè Chạy nhanh như gió - Learn to creep before you run çè Chưa học bò đã lo học chạy - The last drop makes the cup run over çè Giọt nước tràn ly - Run out of time çè Hết giờ/thời gian - Run away with çè Chạy trốn (cùng ai) - Run for one’s life çè Chạy thục mạng/chạy bán sống bán chết - Run around in circles çè Chạy loăng quăng - Run out of steam çè Chạy hết hơi - Run the show çè Chạy sô - Run errands çè Chạy việc lặt vặt - Run like hell çè Chạy như ma đuổi - Run in place çè Chạy tại chỗ - Eat and run çè Vừa ăn vừa chạy - Run kite çè Chạy diều 2.1.3.2.2. Differences In terms of denotational meanings, we are able to state that the verb ‘run’ is richer than the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese language. However, ‘chạy’ is more original with some special usage. For example, in English, people say ‘She ran into her old friend at the party’ and if we translate this sentence word by word into Vietnamese, we may mislead like ‘Cô ấy chạy tới một cô bạn cũ tại bữa tiệc’. To some extent, the translators misunderstood the actual meaning of the verb ‘run’ here. It should be ‘Cô ấy tình cờ gặp lại người bạn cũ tại bữa tiệc’. The example shows how mother toungue interference affects nonnative speakers and how CA really helps in this case. When trying to clarify some senses that ‘run’ has but ‘chạy’ does not, we discover at least fifteen meanings which are described in the following grid: No ‘Run’s Meanings Examples in English Possible Vietnamese equivalents 1 To flow(of liquid) The river runs into the sea Sông chảy ra biển 2 To spread rapidly The news of his promotion ran all over the town. Tin anh ấy được thăng chức lan ra toàn thì trấn. 3 To melt The sun makes the ice run. Mặt trời làm cho đá tan chảy. 4 To elapse; pass; go by (of time) Time is running out, and we must hurry. Không còn nhiều thời gian, chùng ta phải nhanh lên. 5 To get or become The well run dry He’s running into debt. Cái giếng đã cạn khô. Anh ấy đang rơi vào cảnh nợ nần. 6 To be stated or worded My presentation runs as follow: Phần trình bày của tôi như sau: 7 To proceed, continue The story runs for eight pages. Câu chuyện kéo dài trong tám trang giấy. 8 To cost This watch runs US$50. Chiếc đồng hồ này giá 50 USD. 9 To have legal force or effect (of legal) The contract runs to the end of 2009. Hợp đồng có hiệu lực đến hết năm 2009 10 To be published The New York Times is running a series of Clinton’s autobiography. Tờ Thời báo New York đang đăng một loạt bài vể cuốn tự truyện của Clinton. 12 To convey (of transportation) I’ll run you home in my car. Tớ sẽ đưa cậu về nhà bằng xe của tớ. 13 To smuggle He is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for running guns across the border. Gã ấy bị kết án 10 năm tù vì tội buôn lậu vũ khí qua biên giới. 14 To manage or conduct Singleton continued to run the company well into his seventies. Singleton tiếp tục điều hành tốt công ty của mình khi bước sang tuổi bảy mươi. 15 To support somebody (in an election) They decided to run her for the major. Họ quyết định ủng hộ cô ta vào chức thị trưởng. On the contrary, we also discover at least four meanings that ‘run’ can be used while ‘chạy’ cannot. These meanings are looked at the following grid. No ‘Chạy’s Meanings Examples in Vietnamese Possible English equivalents 1 To bribe someone in to doing something Hắn đút lót cấp trên để chạy chức giám đốc nhân sự. He bribed the higher authorities to get position of human resources manager. 2 To socilit (to escape from a legal judgment) Chính vì tiền mà bà đã làm hỏng thằng con trai. Bây giờ bà lại định dùng tiền để bà chạy tội cho nó... It’s was her greed for money that she spoiled her son. Now, she still intents to absolve him by money,… 3 To be advantageous (in business, especially in sale) Waterford Glass trở thành hãng bán đồ pha lê chạy nhất ở Mỹ… Waterford Glass became the best-seller of crystal in U.S market… 4 To give up Biết Lài có bầu, hắn tìm cách chạy làng. Knowing that Lài is pregnant, he tried to quit the game. In terms of the idioms derived from ‘run’ and ‘chạy’, it is noted that the misinterpretion will be happened easily if we are simply based on the nature of the mother tongue language. Hereinafter, we compare some idioms included ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ to show interesting ways of using idioms with the studied verbs. N0 Idioms with ‘run’ Suggested Vietnamese Equivalents 1 Still water runs deep. (English proverb) Tẩm ngẩm tầm ngầm mà đấm chết voi 2 Try to run before one can walk Cầm đèn chạy trước ô tô/Chưa học bắt mèo