Idioms are a very important part of the English language: you are told that if you want to go far (succeed) you should pull your socks up (make a serious effort to improve your behaviour, the quality of your work, etc.) and use your grey matter (brain).1 Learning and translating idioms have always been very difficult for foreign language learners. The present paper explores some of the reasons why English idiomatic expressions are difficult to learn and translate. It is not the aim of this paper to attempt a comprehensive survey of the vast amount of material that has appeared on idioms in Adams and Kuder (1984), Alexander (1984), Dixon (1983), Kirkpatrick (2001), Langlotz (2006), McCarthy and O'Dell (2002), and Wray (2002), among others. The paper concentrates on idioms as a learning-translation problem; it makes no claim to be comprehensive or academically rigorous. Leech (1989) defines an idiom as follows: “An idiom is a group of two or more words which we have to treat as a unit in learning a language. We cannot arrive at the meaning of the idiom just by adding together the meanings of the words inside it. E.g.John and Mary usedto be hardup (='They had very little money'.)”(P.186) To be more exact, an idiom is a sequence of words which is semantically and syntactically restricted, so that they function as a single unit. From a semantic point of view, the meanings of the individual words cannot be summed to produce the meanings of the idiomatic expression as a whole. Thus, fly off the handle, which means lose one's temper, cannot be understood in terms of the meanings of fly, off, or handle. The idiom phrase hot air, which means empty or boastful talk, is neither hot nor air; with hot air we are dealing with a set phrase where the meaning cannot be suggested on the basis of the two constituent words. The idiomatic meaning of spill the beans in So who spilt the beans (=told the secret) about her affair with David? has nothing to do with beans or with spilling in its literal sense. The foreign-language learner is left trying to figure out where and how the beans were spilt. From a syntactic viewpoint, the constituent parts of an idiom often do not permit the usual variability they display in other contexts. The point to be emphasized here is this: most idioms do not lend themselves easily to manipulation by speakers and writers; they are invariable and must be learned as wholes, but concord ofnumber, person and gender in the idiom phrase is still necessary, i.e. the verbs must be put into the correct form, and pronouns must agree with their antecedents: I don't give a hoot for her opinion! 2 • She doesn't give a hoot for my opinion! etc.)║He won, but only by the skin of his teeth2• She won, but only by the skin of her teeth• Iwon, but only by the skin ofmy teeth,I had to run for the train, and caught it by the skin of myteeth, etc.║He kept pullingmy arm, throwing me off my balance 2 • She kept pulling his arm, throwing him off his balance • We kept pullingher arm, throwingher offher balance, etc.2 The present paper is divided into five parts, as follows: Part I: An Overview; PART II: Learner’s Difficulties with Idioms; PART III: Some Pedagogical recommendations and Suggestions about Idioms; Part IV: Activities to Practice Idiomatic Expressions; Part V: Summary and Conclusion.
The Libyan-Egyptian relations since 1952 to 1969, which studies two neighboring states ,and the geographical proximity has an effect in documenting and cementing the relationship between the two states. They share 1094 m long borders. That was reflected on the kind of relationship the two countries has shares. The Libyan-Egyptian relationship is not a superficial one, as the two countries have shared borders. What lies between them is a mixture of geography and human. It is an undying history. Our choice of the topic is limited to the period 1952 the beginning of the LibyanEgyptian. The revolution of 23rd July 1952 in Egypt and the declaration of republic there. For Libya, it was the monarchy in 1969 with the September 1 revolution.
... Show MoreThe Current research aims at building a scale for the time management for the faculty members at the University of Baghdad. To achieve this goal, the researcher formulates (45) paragraphs by using verbal expressions. In front of each expression, five alternatives have been placed reflecting the extent of the emergence of this behavior (always, often, sometimes, rarely, never). For the purpose of verifying the validity of the paragraphs of the scale; the researcher has consulted a group of experts who revised these paragraphs and show their remarks. In the light of these remarks, the researcher excludes two paragraphs, and thus the number of the scale's paragraphs becomes (43). These paragraphs have been applied by the researcher on an ex
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The study aims to use the European Excellence Model (EFQM) in assessing the institutional performance of the National Center for Administrative Development and Information Technology in order to determine the gap between the actual reality of the performance of the Center and the standards adopted in the model, in order to know the extent to which the Center seeks to achieve excellence in performance to improve the level of services provided and the adoption of methods Modern and contemporary management in the evaluation of its institutional performance.
The problem of the study was the absence of an institutional performance evaluation system at the centre whereby weaknesses (areas of improvement) and st
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Evidences indicate that human beings were preoccupied with extreme forms of mental and psychic experiences long before they were recorded in literature. Greek myths and legends appear to include symbolizations of delusions, mania, and other bizarre forms of thought and behaviuor. The figure of the mad man or woman is analogous to the wild man, or the imaginary being who appears in various forms throughout western literature and art. Various studies refer to the notion of the wild man as a response to a persistent psychological urge. This urge gives an external expression and a valid form to the impulses of reckless physical self-assertion which is believed to be hidden in all of us, but is normally kept under control. Such impulses were exp
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ABSTRACT Porous silicon has been produced in this work by photochemical etching process (PC). The irradiation has been achieved using ordinary light source (150250 W) power and (875 nm) wavelength. The influence of various irradiation times and HF concentration on porosity of PSi material was investigated by depending on gravimetric measurements. The I-V and C-V characteristics for CdS/PSi structure have been investigated in this work too.
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This study aimed to explain the criteria of managers at different levels of nursing in selecting effective nursing diagnosis.
In conventional content analysis, 10 nursing managers at different levels including head nurse, supervisor, and nursing manager were interviewed. Data was collected with semi-structured interviews and a narrative approach. Data analysis was performed using the Zhang–Wildemuth method simultaneously with sampling.
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Abstract The strategic performance of the United States depends on dealing with the Middle East countries and its variants on several bases and motives that enabled them to achieve American hegemony and invest its interests at the expense of the region countries. Within this performance, the administration of the United State President Donald Trump presented the Strategic Document on December 18, 2017, which focused on the principle of "America First", to determine the direction of future US strategic performance in the formulation of means of cooperation and intersections or hostility in addition to interests and threats.The future vision of the Arab region and the Middle East as a whole, this strategy is based on the fact that
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