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.
William Shakespeare's play Coriolanus explores the journey of power and the transformation of a skilled warrior into a statesman. This paper employs Machiavelli’s framework of pragmatic statecraft to analyse Coriolanus’s tragic failure as a political leader despite his unparalleled prowess as a Roman general. It analyses Coriolanus's political career, revealing how his military skills, while effective in warfare, do not translate into political success. The paper shows that Coriolanus’s contempt for performative politics, refusal to adopt civic diplomacy, and failure to soften aristocratic pride with populist appeal turn plebeians against him and alienate patricians. His upholding of martial honour — fostered by his mother Volumnia
... Show MoreReceipt date:06/23/2020 accepted date:7/15/2020 Publication date:12/31/2021
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The executive authority differs from one country to another, as it differs from a federal state to another according to the nature of the applied political systems, so this research focused on federal states according to their political systems, then going into the details of the executive authority and its role In the federal states by referring to the four federal experiments
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In the experimental investigation, an apparatus is set up to measure the velocity and temperatures around the heat exchanger.
The results show that there is an effect for using vortex generators on heat transfer. Also, heat transfer depends on the shape and location. The circular is found t
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The aim of the research is to identify the problems of teaching computer material concerning fourth grade students’ point of view in the computer department in the College of Education for Women by identifying the statistically significant differences between the answers of female students to problems in the field of school administration and in the field of teaching computer subject included the sample of research On (39) of (50) students and (78%) From the fourth grade students in the department of computer who had achieved the theoretical part in the first semester and the assembly application in the second semester in the schools of Baghdad city for the aca
... Show MoreThe comparative study tries to find the common points in two different authors’ works and in this kind of studying so many other common but the hidden points may be revealed. Postwar literature is somehow one of the best literary genres for finding the common factors and features that the poets have tried to present in their works elements such as desire to be winner, cruelty, inhumanity, and absurdity of the war. The Iranian poet late Qaisar Aminpour(1961-2007) and Yusef Komunyakaa ( 1947) from Bogalusa, Louisiana, are among the great American and Iranian poets whose works so many times have been interpreted and analyzed. The finding the outstanding and the most important points and themes in the postwar poems of these
... Show MoreStudy of Direct Marketing techniques and determining the scope of the suitability of each of them in the application in the Iraqi market - An analytical and explorative study for sample of views for wholesaler in Baghdad. The essential idea of the research is to go into the most important concepts which have been mentioned in the direct marketing and determining its current and most important techniques and knowing the scope of applying these techniques in Baghdad main markets (Karrada, Jamilah, shorja, Baya area, zeyouna and new Baghdad) and which of those techniques most applicable in these markets. The research took a sample of (100) wholesalers who practice the activities of selling nutritional items, auto and outs spare part
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