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 research discusses the verbal follow phenomenon in Al-Amali Abi Al-Qali’s book (seq.356 Hijri). It aims to limit the examples of this phenomenon in the book, and examine it phonologically. Accordingly, the researcher adopted the analaytical descriptive approach, taking into account Al-Rawi’s letter when ordering the verbal follow-based examples, and the order they took in the book in question. The purposes behind this phonological study of verbal follow in Al-Amali’s book are to: reach the sounds which Arabs prefer in the process of following, confirm different beautiful and desirable senses, have easy and speedy pronunciation, maintain harmony between adjacent sounds, count the sounds that occur at the beginning of the
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Objective: To find out any gender differences in health promoting behaviors for a sample of students attending Institute of Technology/ Baquba. Methodology: An analytical, cross-sectional study conducted randomly for a sample of students attending Technical Institute/ Baquba, during the period from 10th November 2015 to 10th April 2016. A questionnaire used to collecting data, this questionnaire was consisted from two domains related to health promoting behaviors including (Dietary domain and domain of some daily life activities like sleep duration, rise time, bedtime and walking period per week). The
The influence of process speed (PS) and tillage depth (TD) , on growth of corn (Zea mays L) yield, for Maha cultivar, were tested at two ranges of PS of 2.483 and 4.011 km.hr-1, and three ranges of TD of 15,20 and 25cm. The experiments were conducted in a factorial experiment under complete randomized design with three replications. The results showed that the PS of 2.483 km.hr-1 was significantly better than the PS of 4.011km.hr-1 in all studied conditions. The , slippage ratio (SR) and the machine efficiency (ME), the physical soil characteristics represented by the soil density and porosity (SBD and TSP), and the plant characteristics represented the roots dry weight, PVI and the crop productivity (CP), except adjective of the fu
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This paper presents the syntactic dimension of ditransitive verbs in terms of the universal theory of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). This theory is syntactic in nature, but it also covers the semantic as well as the pragmatic aspects of any linguistic phenomenon. It assumes a universal framework through which syntactic constructions can be analyzed. However, the morphological structure that each language enjoys renders the universal treatment more complicated and can question the universal nature of such a theory. In this paper, an attempt is made to check if the universal tenet of the theory is maintained over two typologically different languages: English and Arabic in respect of the way that double-object constructions (DOCs)
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This study aimed to reveal the extent to which the values of social peace are included in the content of social and national studies textbooks of the middle stage in kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this goal, the researcher used the descriptive analytical approach. The study sample consisted of all developed social and national studies textbooks of the middle stage in kingdom of Saudi Arabia in first and second semester of student books in edition of 1439-1440. The study tool was the analysis card. The study reached the following results: 1-The content of social and national studies textbooks of the middle stage in kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a whole included (38) social peace values of total (40) values, corresponding to the inclusio
... Show MoreThe adrenal gland is a vital endocrine gland that secretes many important hormones in the daily life of birds. It is located in the Iraqi Pterocles alchata bird on both sides of the aorta in the front and side of the cranial lobe of the kidney at the caudal end of the lungs, triangular shape with a creamy yellow color. The statistical analysis showed no significant differences between the weight and length of the right and left glands. Histologically the gland of the sandgrouse bird capsule contains autonomic nodes consisting of nerve cells and the average thickness of the capsule is 42.69±1.81μm, the parenchyma of the gland is divided into two areas; the cortex and medulla in addition to the blood sinuses. The cortex area is divided into
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The aim of this study is to identify the effect of particle size and to increase the concentration of Iraqi bentonite on rheological properties in order to evaluate its performance and to know if it can be used as drilling fluid without additives or not. In this study, Iraqi bentonite was carried out by mineral composition (XRD), chemical composition (XRF) and Particle size distribution (PSD), and its rheological properties were measured at different particle size and concentration. The results showed that when the particle size of Iraqi bentonite decreased, and the rheological properties were increased with increased concentration of Iraqi bentonite. Also, Iraqi bentonite was unable to use as drilling fluid without certain additives.
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This is a descriptive study that used the survey method, it’s aimed to identify the topics and frameworks of diplomatic and political issues covered by the news of the website of the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the content analysis method applied on a sample selected in a systematic random manner for news published in the year 2021. The sample included (191) news equivalent to (20%) of the total study population of (942). The study reached some results, the most important of which were as follows: The political issue, in its general sense, grabbed the most prominent attention among the various issues and events focused on by Iraqi diplomacy: "international cooperation", "bilateral cooperation", and then "regional politic
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The study was reflection of the impact of the widespread use of polymer Novolak composite reinforced Glass fiber and Asbestos fiber once again with weight fraction 60% on the physical properties, which included (Hardness, Compressive deformation, compressive modulus of elasticity, Flexural modulus of elasticity, Resilience modulus, the maximum of Flexural strength, Flexural strain energy and Shear strength inner layers); it is known how much important the media as a source of bacterial contamination, which contributes directly or indirectly in the process of aging of these materials. These Novolak composite reinforced, prepared by weight fraction of (10%) and (14%) of the Hexamethylene-tetraamine (HMTA) hardener material. It
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