Arabic Idioms

A Corpus Based Study

Ashraf Abdou

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780367865993
• eBook ISBN: 9781136670947
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Idioms represent a fascinating linguistic phenomenon that has captured the attention of many linguists for decades. This corpus-based study of idioms in Modern Standard Arabic sheds light on their intricate nature, establishes the major patterns of their linguistic behaviour, and provides explanations for these patterns.

Adopting a descriptive framework, the study addresses two main issues with regard to the discursive behaviour of idioms: the discursive functions that they perform and the ways in which they contribute to the cohesion of their texts. Examining primary data with regard to the semantic, discursive, lexical and grammatical properties of Arabic idioms, the author touches on the ubiquity of these expressions in language use, the wide range of functions they perform in discourse, the problems they often cause in domains such as foreign language learning and translation, and their typical divergence from the normal rules of grammar and semantic compositionality.

Providing explanations for major linguistic phenomena, this analysis will be accessible to linguists, translators, lexicographers, translation software developers, and language teachers as well as learners.

1 Introduction

Idioms represent a fascinating linguistic phenomenon that has captured the attention of many linguists for decades. The ubiquity of these expressions in language use, the wide range of functions they perform in discourse, the problems they often cause in domains such as foreign language learning and translation, and, very importantly, their typical divergence from the normal rules of grammar and semantic compositionality are among the main reasons for this scholarly interest.

This book is a corpus-based study of idioms in Modern Standard Arabic. Examining the data with regard to their semantic, discursive, lexical and grammatical properties, the study sheds light on their intricate nature, establishes the major patterns of their linguistic behavior, and provides explanations for these patterns.

1.1 Significance of the study

A corpus-based study of Arabic idioms may have considerable significance both on the theoretical and practical levels. As far as the former is concerned, the study can help gain an appreciation of the position of this phenomenon in the language's structure and how it interacts with other lexical and grammatical aspects.

In the last few decades, phraseology, the domain of linguistic enquiry interested in studying prefabricated constructions, has acquired a central position in the scientific examination of language (see Wray 2008; Langlotz 2005). Granger (2005) points out that the ubiquity and centrality of phraseology is supported by the findings of corpus-based research and psycholinguistic studies “which present holistic storage as the default type of processing” (p. 166). Wray (2002) emphasizes that “[n]o model of language which includes a notional lexicon can avoid storing in it morphemes on the one hand and irregular words and word strings on the other” (p. 264). Also, Cowie (1998b: 2–3) notes that:

[t]he notion that native-like proficiency in a language depends crucially on a stock of prefabricated units – or “prefabs” – varying in complexity and internal stability is now set in critical opposition to the atomistic view, rooted in generative theory, that the workings of a language can be explained by a system of rules of general applicability, a lexicon largely made up of minimal units and a set of basic principles of semantic interpretation.

Furthermore, with regard to idioms in particular, because of the central role that different patterns of semantic extension play in their creation, a detailed corpus-based study of this type of multiword units may offer useful insights in the context of metaphor studies.

As to the practical aspect, due to their semantic non-compositionality and, sometimes, grammatical irregularity, idioms are infamous for the thorny problems they cause not least in translation, natural language processing, and language learning. A detailed study of the corpus occurrences of idioms seems essential for developing more effective ways to handle such problems. For instance, it is expected that the linguistic descriptions provided throughout the present work can be encoded, using appropriate computational-linguistic formalisms, within different natural language processing applications that involve Arabic.

Studies of idioms can also provide insights into the cultural mentality of the speech community. Teliya et al. (1998) point out that phraseology amply demonstrates the strong relationship between language and culture. To them, it can be regarded as a storehouse of cultural data, that is, a repository of information on the prominent values, attitudes, and ideas in the speech community. They also note that such “[c]ultural connotations are especially vivid in idioms and restricted lexical collocations” (p. 59).

