جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « Idiomatic Expressions » در نشریات گروه « علوم انسانی »

Idiomatic expressions are groups of words whose meanings are not simply predictable by knowing their constituent vocabulary and grammar. This paper studies a specific kind of idioms from the viewpoint of cognitive semantics and on the basis of Fillmore et al's typology of idiomatic expressions (1988) and Goossens' opinions on metaphtonymy (1990), in order to determine the function of metaphtonymy in semantic structure of idiomatic expressions. Metaphtonymy is the output of simultaneous presence of metaphor and metonymy and their mutual interaction in the semantic structure of an utterance. The studied idioms are selected from popular body expressions with familiar lexical items within familiar grammatical patterns with substantive structure. In this study, two basic findings are obtained: First, beside metaphor and metonymy, metaphtonymy is also frequent in the semantic structure of body idioms. Second, the metaphtonymies in these idioms are of the type "metonymy within metaphor" in which the metonym is inside the metaphor i.e. the metaphor paves the way for the appearance of metonymy. These findings can be dealt with in a bottom-up approach in which a metaphor primarily conceptualizes the abstract function or property of an organ of the body in terms of a concrete conceptual domain; then, within that metaphor, an appropriate metonym replaces that abstract function or property with the name of the attributed organ. In this way, an absolutely abstract concept in the bottom is developed into an overall concrete concept.

One of the major issues that can be raised in the processing, understanding, producing, applying and training the idiomatic expressions is to describe the internal features and determine the relationship and correlation between these features in idiomatic expressions. The present study is aimed to investigate the characteristics of the internal features of 50 Persian idiomatic expressions and describes them and determines the correlation between them. The intuition of the speakers on variables of familiarity, ambiguity, semantic transparency, figurativeness, arousal, concreteness, emotional valence, and confidence of each phrase was evaluated. Their descriptions were also assessed for the figurative meaning of each phrase. The results showed that the studied Persian idiomatic expressions have the characteristics mentioned and can be categorized using a continuum whose pole is one of the internal features of the idiomatic expressions and the other is opposite of the same internal feature. Furthermore, descriptive statistics showed that the expressions of the Persian language are assessed more as ambiguous, arousal, transparent, figurative, and concrete with negative emotional valence. Moreover, the results showed that there is a negative correlation between the familiarity and semantic transparency. There is a positive correlation between meaningfulness and semantic transparency. There is also a negative correlation between knowledge with semantic transparency and confidence..             One of the most important issues in the processing, perception, production, use, and teaching of idiomatic expressions is describing their internal features and determining the correlation between these features. The present study aimed at describing the following internal features of Persian idiomatic expressions: familiarity, knowledge, ambiguity, semantic transparency, figurativeness, emotional arousal, concreteness, emotional valence, and confidence.  Furthermore, an attempt was made to investigate the correlation between these features and answer the following questions: A) Which of these features can be found in Persian idiomatic expressions? B) What is the relationship between the internal features of Persian idiomatic expressions? C) How Persian idiomatic expressions can be categorized based on these internal features? It is hypothesized that idiomatic expressions possess various and diverse internal features and both a negative and a positive correlation can be found between some of them. Furthermore, these idiomatic expressions can be categorized on a continuum with one of the internal features at one end and the opposite feature at the other end. To achieve the aims of the present research, at first, based on the intuitive and encyclopedic knowledge of the researchers, 50 Persian idiomatic expressions were chosen from “Dictionary of Metonymy” by “Mansour Servat (1379)” and “Sokhanchr('39')s dictionary of metonymy” by “Hassan Anvari (1390). The intuitive knowledge of Persian native speakers for each idiomatic expression was evaluated in terms of familiarity, knowledge, ambiguity, semantic transparency, figurativeness, emotional arousal, concreteness, emotional valence, and confidence. Hence, for the experimental phase of the study, 270 high-school female students were selected using random sampling. Questionnaires were administered to collect the data of the study and for each variable, a questionnaire was developed. The questionnaires were filled in without the researcher’s intervention. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed using SPSS. The importance of this research lies in filling the gap in the field of the internal features of Persian idiomatic expressions and determining their correlation. The results of the study revealed that Persian idiomatic expressions have these internal features and they can be categorized based on these features on a continuum with one feature at one end and the opposite feature at the other end. Furthermore, descriptive statistics revealed that the idiomatic expressions investigated in this study were more ambiguous, emotionally arousing, figurative, concrete and emotionally negative. Furthermore, a negative correlation was identified between the internal features of familiarity and semantic transparency. However, a positive correlation was observed between concreteness and semantic transparency. Finally, a negative correlation was observed among knowledge, sematic transparency, and confidence

