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ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ
HELPING NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS HOW TO LEARN AND DIFFERENTIATE IDIOMS FROM PROVERBS Kurbonova O.R. Email: Kurbonova691@scientifictext.ru
Kurbonova Ozoda Ravshanovna - Teacher, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSLATION AND THEORY AND PRACTICE, ALISHER NAVOI TASHKENT STATE UNIVERSITY OF UZBEK LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, TASHKENT, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: the English language is rich in idioms and proverbs. Every English learner faces with the problem of learning, using and distinguishing them appropriately. So I decided to research English idioms and proverbs, as well as to reveal the nuances and compare them with previous studies. This article discusses the lexical-semantic features of idioms and proverbs, their origin and etymology. Their similarities and differences are also analyzed in the examples of English idioms and proverbs. In addition, tips and advice on their study and distinction are given, since idioms and proverbs are an integral part of the English spoken language. While investigating English idioms and proverbs, seven interesting facts were discovered about their similarities and differences; they are given in the "Results" part of the article.
Keywords: idiom, proverb, comparison of proverbs and idioms, culture, time and space, society, paroemiographer.
ПОМОЩЬ НЕРОДНЫМ НОСИТЕЛЯМ ЯЗЫКА В ИЗУЧЕНИИ И ДИФФЕРЕНЦИАЦИИ ИДИОМ ОТ ПОСЛОВИЦ Курбонова О.Р.
Курбонова Озода Равшановна - преподаватель, кафедра теории и практики перевода, Ташкентский государственный университет узбекского языка и литературы им. Алишера Навои, г. Ташкент, Республика Узбекистан
Аннотация: английский язык богат идиомами и пословицами. Каждый изучающий английский язык сталкивается с проблемой изучения, правильного использования и различения их. Поэтому я решила расследовать английские идиомы и пословицы, а также раскрыть нюансы и сравнивать их с предыдущими исследованиями. В данной статье рассматриваются лексико-семантические особенности идиом и пословиц, их происхождение и этимология. Их сходства и различия анализируются на примерах английских идиом и пословиц. Во введении статьи отмечена причина написания статьи. Кроме того, даны советы и рекомендации по их изучению и различению, так как идиомы и пословицы являются неотъемлемой частью английского разговорного языка. При расследовании английских идиом и пословиц было обнаружено семь интересных фактов об их сходстве и различиях, они приведены в части «Результаты» статьи.
Ключевые слова: идиома, пословица, сравнение пословиц и идиом, культурa, время и пространство, общество, пароэмиограф.
Introduction. What makes human being different from other creatures and organisms? Of course, this is his language. Perhaps, humans would not be different from animals and plants if they did not have the ability to speak, commiserate, and express themselves. At the present time there are a number of means to keep and pass information: with the help of social networks, audio and video messages, and of course via e-mails. However, many years
ago, when people could not read and write the main tool of expressing ideas was the language. We still own our ancestors' messages in the form of songs, poems, fairy-tales. But the briefest, informative and perhaps the fastest reaching messages are proverbs and idioms. They make people think over, meditate their everyday issues, and enable them to impress on other people quicker.
Why I have chosen tis topic? There are two reasons for it. Firstly, when we were translating English proverbs and idioms into Uzbek, one of my students asked what the difference between proverbs and idioms. Since I have not surveyed the topic I did not have the exact answer and I told that the following lesson I would bring the definite information. The next case was also with my first-year students. They did not submit the online assignments on time and I had to remind them about it every time, and I applied the idiomatic expression 'I am sick and tired of reminding about submitting the assignments on time.' One of my students believed that I was tired and became ill for not fulfilling the tasks by the deadline, she apologized for it and wished me to get well soon. Then I explained the definition of that idiom and we had fun.
Literature review. In Merriam-Webster online dictionary proverb is described as following: "Proverb is a brief popular epigram or maxim" [7].They are evolved from Latin wordproverbium. Proverbs have many names: they can be called axioms, old saws, sayings and adages.[6] From my point of view, proverb is a kind of popular and short aphorism or saying which gives people advice and morality in their day-to-day communication. As for idioms, they are also called idiomatic expressions and expressed in Cambridge English dictionary so: "Idiom is a group of words in a fixed order that have a particular meaning that is different from the meanings of each word understood on its own" [1] and I assume that idiom is a set of words or phrase that means something different from its actual meaning but still can be understood due to their frequent use. In English alone there are an estimated twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions [3].