Even though this work does not adopt a linguo-cultural approach, it still can yield some insights into the Arab cultural mentality as it manifests itself in the meanings of Arabic idioms and, particularly, in the evaluative content they often communicate (for an analysis of the cultural elements in some Arabic idioms, see e.g. Torlakova 1998). Gathering cultural information that relates to the form and meaning of different linguistic units is important in the context of practical applications such as lexicography, language learning, and translation (see Teliya et al. 1998).

In the context of a corpus-based study of German idioms and collocations, Fellbaum (2007b) refers to both the theoretical and lexicographic aspects of the issue, emphasizing that these expressions “are frequent, non-marginal phenomena that pose a challenge to our understanding of grammar and lexis; the lack of rich data and adequate linguistic theories is reflected in insufficient lexicographic treatment” (p. 2, her italics).

1.2 Research questions

This book attempts to provide answers to various questions regarding the linguistic behavior of Arabic idioms. The most prominent points that are under examination are listed below according to the area of linguistic enquiry they belong to:

• As to the semantic properties of idioms, two major points are examined: what are the patterns of semantic extension that underlie the production of Arabic idioms? And, how can these idioms be classified with respect to the notion of isomorphism?

• Regarding the discursive behavior of Arabic idioms, the study investigates both their discursive functions and the ways in which they contribute to the cohesion of their texts.

• With reference to the lexical and grammatical behavior of the data, this work is interested mainly in their lexical variation, changes in the lexicogram-matical complexity, perspective-adaptation, inflectability, active and passive voice, syntactic types and structures, constituent order, embedding, and predicatization.

1.3Modern Standard Arabic

In characterizing Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), Holes (2004: 5) writes that it:

is the modern descendant of Classical Arabic [for short CLA, i.e. mainly the language of the Islamic scriptures and classical Arabic literature], unchanged in the essentials of its syntax but very much changed, and still changing, in its vocabulary and phraseology. This unified, codified pan-Arab variety of Arabic is used for virtually all writing in the Arab world and nowadays, in its spoken form, also dominates the airwaves and the television channels of every Arab country. As the normal medium for formal discourse, it is used in all news broadcasts, political speeches, official announcements, and – most crucially – education in every Arab country.

MSA can be used productively, with varying degrees of grammatical accuracy, by literate native Arabic speakers (Badawi 1995). As Ryding (2005: 7) points out, this variety:

serves not only as the vehicle for the current forms of literature, but also as a resource language for communication between literate Arabs from geographically distant parts of the Arab world. A sound knowledge of MSA is a mark of prestige, education, and social standing; the learning of MSA by children helps eliminate dialect differences and initiates Arab children into their literary heritage and historical tradition. It aids in articulating the connections between Arab countries and creating a shared present as well as a shared past. Education in the Arab countries universally reinforces the teaching and maintenance of MSA as the single, coherent standard written language.

Last but not least, MSA plays a major role in intercultural communication, inasmuch as most of the translation into and from Arabic takes place using this variety.

1.4Sources of idioms in MSA

Idioms in MSA come from several sources. For example, some of them clearly originate in CLA and can be found, sometimes with different meanings, in classical Arabic dictionaries. Second, many contemporary Arabic idioms have occurred as a result of the intensive translation process that has been going on for decades from Western languages, in particular English, into Arabic, especially in the (print) media (see e.g. Stetkevych 1970). This process has expanded the phraseological repertoire of MSA with many examples of loan translations. As Holes (2004: 315) notes:

[m]uch of the news reporting in the Arab media is in the form of rapidly produced and often rather literal translations of English or French language news agency reports. In this way, quantities of new phrases are coined ad hoc by journalists and thence find their way into everyday use without ever having received the endorsement of the [...

Table of contents

• Fornt Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• List of tables
• Transliteration scheme
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Methodology and data
• 3 The semantic structure of Arabic idioms
• 4 The discursive behavior of Arabic idioms
• 5 The lexical and grammatical behavior of Arabic idioms
• 6 Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index