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ЛИНГВИСТИКА И ПЕРЕВОД
IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS POINT OF VIEW AND THEIR IMACT ON DIDACTICS LANGUAGE
S. Kastrati, A. Kurani
Idiomatic expressions are an important lexical corpus source of the language. However, due to the nature they have, their learning presents a number of difficulties. These expressions are clear for a particular language community, because in many cases their first understanding is not an amount of the meanings of words that constitute and may be quite different from the meaning of winning idiomatic context.
In this paper we have tried to treat the process of acquisition of idioms and the creation of figurative language competence, especially the “idiomatic competence”. We have chosen such apsycholinguisticper-spective of teaching with the conviction that the tracing process of how the acquisition and processing is done in the native language idioms helps, also in improving their teaching methods to foreigners.
In this paper we have tried to highlight some of the key features idiomatic expressions under psycholinguistic perspective, the mechanisms that bring into being idioms and giving them a certain status use. Also the paper mentions methodological aspects to be considered during treatment of figurative language and idiomatic expressions in text analysis for instructional purposes, and in the teaching of foreign languages.
It is important from the didactic point of view, to notice how the child acquires competence to draw figuratively before methodological observations.
Keywords: figurative language, idiom, teaching, linguistic didactics etc.
Figurative expression is a unique way of artistic mastery of the world, it is a specific modeling in which the material and human phenomenon at the same time discover their properties through a new prism. Original figurative expression is an experiment, which includes items phenomenon in which people get properties, shape, color, move-
ment, sound, feeling, ability to speak and think etc. etc. discovering us unexpectedly, strange, but often giving us a recognition of enjoyment deeper than usual.1
In language-cognitive development of the child figurative language competence grow through a process of gradual acquisition, which accompanies the parallel development of cognitive processes that are in the foundation of comprehension strategies. The ability to grasp the meaning of what is said to bear and to put this understanding into a coherent semantic relationship with the text of context implies a set of linguistic and metalinguistic skills.
Numerous linguistic, psycholinguistic and pragmalinguistic studies published in recent decades indicate the important role of figurative language not only in specific areas as poetic or journalism, but also in everyday language.As Lewis notes: Traditionally, picturesque idioms are seen as appropriate for relatively advanced students, as a quibble, trivial to the serious issue ofacquisition of central grammatical system. Similarly, the selection of appropriate statements idiomaticly more accurate is seen as the ‘advanced’ teaching of the language.2
According to Levorato’s (1993, p. 104), figurative language competence is the result of a series of linguistic skills acquired in scale:
- recognition of the meaning of a word and its sintagmatic and paradigmatic relations;
- recognition of connotative and denotative value and semantic relations;
- ability to suspend the reference strategy;
- ability to understand the figurative use of a word and to insert in the sense of carrying relationship with the literal sense;
- ability to exploit the contextual textual information to give a sense of interconnected expressions vague or unknown;
- ability to produce figurative expressions.
able to process meaning through the analysis of idiomatic expressions in itself, and with the help of indicators context:
This level reflects the skills, in terms of figurative language, a truly competent speaker. Regarding to idiomatic expressions, these skills can be described as follows: the ability to understand an idiom in its constituent parts and to reach conclusions about their semantics; ability to understand idiomatic expressions even when they have suffered replacements lexical or syntactic and lexical changes; and the ability to
produce new idiom through syntactic and lexical changes in existing idioms.(Levorato 1993,p.123)
1-Idiomatic expressions and the rating idiomatics.
