A study on English metaphor related to the proper names

Part i: introduction
1.rationale.
Nowadays, English is the most widely used in the world and plays an important role together with the development of society and technologies. English is not only the effective means of communication but also show its progressive effects in many aspects of life.
Practically, study on the similarities and differences between the two languages and cultures English and Vietnamese has been one of my concerns when studying English at university. It is clear that there are many differences between the two languages of as those in grammar, lexicology, translation, phonetic and so on. However there still exists plenty of similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese that can be demonstrated through metaphorical meaning especially metaphor in literature and idioms expression.
This study of metaphor has been traditionally associated with the study of literature, the use of metaphor is not restricted to this kinds of language. A good understanding of how metaphor is used in everyday language is not only important for students of English to increase our vocabulary, but also to understand new and original metaphor when we hear or speak them.
However, what I want to express here it that idioms and proverbs are the genius of national language that is the key help learners know more about nation, as well as custom and culture of each country all over the world. Therefore, it is a must to me to study metaphor related to proper names that has made a deep expression on me for a long time because, I myself find it so interesting that the proper names not only reflect the concepts bur also refer the characteristic of person and places. I always wonder why the following phenomena is, for example, English expression: he is a Othello has an equivalent one in Vietnamese : “hắn đúng là hoạn thư” and many cases we cannot find any equivalent of this language’s idioms and expression and the character in literature, clearly, most language make use of metaphor but the way individual words used varies from one language to another and each language has its own system and that they cannot always transfer the metaphorical use of a word from one language to another.
Importantly, metaphor help learners see the interest the beauty as well as the culture colour of language which help learners use and understand correctly and clearly. I hope that learners will understand about metaphor in English especially metaphor relating to the proper names that is also the main reason motivating me to carry out this research.
2. Aims of the study.
My research aims at.:
+ giving theoretical background of metaphor.
+ presenting some difficulties faced by Vietnamese learners of English in terms of idioms in general and the idioms related to the proper names in particular.
+ giving some suggested solutions to overcome these difficulties,
+ finding the metaphorical characteristic of factors related to the proper names in English idioms and literature.
3. Methods of the study.
The study on metaphor in not only English idioms but also literature related to the proper names is carried out with comparative methods with a hope that learners could see the role of metaphor in using idioms and literature from some linguists, typical examples and extracted from various types of books Besides, idioms were collected from dictionary to get valuable knowledge for this paper. Furthermore, Information related to the research paper from websites was also looked into in order to complete this research successfully.

4. Scope of the study.
During the study process, I have been attracted by metaphor - one of the figure of speech as well as metaphor in English idioms and expression about the proper names.
Because of time allowance and knowledge, I cannot cover all idioms and proverbs on these issues bur only focus on idioms related to proper names, here is a sample of discussing on metaphor in English idioms: typical proper names in literature and idioms, in each kind of proper names, I introduce some outstanding idioms to illustrate for the research.
5.Design of the study.
The study consists of three parts.
Part 1: is introduction, including rationale, aims of the study, methods of the study, scope of the study, and design of the study.
Part 2 is development that is divided into three chapters
Chapter 1 is background knowledge on the study. It supplies the definition characteristic, classification and definition.
Chapter 2 is an analysis of metaphor in English related to proper names.
Chapter 3 is metaphor related to proper names is English comparison with Vietnamese
Part 3 is a conclusion which gives a summary of the whole study mentioned in the previous parts.




Part II: development
Chapter i:
theoretical background of metaphor IN ENGLISH.
Before researching to detail the use and the meaning of metaphors related to proper names, it is important to understand the history and the use of metaphors in daily life.
I.1 What is metaphor
Theoretically, there are a lot of different ways to define what is metaphor. According to Oxford Advance Learner’s dictionary: metaphor is a word or phrase used to describe somebody or something else, in a way that is different from its normal use, in order to show that two things