Vietnamese Perception Verbs – The Transfer of Their Cognitive Metaphors into English

Fillmore stated that frame semantics offers a particular way of looking at word meanings, as well as a way of characterizing principles for creating new words and phrases, for adding new meanings to words, and for assembling the meanings of elements in a text into the total meaning of the text. [9, p.111] Besides, the semantics of Vietnamese perception verbs is very diverse, subtle, and complicated. Therefore, this article researches the cognitive metaphor semantics (meanings) of Vietnamese perception verbs and their semantic cognition transferred from Vietnamese into English. The researcher inspected and collected 3,946 sentences with perception verbs as research data from two sets of English-Vietnamese, Vietnamese-English bilingual novels: The adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle (English version and Vietnamese version), and Love after war, Wayne Karlin, Ho Anh Thai (edited) (Vietnamese version and English version). Then, cases of specific semantic cognition transferred from Vietnamese into English were tracked down by using statistical analysis method. Simultaneously, the linguistic methods, such as descriptive, analysis, and contrastive methods have been used to analyze and investigate in order to find out the basic ways these verbs can convey cognitive metaphor meanings. There are totally 6 modes of the cognitive metaphors of the perception verbs. Those cognitive metaphors are formed due to the dominance of the cognitive object, the dominance of the cognitive perceiver, being in the same cognition phase, cognitive spaces switching, cognitive results conversion and perception organs conversion. This research results can help learners, language users, translators and interpreters of Vietnamese and English work effectively and comprehensively in their bilingual interactions.


Introduction
Metaphor is a cognitive phenomenon. [8, p.14] Metaphor helps humans to try to understand new problems in terms of existing cognitive resources. [13, p.325] Metaphor is a major and indispensable part of our ordinary, conventional way of conceptualizing the world, and that our everyday behavior reflects our metaphorical understanding of experience. [10, p.186] The widespread use of metaphorical language in our everyday lives has given rise to the idea that we do not only talk metaphorically much of the time, but that we may also think metaphorically much of the time. [5, p.68] And metaphors provide rich evidence about the ways in which some aspects of our lived experience are associated with others, for reasons that reflect basic aspects of perception, thought, and possibly neurological organization. [11, p.188] In metaphor, the structure of a given domain (called the "source" domain) is mapped onto a different one (the "target" domain), which as a result is structured and understood in terms of the first one. [14, p.15] Besides, cognitive semantics sees linguistic meaning as a manifestation of conceptual structure: the nature and organization of mental representation in all its richness and diversity. [7, p.156] Verbalizations of non-verbal or conceptual metaphors may affect their possible interpretation. [12, p.10] In Vietnamese language, the semantics of the perception verbs is very interesting and deserves deep study and investigation. For instance, in Vietnamese, the verb thấy (see) can be used to express the information from all of the senses, not just the visual. The verb nghe (hear) also has a variety of meanings, which is only inferior to the verb thấy. Therefore, this article's aim is to research and study the cognitive metaphor semantics of Vietnamese perception verbs as well as their semantic cognition transfer between Vietnamese and English.
From the survey of the two sets of English-Vietnamese, Vietnamese-English bilingual novels: The adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Love after war, the researcher collected 1950 units with Vietnamese perception verbs (nhìn, nghe, ngửi, nếm, sờ and thấy) and 1996 units with English perception verbs (look, see, listen, hear, smell, taste, touch, feel). After having carefully processed, analyzed, and researched, the research data revealed that 6 reasons for the existence of cognitive metaphor meanings for those perception verbs. At the same time, the research has also tracked down all the possible semantic cognition transfers between Vietnamese and English.

The Cognitive Metaphor Mechanism
Basing the analysis of communicative interactions on mental states means, first and foremost, examining individual motivations, beliefs, goals, desires, and intentions. The next step in the analysis is to examine how these states are expressed. The definition of communication as a process implies that communicating linguistically or extralinguistically will involve two different ways of processing data. The same input may be analyzed from both a linguistic and an extralinguistic standpoint, and except in special cases, it will be processed in two parallel ways. [4, p. 1-2] Metaphor, understood traditionally, is an action of meaning transferring based on the similarity of objects in color, shape, nature of movement, etc. According to Croft, W. and Cruse, D., metaphor involves an interaction between two domains construed from two regions of purport, and the content of the vehicle domain is an ingredient of the construed target through processes of correspondence and blending. [6, p. 193] Broadly speaking, metaphor is a mechanism of speech. It is reflected in the way of using words of a certain class of objects or phenomena in order to define or identify the objects belonging to another class, or identify the other class, which has similarities with the default class in certain relationships.