Usually an idiomatic expression is defined as a phrase meaning of which is not derived from the sum of the meanings of words that constitute it. Phrases like “hes mend”1 or “I bie kembes” would not have any sense if examined on the basis of the meanings of their constituents, as they were beared as a common mark to all members of the Albanian language community. However, in the vocabulary of a language there are different types of lexical units more or less embedded responds to a different idiomatic level. Such are crystallized morpheme that do not arise from a free combination, but are already present in language and act as simple semantic units. It is about lexical elements that Martineja has labeled “sintema” despite notions, the combination of which is the result of the election of the speaker. Varying idioms are present in conjunction. For example, the expression as “eshte e udhes”or “e shoh te udhes “ the name “udhe” is mandatory, that cannot be replaced by its synonym “rruge”. This depends on the characteristics of lexical se-mantic-crystallized during use linguistic community at bay. Often in conjunction lexical restrictions are not as stringent as the idiomatic expressions and allow a degree of substitution. Thus, the expression of took the path can be replaced as the verb “I zuri udhen” and name “I preu udhen” without changing the meaning of the expression. In addition, unlike the idiomatic expressions, elements of which comprises a conjunction maintain the same meaning.
There are also different cliche expressions in some valence own language idioms. It’s about lexical “pieces” that Lewis (1993) defines as saying institutionalized and head or sentence frames. The first, typical of spoken language are lexical units with frequent use pragmatic. Phrases like: s’di g’tё them рёг kёtё, ti тё mm..., po tё isha пё vendin tёnd..., hajde Ьё]'тё dy pare muhabet etc. exactly belong to this category, too wide in the lexical corpus of the language. It is basically for all those “pieces of language” that come to mind as a whole and which constitute a large part of the lecture (Lewis 1997, P. 257).This category includes different formulas discourse to organize conversation, expressions such as closing the opening of communication (Si je?; Si shkon?, 1
1 The examples and the word in bold are preserved in the original language because of study reasons.
UЬё kohё qё s'jemiрагё!, Duku ndonjёherё ketej etc.), Or expressions that are used to keep the conversation, for the determination of receiving the word or its termination, etc. (Si thua?, Мё dёgjo mua; Prit, po ta them me dy fjaL; Мё kupton?). These can be added to all linguistic cliches that respond social expressions that express gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance or rejection, advice etc. This is no place for a detailed description of this particular lexical corpus, which, however, often presents idiomatic forms.
While the “head or sentence frames” are expressions that belong to write code often used in place of cohesion and coherence of the text. I belong to this category locotions as: pikё sёpari, sё dyti, пё fund, duke u nisur nga ..., kalojmё tani пё ..., пёрёг^^Ш etc.
So vocabulary consists of simple words of lexical units composed to have started the trend of words for joining other words, moving over time towards lexicology with a different degree of variability of idiomatic. This means, as Fernando notes (1996, P. 38):
1. Establishing pure idioms, half idioms or direct idioms that resist a certain degree of internal lexical substitutions of, as a result, operating as simple lexical units, although the expression of many words : composite words, phrases, half sentence and sentence;
2. Not being direct as a result of the loss of the pure idioms meaning of their words integral over time, thus dictating an external sense as a whole unit, or, in the case of half idioms, leading some words take specialized meanings in limited contexts.
Lexicon characterized so lexical units with varying degrees of idioms that sometimes placed even on the basis of the context in which such expressions emerge. In the following paragraphs will describe the characteristics of idiomatic expressions from a psycholinguistic perspective, in order to determine the specific ways the codification and pull them from semantic memory, finally expressing some thoughts theoretical and practical language didactics.
2. Psycholinguistic aspects of idiomatic expressions
Special inner cohesion of idiomatic expressions allows a certain degree of resilience lexical syntax that can occur mainly from the inclusion or substitution of one element or of syntactic change. Sometimes, for example, is possible the introduction of the phrase inside adverbs or adjectives. Thus, we can say: I gave him a good beating (sound) or Ilir do not occupy all the land, cases in which the introduction or the adjec-
tive “good” or “healthy” and the adverb “no” does not bring nonidi-omatics of these two terms. While the sentence I adject i shkau кётЬа e majte”adjectiiv”e majte” the Undo idiomatic foot slipped expression “nga gjendja a nga pozita” .
