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.
Language is an important means through which one can construct one's social world. Accordingly, the way we view ourselves and the world is basically formed by language use whereby identities, relations, and values are constructed and maintained. Most discourse analysts consider narrative not only the locus of construction and enactment of identity, but also a distinguished genre for its analysis.The present study is concerned with how identity can poetically be informed, hence exploring the way black poets use language when reflecting their identity and culture. The poem, right on: white america by the black American poetess Sonia Sanchez, is chosen to be analyzed based on Simpson's stylistic model (2004). In this model, the ana
... Show MoreThe importance of the construction sector and its Great role in the provision of services and infrastructure, reduce poverty, improve living conditions and improve the economic situation in the country, impose attention to the way in which the projects implemented for its improvement and to get successful projects. The objective of this research was to determine the criteria for success as well as critical success and failure factors that have a significant impact on project success. A selected 75 engineer (department managers, project managers and engineers) are asked to fill the questionnaire form, Sixty-seven valid questionnaire forms were analyzed statistically to get search results, which were as follows : Twe
... Show MoreWaste is one of the most important problems affecting the city’s environment and its urban landscape, which results from the activities and activities of man and the natural environment. Its sources have varied between residential, commercial, industrial, medical and hazardous, and its spread in cities, on roads and on abandoned open lands, has led to significant negative effects and risks to human health and the environment.
Therefore, there were serious attempts to deal with waste and follow sequential steps that formed a waste management system such as (collection, sorting, transport, then treatment and disposal). Preventing and reducing waste, then recycling and recovering by composting or burning, and ending with bu
... Show MoreThe present paper discusses one of the most important Russian linguistic features of Arabic origin Russian lexes denoting some religious worship or some political and social positions like Qadi, Wally, Sultan, Alam, Ruler, Caliph, Amir, Fakih, Mufti, Sharif, Ayatollah, Sheikh.. etc. A lexical analysis of the two of the most efficient and most used words of Arabic origin Russian lexes that are “Caliph and Sheikh” is considered in the present study. The lexicographic analysis of these words makes it possible to identify controversial issues related to their etymology and semantic development.
The study is conducted by the use of the modern Russian and Arabic dictionary, specifically, (Intermediate lexicon Dictionary
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The research aims to use performance indicators and financial criteria in evaluating the economic feasibility of the company's insurance portfolios. In addition to identifying the strengths and weaknesses in portfolio's performance to enhance the strengths and address the weaknesses. This is consistent with research problem that dealt with the performance indicators, economic feasibility of company's portfolios and contributing to their improvement, reducing the financial and insurance risks associated with company's business. The research’ sample is represented by the Iraqi Insurance Company as it is one of the oldest financial institutions operating in the insurance sector. It has identified (5) insurance portfolios (marine, engineer
... Show MoreWhile providing important news information, News tickers ( also called sliders or crawlers ) have become one of the methods used daily by satellite channels, because it’s almost a continuous news coverage and as it seems, it has become today an addition to the news world. Hence, satellite channels need to look for a mechanism to build news tickers in order to develop them even though they are still today not recognisable and in need of being classified in a radio or television art, and that is not easy. This research sheds light on the construction of the slider of a news satellite channel, which is important according to our modest convictions, as it can be the beginning of a long scientific research in a new field of study. The probl
... Show MoreThe research aims to identify the impact of the merger of the companies affiliated to the Ministry of Industry and Minerals on their financial profitability since the companies before the merger suffered a rise in losses and the deficit reached very high levels that affected its overall performance and even on the morale of workers as losses are increasing and solutions Efficiency is absent. The problem stems from knowing the impact of the merger on the profitability ratios of the companies. The research field was represented by the companies affiliated to the Ministry of Industry and Minerals (21) companies, while the research sample reached (6) companies after the merger (14) companies before the merger, was based on data The f
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The almighty Al-Bari imposed on Muslims easy and accessible worshipers for every individual who is eligible to commission, so whoever performed it rightfully, God rewarded it with the best reward. From the Muslim, the Almighty made the Almighty to the types of acts of worship and acts of righteousness as a reason for the remission of sins that were advanced and late, so I chose a topic (from the hadiths of righteous deeds mentioned in the atonement of sins) as a research drawn from the master’s thesis called (the hadiths of the atoners of sins that were presented and delayed - An analytical study- ), And collect in this research kinds of acts of righteousness that bring the mercy of God Almighty to His servants and be a reason for the
... Show MoreThe paper include studies the effect of solvent of dye doped in polymeric laser sample which manufactured in primo press way, which is used as an active (R6G) tunable dye lasers. The remarks show that, when the viscosity of the solvent (from Pure Water to Ethanol), for the same concentration and thickness of the performance polymeric sample is increased, the absorption spectrum is shifts towards the long wave length (red shift), & towards short wave length (blue shift) for fluorescence spectrum, also increased the quantum fluorescence yield. The best result we obtained for the quantum fluorescence yield is (0.882) with thickness (0.25mm) in Ethanol solvent in concentration (2*10-3mole/liter), while when we used the Pure Water as a solvent,
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Were studied some bacteria evidence of pollution as well as the total number of live bacteria in the waters of the Diyala river and selected five stations within the 17 km final Diyala River before its mouth in the Tigris River was the first before the new bridge of the Diyala River about 4 km and the second after the mouth of the water purification plant Rustumiya suit inverselywith temperatures