A Comparision of Emotion Metaphors

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A COMPARISION OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE EMOTION METAPHORS
Students: 1. Phan Thi Thao Linh 10A12
2. Vo An Phuong 10A12
Supervisor: Ms Pham Anh Duong (M.A)
Abstract
On the cognitive perspectives of metaphor, this research found out that English and
Vietnamese share some happiness metaphors, though metaphorical expressions can differ. Beside
these same metaphors, culture-specific metaphors were discussed. Also, explanations for
differences and similarities have been given. It is worth noting personal, social and cultural
experience could affect diversity and universality of metaphor. Through this contrastive analysis,
an implication of language learners is to pay more attention to conceptual metaphor to be able to
utilize it in foreign language learning.

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I. INTRODUCTION
When learning a foreign language, learners have to overcome a number of difficulties to
reach certain level of proficiency that they anticipate. Given that language could be regarded as
embodiment of thought pattern, one of the possible difficulties may lie in differences between
learners’ and native speakers’ general thought pattern. This pattern is shaped by the surrounding
socio-cultural context (Tran, n.d). As such, with a view to managing foreign language, it is a
requisite to grasp the thought pattern or cognitive pattern behind as well as connection of culture,
language and human cognitive.
Concerning relationship among the above factors, it is critical to think of cognitive linguistics.
On the basis of this perspective, many subjects of traditional language have been studied. Of
those subjects, metaphor is asserted to be a very popular communicative means used by native
speakers (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Thus, metaphor is chosen to be the major concern of this
research. Owning that metaphor is quite a broad field, our research concentrates on onlythose
expressing happiness. A comparative analysis of happiness metaphor between English and
another language, specifically Vietnamese is conducted. Besides, with the aim of raising
students’ awareness to this category of linguistics and bring a more profound explanation, we
take an insight into causes for differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese
metaphors. Better still, this revelation hopes to provide a recommendation of a new technique of
learning English, Vietnamese as well as other languages for learners.
This study finds out the differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese
metaphor of happiness after going through a review of other scholars’ works. Beside this
comparison, explanations rooted from personal, historical, social-cultural experience for why
these two languages own same or distinct metaphor are also taken into consideration.
II. METHODS
The research applied theories of metaphor on cognitive linguists' perspectives which believed
that metaphor is a matter of ordinary life, rather than an ornamental device for artistic writing.
Thus, the data of this research was taken from both English and Vietnamese everyday language
used to talk about happiness. It could be in such written form as magazines, novels, and short
stories. Besides, language in spoken form, namely, folklores, songs and so forth was a fruitful
source of this study.
To conduct this research, a review of literature was necessary to grasp the basic concept of
topic. Then we started to analyze the data after collecting from the above sources. To be more
specific, metaphor of joy was categorized into separate concepts, then the contrastive analysis
method was employed to make the similarities and differences more clearer. Together with
factors that contribute to universality and diversity of metaphor proposed by (Kovecses, 2008),
this research incorporated with cultural background or two countries to seek the causes.

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III. LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Conceptual metaphor and its working mechanism
Understanding of metaphor has been through many changes since traditional scholars
including the Greek philosopher, Aristotle put forward first theories of metaphor(Nguyen, 2013;
Tran, 2012). Metaphor is long deemed as a rhetoric device used by ones with creativity to add
more artistic touches to language rather than an ordinary element in daily life (Ortony &
Fainsilber, 1987; Tran, 2012; Tran, 2009). However, psychology, together with cognitive
linguistics which studies language on the basis of human’s experience and concepts towards
outside world bear contradictions (Tran, 2012). Authors of this category such as Lakoff and
Johnson (1993)criticized on some false assumptions of traditional theories. To take an example,
assumptions that comprehension of all matter could occur directly without help of metaphor are
not true. Indeed, real life entails myriads of intangible concepts human may find elusive, then as
such, they need to lean on metaphor. In addition to questioning classical theories, they expanded
understanding of metaphor by showing that it is an element not only of artistic writings or speech
but also of everyday communication (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Human communication here
constituting the way we talk, the way we do with our body language and so forth is all governed
by human’s concepts or cognition (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). While minor part of human’s
concepts is non-metaphorical which could be understood directly, most of them are structured in
a metaphorical way. Concepts of emotion that is the focus of this research are not an exception to
the latter. Therefore, the term metaphor of happiness – the only kind of emotional states studied
here refers to conceptual metaphor or cognitive metaphor. On the basis of this kind of conceptual
metaphor, its reflection in language or metaphorical expressions which comprise conventional
words, phrases between English and Vietnamese (Tran, 2009) will be in focus of this research.
With a view to understanding working mechanism of conceptual metaphor, it is a requisite to
take insight into mapping. Mapping is a set of correspondences between two domains, namely
source and target domain, according to Lakoff and Johnson (1980). They also came up with a
formula of metaphor, like in mathematics, as “TARGET DOMAIN IS SOURCE DOMAIN”.
This mapping represents the simple definition of conceptual metaphor which is comprehension of
“one concepts in terms of another” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).Specifically, source domain is
more specific, while the majority of concepts of target domain are abstract (Kovecses, 2008;
Tran, 2012). Abstract domain is made understood and paired to a particular source domain thanks
to human experiential basis. Besides, one target domain can apply to more than one source
domain and vice versa (Kovecses, 2008). To take a metaphor “Time is money” as an example,
the source domain “money” is linked to the target domain “time” which is more abstract. Based
on this metaphor, as money is spent and wasted, the same expression can be applied to time.
2. Classification of conceptual metaphor