In the same way, the phrase njёqind he^ nё Ta kam Лёпё nj^q-ind herё it changes to njeqind here, but replacement with any other number would do to lose idiomatic meaning. Phrases like mix can also be used in passive form (u Ьё ^msh), while the other expressions stooped quite such a thing is not possible, as it is an expression that can be used not just passively in the active voice (see generally
J. Thomaji, 1981, PP. 98-99). So there idiom quite stooped, do not accept any modification, the other more flexible, which in varying degrees allow some changes.
Idiomatic expressions among other are characterized by varying degrees of semantic ambiguity, which determines the level of idiomatic changes from direct expressions to semantically transparence. There are expressions of the partially dark, as they can be motivated to some extent with the conceptual metaphor, for example shes mend, until completely dark expression, as ve re, sa frengu pulen, behem tape etc. Prof. J. Thomaj (Acts. Cit., 181) notes vё re, sa frengu ри1ёп, bёhem tapё that the etymological and historical investigation of the latter can lead to their inception. However, it is interesting to note that expressions with greater degree of ambiguity are also less variable.
The degree of uncertainty or transparency, together with the crystallization or resilience, create a sequence wherein different expressions. The extent of the immutability and the crystallization of an idiomatic expression should be linked, among other things, the timing of maintaining such an expression in language. When a new term starts to come into use, it owns, according to Cutler’s (1982), a certain flexibility syntax, which tends to disappear with time, making all of the idiomatic expressions crystallized.
The way idiomatic expressions reflected in mind is closely attached to the way of understanding and their codification on the basis of contextual information associated. Of the various hypotheses idiomatic traits reflecting processed by psycholinguistics will be reviewed following four: list idiomatic, codification of simultaneous, direct approach and delineation.
Gibbs (1980) thinks that the idiomatic meaning is taken entirely from the mental lexicon in charge of expression and codified faster than
the directly. Thus, according to this hypothesis, the meanings of idiomatic direct and not just processed in parallel, but the very meaning of the directly preceding trope. Namely, thanks to the high degree of conventionality of their use idiomatic expressions codified soon. This model represents essentially turning down the list idiomatic hypothesis.
According to (Cacciari, Tabossi 1988; Cacciari, Glucksberg 1991) idiomatic expressions attached to mental lexicon in the same way as strings and titles of poems, songs etc. and their meanings commonly associated with the “Outline” formed by the same words that we used normally in the course of understanding of an expression (Cacciari 1989: P. 430).
So idiomatic expressions do not appear in the mental lexicon as simple lexical units, although they have a central element, a key idiomatic, consisting of a particular semantic feature or even a few specific grammatical features. They initially codified and analyzed as a string of random through a process of direct analysis, but, when displayed characteristic element, the key idiomatic, born full delineation of idiomatic meaning put into action, which distinguishes from directly. Thus, the processing time idiomatic expressions in comparison with direct expressions do not change in function of its conventionality, but based on the association between the key idiomatic expression inside.
In the phrase Iliri u qa se kishte mbetur trокё central element (main idiomatic) is at the bottom (troke), but t Hoqi doгё dhe u largua key idiomatic, consisting of the lack of gadgets of the outstanding verb singular -n, is at the beginning, reasons for which the delineation put into action immediately (if the phrase would have been abandoned and left, the presence of gadgets would have exterminated the value idiomatic). Idiomatic expressions codified so the same way as the linguistic processing delimitations other words. Idiomatic key determines the moment when an idiomatic expression “becomes” such during the hearing or reading. In the native language recognition context, the idiomatic traits and their use can allow pragmatic interpretation of idiomatic expressions when the key is at the end. Courses in foreign language recognition extended time usually need to know the key element that determines the uniqueness of idiomatic meaning to enable activation of the corresponding representation.
