If vocabulary is one of the most essential parts ofa language, enriching vocabulary plays a
very important role in learning and using that language. Among many issues related to
vocabulary, transference of meaning is now being paid a lot of attention because being
aware of this will be helpful to any language learners. While studying about the
transference of meaning we have found that metonymy, a means of transference of
meaning basing on contiguity between objects, is a powerful way to use language
effectively and creatively. However, not many people are aware of it and not many studies
have chosen metonymy as their main subject. For that reason we choose the metonymy as
the subject to study and make a contrastive analysis between that in English and
Vietnamese. The study is aimed at giving readers a general view on the metonymy as the
transference of meaning in English and pointing out the features that English and
Vietnamese share with, and differ from, each other in the ways of forming and using
metonymy. Besides, we suggest some activities for teachers of English to help their
students and learners of English to enrich their vocabulary as well as avoid and self-correct
mistakes in communication and translation.
This research consists of three main parts. The first part, Introduction, gives general
information about the rationale, the aim, the scope, the methods and certainly the design of
the study. The second part, Development, includes four chapters. Chapter 1 discusses some
related matter to the study as language, word, meaning of word and the changes of those.
The last part in this chapter presents the term transference of meaning, its causes and its
means. Chapter 2 and chapter 3 are the focus of the study which give an overview of
metonymy in English and Vietnamese, then contrast them to find out any similarities and
differences. The final chapter is the implication in language teaching and translation. The
last part, Conclusion,summarizes what have been discussed in the study and gives some
general comments on the use of metonymy in English and Vietnamese as well as supplies
some suggestions for further study.