Phraseological Units Essay

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In this chapter I would like to explain an idiom and colloquialism, to give the exact answers of these questions: What is an idiom? Where it came from? Why do people use idioms? What is a colloquial phrase? The difference between colloquialism and dialect? An idiom is an expression, word or phrase that has a figurative meaning. In linguistics idioms are usually presumed to be figures of speech contradicting the principle of compositionality: yet the matter remains debated. The term idiom widely used by western scholars, mainly English and American linguists. The term idiom has numerous types of definitions. 1) An idiom is a set of expression the meaning of which is different from the literal meanings of its components. 2) Some scholars define an idiom as words collocated that became affixed to each other. This collocation redefines each component word in the word – group and becomes an idiomatic expression. The words develop a specialized meaning as entity as an idiom. 3) An idiom is a language, dialect or style of speaking peculiar to people. 4) An idiom is a peculiar character or genius of a language. 5) An idiom is a characteristic artistic style of an individual. 6) An idiom is a construction of one language whose parts correspond to elements in another language but whose total meaning is not matched in the same way in the second language. An “Idiom” may be synonymous to the words “language” or “dialect”, denoting a form of expression peculiar to people, country, a district. By this term the most picturesque and expressive part of language`s vocabulary is represented Idioms come from all different sources — from the Bible, ancient fables, tales, folksy saying used in particular regions of the country and spoken in local dialects. Idioms are not only used, they are used a lot. Almost every English person uses several idioms in the

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