Translation of phraseological units

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1

The ministry of higher and secondary special education of the Republic of Uzbekistan

The uzbek state world languages university

English stylistics department

Qualification paper

5220100 - Philology (The English language) for granting the bachelor's degree

Translation of phraseological units

Ortiqova Madina

Tashkent - 2012

Contens

phraseology idiom translation lexicology

Introduction

1. Phraseology as a branch of Lexicology

1.1 Phraseology as a science

1.2 The main specifications of phraseology

2. Semantic groups of idioms in modern English

2.1 Idioms and their peculiarities

2.2 Semantic groups of idioms and their classification

3. The translation of phraseological units

3.1 Transformation of idioms in the context

3.2 Phraseological problems of translation

Conclusion

The list of used literatures

Introduction

Idioms it is one of the disputable and important problems of lexicology and stylistics. This qualification paper is dedicated to define the communication function of idioms, the semantic groups of idioms in related (Uzbek and Russian) languages and their translation problems in Modern English.

The Subject matter of the qualification paper is the phraseological units in English and Uzbek languages.

The object of the research work is idioms and their semantic groups and translation problems of phraseological units.

The main aim of the research work is the following tasks:

To define idioms, as special language units;

To classify idioms, from semantic, grammatical functional points of view;

To examine differing sources from which idioms originate;

To define and examine different transformation of idioms in the text.

To study the problems of translation of phraseological units.

The actuality of the qualification paper is the investigation of phraseological units and their rendering into Uzbek language.

The novelty of the qualification paper is in the detailed investigation of phraseological units and to show the problems of translation phraseological units.

The theoretical value of the qualification paper is to do through research in the field of phraseology.

The practical value of the work is to teach students to enrich their lexical resources at the lesson and seminars of English.

The structure of this qualification paper is as follows:

Introduction, three chapters, conclusion and the list of used literature.

The Introduction deals with the description of the structure of the qualification paper.

The first chapter deals with the basic nation of Phraseology, Phraseology is one main types of Lexicology and the scholars' views on phraseology.

The second chapter deals with classification of phraseological units from free - word groups and some semantic groups of idioms in Modern English.

The third chapter three deals with the translation problems of phraseological units in Modern English.

The Conclusion deals with the theoretical and practical results of this qualification paper.

Bibliography deals with the list of literature used in this research work.

1. Phraseology as a branch of Lexicology

1.1 Phraseology as a science

The phraseology deals with word groups consisting of two or more words whose combination is integrated as a unit with a specialized meaning of the whole such as at the eleventh hour, bad mouth, be fed up with, beat around the bush, couch potato, in the black, in stock, Keep an eye on, lend someone a hand, lose track of, lousy, make up one's mind and so on. Stability of such words groups viewed in terms of statistical probability of co-occurrence for the member words of has been offered as reliable criteria helping to distinguish set expressions from free phrases with variable context.

The chapter has received its heading because of great ambiguity of the terms phraseology and idioms accepted in our linguistics. Opinions differ as to how this poet of vocabulary should be defined, classified, described and analyzed.

The word “phraseology” for instance, has very different meaning in this country and in Great Britain or The United States. In our linguistic literature the term has came to be used for the while ensemble of expressions where the meaning of one element is dependent on the other, irrespective of the structure and properties of the unit; with other authors it denotes only such set expressions which, as distinguished from idioms, do not posses expressiveness or emotional colouring and also vise versa; only those that are imaginative expressive and emotional; N.N Amasova overcomes the subjectiveness of the two lost mentioned approaches when she insists on term being applicable only to what she calls fixed context units, units in which it is impossible to substitute any of the components without changing the meaning only of the whole unit, but also of the elements that remain intact. Aìîñîâà Í.Í. Îñíîâû àíãëèéñêîé ôðàçåîëîãèè Ë. 1963. Ñòð. 68. O.S. Ahmanova has repeatedly insisted on the semantic integrity of such phrases prevailing over the structural separateness of their elements Aõìàíîâà Í.Í. Ôðàçåîëîãèÿ àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà Ë. 1972 ñòð. 56. A.V. Kunin Kóíèí.A.B. Ôðàçåîëîãèÿ ñîâðåìåííîãî àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà. Ì, 1972 ñòð. 88. lays stress on the structural seperateness of the elements in a phraseological unit, on the change of meaning in the whole as compared with its elements taken separately and on a certain minimum stability. All these authors use the some word “phraseology” to denote the branch of linguistics studying the word-groups they have in mind.

Continued intelligent devotion to the problems of phraseology of such scholars as N.N. Amîsova, A.V. Koonin and many others has turned phraseology into a full-fledged linguistic discipline in English and American linguistics the situation is very different. No special branch of study exists and the terms “phraseology” is a stylistic one, meaning mode of expression, peculiarities of diction, choice and arrangement of words and phrases characteristic of some author of some literary work.

