Conventional Knowledge, Pictorial Elucidation, Etymological Motivation, and Structural Elaboration in a Thematic Dictionary of Idioms

Abstract

The primary focus of this article is on the usefulness of conventional knowledge, pictorial illustrations, and etymological notes in the process of defining the meaning of idioms within the macrostructure of a thematic dictionary of idioms based on cognitive principles of linguistic organization, and on the use of phonological motivation and iconic and scalar ordering as principles for explaining the form of idiomatic expressions. This article makes a noteworthy contribution to the widely-held view in current language teaching and pedagogy that grouping figurative idioms under source domains and conceptual metaphors, using visuals for explaining the literal reading of idioms, providing background information about their literal meanings or origins, as well as drawing students’ attention to the lexical make-up of idioms can be conducive to their learning and understanding and especially beneficial for students’ retention of the meaning and form of such phrases (Kӧvecses and Szabó 1996; Kӧvecses 2001; 2002; Benor and Levy 2006; Boers and Lindstromberg 2008a; Kӧvecses and Csábi 2014).