The fascination of translating idioms

Abstract

The present paper is aimed at outlining and refining the concept of cognitive metaphors and metonymies, which help language users to make sense of the figurative meaning of many idioms containing body parts by linking the physical domain of knowledge to the idiomatic meaning of such idioms. Elaborating on the didactic function of idioms with body parts, the paper endorses the concepts of teachability, learnability, and efficiency on scales of conventionality, cognitive effort, attitudinal impact, familiarity, and explicitness. This study restores idiom to its position as an essential communication instrument, and, in an attempt to expose idiom-in-use, it develops or suggests strategies for examining, evaluating, and translating it by providing concise way information about how people conceptualize the world around them.