The word “ idiom” is even more polysemantic, the English use it to denote a mode of expressions peculiar to a language without differentiating without differentiating between the grammatical and lexical levels; also us W. Graff puts it, “ the syntactical or structural form peculiar to a given language “ it may also mean a group of words whose meaning is difficult and impossible to understand from the knowledge of the words “ language” and “dialect” denoting a form of expression peculiar to a people, a country, a district or to one individual. There seems to be no point in enumerating further possibilities. The word “phrase” is less polysemantic. Functionally and semantically inseperable units are usually called phraseological units. A phraseological unit cannot be freely made up in speech but are reproduced as ready made units. The lexical components in phraseological units are stable and they are non-motivated i.e. its meaning of its components and they do not allow their lexical components to be changed or substituted in phraseological units the individual components do not seem to possess any lexical meaning outside the word-group. Examples:

“The bottom line” (the most essential information), “chow down” (eat), “catch some Z s” (sleep for a while, take a nap), “hit the books” (study), “head houcho” (person in charge, tip boss), “jump the gun” (do something before it is time to do it).

If you remember we started above that in English and American linguistics they said that that phraseology is the branch of lexicology. But A.V. Kunin thinks that phraseology must be an independent linguistic science and not a part of lexicology or stylistics. The classification of phraseological units is based on the functions of them in speech. They are: nominating, intersectional and communicative. Êóíèí À.Â. Ôðàçåîëîãèÿ ñîâðåìåííîãî àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà. - Ì.: Ìåæäóíàðîäíûå îòíîøåíèÿ, 1996.

V.V. Vinogradov classified phraseological units into three groups taking into consideration their motivation. Âèíîãðàäîâ Â.Â. Îá îñíîâíûõ òèïàõ ôðàçåîëîãè÷åñêèõ åäèíèö â ðóññêîì ÿçûêå // Âèíîãðàäîâ Â.Â. Ëåêñèêîëîãèÿ è ëåêñèêîãðàôèÿ: Èçáð. Òð. - Ì.: Íàóêà, 1986. They are:

1. Phraseological fusions: they are such units which are completely non-motivated word-groups

Examples:

To kick the bucket, to get one's goat, to show the white feather. In those word groups the meaning of the whole expressions is not derived from the meaning of components.

2. Phraseological units: the meaning of such word groups can be perceived through the metaphorical meaning of the whole phraseological unit or the meaning of the group examples:

To show one's teeth, to know the way the wind blows, to stand to one's guns, to take care of

3. Phraseological collocations: they included motivated relatively stable word groups. They have a certain degree of stability. Examples:

To take an interest, to fall in love, to look through one's fingers, meet the demand and etñ.

Alongside with separate words speakers use larger blocks functioning as whole (consisting one words). In any language there are certain restrictions imposed upon co-occurrence of words.

They can be connected with linguistics factors or the ties in the extra-linguistic reality.

There are 3 types of lexical-combinability of words:

Three combination

Grammatical properties of words are the main factor of their combinability.

Example: I'm talking to you. You are writing.

Three combinations permit substitution of any of its elements without semantic change of the other element.

Collocations

Examples: to commit a murder

Bread and butter

Dark night

Blue sky

Bright day

They are habitual associations of a word in a language with other particular words speakers become accustomed to such collocations. Very often they are related to the referential and situational meaning of words.

Sometimes there are collocations, which are removed from the reference to extra-linguistics reality (collocations involving colour words)

Examples:

To be green with jealousy

Red revolution

Idioms

Idioms are also collocations, because they consist of several words that tend to be used together, but the difference - we can't guess the meaning of the whole idiom from the meaning of its parts.

This criterion is called the degree of semantic isolation.

In different types of idioms- it is different.

Examples: to cry a blue murder = to complain loudly.

So, the vocabulary of a language is enriched not only by words but also by phraseological units.

1.2 The main specifications of phraseology

At present the term “phraseological unit” is usually used not all set expressions but only to those which are completely or partially non-motivated.

Professor N Amasova gives two categories of phraseological units depending on whether just one component or both are used in phraseological units are called “idioms” Aìîñîâà Í.Í. Îñíîâû àíãëèéñêîé ôðàçåîëîãèè Ë. 1963. ñòð. 53..

Examples: catch one's eye ( attract one's attention, interest), pull someone's log (tease someone by trying to make her/him believe something that's exaggerated or untrue), sleep on it ( take at least a day to think about something before making a decision).

Stability of phraseological units is seen in its disallowance of the substitution of word groups. Idiomaticity of phraseological units is lack of word by word translation it is called idiomatic word groups.

Examples:

To kick the bucket (o'lmoq), in the soup ( qiyin holatda), under a cloud ( yomon kayfiyatda).

Professor a A. Smitnitsky stated that a phraseological unit may be defined as specific word groups functioning as a word-equivalent. The phraseological units are mounted separately and therefore they can't be used in one function the sentence. Ñìèðíèöêèé À. «Ëåêñèêîëîãèÿ àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà» Ì., 1996 ñòð. 23.

Examples:

He gets rid of it.

The problem equivalency of phraseological units to words demands further investigation among the phraseological units. There are the so called imperative phraseological units.

Examples: god bless his soul! Curse her! Stay well! Go well! Heaven forbid! Lord loves us!

