Idiomatic Creativity: A Cognitive-Linguistic Model of Idiom-Representation And Idiom-Variation in English
Andreas Langlotz, "Idiomatic Creativity: A Cognitive-Linguistic Model of Idiom-Representation And Idiom-Variation in English"
John Benjamins Publishing Co | 2006 | ISBN: 902722370X | 325 pages | PDF | 1,6 MB
John Benjamins Publishing Co | 2006 | ISBN: 902722370X | 325 pages | PDF | 1,6 MB
From the Introduction:
This book addresses a central problem in phraseological and linguistic analy-
sis. The creative structure and the creative use of idioms. Let me therefore start
creatively, with a highly speculative metaphorical hypothesis: idioms are to lin-
guists and language users what the Cheshire cat is to Alice. Idioms are peculiar
linguistic constructions that have raisedmany eyebrows in linguistics and often
confuse newcomers to a language. Indeed, the expression grin like a Cheshire
cat is an idiom. More precisely, it is an idiomatic comparison whose motiva-
tion has become opaque: as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)indicates,the
phrase is of undetermined origin. So why should people who grin broadly grin
like a Cheshire cat?; after all, what, precisely, is a Chesire cat? These questions
point to the fact that according to the perception of most speakers of English
this expression behaves like its allegorical incarnation in Alice in Wonderland.
The idiomatic meaning of the expression, ‘grin broadly,’ leaves us with a grin
without a cat. This is what makes this idiom curious…
Download