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On cognitive linguists’ perspectives, metaphors can be classified in two main ways. On one
hand, they could be divided into structural, orientational and ontological metaphors, as proposed
by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). Other linguists, namely Joseph Grady, on the other hand, came up
with primary and complex metaphors.
Grady and his colleagues (cited in Jelec, 2014) proposed another typology of metaphor. They
divided metaphor by its degree of complexity. Primary metaphor has daily experiential basis,
specifically, “correlations of subjective experience with a physical experience” (Kovecses, 2010,
p. 749). To take metaphor “More is up” as an example of a primary metaphor, the condition of
“being more” is subjective experience and it is associated with the physical condition of “being
up”. Meanwhile, complex metaphor is combined of primary metaphors. For instance, the
complex metaphor “A purposeful life is a journey” consists of two primary metaphor “purposes
are destination” and “actions are motions”, combined with a cultural belief that people should set
purposes for their life and they should make effort to achieve those purposes (Labhart, 2002).
Accordingly, life, an abstract domain could be known as a journey to destinations; possible
obstacles require travelers to overcome to reach the destinations. It will not be easy to find the
direct association between a purposeful life and a journey because complex metaphor “cannot be
proven experimentally” (Labhart, 2002, p. 5). Rather, meaning of complex metaphor is based on
its constituting parts or primary metaphors.
With regard to the first kind of division, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) gave definition and some
characteristics of these three types. Specifically, structural metaphor is conceiving of an abstract
domain by a more concrete domain. Orientational metaphor refers to the case that an abstract
domain corresponds to a spatial direction. Common examples of this kind are “You let me down”
and “My spirit rose”. In the former case, the feeling of sadness and disappointment is illustrated
in accordance with the downward direction; meanwhile, the latter case bears the opposite (Tran,
2009). Regarding ontological metaphor, intangible concepts are considered as objects with
specificity and boundary that could be quantified and referred. For example, taking into
consideration metaphor “the mind is a machine”, it does make sense to say, “We’ve run out of
steam after long hours working on this problem”. Lakoff explained that mind is conceptualized as
the machine so it can have “on-off state, source of energy, and … productive capacity” (Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980, p. 28). Despite the above definitions, division into three types is merely artificial,
asserted by Lakoff (1980). All metaphors could be categorized as structural metaphor and
ontological, meanwhile, orientational metaphor accounts for much fewer (Lakoff & Johnson,
1980).
3. Universality and variation of conceptual metaphor
Lakoff (1993) argues that metaphor “is not a matter of language, but of thought and reason”
(p. 6). Besides, given that thought and reason differ across cultures and countries, it can be
assumed that metaphor varies to some extent. To put in another way, many metaphors could be
shared among some cultures, while some are unique to specific cultures. Concerning universality

