Phraseological false friends in English and Slovene and the metaphors behind them

By November 17, 2016,
Page 1242-1250
Author Marjeta Vrbinc
Title Phraseological false friends in English and Slovene and the metaphors behind them
Abstract The interest in false lexical equivalence reflects the interest in language contact, the observation of which always leads to the conclusion that formally identical and similar words and word combinations in different languages do not necessarily overlap semantically. Dictionaries of false friends deal with oneword lexical items, but false-friend relationship can also be established in phraseology. The aim of this paper is to look at phraseological components of English and Slovene lexicons with a view to identifying and describing the false semantic equivalence between idioms in these two languages.
When studying false lexical equivalence, the closeness or sameness of form has been made tertium comparationis. Several phraseological units that are the same or similar in form but different in meaning in English and Slovene are analysed in the paper. Some of these pairs of idioms show certain common features, such as comparison, emotion, spoken or written communication. Phraseological false friends are illustrated by examples and similarities and differences between the idiom in English and the phraseological false friend in Slovene are commented upon.
Since phraseological as well as lexical false friends represent a great problem in communication, translation and lexicographic treatment, it is necessary to first raise awareness of the lexical traps into which non-native speakers of English as well as any other language may easily fall, regardless of their level of linguistic knowledge. It is, therefore, essential to find and treat these pairs of idioms appropriately and acquaint learners with them by including them in course books, in bilingual, general and especially phraseological dictionaries.
Session Phraseology and Collocation
Keywords
BibTex
@InProceedings{ELX10-122,
author = {Marjeta Vrbinc},
title = {Phraseological false friends in English and Slovene and the metaphors behind them},
pages = {1242-1250},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 14th EURALEX International Congress},
year = {2010},
month = {jul},
date = {6-10},
address = {Leeuwarden/Ljouwert, The Netherlands},
editor = {Anne Dykstra and Tanneke Schoonheim},
publisher = {Fryske Akademy},
isbn = {978-90-6273-850-3},
}
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