đã lo ẻ bếp 3 The course of true love never did run smooth Tình yêu chân thành chẳng bao giờ êm thấm 4 When the tree is fallen, anyone runs to it with his axe. Dậu đổ bìm leo 5 One can runs away but one can’t hide Chạy trời không khỏi nắng 6 Run the risk Liều mạng 7 Run hot and cold Đỏng đà đỏng đảnh/thất thường 8 Hold with the hare and run with the hounds Giả nhân giả nghĩa/Bắt cá hai tay 9 Cut and run Đánh bài chuồn 10 One’s blood runs cold Sợ xanh mặt 11 Run like the clockwork Chính xác từng giây 12 Run into a stone wall Đâm đầu vào đá 13 Run riot Phát điên, phát rồ N0 Idioms with ‘chạy’ Suggested English Equivalents 1 Chạy buồm xem gió To forecast before making decision 2 Chạy chữa Try hard to treat medically 3 Chạy bữa To ern for one's daily bread 4 Chạy đua vũ trang Arms race 5 Chạy thầy To go in search of a doctor 6 Chạy tang To move up the date (of a wedding because someone in the family is going to die) 7 Chạy chợ To engage in small trade/to huckster 8 Chạy loạn To evacuate 9 Chạy như chó phải pháo To run in a panic manner (like dog scares of firecracker’s noise ) 10 Chạy chọt To solicit For better illustration, we try to analyze some typical situations which ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are used to denote the different idiomatic senses. In the saying ‘You've got to decide to chose between them. You can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds’, if users do not master the implication of the idiom ‘run with hare and hunt with the hounds’ they might translate something like ‘Bạn phải quyết định chọn một trong hai người. Bạn không thể chạy cùng thỏ rồi lại đi săn cùng chó sói’. In fact, the understanding does not go too far the point, but it would be better to translate like ‘Bạn phải quyết định chọn một trong hai người. Bạn không thể bắt cá hai tay như thế được’. In another example, if somebody translate ‘Kiếm được ít tiền, hắn tính chuyện chạy làng’ into ‘Having earn some money, he intended to run to the village’ , we can suppose that the user might not be the native speaker because he misleads ‘chạy làng’ means ‘run to the village’ but not ‘refuse to pay or give up the game’. Thus, the translation should be corrected into ‘Having earn some money, he intended to quit the game’. Therefore, to some extent, the foregoing comparison may help the users of both languages reduce the unnecessary irrelevances in interpreting when exchange the verb ‘RUN’ in English and ‘CHẠY’ in Vietnamese. 2.1.4. Concluding Remarks Above, we have endeavoured to bring about the contrastive analysis of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in terms MiCA. By comparing ‘run’ with ‘chạy’ and vice versa respectively in respects of grammatical features which categorised into syntactic features; morphological features; and semantic features in which we dealt with general meanings and meanings in some idioms as well as synonyms of each word, we are able to state some similarities and differences between the target verbs. Accordingly, ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ share quite a lot similar syntactic features, some similar morphological features. Furthermore, ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ coincide in their general meanings and meanings in some idioms. Interestingly, ‘run’ is richer in meanings, consequently richer in synonyms than ‘chạy’, whereas, ‘chạy’ is better used in compounds and idioms. In the coming chapter, we will discuss ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ on the ground of MaCA. 2.2. A Contrastive Analysis between the Verb ‘run’ in English and the Verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese in terms of Macrolinguistic Contrastive Analysis In order to achieve an overall understanding of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’, within this assignment, the author endeavoured to view ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in terms of MaCA following the approach proposed by Carl James (1980:100&101). Due to the restriction of the minor thesis, we will not study with each verb separately. We will briefly work out how they are similarly and differently affected by means of participant, setting, purpose, key, content, and channel in succession. Because macrolinguistic is a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense and including cultural and behavioral features associated with language or in other words, with extralinguistc factors. Therefore, we narrowed the subjects and aimed at English and Vietnamese native speakers. By synthesizing different sources of documents, observing, interviewing about the subjects we drew out some findings hereinafter. 