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.
In the present research, the nuclear deformation of the Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ar, and Kr even–even isotopes has been investigated within the framework of Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov method and SLy4 Skyrme parameterization. In particular, the deform shapes of the effect of nucleons collective motion by coupling between the single-particle motion and the potential surface have been studied. Furthermore, binding energy, the single-particle nuclear density distributions, the corresponding nuclear radii, and quadrupole deformation parameter have been also calculated and compared with the available experimental data. From the outcome of our investigation, it is possible to conclude that the deforming effects cannot be neglected in a characterization o
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In this study, polymeric composites were prepared from unsaturated polyester as a base material with glass powder (fluorescent) in different weight ratios (4, 6, 8, 10,and 11%) as a support material and after comparison before and after reinforcement of the prepared composites, an increase was found. In the values of mechanical properties (hardness, compressive strength), the shock resistance values decreased, but an increase in temperature leads to an increase in the values of shock resistance, as well as the values of compressive strength And it reduces the hardness value.
In the present study, the aim was made to identify the relationship between thyroid autoimmunity (TAI) and female infertility. The study was performed on 30 infertile women and 22 age-matched healthy fertile control age (33 ± 5 years). Overall, serum prolactin (PRL), thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) assay is the key test for the diagnosis and management of hypo and hyperthyroidism. Anti-TPO Ab and anti-TG Ab were measured. The mean ± SE of serum PRL (31.080 ± 3.06) ng/ml was significantly (P<0.05) higher in infertile group compared with control (16.191±1.36) ng/ml. Serum TSH was significantly (P<0.05) higher in infertile group (5.689 ± 1.12) µIU/ml compared to control group (2.282 ± 0.18) µIU/ml. The prevalence of positive
... Show MoreThis work presents a simple method for determination of the neutron reflection coefficient (n) as a function of different neutron reflector materials.A laboratory neutron source (Am-Be) with activity of 16 ci is employed with a (BF3) neutron detector. Am-BeThree types of reflector materials are used as samples, the thickness of each sample is (5cm).It is found that( ?7) is: -For polyethlyene = 0.818
Vitamins play an important role in the human health, and thus they are the kind of major nutrients in the body. Chemical products perform numerous physiological functions and can jeopardize health jointly in their absence and surplus. Therefore, it is necessary to establish methods for observation vitamin levels in various molds. In this review paper, the most methods of determination used are high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), spectrophotometric and potentiometric techniques by listed the value of : slope, linear range, correlation coefficient, detection limit, the max of wavelength and PH and compared with these methods.
The aim: to evaluate combined microscopy techniques for determining the morphological and optical properties of methadone hydrochloride (MDN) crystals. Materials and methods: MDN crystal formation was optimized using a closed container method and crystals were characterized using polarized light microscope (PLM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and confocal microscopy (CM). SEM and CM were used to determine MDN crystal thickness and study its relationship with crystal retardation colours using the Michel-Levy Birefringence approach. Results: Dimensions (mean±SD) of diamond shaped MDN crystals were confirmed using SEM and CM. Crystals were 46.4±15.2 Vs 32.0±8.3 µm long, 28.03±8.2 Vs 20.85±5.5 µm wide, and 6.62±
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Characterization is commonly known in stylistics to be the cognitive process in the readers' minds when comprehending a fictional character in a literary work .In one approach, it is assumed that characters are the outcome of the interaction between the words in the text on the one hand and the contents of our heads on the other. This paper is an attempt to understand how characterization is achieved by applying Culpeper’s (2001) model which seems to be to present a method of analysis that is more objective and more systematic in analyzing characters. Two characters are selected for discussion; Ralph and Jack from Golding’s (1954) Lord of the Flies. The novel talks about the corruption of human beings and the capacity of evil th
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