These phraseological units mostly denote the emotional and expressive state of person.

Proverbs sayings and quotations exists also as ready made units with a specialized meaning of their components.

Therefore they may be included in phraseological units.

Examples:

East or west home is best; a friend in need is a friend indeed; to be or not be.

The history of many phraseology are an interesting record of the notions past, of its way of life, customs and traditions.

Many phraseological units are connected with commerse.

Examples:

To talk shop, to make the best of the bargain, to have all one's goods in the shop window.

There is a subject of discussion among the linguistics about the state of such combinations like:

“To give in”

“To make up”

“To take off”

“To get up”

“To give up”

What is the nature of the second element of such combinations?

The second element of such units is not a word therefore they are not phraseological units. Phraseological units, as we know consists of words.

The second element is not a morpheme, because it is not a part of because it is not a part of a word, they are not adverbs, because adverbs have definite lexical meaning and are used in a certain function in the sentence. But these units have idiomatical meaning therefore.

Phraseological units can be classified according to the ways they are formed, according to the degree of the motivation of their meaning, according to their part of speech meaning.

A.V. Kunin classified phraseological units according to the way there are formed. He pointed out primary and secondary ways of forming phraseological units. Êóíèí A.B. Àíãëèéñêàÿ ôðàçåîëîãèÿ. M., 1970, Ñòð. 15.

Primary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a unit is formed on the basis of a free word group.

Most productive in English is the formation of phraseological units by meaning of transferring the meaning of technological word groups. In cosmic technique we can point out the following phrases:

“Laughing pad” in its terminological meaning is “startovaya ploshadka”, in its transferred meaning “ startovaya punkt”;

“to link up”- “stikovatsya”, in its transferred meaning it means “znakomitsya”;

A large group of phraseological units was formed from free word groups by transforming their meaning.

Examples:

“Granny farm” - “pansionat dlya prestarelix”

“Trayan horse”- “ kompyuternaya programma”

ñ) phraseological units can be formed from the meaning of alliteration.

Examples:

“A sad sack” - “neschastniy sluchay” “culture vulture” - chelovek interesiyushsya iskustvom

“Fudge and nudge” uklyonchivast”

They can be formed by means of expressiveness especially it is characteristic for forming interjections.

Examples:

“My aunt” “hear hear!” etc.

They can be formed by using archaism. Examples:

“In brown study” means in gloomy meditation” where both components preserve their archaic meanings.

They can be formed by means of distorting a word group. Examples: “odds and ends” was formed from `'odd end”.

They can be formed by using a sentence, in a different sphere of life, e.g.

“That cock won't flight” can be used as a free word group when it is used in sports (cock fighting) it becomes a phraseological unit when we use some unreal image, e.g.

“to have butterflies in the stomach”, ispitivat volneniya “to have green fingers” preuspevat kak sadovat - lyubitel” etc.

They can be formed by using expressions of writers or poletitions in everyday life, e.g.

“Corridors of power”, “American dream”, “locust years”, “the winds of change”.

Secondary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a phraseological unit is formed on the basis of another phraseological unit. They are:

Conservation, e.g. “to vote one's feet” was converted into “vote one's feet”.

Changing the grammar form, e.g. “make hay while the sun shines” is transferred into a verbal phrase - to make hay while the sun shines”.

Analogy, e.g. “curiosity killed the cat” was transferred into “care killed the cat”.

Contrast, e.g. “cold surgery” - “a planned before operation”.

Was formed by contrasting it with acute surgery “thin cat”- “a poor person” - was formed by contrasting it with “fat cat”.

Shortening of proverbs or sayings, e.g. from the proverb “you can't make a silk purse out of a saw's ear” was formed with the meaning “oshibatsya”.

Borrowing phraseological units from other languages, either as translation loans,e.g; “living space” (german), “to take the bull by the horns” (latin), or by means of phonetic borrowings “meche blanche” ( French) “corpse d'elite” (French) “sotto voce” ( Italian) etc.

Phonetic borrowings among phraseological units refer to the booking (bookish) style and are not used very often.

The proposition that there is a correlation between language and culture or culture-specific ways of thinking can be traced back to the views of Herder and von Humboldt in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was most explicitly formulated, however, by the German-American linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir in various publications from 1929 onward (republished posthumously in 1949 under the title Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture and personality), and in the writings of his pupil Benjamin Lee Whorf (republished posthumously in 1956 as Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, as it came to be called, expresses the notion that different languages lead their speakers to different conceptualizations of the same extralinguistic reality, which seems to be most evident in the way that reality is segmented by the lexicon.

Even though few linguists would fully agree with a strict reading of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis today, it is generally accepted that a language, especially its lexicon, influences its speakers' cultural patterns of thought and perception in various ways, for example through a culture-specific segmentation of the extralinguistic reality, the frequency of occurrence of particular lexical items, or the existence of keywords or key word combinations revealing core cultural values. Nevertheless, the exact workings of the link between language and culture are still poorly understood. The few specific theoretical frameworks that do exist are often felt to be inadequate, and the research methodology is only insufficiently developed (it is telling, in this context, that the methods employed by Whorf in particular seem to have had serious shortcomings).