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and variation of conceptual metaphor, many scholars have conducted research to seek the
explanations.
Factors giving rise to variation of metaphor stem from different experience and preferences.
Specified by Kovecses (2010)the experience consists of social-cultural context, social and
personal history, while preferences include personal concern.
Kovecses (2010)through his work “Metaphor, Language and Culture” referred universality to
conceptual metaphor rather than metaphorical expressions. His results that the same conceptual
metaphor could be found in a great number of different languages are in line with many other
linguists (Kovecses, 2010). This phenomena is rooted in “universal bodily experience”, however,
it does not mean expression is similar. Yet, there is one exception, that is, individuals of
distinctive cultures applies different aspect of bodily function due to differences in the way
people interact with their own physical, social, cultural environment (Kovecses, 2010; Tran,
2009).
4. Role of conceptual metaphor in description of emotions.
Metaphor, on cognitive linguists’ perspectives, serves at least three communicative functions
(Ortony & Fainsilber, 1987). Firstly, conceptual metaphor helps articulate a difficult concept that
is more often than not an intangible one. Secondly, its compactness is very helpful when one
wants to transmit a great number of information in a concise manner. The final function is that
metaphors can depict a more detailed picture than literal language can do, especially in the case
of abstract domains.
In this paper, concentration is placed on happiness categorized as one of positive emotional
states by Ortony and Finsilber (1987). This positive emotional state would fit three
abovementioned functions. Emotion is a domain with elusive quality that would challenge a
person if he/ she only used literal language. Moreover, literal language could not reflect
thoroughly vividness because of varied intensity of emotion, as suggested by Ortony and
Fainsilber (1987). Thus, emotion, in this case happiness or the interchangeable word “joy” will
undoubtedly benefit from metaphors whether in English or Vietnamese.
IV. A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR OF EMOTIONS
BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Metaphor is a means of conceptualizing human being’s bodily experience and understanding
the world, through which we comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning.
Since cognition can influence and be influenced by emotions, the study of human emotions plays
an important role in the probe into human cognition. In the following part, what will be discussed
is the conceptual metaphors of the basic emotion: happiness between English and Vietnamese.

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1. SIMILARITIES
A. Happiness is up
Lakoff and Johnson (1980) claim that happiness concept in English is mainly manifested by
spatial oriented metaphor: HAPPINESS IS UP. Under this conceptual metaphor, there are some
expressions in English:
(1) I’m feeling up.
(2) That boosted my spirits.
(3) My spirits rose.
(4) Thinking about him always gives me a lift.
(5) We had to cheer him up.
(6) They were in high spirits.
It can be seen that the metaphor “Happiness is up” is expressed in different clusters, for
instance: up, boost, rise, a lift, high spirits; all the six expressions represent the emotion of
happiness.
There are also equivalent expressions in Vietnamese whose derived ones we may encounter
in many social communications.
(7) Vì tinh thần đang lên, dự định sẽ tiếp tục dành tiền đi Thái Lan.
(8) Cả Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh đang đóng mừng niềm vui tột đỉnh này.
(9) Nhận được bằng khen mà lòng dậy lên một niềm vui sướng.
Kovecses (1991) demonstrates another conceptual metaphor which bears a close relevance to
“Happiness is up” one. It is the metaphor “Being happy is being off the ground”. This metaphor
describes the exciting state of agents.
(10) I was flying high.
(11) She was on cloud nine.
(12) I’m six feet off the ground.
(13) We were in the clouds.
(14) After the exam, I was walking on air for days.
The metaphor “Being happy is being off the ground” also occurs in Vietnamese and is applied
coincidently as in the following examples:
(15) Kết quả tuyệt vời tinh thần bay bổng.
(16) Tôi như chết lặng trên chín tầngmây.
(17) Chiến thắng bất ngờ bỗng chốc thổi các cầu thủ lên tận mây xanh.
(18) Xẻ dọc Trường Sơn đi cứu nước mà lòng phơi phới dậy tương lai.
Lakoff and Johnson (1980) consider that most of human’s basic concepts, to different extents,
are constructed by spatial metaphors which are based on physical experiences. Therefore, the two
metaphors are considered to have systematic coherence rather than to be a collection of arbitrary
cases.

