Conventional and Nonconventional Use of Idioms in General vs. Academic Corpora of English as a Lingua Franca

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 English Department, Yazd University; Department of English Language Teaching, Tarbiat Modares University

2 English Department, Halmstad University, Sweden

3 English Department, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

Abstract

The present study investigated the conventional vs. nonconventional use of idioms in general and academic English as a lingua franca (ELF) corpora taking into account the speech event type, academic domain, and discipline. ELFA and VOICE corpora were searched for idiom tokens based on Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary. Results showed that idioms were more frequent in VOICE than in ELFA, indicating a higher proportion of formulaic language in informal and interactive discourse as compared to more formal and transactional discourses. Tokens in conventional form and meaning were the most frequent in both corpora. Entirely novel idioms were small in number in both corpora. However, both corpora generated a large number of idioms with formal variations. Idiom use in the academic corpus was register sensitive. ELF speakers in both corpora used communication strategies to prevent unilateral idiomaticity. Overuse of high-frequency idioms by some speakers could be associated with idiomatic teddy bears. Results can help understand the nature of idiomaticity in ELF in general and academic settings. Findings on the academic corpus can also inform curriculum development and assessment in English for Academic Purposes.

Keywords


Abdou, A. (2011). Arabic idioms: A corpus-based study. Routledge.
Abel, B. (2003). English idioms in the first language and second language lexicon: A dual representation approach. Second Language Research, 19(4), 329-358.
Baayen, H., & Neijt, A. (1997). Productivity in context: A case study of a Dutch suffix. Linguistics, 35(3), 565-587.
Baayen, H. (1993). On frequency, transparency, and productivity. In G. Booij & J. van Marle (Eds.), Yearbook of morphology (pp. 181-208). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Baayen, H.  (1992). A quantitative approach to morphological productivity. In G. Booij & J. van Marle (Eds.), Yearbook of morphology (pp. 109-149). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Biber, D., & Conrad, S. (1999). Lexical bundles in conversation and academic prose. Language and Computers, 26, 181-190.
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.
Bobrow, S. A., & Bell, S. M. (1973). On catching on to idiomatic expressions. Memory & Cognition, 1(3), 343-346.
Bostancı, T. (2017). The use of formulaic language in Asian and European ELF contexts: A corpus-based study. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Bilkent University.
Briggs, J. G., & Smith, S. A. (2017). English medium instruction and idiomaticity in English as a lingua franca. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 5(3), 27-44.
Cacciari, C., & Tabossi, P. (1988). The comprehension of idioms. Journal of Memory and Language, 27(6), 668-683.
Carter, R. (2004). Language and creativity: The art of common talk. Routledge.
Eftekhari, N. (2008). A brief overview on idiomatic translation. Retrieved August 9, 2020, from the World Wide Web: https://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article1739.php.
ELFA (2008). The corpus of English as a lingua franca in academic settings. Director: Anna Mauranen.
ELFA Corpus. (2019). Description of the ELFA corpus project. Retrieved March 21, 2020, from the World Wide Web: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/english-as-a-lingua-franca-in-academic-settings/research/elfa-corpus
Fraser, B. (1970). Idioms within a transformational grammar. Foundations of Language, 6, 22-42.
Gibbs, R. W. (1980). Spilling the beans on understanding and memory for idioms in context. Memory and Cognition, 8, 149-156.
Gibbs, R. W., Bogdanovich, J. M., Sykes, J. R., & Barr, D. J. (1997). Metaphor in idiom comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 37, 141-154.
Hasselgren, A. (1994). Lexical teddy bears and advanced learners: A study into the ways Norwegian students cope with English vocabulary. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 237-258.
Karlsson, M. (2019). Idiomatic mastery in a first and second language. London: Multilingual Matters.
Katz, J. J., & Postal. P. M. (1964). An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Khodabandeh, F., & Ramezani, M. (2020). Comparing formulaic sequences in English as a lingua franca and English as a native language in academic lectures. Foreign Language Research Journal, 10(3), 558-573.
Langlotz, A. (2006). Idiomatic creativity: A cognitive-linguistic model of idiom-representation and idiom-variation in English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Merriam-Webster (n.d.). Idiom. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved July 12, 2020, from the World Wide Web: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiom
Moon, R. (1998). Fixed expressions and idioms in English: A corpus-based approach. Oxford University Press.
Nattinger, J. R., & DeCarrico, J. S. (1992). Lexical phrases and language teaching. Oxford University Press.
Nunberg, G., Sag I. A., & Wasow, T. (1994). Idioms. Language, 70(3), 491-538.
Pawley, A., & Syder, F. H. (1983). Two puzzles for linguistic theory: Nativelike selection and nativelike fluency. In J. C. Richards & R. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and communication (pp. 191-226). London: Longman.
Pelletier, F. J. (1994). The principle of semantic compositionality. Topoi, 13(1), 11-24.
Pitzl, M. L. (2012). Creativity meets convention: Idiom variation and remetaphorization in ELF. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 1(1), 27-55.
Pitzl, M. L. (2016). World Englishes and creative idioms in English as a lingua franca. World Englishes, 35(2), 293-309.
Pitzl, M. L. (2018). Creativity in English as a lingua franca: Idiom and metaphor (Vol. 2). Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
Prodromou, L. (2007a). Bumping into creative idiomaticity. English Today, 23(1), 14-25.
Prodromou, L. (2007b). Kettles of fish: Or, does unilateral idiomaticity exist? English Today, 23(3-4), 34-48.
Prodromou, L. (2003). Idiomaticity and the nonnative speaker. English Today, 19(2), 42-48.
Seidlhofer, B. (2001). Closing a conceptual gap: The case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 133-158.
Seidlhofer, B. (2004). Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 209-239.
Seidlhofer, B. (2005). English as a lingua franca. ELT Journal, 59(4), 339-341.
Seidlhofer, B. (2009). Accommodation and the idiom principle in English as a lingua franca. Intercultural Pragmatics, 6(2), 195-215.
Simpson, R., & Mendis, D. (2003). A corpus‐based study of idioms in academic speech. TESOL Quarterly, 37(3), 419-441.
Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford University Press.
Slater, M. H., & Borghini, A. (2011). Introduction: Lessons from the scientific butchery. In J. K. Campbell, M. Rourke, & M. H. Slater (Eds.), Carving nature at its Joints: Natural kinds in metaphysics and science (pp. 1-31). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 
Swinney, D. A., & Cutler, A. (1979). The access and processing of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18(5), 523–534.
Vega-Moreno, R. E. (2001). Representing and processing idioms. UCL Wording Papers in Linguistics, 13, 73-107.
Vetchinnikova, S. (2014, September 6). Approximation, remetaphorization, and idiomatizing in ELF phraseological patterning: Looking for the point of contact. Paper presented at the 7th International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF7), DEREE, The American College of Greece, Athens, Greece.
VOICE. (2013). The Vienna-Oxford international corpus of English (version 2.0 XML). Retrieved July 12, 2020, from the World Wide Web:  http://voice.univie.ac.at
VOICE Project. (2019). Corpus description. Retrieved July 12, 2020, from the World Wide Web: https://www.univie.ac.at/voice/page/page/page/corpus_description
Vilkaitė, L. (2016). Formulaic language is not all the same: Comparing the frequency of idiomatic phrases, collocations, lexical bundles, and phrasal verbs. Taikomoji Kalbotyra, 8, 28-54.