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Understanding Idioms and Fixed Expressions

Idioms and fixed expressions are rigid language patterns with meanings that are not deducible from their individual components. They allow little variation in form and can pose translation challenges due to potential lack of equivalents in target languages. Strategies for translating idioms include using similar idioms, borrowing, paraphrasing, or omitting the idiom altogether.

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10 views2 pages

Understanding Idioms and Fixed Expressions

Idioms and fixed expressions are rigid language patterns with meanings that are not deducible from their individual components. They allow little variation in form and can pose translation challenges due to potential lack of equivalents in target languages. Strategies for translating idioms include using similar idioms, borrowing, paraphrasing, or omitting the idiom altogether.

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yeumenhieu4444
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UNIT 1: IDIOMS & FIXED EXPRESSIONS

Definitions

▪ Idioms and fixed expressions are at the extreme end of the scale from collocations in one or
both of these areas: flexibility of patterning and transparency of meaning.
▪ They are frozen patterns of language which allow little or no variation in form.
▪ Idioms often carry meanings which cannot be deduced from their individual components.
Ex:
bury the hatchet (‘to become friendly again after a disagreement or a quarrel’)
the long and the short of it (‘the basic facts of the situation’)
face the music (‘to accept punishment or criticism for something bad that you have done’)

A speaker or writer cannot normally do any of the following with an idiom:


▪ change the order of the words in it (e.g., *‘the short and the long of it’).
▪ delete a word from it (e.g., *‘spill beans’).
▪ add a word to it (e.g., *‘the very long and short of it’; *‘face the classical music’).
▪ replace a word with another (e.g., *‘the tall and the short of it’; *‘bury a hatchet’).
▪ change its grammatical structure (e.g., *‘the music was faced’).

Fixed expressions also allow little or no variation in form.


Ex: having said that, as a matter of fact, ladies and gentlemen, all the best
▪ In this respect, they behave very much like idioms.
▪ Unlike idioms, however, fixed expressions and proverbs often have fairly transparent
meanings.
Ex: as a matter of fact (‘actually’)
pull a fast one (‘to trick somebody”)
fit the bill (‘to be exactly what is needed in a particular situation’)
▪ A fixed expression evokes in the mind of the reader or hearer a range of associations
connected with the typical contexts in which the expression is used.

The translation of idioms: Difficulties

▪ An idiom or fixed expression may have no equivalent in the target language.


▪ An idiom or fixed expression may have a similar counterpart in the target language, but its
context of use may be different;
▪ An idiom may be used in the source text in both its literal and idiomatic senses at the same
time;
▪ The very convention of using idioms in written discourse, the contexts in which they can be
used, and their frequency of use may be different in the source and target languages.
The translation of idioms: Strategies

▪ Using an idiom of similar meaning and form


▪ Using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form
▪ Borrowing the source language idiom
▪ Translation by paraphrase
▪ Translation by omission of a play on idiom
▪ Translation by omission of entire idiom

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