“Pair of utensils” in the perception of Vietnamese people (Survey of folk songs, proverbs and idioms)

Abstract

This article surveys and describes the system of "pairs of utensils" in Vietnamese folk songs, proverbs and idioms. The system of "pairs of utensils" is quite rich and diverse with 250 double-wave structures, appearing 504 times in 445 units of folk songs, proverbs, and idioms, such as: áo – quần, chăn – gối, giường – chiếu, chỉ – kim, etc. These "pairs of utensils" structures, which are specific, tangible, and have many experiences, should become the source domain and mapped onto the "human" target domain, the "social" target domain, to form the conceptual metaphor models. Through established conceptual metaphor models, the article further highlights some unique features of the Vietnamese way of thinking about "pairs of utensils" based on the embodiment.