2.2.1. Findings 2. 2.1.1. In terms of Participants Participants are those who create the ingredients of communication which are: source, encoding, message, channel, receiver, decoding, receiver response and feedback. Among the ingredients, encoding and decoding are of special significance. Therefore, the more diversified types of speakers and listener the more different ways of decoding and encoding the source of communication. We found situations in which the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are utters to convey the implication of social positions; kinship relations, age, gender, economic conditions, education, etc of the participants. For examples: A father to his son: Con chạy lên phố mua giúp bố chiếc ra-đi-ô nhé. (A son to his father: Tiện lên phố bố mua giúp con chiếc ra-di-ô nhé.) A man to his colleague (of equal status): Tớ lượn/chạy/ lên phố có tí việc đây A woman to her stubborn son: Sao mày chứ chạy rông ngoài đường thế hả con. A young man to his friend: Thôi thì mày lượn/phắn/biến đi cho yên chuyện. A policeman to a thief: Anh không tẩu thoát (chạy trốn) được đâu. Likely, in English the verb ‘run’ is sometimes replaced with other expressions by communicators, for examples: A manager to his staff: Run this project as soon as possible! Staff to his manager: We will implement the project as the soonest. A policeman to a thief: Don’t think about fleeing. No way! A man to his girlfriend: I’ll take/carry/run you home in my car. Therefore, the speakers and addressors must bear in mind to whom they are talking to select the appropriate words for more effective communication. 2.2.1.2. In terms of Setting Setting has certain influences on what is uttered by Vietnamese and English people. Carl James (1980) said “questions put to a lecturer in the bar after the plenary session will be formulated differently from those put in the conference hall”. Sometimes, ‘run’ is replaced with ‘sprint, flow, flee, travel, or escape, etc’, and ‘chạy’ is replaced with ‘phi, bon bon, rầm rập, hối hả, etc’. The replacement possibly decided by the contexts. Following, we analyze some cases to show how ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ is flexible in certain contexts. To describe the stream of military truck runs to the front line in the wartime, we may write ‘Từng đoàn xe đang rầm rập trên đường ra mật trận’. To describe the quick movement of the trains, we may say ‘Từng đoàn tàu đang hối hả vể ga’. To emphasize that someone drives exeeding the limit speed, we can use ‘phóng nhanh vượt ẩu’ instead of ‘chạy quá tốc độ cho phép’. However, in a legal document, the expression ‘phóng nhanh vượt ẩu’ must be clarified by ‘chạy quá tốc độ cho phép’. Similarly, in English, the use of ‘run’ is flexible to conform to the setting. For example, to describe a sportsman racing at fast speed we can say ‘He is spriting to the finish’; or in written language ‘operate’ or ‘function’ are often used to replace ‘run’ when denoting the operation of a machine. 2.2.1.3. In terms of Key It is undeniable that the tone, manner or spirit in which a speech act is carried out has strong influences on what really messages by speakers. It affects meaning and function of utterances. For example, with the same utterance ‘Chạy đi’ or ‘Run (away)’ can imply different messeges with different tones. - Chạy đi!/Run! (with fast and high tone) means a warning. - Chạy đi!/Run! (with slow and high tone and grind of teeth) means a threatening. - Chạy đi!/Run away! (with stresses on ‘đi’ and ‘away’) means a challenging. - Chạy đi/Run! (with very high tone emphasized with the repetation of the verbs) means an encouragement 2.2.1.4. In terms of Content To a certain extent, the contents of all types of communication effects on how, what and when to decode and encode the messeges. For instance, in Vietnamese joking we can say ‘Anh ấy chạy như bị tào tháo đuổi’ or ‘Tôi đang bị chạy hậu’ (can be understood that somebody has problem with his belly and he has to run to toilet all the time.). In another case, when demonstrating the functions of a new machine, normally, Vietnamese people use ‘vận hành’; ‘hoạt động’ instead of ‘chạy’ as in: Máy này hoạt động trên nguyên tắc cải tiến cơ chế tự động’ or ‘Khi vận hành thiết bị, cần lưu ý bảo đảm an toàn lao động’. Interestingly, when talking about social matters informally, Vietnamese people usually use ‘chạy chọt’ rather than ‘hối lộ’ or ‘đút lót’ to mention that someone uses money or takes the advantage of power to get jobs or to have better positions. For the English language, contents also have strong influence on whether people choose ‘run’ or other equivalents. For examples, talking about an election, informally, we can use ‘run for the major’, but formally, we use ‘campaign for the senator’. Refferring to the topic of business, English people prefer ‘run’ than ‘manage’ when denoting that somebody sets up and controls his own organization. 