Bushnaq Tatiana, post graduated student, ULIM Scientific adviser: PhD Camenev Zinaida

THE IMPORTANCE OF RECOGNIZING AND UNDERSTANDING THE MEANING OF IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS

Idiomatic expressions are phrases that carry a specific meaning within the language having an important role to play in human communication. If we must communicate with our fellow-beings without the danger of being misunderstood, if we must convey our ideas to others not merely but clearly it is necessary to strive for a good command of the language which we use as a medium of expression. In fact, the use of idioms is so widespread that the understanding of these expressions is essential to successful communication, whether in listening, speaking, reading or in writing. As far as idiomatic expressions are concerned in translation, the first difficulty that a translator comes across is the ability to recognize that she/he is dealing with an idiomatic expression. This is not always so obvious. There are various types of idioms, some more easily recognizable than others. Recognition is difficult since many idioms can be modified and others can be discontinuously spread over a clause. But with the help of systematic idiom collections and special rules the recognition of an idiom candidate is always possible. The distinction between idiomatic and non-idiomatic usage is more problematic. Sometimes this can be done by means of special words that are only used in an idiom. But in general this distinction is a question of semantics and pragmatics. (Stock, 1989, p.89) describes his parser for Italian that contains special features for idiom handling. The heart of the idea is a structured representation of the idiom. In this representation such ideas are stored, as: the idea whether passivization of the idiom is possible, the syntactic functions of the components of the idiom, the semantic restrictions and possible morphological variations, the substitutions that help to turn the idiom into its literal reading.

If we talk for example about the system of translation then while parsing a sentence the system checks for possible idiom fragments at every step. When a fragment is found it activates an idiom process with a certain weight while the literal processing of the sentence continues. If further fragments of this idiom are found the weigh is increased. If a certain threshold is reached the idiomatic reading is assumed. Otherwise the system sticks with the literal reading. This approach looks like a reasonable model of human idiom processing but it is questionable whether it can be used with a large set of idioms as long as it is unclear how the weights can be automatically extracted from a tree bank or a corpus. 1

In a paper on parsing and idiom handling Matsumoto et al., (Matsumoto et al., 1991, p. 145) suggest treating idioms with so called local grammar rules. These are special grammar rules integrated into the normal grammar rules. The idea can best be explained with an example. They (Matsumoto et al., 1991, p.146) use the idiom to take care of. In working left to right their process first finds a form of take and processes it as a regular verb. It then finds the noun care which is marked in the lexicon as the head of an idiom and a local grammar rule. This rule asks the system to look to the left for a form of take. If it can and this form it must remember to check the next word as the preposition of. In this example all conditions are stored with care together with the fact that the whole idiom functions as a verb. Such conditions can be strict or optional. Adam Makkai (1972, p. 243) has proposed five criteria in identifying idioms. They are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. the presence of at least two free morphemes in a given expression the ability of these morphemes to function with different meanings in more the potential ambiguity of all idioms of decoding arising from the possibility the semantic unpredictability of idioms arising from the fact that an idiom has institutionalization.

than one environment of literal interpretation a meaning which cannot be deduced from its component parts

Language texts - be they written or spoken-are the result of a large number of complex choices and eventual commitment to the first choice made (Sinclair, 1996). However, when we speak we choose, apparently simultaneously, more than one word at a time, that is, we speak in chunks rather than in words, and resort to stretches of language with a single meaning. Indeed, "a language user has available to him or her a large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices, even though they might appear to be analyzable into segments" (Sinclair, 1991, p. 110). Idioms are just one out of the several multi-word units (or complex lexical items) that make up (the English) language. Idiomatic meanings make up a very large part of everyday English, be it formal or informal in register. This is why the understanding of such expressions is important to successful communication. In order to demonstrate this fact we will write down a simple dialogue between the doctor and his patient. Doctor: Sorry you waited so long, Paul; I've have been tied up all afternoon. What seems to be the problem this time? Paul: Doc, my toe's killing me. I think it's broken 2

Doctor: HmmLet's have a look. Oh, yeah, that's a beauty. You really did a number on that toe. How'd it happen? Paul: I was helping my brother move. I dropped a desk on my foot. Doctor: Well, that's a surefire way to break some bones. Paul, didnt I see you last year for some sprained fingers? Paul: YeahI was trying to fix the toilet and got my hand stuck. I yanked it out, and hurt myself. I'm still trying to leave that one down. Doctor: Well, Mr. Fix-it, you've really outdone yourself this time. You won't be walking with this foot for eight weeks. Paul: That's impossible! I have a camping trip scheduled for six weeks from now. Can't it be healed by then? Doctor: That's a tall order, PaulBut I supposed it is not out of the question. With a lot of rest nowand intensive physical therapy, you just may be back in the saddle again in six weeks. But the therapy requires a lot of work, and timeand specifically, following the doctor's ordersCan you handle that? Paul: Peace of cake! Doctor: But listen, even if you are walking by then, you've got to take it easy during the trip. No climbing trees or jumping across streams or anything. You really need to baby this leg for a while.! Paul: Sure thing. Doctor: Well, Paullet's get you bandaged up. We'll have you hobbling out of here in no time. NowI want you to keep an eye on the swelling in the rest of the leg and foot. And get in touch with Dr. PhillipsShe's the physical therapist. Paul: Okay, doc. Should I drop by here another day? Doctor: Yes. We're going to want to follow up on this in about two weeks. Paul: I'll schedule an appointment with the receptionist. Thanks. Bye, Doc. Doctor: You're welcome. And Paul, take it easy, would you? 3

