A SOCIOLINGUISTIC APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF IDIOMS:SOME ANTHROPOLINGUISTIC SKETCHES

Abstract

An idiom is acknowledged to be a sequence of words functioning as a single unit whose meaning cannot be inferred from the meaning of the parts. In the repertoire of any language, idiomatic expressions constitute a special category of lexical items presenting a fixed structure and a specific behaviour in language use. Proverbs, frozen similes, aphorisms, binomials, sayings, etc., are spontaneous manifestations of colloquial language whose use needs to be mastered in much the same way as individual lexical items. Idioms though, display greater rigidity and structural complexity than individual words, which makes them uncomfortable elements in any theory of language. The fact that they are ready-made structures with small range, if any, for variability, accounts no doubt for their subsidiary role in second language learning. Yet they deserve much closer attention as they constitute categories that permeate languages at a much deeper leve1 than what is usually taken for granted. In this paper, we question the exocentric character of some types of idioms (proverbs and sayings in particular) and discuss several examples of Spanish and English idioms within an anthropolinguistic framework in an attempt to foreground some aspects that are to be taken into account not just in a learning context but also in translation practice.