2.2.3. Concluding Remarks ‘Run’ and ‘chạy’, actually, are not strongly influenced by the macrolinguistic elements. Both of the verbs denote physical actions more than indicate the states which closely connect to the social-cultural elements. Nevertheless, serious effort has been made to analyze ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in their broadest sense and include some aspects of cultural and behavioral features associated with language. Accordingly, at least the participants, setting, key and content have certain influences on the uses of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in English and Vietnamese languages. PART III CONCLUSIONS 1. Recapitulation The process of contrastive analysis between the verbs ‘run’ in English and ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese their idioms has clarified almost the questions posed before doing the research. To keep the right track for the study, we have made effort to find out the similarities and differences between the studied objects in terms of MiCA and MaCA basing on the theoretical background. As far as MiCA was concerned, these two verbs are analyzed and contrasted in respects of grammatical features, semantic features, their synonyms as well as idioms with them which were the focus of the study. The findings can be summarized as follow: ‘Run’ and ‘chạy’ share quite a lot of similar syntactic features such as they have different functions in a sentence such as predicate, subject, complement, or object. They also share some similar morphological features. ‘Run’ carries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspects, person, number and mood while ‘chạy’ does not. In terms of semantic features, the verb ‘run’ is found at least twenty-three groups of general meanings, ten popular run’s idioms are deeply discussed, hundreds of run’s synonyms are introduced with careful quotations from different sources of data. Similarly, at least fifteen general meanings the verb ‘chạy’ are listed, further discussion about ten typical chạy’s idioms, many chạy’s synonyms are also mentioned. Basing on the results of studying the two verbs separately, we run to the following findings: + ‘Run’ and ‘chạy’ share at least thirteen similar general meanings + ‘Run’ has at least fifteen items of meanings differing from ‘chạy’ + ‘Chạy’ is found at least four items of meanings differing from ‘run’ + At least fifteen pairs of idioms derived from‘run’ and ‘chạy’ have the same expressions. + ‘Chạy’ is more flexible than ‘run’ in compounding abitily; therefore, ‘chạy’ is richer than ‘run’ in terms of idioms. In terms of MaCA, basing on Hymes (1974) and Carl James (1980) suggestions, we figure out that such social-cultural elements as participant setting, key and content differently affects the uses of ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ and their equivalents. To put in a nutshell, this study is conducted with the hope of providing an overall understanding about the verb ‘run’ in English and the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese in respects of both MiCA and MaCA. We do wish to highlight the awareness of EFL teachers and learners about the similarities and differences between them to avoid their mother tongue interference when dealing with these two verbs as well as their idioms. 2. Implication of the Study 2.1. For EFL Teaching and Learning The final aim of language teaching is to develop learners’ communicative competence as well as linguistic competence. Knowing a language is not only knowing the grammatical rules, but also knowing when and where it is appropriate to use, how to use, and to what people. Teaching vocabulary also means providing learners with an increasing number of words and their equivalents in the target language which help them choose what to use with ease and interpret accurately in different contexts. Therefore, not only is it important to provide grammatical meaning and lexical meaning of a word, but also to provide their sense relations such as its synonyms