UNDERSTANDING THE MEANING OF ENGLISH IDIOMS DERIVED FROM SPECIAL TERMS
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2017-5-53-57
Introduction. The article offers a selection and classification of modern English language units of terminological character with etymological comments. The aim of the paper is to consider terminologisms or terms with transferred meaning. Terminologism is a language unit with several components which has either direct terminological or professional meaning. This direct meaning becomes the basis for derived, figurative meaning. It is fixed in speech as a result of repeated use. Material and methods. The language material of this article includes 555 terminological units collected from special philological researches and specialized modern dictionaries of English idioms. The analyzed language units are divided into subgroups by source. The most productive areas of terminology are sports, military and maritime fundamentals, gambling. Moreover, there is reference to language units from the hunting area, theatre, arts, and various sciences. Further on, terminologisms are considered from the point of view of transparency, deducibility of their meaning: both direct and figurative. Results and discussion. It is noted that such fixed expressions can be both completely transparent, clear and completely opaque. Transparent terminologisms, as a rule, are understandable due to the inner form (components) and figurative meaning. Transparent terminologisms are known and recognizable because of general cultural background of the addressee as well. Opaque terminologisms are divided into two groups. On the one hand, there are fixed expressions that contain a specific component. This specific component is a term with the meaning unknown to common people. On the other hand, the inner form of the fixed expression is not entirely understandable. Although all the components are clear, the image conveyed by the term is not clear at all. As a result, the figurative meaning of this term is not deducible. The article comments on the meanings of terminologisms which are considered difficult for understanding. Real examples and dictionary definitions of direct and figurative meanings are given. At the end, the results of the study are summarized. Conclusion. The result of the survey can be used in the special course on modern English phraseology. As a subject of further research, it is assumed that the media and the Internet have the potential for the formation of new modern English terminological units and terminologisms as well.
Keywords: idiom, etymology, terminology, terminologism, transparency of idioms
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Issue: 5, 2019
Series of issue: Issue 5
Rubric: CURRENT ISSUES OF LINGUISTICS
Pages: 53 — 57
Downloads: 1251