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.
Social interaction is the platform that enables people to connect and practice language. Active listening stimulates them to understand the language they are speaking. The problem of the study highlights that less attention to listening among speaking, reading, and writing skills causes the weakness of collaborative learning. This paper contributes to characterizing the effectiveness of collaborative learning in developing learner’s listening skills. It aims to underscore the role of target language learners as members of the learning groups and of the teacher in the collaborative learning process. 130 Iraqi EFL teachers from different colleges at the University of Baghdad participated in this study. The scores in the statistical data wer
... Show MoreThe study aims to identify the effects of dubbed Turkish drama on the public through the application of a sample of the views of women. The study also attempts to monitor the causes and motives due to the act of observation and to identify the various effects of this act. In order to achieve these goals, the researcher relies on the descriptive approach in addition to the questionnaire and interviews to collect data. It ends with a number of results such as: The study aims to identify the effects of dubbed Turkish drama on the public through the application of a sample of the views of women. The study also attempts to monitor the causes and motives due to the act of observation and to identify the various effects of this act. In ord
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There Are Many Communities Suffering Of Unemployment Due To Has Great Social And Economic Impact, As Well As The Psychological Effects Devastating And Serious And That May Threaten States With Collapse And Leading Human Displacement And Loss And Crime, And Often Derive Unemployed People To Practice Bad Habits Such As Gambling, Alcohol And Drug Abuse To Escape From Their Reality To Their Concerns And Problems.
It Should Be Noted, That The Largest Percentage Of Unemployment In Developing Societies Represented By The Educated Class Of University Graduates, And This Is Something Painful.
The Unemployed Know That (Each Capable Of Working And Who Want To Look For And Accept Prevailing Bricks) Is Th
... Show MoreThe purpose of this study is to investigate learners' listening comprehension problems with Englishlectures. The study was guided by research question (What are the listening comprehension problems learners have with lectures in English).Furthermore; the main significant goal were declared through conducting this study, as well as providing some procedures of distribution the questionnaire of the study.Moreover, it presents several definitions of listening. This study definitely depends on questionnaire instrument to gathering the required data. The participants of the study were 30 learners completed their secondary school and joined at the college. Based on the findings among the five factors (text, speaker, task, environment, and list
... Show MoreObjective: The study objectives are to identify the problems which confront renal transplant recipients
( RTRS).
Methodology: A descriptive study was carried out at two Teaching Hospitals with kidney transplant
centers. Surgical specialties and Al-Karama outpatients,
clinics for ( RTRS) ,and three Teaching
Hospitals; Medical city, Al-Karama and Al-Yermok which were responsible for immunosuppressive
drugs distribution .Starting from October ,1st
2006 to the end of July 2007.To achieve the objectives
of study, a non-probability (purposive) sample of 150 ( RTRS) who were attending to the outpatient
clinic of the above listed hospital were selected according to the criteria of the study sample .
The finalized q
The aim of the present research is to identify the test wisdom and the engagement with learning and psychological tension among postgraduate students at the University of Samarra according to the variables of the department, gender, age, and whether students are employee or non-employee. The study also attempts to identify the relationship between the test wisdom and the engagement with learning and psychological tension. The research sample consisted of (75) postgraduate students randomly selected from college of Education. The researcher applied the test–wisdom of (Mellman & Ebel) and the scale of engagement with learning preparation by (Al-zaabi 2013). In addition, the researcher used the list of the psychological stress of (Abu
... Show MoreEvery body has a size and mass that distinguishes it from others and makes it different from others. Some of these bodies are huge and large in size, and some are small and light in weight. Among these masses and bodies are some that are dealt with by their size and weight, each according to its quantity, weight, and cheapness. This is why they created quantities by which these weights and quantities could be estimated, so they used measures and weights for that. Objectives: The research aims to know some measures and weights, such as the wife’s maintenance, the amount of zakat, etc.I found it to be a widely spread topic, and widely used in the folds of jurisprudence. During my reading of jurisprudence books, I found jurists using many qu
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Stylistics represents a modern approach in understanding the literary text through the linguistic patterns that form it. The distinctive phenomena that the text includes constitute special features in it. As well as exploring its aesthetic aspects through description and analysis at the same time. The close link between stylistics and linguistics made stylistics occupy a prominent place in modern literary criticism.
In this regard, we do not want to dwell on the different directions of stylistics. Rather, we will prolong the discussion in the study of the style as a (deviation. Aversion) from the original. Because this trend plays on the chord of the paradox between the surface structure and the deep structure, especially when the sur