The aim of this volume, then, is to explore the cultural dimension of a wide range of preconstructed or semi-preconstructed word combinations in English. These include highly opaque multiword units of the kick-thebucket type, collocations, irreversible binominals, phrasal verbs, compounds, metaphorical expressions, similes, proverbs, familiar quotations, catchphrases, clichés, slogans, expletives, and discourse markers such as politeness formulae - all of which have been subsumed under phraseology, or under idiom in the Anglo-American linguistic tradition.

The volume is divided into four sections, focusing on particular lexemes (e.g. enjoy and its vi Preface collocates), types of word combinations (e.g. proverbs and similes), userelated varieties (such as the language of tourism or answering-machine messages), and user-related varieties (such as Aboriginal English or African English). The assignment of the papers to these sections is, of course, not always clear-cut: Many of the papers address issues pertaining to more than one section, and the dividing lines between the sections are therefore remeable, rather than rigid.

The sections are preceded by a prologue, tracing the developments in the study of formulaic language, and followed by an epilogue, which draws together the threads laid out in the various papers, and ends with a résumé of the research questions raised in the prologue.

The epilogue also draws attention to good academic practice in a way that, it is hoped, will encourage other researchers to conceptualize their projects carefully, both in terms of procedures and assumptions, and also in terms of the potential theoretical import of their work.

There are a number of important works, published in the past fifteen years, that explore the relation between language and culture in general, but the study of the relation between English phraseology and culture in particular has been largely neglected. This volume is the first book-lenght publication devoted entirely to this topic. It should be of interest to all those interested in phraseology (or idiomatology) and variational linguistics, and to those interested in the interface between language and culture, which is a particular concern in cognitive linguistics and anthropological linguistics.

I would like to thank Penny Lee for reading an earlier draft of the typescript and making valuable comments toward its improvement. I am also grateful to Karin Stettler for competently preparing the typescript and for her endless patience over the years, and to Susanne Jantos for doing the hard work of compiling the index.

2. Semantic groups of idioms in modern English

2.1 Idioms and their peculiarities

The English language is full of idioms (over 15000). Native speakers of English use idioms all the time, often without realizing that they are doing so.

This means that communication with native speakers English can be quite a confusing experience what is an idiom?

An idiom is a group of words which when used together, has a different meaning from the one which the individual words have.

For example:

How do you know about John's illness?

Oh, It on the heard grapevine.

Of course, the second speaker doesn't mean he heard the news about John by putting his ear to a grapevine! He is conveying the idea of information spreading around a widespread network usually similar to a grapevine.

Some collocations of the delexical verb + noun + preposition type come close to idiomatiaty, since not only is part - for - part substitution impossible but a special passive transformation shows the verb and two following elements to form a close idiomatic unit:

They took (good) care of the children.

They children were taken (good) care of.

Despite the efficacy of such tests the most familiar approach to the definition of idioms and one that linguistics as well as lexicographers have helped to popularize, focuses on the difficulty of understanding idioms in terms of the meaning of their constituents. The following definition (from the Collins English dictionary, second edition, 1986) represents this tendency:…. a group words whose meaning of the constituent words as for example (it was raining) cats and dogs.

But this formulation (and definition could be called from a range of dictionaries now in print) is open to serious challenge.

As cruse clearly demonstrates, such definitions are circular since: “meanings of the constituent words”. Must be understood to imply meanings of the constituents words have in other, non-idiomatic contexts”, one finds that to apply the definition one must already be able to distinguish between idiomatic and non-idiomatic expressions. Fortunately, idioms can be defined without circularity by applying procedures such as those demonstrated earlier. Since idioms in the strict sense are semantic units they should resist replacement of their components by words which are themselves semantic units. Compare in this respect:

“Blow the gaff”

“Puff the gaff and kick the bucket, kick the pail”, where the effect of substitution is to produce nonsense or non-idiom. A second weakness of the traditional definition, with its stress on the semantic opequeness of combinations, is its exclusiveness. It leaves out of account a large class of expressions which have figurative meaning but which also keep a current literal interpretation. Examples of such figurative idioms are close ranks, do a U-turn and die a natural death. There are also marginal cases, such as run off the rails and reach the end of the line, where interpretation may or may not benefit from knowledge of an original technical sense. The semantic evidence suggests a gradation and this is underlines by the possibility of lexical or pronominal substitutions in individual cases. Consider, for instance: a closed / sealed book a dry/dummy rum and I had a close shave but Bill had an even closer one.

Idioms in the narrow sense are clearly related to figurative idioms and the looser more transparent collocations along a cline or continuim. True idioms were taken up in the 1960's and 1970's by generative grammarians, who were concerned with the theoretical difficulties of accounting for their interpretation and syntactic properties in terms of a transformational-generative grammar. Fraser (1970) used a battery of transformations as a means of establishing degrees of idiomaticity judging as most frozen those items which were resistant to most transformations.

