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 this paper, there are two main objectives. The first objective is to study the relationship between the density property and some modules in detail, for instance; semisimple and divisible modules. The Addition complement has a good relationship with the density property of the modules as this importance is highlighted by any submodule N of M has an addition complement with Rad(M)=0. The second objective is to clarify the relationship between the density property and the essential submodules with some examples. As an example of this relationship, we studied the torsion-free module and its relationship with the essential submodules in module M.
Marriage is a holly secret in Christian religion .So it id natural that its ceremonies acquired religious form .In general the marriage is contracted by minister of religion in presence of the two parties or by a proxy or presence of parents if it is necessary . And to make the condition of publicity for the marriage ,its procedures must be made before witnesses .Also the minister of religionhave to confirm the agreement of the two parties before beginning the procedures.The marriage ceremonies are made.These procedures are religious traditions that includes praying and make blessings and putting the rings in fingers by thepriest . The marriage is a holly secret performed by the crown pray according to the church religious traditions
The present study aims at analyzing the polysemy of the English preposition in from the cognitive linguistic (CL) point of view using Evans' and Tyler's approach (2003). The perplexity faced by Iraqi second language learners (L2) due to the multi-usages of this preposition has motivated the researcher to conduct this study. Seventy-six second year university students participated in this experimental study. The data of the pre-test and post-test were analyzed by SPSS statistical editor. The results have shown the following: First, a progress of more than (0.05≤) has been detected as far as students' understanding of the multiple usages of the preposition in is concerned. Second, the results of the questionnaire have s
... Show Moreالنظام السياسي اليمني : دراسة في المتغيرات الداخلية
The conjunctive ''and'' and its Arabic counterpart ''و'' are discourse markers that express certain meanings and presuppose the presence of other elements in discourse. They are indispensable aids to both the text writers and readers. The present study aims to show that such cohesive ties help the writer to organize his main argument and communicate his ideas vividly and smoothly. They also serve as explicit signals that help readers unfold text and follow its threads as realized in the progression of context. The researcher has utilized the Quirk Model of Semantic Implication for data analysis. A total of 42 (22 for English and 20 for Arabic) political texts selected from different elite newspapers in both Arabic and English for the analy
... Show MoreOnline examination is an integral and vital component of online learning. Student authentication is going to be widely seen when one of these major challenges within the online assessment. This study aims to investigate potential threats to student authentication in the online examinations. Adopting cheating in E-learning in a university of Iraq brings essential security issues for e-exam . In this document, these analysts suggested a model making use of a quantitative research style to confirm the suggested aspects and create this relationship between these. The major elements that might impact universities to adopt cheating electronics were declared as Educational methods, Organizational methods, Teaching methods, Technical meth
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In this paper, Bayesian estimator for the parameter and reliability function of inverse Rayleigh distribution (IRD) were obtained Under three types of loss function, namely, square error loss function (SELF), Modified Square error loss function (MSELF) and Precautionary loss function (PLF),taking into consideration the informative and non- informative prior. The performance of such estimators was assessed on the basis of mean square error (MSE) criterion by performing a Monte Carlo simulation technique.
Witch stories are part of American popular culture, and this culture is extremely influenced by a continuing reliance on its past. The modern obsession of Americans with witches, whether real or metaphorical, is related to politics especially when it came to issues of gender politics. This article exposes a modern image of the female character seen from a male author point of view. John Updike, influenced by the changes that happened to women within second wave of feminism, attempted to write The Witches of Eastwick (1984). Actually, he presented women who did have a sort of careers. His witches are professional active and dynamic. What do witches stand for in American Culture? Why did Updike choose to write
... Show MoreThis article deals with the study of theories about verbal periphrasis as a grammatical construction; the aim of this point it offers good and valid guidelines to improve the linguistic description. The interest in the subject comes from its importance in the process of language teaching for the students of Spanish and to clarify this type of curriculum of this research we analyzed a literary text. From "Zurita"