Cultural analysis of British Idioms

肖梦霞

1.             Introduction:   Relationship between culture and language

             For some people, culture is equivalent to excellent tastes in literature, music, philosophy, art and so on. In the eyes of anthropologists, nevertheless, it has much broader meaning. British anthropologist Edward B. Taylor gave one of the first complete definitions of culture in his book “Primitive Culture” (1871), which told that culture includes socially acquired knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and habits.

             Later anthropologists came up with simpler categorizations of culture. A common hpractice is to divide all of culture into three broad categories: material, social and ideological culture. Material culture includes products of human manufacture, such as technology. Social culture pertains to people’s forms of social organization—how people interact and organize themselves in group. Ideological culture relates to what people think, value, believe and hold as ideals. Language is the principal means whereby we conduct our social lives. When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways.

             To begin with, the words people utter refer to common experience. They express facts, ideas or event that are communicable because they refer to a stock of knowledge about the world that other people share. Words also reflect their authors’ attitudes and beliefs, their point of view, that are those of other’s. In both cases, language expresses cultural reality.

             But members of a community or social group do not only express experience; they also create experience through language. They give meaning to it through the medium they choose to communicate with one another, for example, speaking on the telephone or face-to-face, writing a letter or sending an e-mail message, reading the newspaper or interpreting a graph or a chart. The way in which people use the   spoken, written, or visual medium itself creates meaning that are understandable to the group they belong to, for example, through a speaker’s tone of voice, accent, conversational style, gestures and facial expressions. Through all its verbal and non-verbal aspects, language embodies cultural reality.

             Finally, language is system of sighs that is seen as having itself a cultural value. Speakers identify themselves and others through their use of language; they view their language as a symbol of their social identity. The prohibition of its use is often perceived by its speakers as a rejection of their social group and their culture. Thus we can say that language symbolizes cultural reality. (Claire Kramsch, 200)

             Following those of sociologists and anthropologists, culture refers to the total pattern of belief, custom, institutions, objects, and techniques that characterize the life of a human community.

             Idioms, in their brevity, vigour and unusualness, they are the life and spirit of language.

  Idioms are not a separate part of the language which one can choose either to use or to omit, but they form an essential part of the general vocabulary of English. A description of how the vocabulary of the language is growing and changing will help to place idioms in perspective.

             “Culture consists of all the shares products of human society,” Ian Robertson says. This means not only such material things as cities, organizations and schools, but also non-material things such as ideas, customs, family patterns, language. Putting it simply, culture refers to the entire way of life of a society, “the ways of people”.

   Culture, however, is an approximation, a tendency, and an abstraction because it is a dynamic process, instead of a static one. Therefore, the classification of culture cannot be clear-cut.

2.             Definition of idioms and its scope

2.1     the definition of idioms

             What is an idiom? It is still very difficult to give a clear definition of the English word “idiom” up to now, for there are many different views on the question. Idiom researchers seem to hold different views on the definition of idioms. The term is used by different linguists and psycholinguists meaning. Basically, there exist two major views on the definition of idioms, the permissive definition and the strict one.

             According to Makkai (1972), idioms are glossed as “any polylexonic lexeme made up of more than a minimal free form or word.”   The definition given by McCarthy’s (1992:55) is also permissive:

                         By idioms I mean string of more than one word whose syntactic form is to a greater or lesser degree fixed and whose semantics is opaque, also to a greater or lesser degree. This definition (…) enables us to incorporate within the term “idiom” a wide range of fixed expressions, including the tournure idioms (…), phrasal verbs a variety of other formal types, cultural allusions, restricted collocations and extended metaphors.

             These authors admit that the category of idioms is a “missed bag” where one can find metaphors, metonymies, pairs of words, idioms with it, similes, sayings, phrasal verbs and grammatical idioms.

             Nunberg et al. (1994) remark on the laxity with which the term “idiom” is used. They point out whereas some authors use “idiom” only for truly noncompositional expressions, learners’ dictionaries employ “idiom” as a coverterm even for those collocations with fully literal senses.

             Nunberg, Sag and Wasow (1994), put forward their own definition of idioms. While acknowledging that idiom is “a fuzzy category”, they maintain that these items can be identified by properties such as conventionality, inflexibility, figuration, proverbiality, informality and affect. These scholars maintain that none of these properties apply obligatorily to a,, idioms. Nonetheless, some of them (figuration, proverbial character, association with popular speech and above all- conventionality) are regarded as essential, “to such an extent that if several of them are missing, we become increasingly reluctant to call the expression an idiom” (Nunberg, et. al. 1994).

             With regard to idiom, the following dictionaries have slightly different concepts from one another.

                          The Oxford English Dictionary (1970) defines idiom as follows:

1．   the form of speech peculiar or proper to a people or country; own language, own tongue.

2．   (in a narrower sense) That variety of language which is peculiar to a limited district or class of people; dialect.

3．   The specific character, property or genius of any language, the manner of expression.

                          The Third New International Dictionary (1976) gives the definition as an expression established in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either in grammatical construction or in having a meaning that can not be derived as a whole from the conjoined meanings of its elements.

                         Web’s New World College Dictionary (1996) says that a phrase, construction, or expression that is recognized as a unit in the usage of a given language and either differs from the usual syntactic patterns or has a meaning that differs from the literal meaning of its parts taken together.

             For the purpose of our study, we adopt the definition from dictionary.

2.2     the scope of idioms of this paper involved

             From what is discussed above, we could see there are different definitions of idioms; the same is true of the scope of idioms. While some linguists think idioms only include phrases that have structure of a verb plus an expression that has its figurative meaning should also be included in this category. While some believe that only phrases or expressions that have both the literal meaning and figurative meaning could only be called idioms, some others think phrases like spick and span are also idioms. The scope of idioms for this paper covers phrases, verbs formed or expressions that have both literal meaning, including and figurative meaning.