The difficulty with such an approach is that specific restriction do not apply evenly to idioms of a given structural type (idiomacity having been established on independent semantic groups) and may affect some collocations as well.

Thus while spill the beans (true idiom) can be passivized, mark time (figurative idiom) cannot, and neither can “foot the bill” ( restricted collocations). Perhaps the most useful approach is to accept that while no transformations will prove diagnostically reliable in every case some types of transformation are more indicative of idiomaticity than others. For instance grammatical process whose function is to highlight a specific clause element will often not be applicable if that element also forms part of idiom.

2.2 Semantic groups of idioms and their classification

Semantically idioms are divided into three classes:

Pure idioms

Semi idioms

Literal idioms

Pure idioms are those which can't be translated word by word, they are non-literal. For example: “spill the beans” has nothing to do with real beans.

Semi-idioms have one or more literal constituents and at least one with a non-literal subsense, usually special to that cooccurance relation no other:

Catch has the meaning at their constituents. For example: “on foot Merry Christmas and happy New Year”. Besides idioms can undergo substitution for their parts the near synonyms. And the idioms which are flexible to some degree to such substitution are called idioms of restricted variance. For example: happy (merry) Christmas. The idioms which are inflexible to such change at all are called invariant and fixed idioms. For example: on the contrary; Happy New Year. If we connect these two classifications we shall get the following tasks:

Pure - idioms - invariant, non-literal:

Devil-may-care, backlash ching wag red herring make of with, pick and span, smell a rat, the coast is clear, etc.

Restricted variance, non-literal; pitter-patter (pit-a-pat), take/have forty winks, seize/grasp the nettle, get/have cold feet, etc.

Semi-literal idioms, invariant; drop names, catch fire, hitch the kin, foothe bill, fat change you've got, etc. restricted variance: chequered career/history, blue film/story/joke/comedian,good morning/ day etc.

Literal idioms - in variant; on foot, one day, in sum, im the meantime, on the contrary arm in arm, very important person ( VIP ), potato chips: tall, darkand handsome; waste not, want not, happy New Year, etc. and set down.

Form irregular, meaning unclear, as in be at large, go great guns, be at daggers drawn.

Functional types of idioms.

Idioms - ideational. Ideational idioms are convey impressionalistic representation of the physical, social and emotional words of a language community. They either signify message content, experiential phenomenia including the sensory the effective, and the evaluative or they characterize the nature of message. Message content actions: tear down mess about with, twist somebody's arm.

Events: turning point, the straw that breaks the camel's back, out of the mouth of babies. Situations: be in Queer street , be in a pichle. People and things; a - back - seat driver, a man about town, a scarlet woman.

Attributes: cut and dried, matter of fact, lily - white, as green as grass.

Evolution: turn back the clock, it is a pity, as a matter of fact.

Emotions: green with envyheart in one's mouth, a lump in one's characterizing the message. Specific information; to be exact/precise.

For example: that is the question is Non - specific information; kind of/ sort of, or something, such and such, and so on.

Interpersonal idioms. This type of idioms occur in discourse in pragmatic function: greetings, farewells warnings, disclaims.

Interpersonal idioms fulfill either a characterize the nature of the message. In their interpersonal function they initiate, maintain and close and exchange and closely associated with politeness routines:

Interactional strategies:

Greeting and farewells;

Good morning, how are you?

Directives;

Let's face it, tell you what, say no more.

Agreement;

That's true, you are telling me

“Feels” eliciting opinions;

What do you think? How do you feel?

Rejections;

You're kidding/ joking come off it/

Characterizing the message:

News worthness:

Guess what, what do you know, what you ask.

Sincerity:

Quite, seriously, believe you me, a matter of fact/

Call s for brevity:

Cut the cackle, get to the point.

Uncertainty:

Daresay; mind you; etc.

Relational idioms. Relational is a general form for an attribute characterizing a diverse number of language forms all of which have a cohesive function in a discourse. Relational or textual idioms can accordingly be grouped along with conjunctions, for example “and but”, “or”, “and so because” “it then” etc, as having a textual function. They may be characterized into those which sequence information integrative.

Adversative: on the contrary, far from, etc.

Comparison: on one hand…., on the other, etc.

Casual: so that, when, the more, no wonder, etc.

Concessive: at the same time, etc.

Addition: in addition to, what is more, etc.

Sequencing or chaining information. Sequencing meta-discoursal information, for example, in the first place, last but not least.

Sequencing temporal information, for example one day, a long time ago, up to now, etc.

There is no denying that idioms put most learners of English through their paces as the former seem to crop up without rhyme or reason You see? Even an introductory article concerning idioms cannot be totally brief of them, o to speak! Things are considerably easier when it comes to learning the rudiments of the language; the essentials of grammar, some sophisticated or advanced vocabulary, some elaborate constructions such as inversion, etc. nothing daunted! But as soon as students cross the threshold of first Certificate or Proficiency in English, they begin to quail all at the prospect of dealing with phrases whose meaning is at odds with the meaning of the words comprising them! As for teacher is seems that they would be better off without them. Well, on reflection that stands for reason.

