© 2004 by Oxford University Press
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Criteria for Re-defining Idioms: Are we Barking up the Wrong Tree?
1 Auckland University of Technology 2 Victoria University of Wellington
A large proportion of text is made up of a variety of multi-word units (MWUs). One type of MWU is ‘idioms’. While previously linguists have established criteria to define an idiom, the criteria have often been general so as to apply to the wide-ranging MWUs found in this category, and have been a description of them rather than a definition. We present a more restrictive definition of idiom in the form of a test which divides MWUs into ‘core idioms’, ‘figuratives’, and ‘ONCEs’. The result of applying the test is that the majority of idioms would be put into the ‘figuratives’ category. While ‘figuratives’ also present problems for the EFL/ESL learners, the more narrowly defined ‘core idioms’ are the most difficult set of MWUs for learners to come to terms with and are therefore the motivation for redefining idioms.
Received May 2003.
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