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B. “Happiness is light”
Beside the metaphor “Happiness is up” proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Kosvecses
(1991) detects another important metaphor of happiness: “Happiness is light”. This metaphor is
expressed as in the following examples:
(19) When she heard the news, she lit up.
(20) Nothing to worry about. Brighten up.
(21) He radiates joy.
(22) He has a sunny smile.
(23) You are the sunshine in my life.
(24) He was gleaming.
(25) His eyes glinted when he saw money.
As argued in the previous part, metaphors conceptualize target domains through many source
ones in general and light in this case. Happiness extents are measured by light intensity. For
instance, sentence 25 expresses a higher happiness extent than sentence 24 does, since “to glint”
has a stronger light intensity in comparison with “to gleam”.
It is interesting that Vietnamese also conceptualize happiness to light intensity.
(26) Tôi và Duy mắt sang lên khi nhận được phần thưởng.
(27) Niềm hân hoan bừng lên trong ánh mắt.
(28) Hãy luôn rạng ngời dù đường đời gập ghềnh đang chờ ta.
(29) Gương mặt ai cũng bừng lên một vẻ sang ngời ngây ngất.
(30) Tiếng cười giòn tan cùng những ánh mắt sáng lên niềm vui về một cuộc chơi đầy lý thú.
C. “Happiness/Joy is a fluid in a container”
Another major conceptual metaphor for expressing emotions in general and happiness in
particular is container metaphor (Kovecses, 1991). In this metaphor, happiness is depicted as a
contained object within a container. Generally, the contained object is portrayed as fluid. The
container metaphor is very common in both Vietnamese and English.
This metaphor is usually verbalized by verbs relating fluids in English, for example: to fill, to
be full, to well, to overflow, and so forth.
(31) We were full of joy.
(32) My heart is filled with joy.
(33) Joy welled up inside her.
(34) He was overflowing with joy.
The metaphor is also used to describe sense of joy and high excitement in Vietnamese.
(35) Niềm vui tràn ngập khuôn mặt mọi người.

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(36) Giáng sinh tràn đầy niềm vui và hạnh phúc.
(37) Niềm vui vỡ òa trong chiến thắng.
(38) Ôm đứa con trai trong vòng tay, người cha hạnh phúc tràn trề.
D. “Happiness is booming”
According to Tran Ba Tien (2012), he has revealed in his study “Nghiên cứu thành ngữ biểu
thị tâm lý tình cảm trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt từ bình diện ngôn ngữ học tri nhận” that
“Happiness is booming” metaphor is frequently utilized in both English and Vietnamese. In
English, the metaphor can be expressed in some expressions:
(39) Bliss (somebody) out
(40) Blow somebody away/ somebody’s mind
(41) Blown up
(42) Bust a gut
(43) Burst out laughing
My friend Eric gets a blissed-out look whenever he talks about his TiVo personal video
recorder (Mcmanuns, 2002)
Vietnamese also conceptualizes the metaphor “Happiness is booming” through phrases such
as “vỡ òa niềm vui”, “bùng nổ niềm vui”, etc.
(44) Hà Nội vỡ òa niềm vui chiến thắng đêm Nô-en (Pham, 2008).
Due to Tran Ba Tien (2012), the metaphor “Happiness is booming” is often used in the cases
when agents wait in great suspense for their desires. In particular, it is in sport events when
tension is released by triumph.
2. DIFFERENCES
A. “Happiness is festivals”
The “Happiness is festivals” metaphor does not exist in English (Tran, 2012). Traditional
festivals play an important role in Vietnamese lives. Tran Ngoc Them claims that Vietnamese
rice cultivation is highly seasonable, therefore during rice crops, farmers are busy working day
and night. After the crops, they are so spare that they spend much time relaxing. As a result, there
are many festivals within a year in Vietnam, especially in the first month of the lunar calendar. In
Vietnamese, the metaphor can be manifested in different ways:
(45) Vui như mở hội
(46) Vui như trấy hội
(47) Vui như tết