Paul: I will. I promise. In the above conversation I could recognize 18 idiomatic expressions and I think that without recognizing and understanding the meaning of all these expressions it is impossible to catch the real meaning of the speech. The idiomatic expressions from the above conversation are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. result. 6. To live something down to be allowed to forget about an embarrassing situation. This is used in the negative to never or not live something down. A common way you'll hear this expression is the phrase: "I'll never live this down!" 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. To outdo yourself to do something very well. To do better that you normally do. A tall order an unusually difficult request. To be out of the question to be impossible to accomplish. To be back in the saddle to return to your normal activities, especially after an To handle something to cope with or manage a situation. To be a peace of cake to be very easy. To take it easy to do things slowly and carefully, without tiring yourself. To baby someone or something to treat very carefully and with great sensitivity. To keep an eye on to watch carefully. To get in touch with to contact, to talk to someone. To drop by to visit someone. To follow up on something to address or check on a situation later. This expression is often used in a sarcastic way. To be tied up with something or someone to be busy To be killing someone to be very painful. A beauty - a very good or vivid example of something; in this case, a really good To do a number on something to damage, destroy, or hurt something badly. A surefire way to do something a way that will definitely have a certain outcome or

example of a bad injury

illness or injury. To be back in control of your normal activities.

As we have already mentioned, the English language is heavily idiomatic. This is why we can find idiomatic expressions everywhere inclusively in news and fiction etc. As a proof we have read the novel "North and South" by Elizabeth Gaskell. The first aim of reading the novel was to pick up all the idiomatic expressions used by Elizabeth Gaskell in her novel. The most difficult task I dealt with was the recognition of these expressions. As I have already mentioned the recognition is not always so obvious. There are various types of idioms, some more easily recognizable than others. We could 4

very easily recognize the idioms like every now and then, at any rate or to burst out crying. But the rest of the idiomatic expressions are hard to be recognized. This is why I find it necessary to look up in the dictionary every expression that was thought to have the same peculiarities as the idioms do, in order to be sure that this or that expression is really idiomatic. Therefore I have recognized 366 idiomatic expressions so I made up 366 cards which helped me a lot, because when I met some expression more than once I added on the card only one more number of the page. Thus, I can make a conclusion and say that the most used idiomatic expressions are: at last 65 times; as well 32 times; at any rate 27 times; from time to time 16 times; at least 15 times; for the sake of sb/sth 15 times; to give up 13 times; by and by 12 times; up and down 12 times; every now and then 9 times; in spite of 10 times; out of doors life 8 times; to run the risk 8 times; to shake one's head 6 times; to pass away 6 times; here and there 6 times. Some other idiomatic expressions used in the novel are: at any rate; to burst into tears; to be out of tune; to break the news; to play pranks, to rack one's brains about; to touch a nerve; to turn up one's nose; to have the grace to do sth; to draw a breath; etc. So, after picking up all the idioms used in the novel I have drown the conclusion that the most difficult to be recognized are the idiomatic expressions functioning like verbs because these type of idioms can be easily modified or can be discontinuously spread over a clause. Thus, being a group of words that have a particular meaning that is different from the meanings of each word understood on its own the idiomatic expressions tend to confuse those not already familiar with them. Therefore, recognizing idioms in a sentence is important to sentence understanding. Failure of recognizing idioms leads to misunderstandings.

:References
.Gaskell E. North and South. London: Penguin Books, 1855 .1 2. Leech G. Longman Dictionary of English Idioms, Harlow, 1979. 3. Makkai, A. Idiom Structure in English. The Hague/Paris: Mouton. 1972. 4 Matsumoto Y. et al., Yamagami K., and Nagao M. Bi-directional Parsing for Idiom Handling. University of Colorado at Boulder, Dept. of Computer Science, 1991.. .Nicolescu A. Dictionar frazeologic englez- roman, Bucuresti, 1986 .5 .Sinclair, J.M The Search of Units of Meaning, Textus(1), 1996 .6 Stock O. Parsing with Flexibility, Dynamic Strategies and Idioms in Mind, In: .7 .Computational Linguistics, 1989 .www.ifi.uzh.ch/cl/volk/papers/TransIdioms98.pdf .8