As Dr. Panos Karagiorgos says, "Proverbs contain keen observations of everyday life, constitute popular philosophy of life, and provide an insight into human behavior and character. They survived thanks to their brevity, their rhyme and rhythm which delighted the ear and helped the memory". [8] So, proverbs are connected with nation's history, culture and traditions. They show nation's wisdom, laconic and witty language. Nobody knows the precise number and time of proverbs derivation. We know they are old and some of them have interesting histories. We can only suppose about their development through some historical materials because the coiner of most proverbs is not familiar. It is supposed that there are approximately 500-600 proverbs in English. Next thing is that in fact, proverbs are still being created today as ready-made formulas to express new human and social insights. As such, proverbs are useful guideposts based on a multitude of experiences and observations that are part of everyday life in the family, the workplace, business and any form of human exchange [10].
What about idioms? Are they connected with the culture? Here Leeza Erfesoglou agrees about this statement: "Idiomatic expressions are curious in their function within language as they mean more than what each word denotes. Even if idioms are metaphorical and figurative, once understood they serve as a palpable and distinct feature of any language. They allow the speaker to express themselves, articulating certain sentiments without explicitly saying so. Furthermore, they offer cultural understandings into societal standards, principles, and beliefs. Idioms allow us insight into the thoughts, emotions, and views of the speaker's background. Language and culture are inextricably connected" [4].
Methodology. As an English language learner, teacher, and researcher I have noticed that there are obvious differences between proverbs and idiomatic expressions. It has been observed that English learners did not know the distinction between proverbs and idioms. Nevertheless, non-native English speaking teachers or students used either proverbs or idiomatic expressions hardly despite the fact that many of them have been or lived in English speaking countries for a long time. Of course, it has an influence on academic performance
and thus, lead me to research this sphere and to maintain the significance of teaching,learning and properly using proverbs and idioms in EFL/ESL classrooms It is necessary to pay more attention to problems and idiomatic knowledge in EFL/ESL classes if students and non-native speakers wish to feel the real English atmosphere. I observed that shortage of knowledge in proverbs and idioms is a shortage of anybody's English language knowledge in general because both proverbs and idioms are applied in oral and written English and moreover, they are very popular.The qualitative and comparative approaches were used as the methodology of this article, relying on the analysis and description of previous researches and studies of proverbs, idiomatic expressions and their importance. This paper relies on analysis of previous proofs and case studies. Results and data are obtained via analyzing and surveying such data, Additionally, several studies on proverbs and idiomatic expressions, how to improve their acquisition and how to better differentiate them have been done, compared and totalized. Results have been reached and stated based on such findings.
Discussion. Although the borderline between proverbs and idioms is not clearly discernible. Like idioms, proverbs often have a meaning that is greater than the meaning of the individual words put together, but in a dissimilar way than idioms. A pure proverb has a subject, a predicate and other parts of speech, and metaphorical meaning. It says one thing and it means another. A person who writes or collects proverb is called a paroemiographer. Modern paroemiographers have discussed proverbs and idioms and had disagreements on them. Concerning idioms, they may not always have a subject and a predicate but several parts of speech. They are usually shorter than proverbs, not widely used as proverbs, and are still created by separate people. The literal meaning of an idiom usually does not stand to reason, and idioms cannot be almost possible to understand until they have been learned or heard before. Proverbs commonly have several specific features that help us sort out questions about their inclusion.
1. Age. Proverbs are generally very old, though precise wording may have changed, even involving appearance in multiple old languages.
2. Briefness. Proverbs can be as short as two words (money talks. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/time_flies). Moreover, the full forms of popular longer proverbs are often replaced by shorter and unclear ones, For example, 'money talks, bullshit walks.'
3. Poetry. Proverbs use linguistic devices that increase their memorability, especially rhyme (After dinner rest a while, after supper walk a mile.), alliteration (Don't count your chickens before they hatch), parallelism (Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.), as ellipsis (First come, first served)
4. Rhetorical devices. Proverbs often use simple rhetorical devices, metaphor ( Too many cooks spoil the broth), hyperbole (Far folk fare best), paradox ("Many hands make the work lighter" but "Too many cooks spoil the broth "), and personification of wisdom (GodHimself made use of His own wisdom in creation= Jesus Christ is the One speaking as Wisdom in this proverb).