In this paper, we describe the opacity and transparency of idioms in Arabic language based on the linguistic model of Nunberg. This model divides the idioms into two main groups of idiomatically combining expressions and idiomatic expressions and sets out criteria for differentiating them. The corpus of the study is the entry of (b) in Al-Mu'ajam Al-Musoua'i by Davoud. By applying these criteria into Arabic data we tried to distinguish these two main classes of idioms in Arabic. It could be concluded that about half of the explored idioms are idiomatic expressions and are mainly non-compositional. In contrast, the other half could be categorized as idiomatically combining expressions that were compositional and the criteria proposed by Nunberg (1994) show that they are not as opaque as the first group. So, contrary to the traditional definition of idioms, it can be argued that the idioms are not a homogenous class.

One of the problems that every translator faces when translating from one language to another is the fixed idioms and expressions of a language, as they form part of the culture of a language. Jalal al-Ahmad's "Nun and Al-Qalam" story is one of the few stories full of idioms and proverbs. The story has been translated into Arabic by Mrs. Majedeh Mohammad Ali Anani, a lecturer at the Faculty of Literature, University of Halavan. In this regard, several approaches have been adopted to translate these terms that can be studied and researched according to Mona Baker's theory. Mona Baker has suggested some strategies to translate idioms such as preserving form and meaning, preserving meaning and changing form, transformation, omission and so on. This study aims to examine the Arabic translation of the original text in the context of this theory. The findings of this study obtained through a descriptive-analytical approach show that the translator of the story "Nun and Al-Qalam" is more interested to use the approach of preserving meaning and changing form. Thus, the translator has translated the idiomatic expressions by understanding the ironic meaning of the idioms and in the meantime a literal translation has been used due not recognizing some expressions, and  although it seems logical and transparent, but in fact it is inaccurate regarding the context of expression.

This study aimed at investigating the comparative effect of storytelling and text reconstruction comprehension of Idiomatic expressions. To this end, 90 Iranian intermediate participants were selected on the basis of their scores on Oxford Placement Test and were assigned into three experimental groups of text reconstruction, storytelling and control groups. The most frequency search idiomatic expression on electronic search engines were selected to be included in the teaching lesson plans. Pretest/posttest design was used to collect data on participant's comprehension of idiomatic expressions. The results of one way ANOVA and post hoc comparisons indicated that there is a significant difference in the performance of all experimental groups from pretest to posttests confirming the outperformance of both experimental groups in comparison with text control group. Results also indicated that storytelling group outperformed the text reconstruction group. The implications and suggestions for further study were discussed in the light of limitations of the study.

Second language learners have difficulty in vocabulary learning since many English words have two or more meanings especially when they occur in idioms or expressions and deciding the correct meaning is demanding for EFL learners. So, this study aimed at investiating how 54 Persian students of English in intermediate and advanced level which included 28 advanced students and 26 intermediate students, used their first language knowledge to comprehend and produce 3 types of English idioms, namely, compositional, semi-compositional, and non-compositional idioms. Compositional idioms, which are totally word for word translation of English idioms in learners mother tongue, like: Be on the tip of one’s tongue. Semi-compositional idioms which are syntactically or semantically similar but differ in one or more words, such as: for a rainy day. Non-compositional idioms which are totally different in translation from learners mother tongue, for example: drive someone up the heel. The students were divided into 4 groups; 2 experimental and 2 control. A pre-test which included both comprehension and production tests was administered to each group. Then, the experimental groups received the treatment in the form of small conversations, but the control groups did not receive any treatment. In the last session all groups received an immediate post-test and after one month, a delayed post-test was adminstered. For the analysis of data a t-test and ANOVA were employed. Results in the four groups showed that compositional idioms had the highest correct responses, followed by semi-compositional idioms, and non-compositional idioms were the most difficult to comprehend and produce. In addition, in all groups students performed better in comprehension rather than production test..