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.
Air pollution is very important topic for those interested in studying the environment because of its importance and the damage caused by it to human, animal and plant life. This research addresses the concept of air pollution, its causes, and its danger, and sheds light on the influence of climate elements on environmental pollution and the effect of temperature, rain, humidity, wind direction and speed, and atmospheric pressure on the increase or decrease of air pollution. This research discusses the sources of air pollution, including natural ones, including dust, smoke resulting from fires, erupting volcanoes, and others, including those resulting from human uses such as the use of fuel and others. The research addressed the dam
... Show More
(6)
(6)
The study aimed to monitor the concept of reputation in the previous literature, its relationship to mental image and identity, and to reveal recent trends in its measurement Techniques.
The study relied on a descriptive approach using library survey and comparative analysis, and the study reached following conclusions:
Despite the beginning of the first signs of reputation In the fifties of the last century, however, Defining and standardizing the concept with clear and specific dimensions began in the 1990s and the beginning of the third millennium. The concept of reputation refers to the stakeholders’ overall evaluation of organizations, which reflects their perceptions of
... Show More
(3)
The present study aims to explore the effectiveness of a proposed study unit based on the funds of knowledge theory in developing the attitudes towards cultural identity and the proposed study unit. In order to achieve the goal of the study, the two researchers followed the quasi-experimental approach, where the study sample consisted of (28) female students of the fifth-grade at Al-Jeelah Basic Education School, Al-Dakhiliyah Governorate in the Sultanate of Oman. The data were collected by two scales: the first is a scale of attitudes towards cultural identity consisting of (26) items. The second was a scale of attitudes towards the proposed study unit, which consisted of (24) items. The results of the study revealed that the effect of
... Show MoreIn a world of limited space, the owners are always surrounded by others next to them, and, consequently, there is hardly any activity which the owner may exercise on his land which would not affect the other owners. If he builds a building, that building may block the sun's rays or the air from the buildings next to it and owned by other people. And if he runs a business, the lands adjacent to that business may be overburdened with the accompanying noise or traffic. If oil is prospected in a land, the neighboring lands may be deprived of oil or their owners may be exposed to toxic fumes. Hence the importance of researching the intention of harming others, as it is one of the most important forms of abuse in the use of the right (especially
... Show MoreIn this work, varying compositions of SiO2 micro filler were added
with the Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) and samples have been prepared
using film casting technique. The results have been analyzed and
compared for PVC samples with (1 wt%, 3 wt%, 5 wt% and 10 wt%)
SiO2 micro filler. Mechanical characteristics such as tensile strength,
elongation at break and Young`s modulus were measured for all the
samples, where the tensile strength was increased from 8.39 Mpa for
purified PVC to 16 Mpa for 3% SiO2/PVC composite. Also, thermal
conductivity measurement values illustrated that composite materials
have a good thermal insulation at 10 wt. %, thermal conductivity was
decreased from 0.1684 W/m.
The research aims at the possibility of measuring the technical and scale efficiency (SE) of the departments of the College of Administration and Economics at the University of Baghdad for a period lasting 8 years, from the academic year 2013-2014 to 2018-2019 using the method of Applied Data Analysis with an input and output orientation to maintain the distinguished competitive position and try to identify weaknesses in performance and address them. Nevertheless, the research problem lies in diagnosing the most acceptable specializations in the labor market and determining the reasons for students’ reluctance to enter some departments. Furthermore, the (Win4DEAp) program was used to measure technical and scale efficiency (SE) and rely on
... Show More
The study aims to identify the extent the academics in colleges of applied sciences are familiar with the themes of the national strategy of education 2040 in the Sultanate of Oman. The researchers used the descriptive approach, as well as they adopted a questionnaire with five dimensions as a tool for data collection, which was applied to (120) academics. The results showed that the academics of the applied colleges' familiarity with the National Strategy for Education 2040 in the Sultanate of Oman is average. The study also found that there were no statistically significant differences in the academics estimates of the extent of the Colleges of Applied Sciences academics’ familiarity with the themes of the National Education 2040 Str
... Show MorePractical application is an effective tool for preparing qualified scientific and technical cadres if applied correctly and efficiently. In addition to being the complementary part of everything that has been studied in the years of study, it is a scientific linking tool between theory and application. Here lies the importance of this research in clarifying the central and important role that practical application plays in general in raising the scientific level of the student, and the extent of the suitability of the curriculum and means of practical application and the extent and needs of the students applying at the Institute of Administration - Rusafa - Department of Information Technology and Libraries. This research attempted to answe
... Show More