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.
This study explores the semiotic aspects of American slang, specifically focusing on the phenomenon of reduplicative expressions in informal speech. Despite the extensive research on American slang, limited attention has been given to the cultural and mythical meanings embedded within reduplicative expressions. To address this gap, the study investigates how these expressions convey denotative, connotative, and mythical meanings within casual American discourse. The objectives of the study include: 1. To what extent does Barthes’ semiotic model hold potential for application in this study? 2. How are reduplicative slang expressions widely used in everyday American life? 3. To what extent do qualitative and quantitative methods hav
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The present paper is a qualitative descriptive study. It aims to examine the macro-cultural schemata addressing the concept of violence against women in Iraq from a cognitive linguistic point of view. To meet this objective, a number of Iraqi social caricatures have been selected from two popular and active Iraqi caricaturists, Odeh Al-Fahdawi and Nasser Ibrahim. The selection and the analysis of data have been achieved following the validity and reliability procedures and the ethical considerations. To meet this objective, Sharifian’s Model (2011) of Cultural Schemata has been adopted in data analysis. The study has concluded that the macro-cultural schemata regarding the concept of violence in the selected panels reveals that violenc
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This paper presents the intricate issues and strategies related to the translation of children's books, and it particularly focuses on the comparative analysis of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter and "Le Petit Prince" (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The study finds that the typical problems in translation are, idiomatic expressions, cultural reference, and the voice preservation, along side-sheet-specific challenges which each of the text faces. The translator of Potter's work should have skills of transposing all culturally oriented peculiarities of the UK land to the international audience to keep it accessible. On the contrary, "Le Petit Prince" translation will be the process of capturing the abstra
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MR Younus…, 2020 - Cited by 2
The researchers of the present study have conducted a genre analysis of two political debates between American presidential nominees in the 2016 and 2020 elections. The current study seeks to analyze the cognitive construction of political debates to evaluate the typical moves and strategies politicians use to express their communicative intentions and to reveal the language manifestations of those moves and strategies. To achieve the study’s aims, the researchers adopt Bhatia’s (1993) framework of cognitive construction supported by van Emeren’s (2010) pragma-dialectic framework. The study demonstrates that both presidents adhere to this genre structuring to further their political agendas. For a positive and promising image
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KE Sharquie, GA Ibrahim, AA Noaimi, HK Hamudy, J Saudi Soc Dermatol Dermatol Surg, 2010 - Cited by 2
Background: Fiber-optic endoscopy is an important
investigation of the large intestine, whether or not the
radiologist (barium enema) has discovered a lesion in
the bowel. Colonoscopy affords a unique opportunity
to direct visualization of entire colonic mucosa. At
the same time, the physician can obtain biopsy specimens, remove polyps, and decompress volvuli.
Most experienced endoscopists and well prepared
patients can reach the cecum in over 90% of patients.
If colonoscopy is properly performed, it has a low
risk of complications, such as perforation and bleeding.
Methods: A total of 70 consecutive patients admitted
to Endoscopy department at Al-Kindy Teaching hospital from September- 2008 to July-2009.
The atomic properties have been studied for He-like ions (He atom, Li+, Be2+ and B3+ions). These properties included, the atomic form factor f(S), electron density at the nucleus , nuclear magnetic shielding constant and diamagnetic susceptibility ,which are very important in the study of physical properties of the atoms and ions. For these purpose two types of the wave functions applied are used, the Hartree-Fock (HF) waves function (uncorrelated) and the Configuration interaction (CI) wave function (correlated). All the results and the behaviors obtained in this work have been discussed, interpreted and compared with those previously obtained.
A vocative expression can be defined as an expression of direct address where the participant identity is set forth explicitly within a sentence. This study aims at showing how the vocative particles are used in literally texts, namely in the short story “The Garden Party" written by Kathryn Mansfield and identifying the forms of these vocative particles as used by the characters along with the functions of these vocative particles. For the analysis of vocative forms, the researcher used Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) model. Functionally, the data were analyzed based on Quirk et al. (1985) model. However, the results of this study shows that the characters in “The Garden Party” short story used various forms of vocative particles and
... Show MoreThere are still areas around the world suffer from severe shortage of freshwater supplies. Desalination technologies are not widely used due to their high energy usage, cost, and environmental damaging effects. In this study, a mathematical model of single-bed adsorption desalination system using silica gel-water as working pair is developed and validated via earlier experiments. A very good match between the model predictions and the experimental results is recorded. The objective is to reveal the factors affecting the productivity of fresh water and cooling effect in the solar adsorption system. The proposed model is setup for solving within the commercially-available software (Engineering Equation Solver). It is implemented to so
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