THE USE OF ‘DOG’ IN IDIOMS, PROVERBS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Abstract

Idioms and proverbs are regarded as special factors of a language’s vocabulary system because they reflect cultural specific characteristics of each nation, including material and spiritual values. There are many proverbs with dog in English and Vietnamese because it is so close to human’s life, they have a very strong influence on many aspects of human’s culture every where in the world. It plays a very important role in religion, art and especially in language..This paper is carried out with the aims to show some differences between English and Vietnamese idioms containing the word ‘dogs’ as well as the specific features of English and Vietnamese cultures about the dog lying behind the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese idioms containing the word ‘dogs’.