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Comment Fifteen Commandments of A Phraseologist
Comment Fifteen Commandments of A Phraseologist
FRANTISEK
CERM
AK
Phraseology or, alternatively, idiomatics, is a young discipline still full of misunderstandings due to theories developed for other purposes or, on the surface of
it, due to seemingly obvious and clear illustrations of metaphors. There is a long
history of generativists fighting the phenomenon of idioms under various labels
and with negligible success, some of them wondering why not even the latest
Chomskyan or post-Chomskyan theory helps. Cognitivists, on the other hand,
being obsessed with metaphor and labouring to identify it everywhere have not
made this phenomenon any clearer. On the other hand, being long recognized as
a specific domain, idioms are used, often in an oversimplified way, in a number
of textbooks for beginners (though with a mixed success) and elsewhere.
Trying to present, in the following, some of the major features and, at the
same time, stumbling-blocks in the analysis of idioms, a way is adopted pointing
to the gist of problems and fallacies that is almost atheoretical, using plain language, though based on only few examples (however, all of the points mentioned
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ak
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There are idioms to be found within limits of a single word, but there are also
idioms that amount to a sentence or their combination, cf. breakfast (= break +
fast), nightcap (= night + cap, i.e. in the sense of a drink), Every cloud has a
silver lining, etc.
8.You shall not look for nice metaphors and images only while trying to find idioms in text. Instead, look for irregularities and (paradigmatic and syntagmatic)
anomalies in idioms as these are omnipresent in the field while idioms based
on metaphors are in minority. Next to metaphors, there are other ways idioms
have been formed and these, such as syntagmatic anomalies including many
grammar idioms, should not be neglected and left out of description, cf. as for
(there are no analogous combinations, such as as in, as from, as on, etc.), the
ins and outs, etc.
9. You shall not handle the idiom as a mere embellishment of ones speech.
Rather, remind yourself of the real reason why the idiom exists, Historically, it
is a product of an individual chance formation (not being based on any analogy at
all) coming into use because of its useful brevity and vagueness; functionally, it is
restricted to a special use, often with an evaluative feature, cf. mostly descriptive
take it in ones head to not used to give advice (or as an imperative), while get
it into your head is used in this manner (accompanied by some insistence or
impatience).
10. You shall refrain from being chauvinistic in your interpretation of idioms
viewing them as something that is specific to a language (specifically your
language) or society only. It is not. Though some cases may seem to be like this,
they are always partial and numerically insignificant in the totality of idioms, cf.
specific Spanish hit the bulls eye, reminiscent of bull-fight, or Chinese yan(3)
er(3) dao(4) ling(2) cover ones ears to steal a bell, i.e. to cheat oneself (based
on an old story).
11.Trying to find and study the most important and current idioms in a language,
you shall go for those areas and topics that are highly frequent, spoken and laden
with evaluative function. Quite a few idioms are primarily spoken, while spoken
corpora offering data of this kind are still rather scarce.
12. While comparing idioms in more languages you shall not enthuse over
superficial similarities. Identical counterparts hardly ever obtain and it is a
safe bet that two identical idioms are not identical at all. The field is full of
false friends, cf. English out of hand (not under control; without thinking),
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ak
Note
References
Cerm
ak, Frantisek. 2007. Frazeologie a idiomatika c eska a obecna. [Czech and general
phraseology.] Prague: Karolinum.
Cerm
ak, Frantisek. Jir Hronek & Jaroslav Machac (eds.). 2009. Slovnk c eske frazeologie
a idiomatiky. Prirovnan., Vyrazy neslovesne., Vyrazy slovesne [Dictionary of Czech
phraseology and idiomatics, similes, non-verb expressions, verb expressions, sentence
expressions]. Prague: Leda.
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