5. Structure. Proverbs often form clusters that share common structures (eg, One man's X is another man's Y=One man's meat is another man's poison), ("Where there is X, there is Y"=Where there is smoke, there is fire" ). Exceptions can be found for each of these, but, taken together, they provide support for an expression being a proverb. [9]
Regarding idioms, they also have the main features that have been identified as most characteristic of idioms. They are: semantic non-compositionality (lack of correlation between syntax and sense), lexical integrity (in various degrees), institutionalisation and compositeness. [5]. For semantic non-compositionality feature of idioms, we can take these examples 'bury the hatchet' /* bury the axe, 'break a leg' / * break a hand, where the effect of substitution is to produce nonsense or a non-idiom. However, some idioms have other variants or they are called 'synonymous idioms', as drunk as a fish, as drunk as a lord, as drunk as a skunk.
Many fixed idioms lack semantic composition or compositeness, meaning that the idiom contains the semantic role of a verb, but not of any object. This is true of kick the bucket, which means die. By contrast, the semantically composite idiom spill the beans,
meaning reveal a secret, contains both a semantic verb and object, reveal and secret. Semantically composite idioms have a syntactic similarity between their surface and semantic forms [2, p. 39].
Results. Comparing proverbs and idioms, I found out the following facts: l.Idioms are phrases or part of a sentence but proverbs are full and fixed sentences. 2. Idioms sometimes have versions while proverbs have no versions 3.Idioms are not intended to give advice or a moral, however proverbs do give advice or warn.
4. Idioms can be used in every type of text, though proverbs are only used in literal or sociocultural texts.
5.Idioms are more often used than proverbs.
6. Idioms do not give a complete meaning alone; nevertheless, proverbs have a complete meaning.
7. The meaning of the proverb can be understood, even if it has not been heard before, though, one cannot understand the meaning of an idiom if they have not heard it before.
Conclusion. The complex nature of proverbs and idioms still makes it difficult to discern them appropriately. However, proverbs and idioms are consumed in English native speakers' day-to-day life frequently. They are a part of every language's vocabulary and are based on that language history, traditions and culture. Learning and differentiating proverbs and idiomatic expressions appropriately allows non-native speakers to become more relaxed when talking to a native speaker. In addition, learning proverbs and idiomatic expressions improves the vocabulary and lexicon of the English Language learner. Naturally, teachers should motivate their students to deal with proverbs and idioms as and when they emerge in their contexts, such as in reading and listening tasks. Only then, they began to practice proverbs and idioms and have some ideas about them. Nevertheless, this process should be systematically.
The nature of idioms and proverbs is a fascinating and at the same time a very confusing area of study. As this article has shed some light on the actual problems of learning and differentiating idioms and proverbs, there is still need for researching them.
References / Список литературы
1. Cambridge English Dictionary, 2020.
2. Horn George. Idioms, Metaphors, and Syntactic Mobility. Journal of Linguistics, 2003. Pp. 245-273.
3. Jackendoff R. The architecture of the language faculty.Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press., 1997. Pp.: 340.
4. Erfesoglou Leeza. Idioms: "A linguistic Journey Across Cultures", 2017. [Electronic Resource]. URL: https://culturalawareness.com/idioms-linguistic-journey-across-cultures/ (date of access: 22.06.2020).
5. Ligiya Bradeeanu. Defining features of idioms: 'Stumbling Blocks in the Process of Translation ', Studia UBB Philologia. LVII, 3, 2012. Pp. 239-252.
6. Mark Peters "We need proverbs because they reflect who we are", 2016. [Electronic Resource]. URL: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161117-we-need-proverbs-because-they-reflect-who-we-are/ (date of access: 22.06.2020).
7. Merriam-Webster online dictionary, 2020.
8. Dr. Panos Karagiorgos. Greek and English Proverbs. Cambridge Scholars Publishing; Unabridged edition, 2015. Pp: 235.
9. Proverbs Wiktionary "The Nature Of Proverbs-Forbes", 2009.
10. [Electronic Resource]. URL: https://www.forbes.com/2009/08/12/wolfgang-mieder-proverbs-opinions-mieder.html#11f97d1f67f8/ (date of access: 22.06.2020).