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B. “Being happy is having precious things”
Cultural and social characteristics are obviously expressed in this metaphor. That how to
conceptualize what is precious leads to the distinction between the two languages.
In English, the metaphor can be expressed in the following ways:
(48) Have a whale of time.
(49) Have a good time.
(50) Have the time of one’s life.
(51) Merry as the day is long.
(52) Like a child with a new toy.
It can be seen that in the preceding lists, four first metaphorical expressions refer to “time”,
meanwhile only the last one implies the sense of happiness to a specific object “a new toy”
(sentence 52). For the industrial countries, time is considered a valuable commodity and a limited
resource. Therefore, in English, “time is money” is a common metaphor. This metaphor is
reflected through many verbs: waste times, save time, spend time, give time to somebody, invest
time, and so on. Acknowledgement “Thank you for your time” is common in English. Since time
is money, a valuable commodity and limited resource, it, therefore, means a precious thing in
English.
I had the time of my life enjoying the sights such as the Empire State Building, the stores
along Fifth Avenue, visiting St. Patricks Cathedral and Riverside Church and enjoying a couple
of Broadway shows (Brozan, 1989).
As opposed to English, Vietnamese refers precious things to real objects, for instance:
“vàng”, “của”, “mỡ” as in the following metaphorical expressions:
(53) Hí hửng như Ngô được vàng.
(54) Mừng như bắt được vàng/của.
(55) Như mèo thấy mỡ/ mèo mù vớ cá rán.
(56) Mừng như mẹ đi chợ về.
Due to data of World Bank organization in early 2015, Vietnam has shifted from one of the
poorest country in the world into a lower-middle income one; however many Vietnamese notions
and concepts remain their origins as expressed in the four expressions. Precious things in the
expressions from 53 to 56 are referred to actual objects: “vàng”, “mỡ”, “cá” which have a close
relation to Vietnamese people’s daily life. Before innovation period, the majority of Vietnam
population’s living condition was generally deprived and miserable. Only wealthy families
hoarded gold since gold was rare and the most valuable. In Vietnamese belief, gold-catching
dreams are related to the sense of happiness. Therefore, as cited in sentences 53 and 54, “vàng” is
considered a precious thing in Vietnamese belief. Besides, in the Vietnamese countryside at that
time, shopping was not as comfortable and food was not as plenty and diverse as they are now.
Housewives, after the fairs, would arrive home with gifts like candies or rice cakes for her
children. There appears an expression which associates the emotions of children when receiving

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gifts or food with happiness. Metaphorical expressions 52 and 56 may have the same meaning
and the same referring image (the joy of children when getting gifts) but the context and the
source domains are different: a toy in English and food in Vietnamese.
C. Happiness expressions derived from fairy tales, history and natural environment:
- Fairy tales:
Metaphors associated with fairy tales manifest cultural characteristics of every nation.
However its number in general and happiness metaphors in particular seem so restricted. Due to
the linguistic study of Tran Ba Tien in 2012, there seems no happiness metaphor relating fairy
tales in Vietnamese and only one in English which derives from “Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland” by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. The metaphor: “Smiling/Grinning
like a Cheshire Cat” implies a broad smile on someone’s face.
- History:
Only one Vietnamese happiness metaphor derived from history was found during process of
study of Tran Ba Tien (2012). The metaphorical expression “Hí hửng như Ngô được vàng”
associates the joy which is precisely revealed with facial expressions and gesture.
- Natural environment:
Natural environment is also mentioned in this part as one factor that bears distinctions
between English and Vietnamese happiness metaphors. Only one Vietnamese metaphor (Tran,
2012) which meets the requirement in this category, is “Cười như nắc nẻ”. “Nắc nẻ” is a sort of
flowers whose fruits will break itself off and throw their counties out when they grow old.
V. CAUSES FOR THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF THE CONCEPTUAL
METAPHOR OF EMOTIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETMANESE
1. Causes for similarities: Universal bodily experiences
It is remarkable that the four metaphors “Happiness is up”, “Happiness is light”, “Happiness
is booming” and “Happiness is a fluid in a container” exist in both Vietnamese and English. After
all, English and Vietnamese belong to very different language families (English is Indo-European
language, whereas Vietnamese is Austro-Asiatic language) and represent very different cultures
of the world. The question arises: How can such different languages and cultures conceptualize
happiness metaphorically in such similar ways?
As cognitive linguists claim, metaphors are motivated by universal correlations in bodily
experiences (Kovecses 2002) and are profoundly influenced by certain universal properties of
human body (Liu, 2013). The properties here refer to the embodiment of meaning which reflects
human’s collective biological capacities and physical and social experiences as beings