or antonyms, etc. Being aware of its importance, we have endeavoured to provide a contrastive analysis between the verb ‘run’ in English and the verb ‘chạy’ in Vietnamese. Ur (1996:63) suggested different ways of presenting meaning of new items such as concise definition, detailed description, illustration, demonstration, contextualization, examples, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, translation and associated ideas or collocations. When teaching ‘run’, ‘chạy’ and their idioms, we should combine some methods rather than use only one. To avoid monotonous traditional way of introducing idioms, EFL teachers can use games with idioms which now available at many websites on the Internet. There are very few absolute synonyms, thus, the teaching ‘run’, ‘chạy’ and idioms with them should not be isolated from their contexts. During learning and teaching processes, both EFL teachers and learners should be aware of the similarities and differences, particularly the differences between them which will restrict the mother tounge interference at the maximum. This helps to avoid culture shocks or “stupid” mistakes in communication. That is what a contrastive analysis aims at. 2.2. For Translation from English to Vietnamese and Vice Versa Translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text that communicates the same message from the source text to the target language. Translation must take into account the constraints that include context, the rules of grammar of the two languages, their writing conventions, and their idioms. Therefore, there exists a common misconception when newcomers of translation interpret word-for-word correspondence between any two languages. This translation is like a straightforward mechanical process; such a word-for-word translation, however, cannot take into account context, grammar, conventions, and idioms. Therefore, to find the best equivalents for ‘run’ or ‘chạy’, translators should master all semantic features of all lexical items and take the contexts as well as other macrolinguistic factors in to account. It is hoped that the study can help the translators when working with the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ in their general meanings, their idioms, their synonyms and other microlinguistic factors that effect the uses of the two verbs. The findings of the study on the ground of general meanings may help the translators to find the appropriate expressions when dealing with the specific situations where the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are used. The findings of the contrastive analysis on the idioms in which ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are used may help the users over come possible difficulties when translating the contexts in which the idioms are used. For example, it is possible for the users to translate such idioms as ‘run like the wind’ in to ‘chạy nhanh như gió’, or ‘learn to creep before you run’ in to ‘chưa học bò đã lo học chạy’, etc. However, there are many expressions of both languages which are difficult for the translators. The study on the synonyms of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ may help the translator decide the best word choice when working with the two verbs. Finally, some aspects of cultural and behavioral features associated with the uses of the verbs ‘run’ and ‘chạy’ are studied to help the users avoid unnecessary misinterpretation when working with the two verbs. 3. Recommendations for Further Research The authors conducted this research with a focus on MaCA rather than MaCA due to the limitations and requirement of the M.A. research. To a certain extent, some matters have not been thoroughly investigated. We, therefore, have recommendations for further research which are surely promising, interesting and welcome: An investigation into ‘run’ and its synonyms and antonyms An investigation into ‘run’ and its idioms; An investigation into ‘chạy’ and its synonyms and antonyms An investigation into ‘chạy’ and its idioms; REFERENCES In English 1 A.P. Cowie and R. Mackin. (1993). Oxford Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. Oxford University Press, Printed in Hong Kong 2 Baker, M. (1992). In Other Words: A Course Book on Transaltion. Routledge, London & New York. 3 Charles C. Fries. (1945). Teaching and Learning English as foreigh language. Michigan: University of Michigan Press 4 Chaturvedi, M.G. (1973). A Constrastive Study of Hindi-English Phonology. 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