3.Typology of idiomatic expressions
Glucksberg (1993) distinguishes two different idiomatic forms. The first consists of expressions whose meaning is arbitrary, at least syn-
chronically, like Ьё] ра11ё etc. It is about idiomatic forms that indorse like simple units in semantic memory and get into the so called direct model of view. Meanwhile to the second model, the compositional one, belong the idiomatic expressions that have the genesis from real historic facts, which later become examples of certain situations, like fitore si e Pirros. In this case is about expressions that aren’t distinguished by compositional, morphosyntaxtional and pragmatics characteristics from the nonidiomatics ones. As regards linguistic didactic, both types represent different difficulties. In the first case, difficulty is created by noncompositional elements of the language. The meaning of bej palle can’t be drown from the sum of the word meanings that compose this expression, therefore the only possibility is that the student has gained the memory of the meaning through didactic activity of gradual presentation in different contexts. In the second case, you must know the pragmatic meaning of the expression and its use from the context. The manners of speaking like fitore si e Pirros might be clear from the compositional point of view, but might be obscure when their ethimol-ogy is not known and as a result, their pragmatic use. A last case is represented by idiomatic expressions that are also understandable in the compositional plan, but with a beared meaning that can be logically released only based on the context, as lyej rroten or thyej akullin, that have also a direct meaning maybe equally acceptable. We can truly paint the bicycle wheel or break the ice with a stone, but we often use these expressions in the idiomatic forms. However, while in the direct use of these expressions is possible to substitute some of the words with synonyms: vajos rroten, copetoj akullin etc., in the idiomatic use it is not possible the semantic elasticity and are not allowed changes in the composition of the fraze.
Another type of classification of idiomatic expressions is proposed by Moon (1996:72-73), who describes seven different categories supporting the semantic content.
They are:
- Actions (flas ne tym, lyej rroten, ngre rreckat, can, me jep doren etc.);
- Events (...)
- Conditions
- People
- Comparisons
- Evaluations
- Emotions
This type of technique requires the described expressions to be known, but it usually happens that students do not know the meaning or that in their definition thy use a more difficult lexicon from the idiomatic forms. Besides that, idiomatic expressions have their own level of syntax grammatically and elasticity, for example the conjugation of the verb, while in these uncontextually activities, expressions often submitted with the verb in the first or third person of singular in the present. But merr neper goje might also become marr (merrnim etc.) neper goje , while heq nga mendja can also convert into passive and negative form sme hiqet nga mendja etc. this kind of activity can serve in the endorsement phase, to understand idiomatic expressions when are often encountered in one context, but are not very useful for the development of creative skills. The truth is that, if we develop with the students only this type of activity, they can hardly ever bare to use idiomatic forms, not knowing beside all, their strategic use in interaction activities. On the other hand, generally, if we don’t know the reaction that an expression can have from our interlocutor, we try to avoid it and to use expressions which we are safer.
Multiple choices
In this case we give also definitions.
Example:
Dal mbi uje means:
• Slip a risk or a difficulty
• To be distinguished above all
• To be discovered
On the other hand, it is possible a multiple choice of idiomatic expressions:
Example:
Complete the dialog with an idiomatic expression:
Besa:”Zana, do you remember that tonight Sokol has invited us for dinner?”
Zana: “Oh, I have completely forgotten about it, recently * I
E kam pasur laun ne fyt.
I kam pasur oret e numeruara. S’e kam pasur mendjen ne vend.
Because of the great number of idiomatic expressions in a language, in the language didactics, is important to place criteria for the selection of idiomatic forms that are going to be used in class, which divide the most important from the less helpful for our scope.
However, the understanding process is always dynamic and students can follow more than one of the over described strategies, therefore the information of Cooper (1991) study must be received notably with orientation value. In any case, sustaining on what the data show, the professor can prepare class activities able to develop the use of idiomatic forms for the creation of a greater ability on their nature.
In this paper is shown that the study of idiomatic expressions can highlight the theories over language learning, and also over the processing of idioms in general. Earlier studies of idioms in the Albanian language environment have been mainly performed in tightly borders of linguistics, notably the traditional one. The psycholinguistic study of idiomatic expressions that we offer here and the impact in linguistic didactics we believe that is one first step that has to deepen with other larger studies.
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