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 research aims to achieve a set of objectives, the most important of which is determining the extent to which the auditors of the research sample in the Federal Bureau of Financial Supervision adhere to the requirements of the quality control system according to the Iraqi Audit Manual No. The federal financial / research sample with the quality control system according to the Iraqi audit guide No. 7), and the researcher seeks to test the main research hypothesis and sub-hypotheses, and to achieve this, a questionnaire was designed by (Google Form) and distributed electronically to the elements of the research sample, Through the statistical package program (SPSS), the results of the questionnaire were analysed. In light of the applied
... Show MoreThe chamomile is one of the most important medicinal plants recommended for treatment of asthma and some respiratory system diseases. This research was designed to research the effects of aqueous extract of chamomillarecutita on histological structure of Diaphragm of albino mice. The study included 40 male albino mice Musmusculus, their age ranged from (5-7) weeks.The mices were divided randomly to 5 groups and oral administered with 1 ml every day for 10 days:- First Group G1: consider as control group and treated with normal saline,Second Group G2: was treated with aqueous extract of chamomile with concentration of 3 gm /100 ml D.W, Third Group G3: was treated with aqueous extract of chamomile with concentration of 5 gm /100 ml D.W.Fourth
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The Incentives legislation aims to raise the efficiency of job performance of all kinds through optimal investment of human resources and their capabilities to raise or increase and production influence and provide distinguished and creative services such as The Incentives Law of Productive Ministries Employees No. 20 of 1993 and instructions issued by ministries and relevant Facilities regarding incentives for their affiliates based on provisions Public Companies Law and the instructions of the Higher Education Fund issued by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The human element is the most unstable and complex element of production as it is characterized by a set of feelings and emotions that is expresses
... Show MoreBackground: The aim of this in vitro study was to evaluate and compare the effect of preheating microleakage among three different filler size composites which include Filtektm Z250 micro hybrid, Z250xt Nano hybrid and nanocomposite Z350xt. in Class II cavity preparation .
Materials and methods: sixty maxillary first premolars were prepared with class II cavities. Samples were divided into three groups according to material used group A (FiltekZ250 micro hybrid). Group B(Z250xt Nano hybrid). Group C (nanocomposite Z350xt)and each group divided into two subgroups of ten teeth according to temperature of composite:
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The research aims to test the correlation relationships between wise leadership, and the business model, and to demonstrate its influence (wise leadership) on the business model. Therefore, two main hypotheses were put forward. The research was applied to a sample consisting of (87) managers and deputy managers, some of them are members on the board of directors of the researched company. The questionnaire was adopted as a basic tool for collecting data, in addition to personal interviews. A number of statistical methods were used to analyze the data and obtain results. The researcher showed a set of results, including: There is a significant correlation between wise leadership and business model. There is an influence of wise leadership on
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The aim of the research was to investigate the use of non-parametric tests in the analysis of the questionnaire and how to choose the appropriate test for testing the hypothesis of the study of crime motives in Khartoum State. The data were collected through the primary sources by designing a questionnaire and distributed to a sample of inmates in Khartoum state; the data were analysis by SPSS program using the analytical statistical method through using some of the suitable non-parametric tests for each case. The most important results of the research were: there was significant relationship between the type of crime and the age group therefore, we found that the age group (20-29) was the most frequent crime particularly, the fi
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This paper aims to explain the effect of workplace respect on employee performance at Abu Ghraib Dairy Factory (AGDF). For achieving the research aim, the analytical and descriptive approach was chosen using a questionnaire tool for collecting data. It covers 22 items; ten of them for the workplace respect variable and twelve items for the employee performance variable. The research population involved human resources who work at AGDF in Baghdad within two administrative levels (top and middle). We conducted a purposive stratified sample approach. It was distributed 70 questionnaire forms, and 65 forms were received. However, six of them had missing data and did not include in the final data analysis. The main results are t
... Show MoreThe propagation of laser beam in the underdense deuterium plasma has been studied via computer simulation using the fluid model. An appropriate computer code “HEATER” has been modified and is used for this purpose. The propagation is taken to be in a cylindrical symmetric medium. Different laser wavelengths (1 = 10.6 m, 2 = 1.06 m, and 3 = 0.53 m) with a Gaussian pulse type and 15 ns pulse widths have been considered. Absorption energy and laser flux have been calculated for different plasma and laser parameters. The absorbed laser energy showed maximum for = 0.53 m. This high absorbitivity was inferred to the effect of the pondermotive force.