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functioning in their environment (Lakoff, 1987). English and Vietnamese speaking people appear
to have similar ideas about their bodies and see themselves as undergoing the same or similar
physiological and behavioral process when one person is in the state of happiness and joy.
Firstly, in concern of the “Happiness is up” metaphor, indeed, when human are joyful, they
tend to be up, move around, be active and jump up and down. Hence, upright posture of humans
often exhibits mental state of activeness and happiness. Even lush and fresh plants always have
the upward posture. These are undoubtedly universal experiences associated with happiness or
more precisely joy.
Secondly, the typical expressive responses of human body associated with happiness express
the concept of happiness in a metaphor. Thus, physiological effects of an emotion stand for that
emotion (Yu, 1998). In the “Happiness is light” metaphor, it is the reaction in eyes. As a result,
the happiness extents are associated with the light intensity. Since light is valued positively, the
light metaphor also highlights the positive evaluation of happiness through some metaphorical
expressions from sentence 19 to sentence 25: “light up”, “brighten up”, “shine”. Furthermore,
as several preceding examples indicate, the happy person is characterized by a great deal of
energy, the light appears to derive from an internal heat energy: “radiate”, “gleam”, “glint”
(Kovecses, 2002).
Thirdly, major mappings that compose the “Happiness is a fluid in a container” metaphor
may be based on the universal experiences and metaphorical perception that the emotions inside
your body container, are correlated with body fluids such as blood and the control is to keep the
substance inside the container (Kovecses, 2005). In other words, the metaphor is based on widely
shared experiences and perceptions of human body as shown in previous instances (number 31 to
number 38).
Lastly, the “Happiness is booming” metaphor is based on embodied and sense experience.
The embodied experience shows that, when the tension is released, it is often "relieved". When
happily surprised, people often exhale strongly. In particular, in a state of excitement as laughing,
people feel the contraction of the abdominal muscles. The interjection of joy is the most evident
physiological phenomenon: “Aha”, “Oh”, “Wow” (exhalation, as opposed to “Um”, hold breath
back) (Tran, 2012).
All the similarities and arguments support that the four metaphors are not arbitrary and yet,
they are based on universal bodily experiences.
2. Causes for differences:
Professor Tran Ngoc Them (2014) has analyzed the origin of distinctions in culture, social-
economic status and cognitive capacity between Vietnam and Western countries, especially
English speaking ones. He claims that traditional subsistence of Vietnam has remained farming,
specifically rice agriculture since the country was founded. Vietnam which he considers yin,
always prefers stability to alteration. Meanwhile, Western countries which are originated from

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nomadic economy and have to transfer from place to place, are full of yang. It is the difference
between Yin and Yang that draw barriers in the two groups of countries. Tran Ngoc Them (2014)
argues that natural environment is the origin of culture. Differences in nature result in distinctions
in culture, cognitive capacity, society and economy. The four factors cannot be detached from
each other and they together influence language use in general and happiness metaphors in
particular.
A. Social and cultural context and cognitive capacity:
Since English-speaking countries have belonged to industrial civilization for hundreds of
years, whereas Vietnam remains a farming country up to now; the notions of precious things of
the 2 groups of countries are greatly distinctive. As analyzed in the previous chapter of “Being
happy is having precious things”, time is considered precious thing and valuable in English.
However, Vietnamese treasures materials such as gold and food. It is the distinction between the
two social and cultural contexts affects the cognitive capacity of the two groups. As a result,
metaphorical expressions with same meanings but different source domains are created.
B. History:
As pointed out in the previous chapter, history is considered one factor that raises the
difference between English and Vietnamese happiness metaphors. There is only one Vietnamese
happiness metaphor derived from history which was found during process of study of Tran Ba
Tien (2012): “Hí hửng như Ngô được vàng”. Due to online Vietnamese proverb and culture Xuan
Ha, “Ngô” in the expression refers to Ngo people of China. When the ancient Chinese colonized
Vietnam, due to commands of the Chinese King, mandarins dare not bring Vietnamese gold
home. Therefore, they buried Vietnamese possessions and recorded that in their genealogies so
that their descendants would know where to seek. The descendants that found gold and
possessions of ancestors revealed surprises and happiness evidently. As a result, “Hí hửng như
Ngô được vàng” metaphor appears to reveal precise joy with facial expressions and gesture.
C. Environment:
The natural environment is also a factor to cause the difference in the metaphorical
expressions. There are plants and animals appearing only in Western countries but not in
Vietnam, or vice versa. “Cười như nắc nẻ” metaphorical expression is an obvious example, since
“nắc nẻ” is a sort of flowers existing only in tropical country like Vietnam. Vietnamese uses the
cognitive capacity and imagination to create the expression based on the features of the flower’s
counties. The expression implies hysterical smiles. Some other expressions derived from
Vietnamese creatures are: “nhát như cáy”, “mặt đỏ như gấc” and so on (Tran, 2012).

