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 aims at identifying the commitment of satellite news channels in Arabic to the set of important standards that reflect their credibility in dealing with the media material, and considering that these channels give special importance to events in Iraq, as well as the Arab region and the world, decide to choose them and study them with a problem The research was a question about the level of credibility of Iraqi media. This research is descriptive research, which used the survey method on an objective sample of 245 items, while the questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. Seven channels were selected in Arabic for the study. The three most watched channels were chosen. These channels included the channels of Russia t
... Show More
Pollen grains morphology have been studied for the wild species of the genus Erysimum L. which belong to Crucifereae family in Iraq. These species are E. filifolium Boiss. et Hausskn., E. oleifolium J. Gay, E. repandum L., E. eginense Hausskn. ex Bornm., E. aucheranum J. Gay, E. cheiranthoides L., E. alpestre Ky. ex Boiss., E. kurdicum Boiss. et Hausskn., E. tenellum DC., E. strophades Boiss., E. gladiiferum Boiss. et Hausskn., E. nasturtioides Boiss. et Hausskn. The study was performe by using light microscope . The study reveal that there was only one type of pollen grain named Tricoplate in all studied species . The study also demonstrated that there were differences among pollen grains morphology . The species E. kurdicum , E. alpestre
... Show More
The study seeks to determine the levels of credit structure (independent variable) depending on its components (loans, credit disseminate, other facilities) To get the eight patterns of the structure of bank credit for the purpose of assessing the relationship between changes in levels of each style of structure credit (increase or decrease) and reflected in maximizing the value of the Bank(The adopted a measured variable depending on the approximate equation of simple Tobin's Q) to determine the style that achieves the highest value of the Bank, to take advantage of it in management, planning and control by knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the historical distribution of the facilities . the sample of the
... Show More
(1)
Gender and culture are among the factors that influence the process of understanding and interpreting different types of communication, especially images. The current study, which is a part of a master’s thesis, aims at investigating the role of gender and culture in interpreting and understanding the caricatures that deal with women’s issues in Arab societies. To this end, the researchers adopted Barthes’ (1957) concepts of denotation and connotation in his theory of mythologies in addition to Langacker’s (1987) theory of (Domains). The research concludes that the female subjects have better cognitive abilities in investing the signs within the selected caricatures. The other factor the study reached to is that the respondents
... Show More
Research Summary :
Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and prayers and peace be upon the Master of the Messengers, his family and all his companions, then after:
This is brief research that contained between its two covers one of the jurisprudence rules derived from Islamic Sharia that guarantees the right of others, in case of forcing to do the prohibited act, and it is a restriction of the rule: “Necessities allow prohibitions” and “Hardship brings facilitation” and support for the rule: “Necessities are valued.” It is an origin in alleviating the taxpayer definitely , and the study has briefly shown some of the jurisprudential appli
... Show More
(57)
(52)
This study investigates the requirements of total quality management (TQM) and the determinants affecting its application in Al-Zaman newspaper, one of Iraq’s leading private press institutions. The research employed a survey methodology, using a structured questionnaire administered to 30 participants representing journalistic, administrative, and technical staff. Five TQM dimensions, each measured through four indicators, were assessed to capture the perceptions of employees regarding the availability and effectiveness of quality practices. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The results revealed that while senior management at Al-Zaman demonstrates formal support for TQM, there is a
... Show More
(1)
YY Lazim, NAB Azizan, 2nd International Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2014
Live the present companies in a competitive business environment going on and try to achieve excellence in their industry through the marketing of their products and achieve greater market share as possible to ensure its continued existence, and perhaps the concept of time production, which confirms, in essence, on the need to reduce inventory to a minimum in the production process as well as the concept of the marketing information system which asserts, in essence, to document all the events that are related to the marketing of the product provided by the production process, together constitute the subject deserves research and investigation as they have raised well-known in the fields of production management and marketing management.
... Show More