{"title":"Functions of idioms in English as lingua franca: An appraisal system account","authors":"Hamid Allami, Monica Karlsson, Hamid Reza Shahroosvand","doi":"10.1111/ijal.12588","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Idiomatic expressions are not just neutral equivalents of their literal counterparts, but exert some sort of evaluative force. This study employed the appraisal system (AS) to explore the functions of idiomatic expressions and their variations in English as a lingua franca context, and to compare different academic domains in terms of use of evaluative language in the form of idiomatic expressions. To this end, the corpus of English as a lingua franca in academic settings and the Vienna–Oxford International Corpus of English were searched for idiom tokens through whole-phrase and keyword search. The idioms and their variations were classified based on the AS. The findings indicated that social and behavioral scientific texts included higher proportions of evaluative idiomatic expressions whereas medical and natural scientific texts generated lower percentages of appraisal idioms. There was a stronger tendency in both corpora toward using idioms as <i>appreciation</i> as compared to <i>judgment</i> and <i>affect</i>. Given the employed methodology, the AS could not be applied to some idioms for their compositionality nature.</p>","PeriodicalId":46851,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Applied Linguistics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijal.12588","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Idiomatic expressions are not just neutral equivalents of their literal counterparts, but exert some sort of evaluative force. This study employed the appraisal system (AS) to explore the functions of idiomatic expressions and their variations in English as a lingua franca context, and to compare different academic domains in terms of use of evaluative language in the form of idiomatic expressions. To this end, the corpus of English as a lingua franca in academic settings and the Vienna–Oxford International Corpus of English were searched for idiom tokens through whole-phrase and keyword search. The idioms and their variations were classified based on the AS. The findings indicated that social and behavioral scientific texts included higher proportions of evaluative idiomatic expressions whereas medical and natural scientific texts generated lower percentages of appraisal idioms. There was a stronger tendency in both corpora toward using idioms as appreciation as compared to judgment and affect. Given the employed methodology, the AS could not be applied to some idioms for their compositionality nature.
成语表达不仅仅是字面意思的中性等同物,而且还具有某种评价性力量。本研究采用评价系统(AS)来探讨成语表达式在英语作为通用语语境中的功能及其变化,并比较不同学术领域以成语表达式形式使用评价性语言的情况。为此,我们通过全词和关键词检索,在学术环境中作为通用语的英语语料库和维也纳-牛津国际英语语料库中搜索习语标记。根据 AS 对习语及其变体进行了分类。研究结果表明,社会和行为科学文本中评价性习语的比例较高,而医学和自然科学文本中评价性习语的比例较低。与判断和情感相比,两个语料库都更倾向于将成语用作赞赏。鉴于所采用的方法,AS 无法适用于某些成语,因为这些成语具有构成性。
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Applied Linguistics (InJAL) publishes articles that explore the relationship between expertise in linguistics, broadly defined, and the everyday experience of language. Its scope is international in that it welcomes articles which show explicitly how local issues of language use or learning exemplify more global concerns.