By virtue of there being a great, overwhelming difficulty on the students as well as on the teachers part in tackling indisputable “theory” and absture idioms, many books may have baffled those who aspire to familiarize themselves with what is called “a problematic area”. Either by providing lists of idiomatic phrases with no explanations or context of any kind, or by furnishing examples that do not sufficiently illustrate the meaning of such idiom, a lot of dictionaries and reference books contrive to “inundate” learners with seemingly trivial and frustrating phrases and expressions rather than guide them on how and when to use them.

To this end, on effective treatment of idioms should provide the correct semantic, pragmatic and linguistic framework, namely, context and co-text, thereby high lighting the significance and “merit” of each idiom. In this way, the learner becomes conversant with many ways of saying the same way, thing and doesn't revent to using common standart English.

So have do we set about explaining idioms? Saying to a student that “to kick the bucket” means “to die” is trying to teach Maths without a blackboard! It seems to me more of a forlorn hape than a sound teaching strategy according to my own lights, what is needed is simple, albeit of paramount importance: context. I wonder why we have flouted and overlooked this significant parameter. If a student uses a tense incorrectly or commits any other error, such as a prefabricated pattern, to the effect “I don't know where is he” instead of “I don't know where he is” the teacher hastens to correct him/her.

Why is it that the very same, punctilious teacher underplays idioms and their correct framework? Is it because he/she rates linguistics competence higher than communicative competence and performance? I am afraid that we can't hold out much hope of mastering a language by dint of linguistic competence alone. Sooner or later, all this hordes of linguistically component speakers are thwarted in their aspirations the very first time they engage in conversation with a native speaker. Once again, context is the keynote and remedy.

Let us see why this is so.

Imagine that in his attempt to explain the idiomatic phrase to “bite the dust”, your teachers come out with something like this:

“Bite/kiss/lick the dust” = dust or cease to function or exist slang.

A “perspicacious” student may understand that alongside the phrase to “bite the dust” he can use “to kiss the dust” and “to lick the dust”, as well. Furthermore, he is acquainted with the semantic meaning of the idiom: “die or cease to function or exist”. What about it is pragmatic meaning? Who or what dies or ceases to function or exist? And when? Are any of these elements provided in any way by means of this explanation? Not by along chalk, one would exclaim.

Certainly not. I would say. Well the word slang may vaguely provide one with part of the pragmatic component of the meaning of the phrase, yet its contribution falls short of its aim. The befuddled student may realize that this expression cannot be used in formal contexts but he/she is still grouping in the dark equipped with this knowledge, how would the poor learner of English idioms use this phrase in his own example? It is flagrantly obvious that he would rather go out for a walk than subject himself to this ordeal Who is to blame really? The teacher, the student, the book? That is anybody's guess.

What if the book or teacher provided an example in order to illustrate the meaning of this phrase?

Let us see how:

“Our old washing machine has finally kissed the dust! It's about time we bought a new one! Or A hundred men licked the dust”.

Now the students nod in approval. He has the necessity information about in order to discern the meaning of a phrase he has never seen or heard before. He can see that what kisses the dust can be an old washing machine as well as a hundred men in battle. He is not reduced to brooding over the meaning; he can make an educated guess. One could adduce thousands of examples: the fact remains that we cannot teach idioms and language in general without taking context into consideration, without embedding language in its social context.

What has to be drawn, at this juncture to the student's attention is the need to understand that idiom should, by no means, be used in all contexts and discourses. When correctly used, idioms provide one with a native like ability to communicate at a more advanced level and in situations that are more complex. When used inadvertently at random where more formal and literary diction is retined, they prose a great danger to the in expect user who consequently, runs the risk of sounding uneducated and vulgar. Idioms are mean to be used metaphorically and only in conversing with people with whom on shares experiences, socio-cultural background, and even religious beliefs. According to their level of appropriateness and correctness, idioms are marked with formal, informal, not formal, colloquial and slang, as shown in the example above.

English language is only a part of or rather “embodiment” of English culture and history, which, by and large, are at variance with those of Greece. Therefore any attempt to view things and notions from the English perspective without first mastering any other language features and components, i.e. advanced grammar constructions, more elevated vocabulary, etc. but with the sole aid of idioms, is if not futile, certainly rather painstaking and unrewarding. Idioms are meant to give the language a more lively hue, not to substitute for standart English completely. If one already acquainted with literary forms and expressions, there is no other way of “grasping” idioms but through contenting oneself with magazines and tabloids, the informal register of which allows of the use of innumerable idiomatic expressions. By the same taken, whoever wishes to learn English or any other language should not limit themselves to reading books taught at school, but also acquize a taste for classical and modern literature, religious and philosophical books, newspaper, etc.

3. The translation of phraseological units

3.1 Transformation of idioms in the context

In this paragraph we shall find out about different types of transformations and functions of idioms in the context. Most idioms can be transformed in various ways according to the communicative needs of language - user. What these ways will be looked at in this paragraph.