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VI. APPLICATION OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE
LEARNING
Metaphor is pervasive and plays an essential part of daily life of both English and Vietnamese
(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) Therefore, metaphor or other categories, namely metonymy is very
necessary if a learner wants to reach a certain level of foreign language competency (Tran, 2012;
Tran, 2011). Also, it is worth noting that using correctly metaphor and its expressions requires
learners grasp the picture of thought pattern, social and cultural context of target language
(Wright, 1999). These would be tough challenges faced by learners if they only follow the
traditional theories of metaphor which believed metaphor is just a matter of language alone
(Ortony & Fainsilber, 1987). However, conceptual metaphor enables learners to discover the
schema or experiential basis lying behind (Fuyin, 2002). As such, learners not only find it easier
to understand metaphor and its expressions but also gain more knowledge on various aspects of
target language.
Secondly, when viewed from conceptual perspectives, metaphor was proved to enhancing
learner’s lexicon. Fuyin (2002) suggested that logical linking between source domain and target
domain enables learners to come up with the meaning of one word form. To put it another way,
understanding the mappings of conceptual metaphor helps students extent their lexicon (Fuyin,
2002). To take metaphor “Happiness is up” as an example, the word “up” is not only used to
manifest a spatial direction but also a rising intensity of happiness. Better still, this way of
learning can be systematically applied to a large number of words.
Thirdly, metaphors and more specifically happiness metaphors play a huge part in revealing
linguistic, cultural, historic and even natural characteristics of each language. There are a
remarkable number of metaphorical expressions existing in a particular language. For example:
“Smiling like a Cheshire Cat” in English and “Cười như nắc nẻ” in Vietnamese. Some may use
distinctive source domains but imply same figurative meanings like: “Like a child with a new
toy” in English and “Mừng như mẹ đi chợ về” in Vietnamese as analyzed in the previous part.
Therefore, learning the metaphors helps students obtain a deep and profound understanding about
target language’s culture (Liu, 2008).
In brief, it is no doubt when both Phan Thi Ngoc Thach in her study “A contrastive analysis
of Vietnamese and English Metaphor” (2013) and Tran Ba Tien in his research “Nghiên cứu biểu
thị tâm lý tình cảm trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt từ bình diện ngôn ngữ học tri nhận” (2012)
affirm the same argument. It is that language learners are expected to obtain an adequate and
obvious cognition of distinctions between source and target languages’ metaphors so that they
can master their linguistic proficiency and cultural capital.
VII. CONCLUSION
To summarize, this research offers a comparison of happiness metaphor between English and
Vietnamese. The metaphor is widely used to express this emotional state, which is in light with
cognitive theories of metaphor. It is clear that there is existence of some shared happiness

14
metaphor in both two languages, though their metaphorical expressions differ. Besides, this
research suggests some metaphors specific to one language. The explanations are rooted from
differences in environmental, historical, social and cultural context and concern of people of each
language. Accordingly, some suggestions for applications of conceptual metaphor are provided.
Admittedly, this research bears some limitations. Firstly, the research only revolves
around metaphor and its expressions of happiness, but does not include other emotional states or
generalizations of all emotional metaphor. Secondly, the focus is placed on a contrast of
metaphor between two languages and causes for differences and similarities. Thus, further
research can take insight into application of metaphor in foreign language learning and teaching
or the origin of universality and variation of metaphors individually. For example, it is worth
investigating at a deeper degree how students can make the most of it in learning, or how
conceptual metaphor can be integrated into teaching foreign language. Three outstanding studies
are recommended for further researching: “Universality and Variation in the Use of Metaphor”
by Zoltan Kovecses, “A contrastive analysis of Vietnamese and English Metaphor” by Phan Thi
Ngoc Thach (2013) and “Understanding English Idioms from the Conceptual Metaphor Theory
of Cognitive Linguistics” by Nguyen Ngoc Vu (2011)

15
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It gives us great privilege to express our sincere thanks to all those who supported us along
the way.
Firstly, we are so grateful to our supervisor, Ms. Pham Anh Duong, whose support, advice
helped us all the time conducting this research.
We are sincerely thankful to our classmates who offer us very useful feedback and support for
our research.
And, we would never been able to complete this study without our family’s assistance and
encouragement.

16
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