Idioms In English Language Essay

1. Overview
1-1. Introduction
Idioms constitute one of the most active part of English language that over 7000 idioms are used in daily conversations, newspaper and mass media. Idioms not only dress up person’s speech style as linguistic ornaments but also enhance understanding of context and reflect fundamental patterns of human thought. The ubiquity of idioms in language sometimes provides difficulties for foreigners to grab diverse ambiguous meanings of English. As an integral part of language, idioms should be thoroughly understood in order speak language with fluency.

Idiom, derived from Greek lexeme idioma (special feature, peculiar) can be defined as an expression, word or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is separate from

Roberts. In his book The Science of idioms (1944), language belongs primarily to ‘discourse’ that idioms undergo frequent use by members of given speech community in common, daily communications. He mentions that “language is best when it is most idiomatic, that is, most transparent, so that the thought of the speaker appears distinctly and without linguistic distortion”(Roberts 1944). This claim clearly ignores metaphorical nature of idioms that they are not always transparent, but rather sometimes elicit confusion due to its figurative usage. Although Robert’s view that idioms are conformity to cultural conventions of language is a significant theory to ponder over, his claims are very restricted that idioms were regarded as only means of expressing thoughts and communication. According to his definition of idioms, other figurative languages such as cliches or proverbs would be included into the category. Thus, his theories fail to explain the fundamental linguistic problem of idiom as an anomaly in language composition principles. In addition, he makes absolutely no references to lexical or syntactical properties of idioms. Absence of linguistic properties of idioms makes his claims too general and less