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Aspects of Idiom* University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Calgary (Working) Papers in Linguistics Volume 07, Winter 1982 1982-01 Aspects of idiom* Sayers, Coral University of Calgary Sayers, C. (1982). Aspects of idiom*. Calgary Working Papers in Linguistics, 7(Winter), 13-32. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/51297 journal article Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca Aspects of Idiom* Coral Sayers • 1. Introduction Weinreich (1969) defines an idiom as "a complex expression • whose meaning cannot be derived from the meanings of its elements." This writer has collected examples of idioms from the English, German, Australian English, and Quebec French dialects (Appendix I) in order to examine the properties of the idiom, to explore in the literature the current concepts of idiom, and to relate relevant knowledge gained by these processes to the teaching of English as a Second Language. An idiom may be a word, a "lexical idiom," or, if it has a more complicated constituent structure, a "phrasal idiom." (Katz and Postal, 1964, cited by Fraser, 1970:23) As the lexical idiom, domi­ nated by a single branch syntactic category (e.g. "squatter," a noun) does not present as much difficulty as does the phrasal idiom, this paper will focus upon the latter. Despite the difficulties presented by idioms to the Trans­ formational Grammar model, e.g. the contradiction of the claim that virtually all sentences have a low occurrence probability and frequency (Coulmas, 1979), the consensus of opinion seems to be that idioms can be accommodated in the grammatical description. Phrasal idioms of English should be considered as a "more complicated variety of mono­ morphemic lexical entries." (Fraser, 1970:41) 2. Types of phrasal idiom The data reveal, and the literature supports, the concept of at least two kinds of idiom. The first is the normal low frequency idiom, e.g. "kangaroo court," "on the breadline," etc. The second is the "pragmatic idiom" (Coulmas, 1979:240), a subset of Routine Formulae, e.g. greeting formulae such as "How do you do?" "Griiss Gott." Despite its high frequency of occurrence, the pragmatic idiom is similar in some respects to the low-frequency idiom. "The expres­ sive aspects often dominate the descriptive aspects" (Coulmas, 1979: 241); the idiom must be learned as a whole; and from the point of view of the grammarian, it is transformationally defective, Idioms may range in style from the formal to the extremely informal and may be acceptable or unacceptable as far as social usage is concerned. One would not hesitate to write about "a land of milk and honey," nor to produce in Australia books with titles such as the following: "Myths of the Dreamtime," or "Squatting in the Western - 13 - - 14 - District 1840-1880." Nevertheless, many idioms are purely colloquial and many of these are slang or taboo slang expressions. Idiomaticity as such has therefore become more important for the foreign language teacher since the emphasis in teaching moved towards the oral language. • Semantic ambiguity, even if it consists of ambiguity of the speaker's intention (Yorio 1980:436), is an essential characteristic of idiom; it is often, e.g. "step on the gas," a source of confusion and difficulty for the learner. If, however, the literal meaning of the expression is no longer utilized in the language, this ambiguity " ceases to exist. The resultant idiom, the type without literal ~ounter­ part, is a part of the class of the most frozen idioms (Fraser, 1970). Obviously, if the original meaning of the word has been lost, an attempt to discover the relationship between the literal and idiomatic meanings of a phrase will be unfruitful. With a knowledge of the ety­ mology of a given expression, relationship with the literal counter­ part may sometimes be perceived, e.g. "squatter." Nevertheless, Weinreich (1969:76) insists upon the arbitrariness of the relationship "which looks plausible only in retrospect" except for exceptional cases where there is "a separate act of historical analysis or of poetic evocation. No general predictions can be made." 3. Current views of idiom With respect to lingu:J,stic and socio-cultural content, "[Routine Formulae] represent a kind of linguistic material where interaction between both sides is particularly obvious." (Coulmas, 1979:255) The data show that idioms are wedded to their environment and their cul­ ture in place and in time. The Quebecois expressions show vividly the influence of the English language. The Australian expressions utilize the unique fauna of the country, the social conditions of the emerging society, historical events, and possibly some linguistic material from the indigenous people. However, it is currently argued (Criper and Widdowson, 1975) that variation in speech caused by geographical isolation is probably being modified in this century as a result of improved co11D11unications networks. Urbanization may have a similar modifying effect. Austral­ ians certainly use many North American expressions, e.g. "on