3.             culture and idioms

3.1 British culture and British idioms

             Language is indeed a mirror of a nation and its culture. British idioms, as the cream of English language, reflect the culture of their nation to an even greater extent. Various aspects of human life constitute their rich resources, and in them are apparently shown the attributes of their nation. Next, we are going to examine the relationship between British culture and British idioms to see what is the role culture plays in motivating the meaning of idioms. We will discuss mainly how written culture motivates our understanding of idioms.

3.2     British idioms and influenced British by other cultures

             From 43AD to 410AD, almost 350 years, Britain was occupied by Roman. During the occupation Britain became a Roman province in name and some of the native society was introduced into English. The Romans brought Britain their Roman civilization, the trace of which we can clearly see through some popular British idioms.

             All roads lead to Roman. That means there are many methods for one to reach one’s goal.

               Mentor which means experienced teacher and good friend. It is said that mentor is Odysseus’ good friend. When Odysseus went to attend Troy war, he had his little son took care by Mentor. Odysseus leave for 20 years and Mentor educated his son as a educated man.

             Soon after the Roman’s departure from Britain, three great Germanic tribes-the Angles, the Saxons, and the jutes-invaded Britain, and started the Anglo-Saxon period in British history. The language of the three tribes gradually merged with each other and at last formed the language of Anglo-Saxon became dominant on the island after Teutonic Conquest, and it is also one of the three main origins modern English.

Let’s study the language through some idioms.

             Her cruel words cut him to the quick, Which says what she said hurt his felling deeply.

In Saxon language, quick means the sensitive flesh under a toenail or fingernail.

             In about the 9th century Britain encountered the invaders from Scandinavian. The main invaders were from Denmark. With the Scandinavians’ invasion most parts of Britain were influenced by the culture from north Europe. For one foot is equal to twelve inches; One shilling is equal to twelve pennies; the jury consists of twelve people. As a result of which we can find few idioms left by the Scandinavian conquest.

             Rain cants and dogs. That means raining very heavily. From North Europe myth, cants and dongs are the servants of Odin-the god control the rain and wind. So when the cants and dogs appear, the rain coming.

             The last, and perhaps the most important, of the long succession of invaders and colonizers from Scandinavian and the continent were the Normans – a branch of the Norsemen or Scandinavian Vikings, who after setting in north France, intermarrying with French, and assimilating their language and customs crossed to England and conquered in 1066. The Norman Conquest caused important consequences in the field was completely subjugated.

             Stew in one’s own juice. The idiom comes from the French idiom of cuire dans son jus. It means suffering the deserved results of one’s action.

             The American Revolution that began in the thirteen colonies in 1763 was a bourgeois revolution. It was this revolution that colonists in America win their freedom and independence. Now let’s have a look at idioms born during the time of American Revolution and independence.

             Apple-pie order means in well order. It is that one house wife was good at do housework. She had one habit that on every Monday she would do seven apple-pie, and then had one in the next seven days.

4.             conclusion: getting the meaning of idioms from culture

             To grasp the meaning of one word in the idioms that may give one general idea of what the idiom conveys. To illustrate this, let’s see the idioms leave a clean pair of heels, which means “to run away and disappear”. Some people focus on the word “clean”, and this leads them to a general notion of tidiness, doing a job properly, or being somewhat innocent. Even if this strategy may not be able to lead to the correct understanding of idioms especially those less analyzable idioms, it validates again our claim that unfamiliar idioms are processed literally.

             If one wants to get the meaning of idioms correctly, one must grasp one word but the whole phrase. How to get the whole phrase? The answer is to be familiar with culture.

Bibliography

1.             Downes, w. language and society. London: Fontana.

2.             Fernando, C. (2000). Idioms and idiomaticity [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language                         Education Press.

3.             Haroldc, W & Dixson Associates, L. (1973). Handbook of American idioms and idiomatic                     usage. New York: Regents Publishing Company. INC.

4.             Jenifer, S. (1978). English idioms and how to use them. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

5.             Kramsch, C. (2000). Language and culture [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language                              Press.

6.             Lai, A-F. (1991). Xinbian Yingmei Gaikuang [an introduction to Britain and America].                                  Zhengzhou: Henan Renmin Chubanshe.

7.             Luo, S-P. (2005). Yingyu Xiyu Tanyuan [a research on English idioms]. Shanghai:                                             Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

8.             New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

9.             Strassler, J. (1982). Idioms in English: a Pragmatic Analysis. Tubingen: Verlay Press.

10.     Viginiak, K. (2004). What you need to know about idioms, Anne Seaton, (Ed.). London:                              learners Publishing Pte Ltd.

11.     Wang, Z-L, Zhu, Y, Li, P-W, & Gao, H-K. (1992). Ouzhou Wenhua Rumen [European                                  culture an introduction]. Beijing: Foreign Teaching and Research Press.

12.     Webster’s New World College Dictionary (3rd, Ed.)(1996). Springfield: Mariam Webster                 Press.

13.     Webster’s Third New World International Dictionary (1976). Springfield: Mariam                                                 Webster Press.

14.     Zhuang, H-C. (2002).Yingyu Xiyu Tanyuan [English allusion]. Shanghai: Shanghai                                Foreign Language Education Press.

15.     Zhang, X-Y. (2003). Yingyu Wenhua Yu Yingyu Chengyu: Yingyu Chengyu 1000                                                     Tiao [English idioms 1000]. Beijing: Zhongguo Sanxia Chuban She.