The Cognitive Metaphor Mechanism of the Perception Verbs
Being a part of a linguistic system of a particular language the verb conveys national peculiarities of the conceptual system of its native speakers as well as the way a speaker visually perceives the environment. [3, p. 3] Based on meaning features, similarities, or similar elements in the same meaning category as well as the meaning proximity within each period of cognition or within the meaning group, these perception verbs can convey cognitive metaphors, which are distinctive, special, and diverse. These cognitive metaphor meanings enrich the semantic elements for the perception verbs. For example, the verb thấy (see) is a verb belonging to the third period of the cognition process -the cognition result's output phase. This verb is used to express experiences. Due to those two reasons, this verb has some meaning features that are relatively close to those of the verb biết (know). Therefore, we have a cognitive metaphor: thấy là đã biết (seeing is knowing).

Due to the Dominance of the Cognitive Object
These are the metaphors formed owing to the dominance of the semantic requirements and properties of the cognitive object. For example: Ex: Mi nhìn tôi ăn chăm chú nhưng tôi biết rõ cô không nhìn thấy gì hết. [15] In this example, the cognitive object of nhìn (look) is tôi ăn (I eat). This cognitive object is a process. Therefore, the verb nhìn in this example convey the metaphor meaning of theo dõi (watching). As a result, we have the English version of this sentence: Mi watched me eating attentively, but I knew clearly that she was not seeing anything. [16]

Due to the Dominance of the Cognitive Perceiver
These are the metaphors formed owing to the dominance of the semantic requirements and properties of the cognitive perceiver. For example: Ex: Ừ, cô cũng thấy nên để má con toàn quyền! [15] In this example, we can see that the verb thấy (see) is used to describe the thinking of the cognitive perceiver cô (the aunt). Therefore, we have the corresponding English translation of the sentence is: I think we should give your mother complete authority here. [16]

Due to Being in the Same Cognition Phase
The percentage of the cognitive metaphors formed due to being in the same cognition phase is extremely high. For cognitive metaphors in Vietnamese, the percentage is 93.61%, and that in English is 98.47%.
The cognitive metaphors formed due to not being in the same cognition phase account for only a small proportion shown in the following table.

Due to Cognitive Spaces Switching
These are the metaphors formed owing to cognitive spaces switching. They are the switching from the reality space to the assuming space (Ex: nhìn is judging, nhìn is accepting, etc.), from the assuming space to the cognition space (Ex: thấy is thinking, thấy is understanding, etc.), from the reality space to the experience space (Ex: thấy is knowing, thấy is realizing, etc.), and more.

Due to Cognitive Results Conversion
These are the metaphors formed owing to the conversion of the cognitive results of other verbs into the perception verbs. For example, we have the metaphors such as thấy is finding, thấy is realizing, thấy is perceiving, etc.

Due to Perception Organs Conversion
These are the metaphors formed owing to the conversion of the perception organs. In Vietnamese, the verb thấy of the visual perception and the verb nghe of the hearing perception can be used to convey the cognitive results of all the senses, not just the visual and the hearing only.

Conclusion
The survey results have shown us that the cognitive meanings of the perception verbs are extremely diverse, various, and special. Among them, the meanings with cognitive metaphors account for a big proportion.
The polysemy, sophistication, and subtlety of the perception verbs have enriched the language. However, they meanwhile, cause a huge obstacle to language learners and language workers. Therefore, it is necessary to pay utmost attention to the identification of the exact meanings in each certain linguistic unit when teaching or handling with languages.
Further studies of these verbs as well as their contrastive research within multi-languages are also very essential work.
Finally, this research has made a very important sense not only in linguistic study but also in language teaching, learning, in translating and interpreting, and many other activities in relation with languages.