the breadline," and have exported some phrasal idioms, e.g. "kangaroo court." "O.K." has a wide currency. The question of universals of thought must be raised when one sees that "dark horse" is used as an idiom in both Chinese and English (Alter 1978:8). A universal that is undeniable is that of processes of language change. Lexical transfers and semantic shifts are extremely common when one language comes into contact with another, and it is interesting to note that Campbell (1979), in her study of these pro­ cesses amongst Italian-speaking !mmigrants to Australia, discovered - 15 - a rate (3.78%) of lexical transfer which correlates almost completely with that of Haugen's study of Norwegian immigrants to the U.S.A. (See Appendix I for examples of lexical transfer from English to Quebecois.) Study of the data reveals the possibility of predicting prob­ lems and situations which directly affect the learner and teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL). As many idioms are colloquial in style, it is obvious that there will be a problem with materials. Colloquialism, often "ephemeral, local, idiolectal, vulgar" (Krebs, 1979:179) offers a real challenge to dictionary makers. Appropriate materials will only be produced if the size of the market will ensure a profitable result. It is unlikely that such a market exists for Australian-oriented or Quebecois-oriented Second Language (L ) materials. Even the orientation of some editors is suspect, The "Dictionary2 of Modern French Idioms" (Garland, 1976, Price $85.00 for two volumes) has a selection from Quebec from which the authors claimed to have omitted some more current phrases in favour of others that were more quintessentially Quebecois (Melpignano, 1980), Such a selection indi­ cates orientation towards a historical outlook and a failure to appre­ ciate the importance of time as well as place in the currency of idiomatic expressions. The excerpts from O'Grady's novel (Appendix I) illustrate the problems which are confronted by the ESL learner who has already learned English in a formal situation, probably from a Received Pro­ nunciation (RP) model, when he meets people who speak a different dialect of English. In Australia, and in some parts of Britain, he may suffer from being aligned with the stereotype associated with RP (Criper and Widdowson 1975:192). He may also find that, although he can make himself understood, he may not understand what is said to him in return (Ball, 1979). However, in learning to use, in context, the pragmatic idioms of a social situation, e.g. the vocabulary of "shouting," he will simultaneously acquire a knowledge of the country's social mores: "He looked quite stern. 'In this country, if you want to keep out of trouble, you always return a shout, see?"' (O'Grady, 1957, Appendix I) This social and linguistic interaction in "situa­ tional frames" explains one of the difficulties faced by a non-native speaker who is teaching a language to other non-native speakers. "Social situations have certain characteristics, and being a member of a socio-cultural system means to know how to assess these features." (Coulmas, 1979:243) In processing an idiom, normal native language (NL) process­ ing strategies must be by-passed by the listener, Generally, use of the verb for information (Fodor, Garrett and Bever, 1968 cited by Foss and Hakes, 1978:127) is impossible in the case of an idiom be­ cause no part of an idiom can be separated from the other parts. This factor combined with the arbitrary nature of the idiom predicts difficulty for the learner. However, with pragmatic idioms at least, - 16 - the high frequency of occurrence withdn a social setting is an aid to learning. Although the idiomaticity creates difficulties for the understanding of the semantic content, a knowledge of situational appropriateness will be learned along with the utterance (Coulmas, 1979). - The literature currently reflects an interest in automatic speech (of which idioms are a sub-set), its neurological characteris­ tic of being localized in both hemispheres, and in the Gestalt style of learning (Krashen and Scarcella, 1978:284). A study of use of pre­ fabricated routines by Hatch, 1972 (cited by Krashen & Scarcella, 1978:291) shOlfed that the chLld second-language learner relies upon them far more than does the first-language learner. He is able to do so because of his more highly developed short-term memory (STM), and he is encouraged to do so (Hakuta, 1974) because of his greater need to communicate. A study of one adult (Hanania and Gradman, 1977, cited by Krashen & Scarcella, (1978:78) showed successful learning of routines before analytical grammatical development occurred. Krashen and Scarcella conclude that routines may be very useful for establish­ ing social relationships and encouraging verbal input. In her study of Italian innnigrants in Australia, Campbell (1979) reports that there were some examples of Australian English idioms being incorporated by translation and semantic shift into the speakers' Italian dialect.
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