So, there are four types of transformation of elements or substitutions; additions; permutations; deletations; substitutions replacement of characteristic of text within an idiom of their not possible, the choice of variants is restricted. Variations of part of an idiom could be in terms of number and tense or the replacement of one structure would like an article by another or by zero or it could be lexical one context word being replaced by another. Variations in tense permitted in many verb idioms and they are common. Tense in verb idioms usually mirrors the time frame of the discourse: Do not blow your top! I do everything myself.

A:”Was your father upset when you come home at 3.a.m?”

B: “He was more than upset he blew his top!” “He blew his top. Some women would have begun to smell a rat.” Number functions in many idioms with the same freedom as tense does.

“Can I throw in a red herring” (In idiom or subject which takes people attention away from what is really important.) We went there one evening. I twisted Richie's arm. I said: He is your brother in-law too but they were not in. If you cannot turn let us know, if necessary I can twist the arms of a few friends and get them to come. But contrast, pluralization is not possible in kich the busket or in smell a rat, though variation. If the plural form is not possible in some idiom neither is the singular from in others. For example; the expressions like turddle one's thumbs, raining cats and dogs, cats and dogs lives, do not permit changer of their plural forms into singular forms. Inflections apart, what of the individual words is an idiom? Can they be varied? As we stated above, some idioms admit no lexical substitutions. As an example we can count following idioms: “tighten one's belt, smell a rat”, see rat exists in their fixed forms and that is why the other variations of these idioms are not possible while some expressions do not permit substitutions, other do in varying degrees burn one's boots bridges, and get/give/have cold feet, are examples of idioms that permit a choice of restricted variants. As we mentioned above, there many idioms which permit only minimal variation or are totally invariant. An idioms effective instance of the resistance of an idiom's conventional meaning to an inappropriate substitution in the original construction is cited by Jannen (1989). Every was substituted for no in leave no stone unturned by a spokesman for an investigation team at a press conference as the substitution significant the exact reverse of the idiom's meaning: he would not stop the investigation until every stone was unturned. What is interesting is that this speaker was understood as intending the conventional meaning of leave no store unturned: explore every avenue: do everything possible to achieve a goal. The next type of transformations of idioms is additions. Except for those needed to give idioms correct form. (e.g. twist's somebody's arm - somebody's arm was twisted) additions are not normally permitted within an idiom. But as with novel substitutions, language -users may introduce alien elements into idioms to make their messages more precise.

Rudiarid Kipling took the art would by the horns when he wrote, “it is clever but is it art?” Much more interesting as examples of innotation are those instances where an added adjective is treated as if it were literal, whereas what really intended, is the idiomatic meaning. It is very easy for those to look cut of their carpeted ivory flowers across the quagmire of business stagnation. This emphasis on the literal “face” of an idiom by means of an alien adjective is a variety of word play. Whatever the nature of the innovative addition, it requires a certain intuitive feeling for the limit beyond which the idiomatic cannot be used. I am certain the majority of parents are completely in the dark about what is happening. In this example, the addition of when the lights are out would make the idiom unacceptable, whereas the following example with the addition. Pitch would not. The voters were kept in the pitch killed the giant-the giant was killed by Jack varies from idiom just as substitutions and additions do. Some idioms have no permutational possibilities in terms of their internal grammar if transformed such idioms lose their idiomatically; say no more, “John smelt a rat” can't be used as no more was said and “John is a rat-smeller”. Some common types of permutation that transformable idioms are capable of undergoing are discussed below. Particle shift is a permutation that can be optional as in they “beat up people” or “they beat people up”. It becomes obligatory when the intervening object is a pronoun: “Seven masked separatists… forced an Air France airliner to an isolated area… and blew it up”. While the optional permutation is a matter of free variation, the obligatory permutation realizes an invariant rule of the language. To split liars over these cases being civil or criminal offences unworthy of us all. The structure somebody drops a brick - brick dropper is very like but not the same as, the gerundive compounds of the previous examples, being it is a pure nominal in form;

“Those people are hoping they don't have Arthur as chairman Oh, I don't know it served to break the ice” (it refers to Arthur's opening speech) he thinks a party would be good ice breaker. These “compressions” are generally used unconsciously by the speaker/writer and don't strike the hearer as being unusual. They indicate the ease and fluency which mark the native speaker or the component foreighner in handling the language. Another very common form of permutation is passivization:

On the one hand has got crocodile tears about interest ratest…

Buckets of crocodile tears have been shed at dozens of public rallies… The usual form is either weep or shed crocodile tears but the speakers has mode an indiosyncratic substitution here, which could very well be a mistake by of performance of the sort that so often characterizes speech. He realized a statement saying that “no stone would be left unturned” to find culprits passivization is a permissible transformation which can be carried out on some idioms can be carried out such as those above. For a while in Hobart this week it looked faintly as it the canary had swallowed the cat. This kind reversal seems to be on analogy of the tail wagging the dog where the reversal is the normal form of the idiom and constituents its meaning and its part. And the lost type of transformations of idioms in the text deletions. While some idioms are well established in their truncated forms so much so that these forms are now the norm (e.g. red herring from draw/path, a rolling stone gathers no mass), others rely on the hearers knowledge of the original for comprehension. Deletion is a process common at all levels of language through different sorts of levels require that objects terms be used to describe its effects: the absence of an element normally present. Idioms that are current in the language in their full form but which appear with deleted, as with permuted compressions, indicate the confidence and fluency of the language - user.

