Arabic Idioms

Description

Idioms represent a fascinating linguistic phenomenon that has captured the attention of many linguists for decades. The ubiquity of these expressions in language use, the wide range of functions they perform in discourse, the problems they often cause in domains such as foreign language learning and translation, and, very importantly, their typical divergence from the normal rules of grammar and semantic compositionality are among the main reasons for this scholarly interest.

This book is a corpus-based study of idioms in Modern Standard Arabic. Examining the data with regard to their semantic, discursive, lexical and grammatical properties, the author sheds light on their intricate nature, establishes the major patterns of their linguistic behaviour, and provides explanations for these patterns.

Contents

1. Introduction 2. Methodology and Data 3. The Semantic Structure of Arabic Idioms 4. The Discursive Behaviour of Arabic Idioms 5. The Lexical and Grammatical Behaviour of Arabic Idioms. Conclusions

Author Bio

Ashraf Abdou is Assistant Professor in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language at the American University in Cairo. His research focuses on Arabic phraseology, Arabic corpus linguistics, spoken discourse analysis, Arabic lexicography and English-Arabic contrastive phraseology.

Related Subjects

1. Language & Linguistics
2. Middle East Linguistics
3. Corpus Linguistics
4. Middle East Studies