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.
Amongst the literary writers who used their art to direct the attention towards the issue of woman and her rights in a proper life is the English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), who has been praised for his “openness to the feminine principle” 1 as Irving Howe put it. Hardy’s wide readings have changed his way of dealing with and thinking about so many critical issues which started to float on the surface of the English society during the mid and late of the 19th century. His readings for a number of writers, who seem of huge impact on his writings as he later admits that – “[his] pages show harmony of view with
... Show MoreThe adopted method in the teaching of history is conservation and indoctrination in all grades, and this will lead to a lack of students interact with teachers in the course of the lesson, and poor use of teachers to questions that raise students' thinking during the lesson, which leads to a lack of interest in the topic of the lesson and wasting opportunities contribution making it the teacher at the center of the educational process, and to provide arrogating the researcher to contribute to teaching style with the belief that the use of this method of teaching could lead to overcome the difficulties and problems faced by the teaching material.
And there are educational complexes integrated approac
... Show MoreIn this paper, we present new algorithm for the solution of the nonlinear high order multi-point boundary value problem with suitable multi boundary conditions. The algorithm is based on the semi-analytic technique and the solutions are calculated in the form of a rapid convergent series. It is observed that the method gives more realistic series solution that converges very rapidly in physical problems. Illustrative examples are provided to demonstrate the efficiency and simplicity of the proposed method in solving this type of multi- point boundary value problems.
The research aims to test the effect of the behavioral factors (intangible) represented by an explanatory variable represented by organizational silence and a responsive variable of quality of Function life. The problem was the negative effects of the organizational silence on the morale of the employees and consequently their performance and the quality of function life. To collect the data and information needed to measure the two variables of research conducted in the health center / Sulaikh by taking a sample of (40) employees to test the hypotheses of research through the survey of their views, using statistical tools non parametric using the program. The most important recommendations were the establishment of training workshops fo
... Show MoreThis research aims to analyze the intellectual and civilizational regression that afflicted Iraqi and Arab society due to political and religious tyranny and internal conflicts, which was reflected in the deterioration of human rights values and the absence of equality and justice in dealing with the other religiously, which affected the reluctance of members of religious groups to interact with their national societies and then migrate to Outside, which contributed to a double loss, in terms of the loss of these societies by productive and effective national competencies, and in terms of distorting the image of Islam. The research stressed that the first treatments of this phenomenon are the consolidation of the values of citize
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Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and prayers and peace be upon the most honorable of creation, Muhammad, whom God sent as a mercy to the worlds, and his pure God and his faithful companions. The Islamic heritage was replete with texts issued from among the pure infallibility, which constituted a prominent teacher that takes the student to stop there in search of its goals, purposes and beauty. The choice was made from those texts that were issued by the imams of Muslims in the Abbasid era, namely Imam Muhammad al-Jawad, his son Imam Ali al-Hadi and his grandson Imam Hassan Zaki al-Askari. (Peace be upon them), and scholars have called them (sons of satisfaction), and researchers have shed light on these texts from rhetorical, artistic
... Show MoreThe current research is concerned with studying the decisive answers which are considered quick and conclusive. These answers can effectively interrupt the opponent's argument and close the dialogue.This research is concentrated on deliberative methodology focusing on the decisive answer's activity and ending them through several completing and argument sides. This research consists of an introduction and three parts, the current introduction is focused the light on the concept of decisive answers and its uses in literature and the scarce of speech, and how to consider it with one dialogue description,that dialogue constitute by ? The first part is concerned with those answers through the deliberative methodology and classifying decisive
... Show Moreيهتم هذا البحث بدراسة الأجوبة المسكتة,وهي أجوبة سريعة وحاسمة تقطع حجة الخصم وتفحمه وتغلقالحوار.وقد أرتكز البحث على منهجية تداولية تنظرإلى فاعلية الجواب المسكت في المحاورة وإنهائها من زواياإنجازية و حجاجية.وقد تكون البحث من ديباجة ممهدةوثلاثة مباحث.وسلطتالديباجةالممهدةالضوء علىمفهومالجواب المسكتوشيوعهفي كتب الأدبوالأخبارونوادر الكلاموكيف يمكن النظر لهبوصفه وحدة حوارية تنبنيمنها المحادثة؟أما المبحث ا
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Belgium is one of the countries that headed towards federalism through a peaceful transition, and over a few decades the country has witnessed deep transformations in its institutions, from a unified and central state in the early nineteenth century to a federal union, regional operations began since 1970 up and constitutionally established its diversity Linguistic and regional, the so -called "state reforms" have been implemented, which led to the emergence of political repercussions. The country has suffered about two decades ago, which caused many national governments that are considered to be among the Luxor in the modern political history of Belgium, However, institutional reforms to achieve the stability of the political system began,
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