Non-native speakers whose knowledge of idioms has been derived from dictionaries may find such deletions impeding identification and interpretation of particular idioms.

The idol has feet of clay becomes X has clay feet; dangle a carrot before the donkey is reduced to dangle a carrot or simply to carrot with an appropriate modifier; Sunshine dangles an issue carrot (headline) her waves trade carrot (headline). The Prime Minister has offered some very appealing political carrots in his economic program. In these examples deletion is accompanied by the substitution of wave and offer for a dangle.

Hold up guns all bark, no bite. This example functions as an allusions to an idioms, barking dogs seldom, bite rather than as the idiom itself so great is the degree of deletion. Other examples, less radical are: this fellow thought the professor drop him like a hot potato, so he preferred a bird in the hand.

(A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush)

While this home fire burns Bob Howke can relax, feel safe… (Keep the home fires burning).

Norman Sherry is the epitome of the no-stone-unturned school of biographers. (Leave no-stone unturned).

Though the deletion is possible in idioms, such as those cited above, there are large numbers of idioms, especially those made up of

Verb + preposition

Particle where deletion is quickly, unlikely, even impossible:

See through the somebody, Bring the house down, get in touch with somebody, so much so, you are feeling me, etc.

One of the reasons for deletion in the newspaper examples given above is that space - saving can be conveniently combined with wit and humor by this means. In other instances what is evident is the principle of least effort common language use in one form or another. It is however, impossible to predict those features likely to lead to deletion as usage rather than form. The transformational variations (substitution, addition, permutation and deletion) discussed above are of two sorts: normal variations which are part of the language system and variations which show innovative, rule breaking novelty. Conventional grammatical transformations enable them to produce the correct form of the idiom. Demanded by the linguistic context; innovation enables them to display their wit and skill in handling the vocabulary.

There is another problem with learning the idioms of the English language, and that is that the idioms are often very different in different kinds of English. The foreign student who learns Standart British English will run into difficulties when visiting the United States. One way to deal with this problem is to get a good British/American dictionary such as the British/American language dictionary of Norman Moss.

There the foreign student of English learns that “pecker” means courage in Standart British English but “penis” in Standart American English. In Britain foreign students may properly say “keep your pecker up” but they should be careful not to repeat this British idiom in America. As a house guest in Britain a woman may politely ask her hosts “please knock me up in the morning” but she should be careful not to say this in America where, instead of meaning “to wake someone”, “to knock up” means (up) “to get someone pregnant”. There are only two amusing examples of the differences between the two standart forms of English. When you think of all of the other forms of English Cockney, Appalachian, Jamaican, Papuan and so on knowing one of the two forms of Standart English may not be enough for effective communication everywhere in the English-speaking world. For example: a French woman who had studied English for years was able to communicate fairly well in London. However, when she found herself in villages far from London, she could not understand what people were saying.

An idiom is an expression in a language which cannot be understood even though you know the meaning of each individual word in the language. The English expression “It's raining cats and dogs” is an example of an idiom. Foreigners who have carefully studied English and who know the correct meaning of each word in this little sentence, unless they have learned the special idiomatic meaning of the sentence, will only be puzzled by it. This kind of thing happens all the time in national languages.

A great wealth of idioms is appropriate for a language which its speakers use 6000 hours every year.

After all the speakers are constantly practicing them. This abundance of idioms would be a powerful impediment to communication in a language that is learned for occasional use between speakers of different native tongues.

Translation and its aims

Most translators prefer to think of their work as a profession and would like to see others to treat them like professionals rather than as skilled or semi-skilled workers. But to achieve this, translators need to develop an ability to stand back and reflect on what they do and how they do it. Like doctors and engineers, they have to prove to themselves as well as others that they are in control of what they do; that they do not just translate well because they have `flair' for translation, but rather because, like other professionals, they have made a conscious effort to understand various aspects of their work.

Unlike medicine and engineering, translation is a very young discipline in academic terms. It is only just starting to feature as a subject of study in its own right, not yet in all but in an increasing number of universities and colleges around the world. Like any young discipline, it needs to draw on the findings and theories of other related disciplines in order to develop and formalize its own methods; but which disciplines it can naturally and fruitfully be related to is still a matter of some controversy. Almost every aspect of life in general and of the interaction between speech communities in particular can be considered relevant to translation, a discipline which has to concern itself with how meaning is generated within and between various groups of people in various cultural settings. This is clearly too big an area to investigate in one go. So, let us just start by saying that, if translation is ever to become a profession in the full sense of the word, translators will need something other than the current mixture of intuition and practice to enable them to reflect on what they do and how they do it. They will need, above all, to acquire a sound knowledge of the raw material with which they work: to understand what language is and how it comes to function for its users.

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