What is it about?
Variation at the lexical level in Arabic calques from English is due to many factors -- dialectal, political, cultural, and religious. Based on real evidence from Modern Standard Arabic corpora, this paper provides a taxonomy for phraseological variation, showing that it can be syntagmatic and paradigmatic, and explains such variation with reference to both linguistic and extra-linguistic reasons. It also discusses the role of translation and creativity in this respect.
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Why is it important?
The findings indicate that calques are more variable at the lexical level than original phraseological units and that set phrases in general are not as fixed as they are sometimes claimed to be. This has theoretical as well as practical implications, related to how set phrases are processed and how they should be taught and recorded in dictionaries.
Perspectives
I hope that the findings presented in this paper will encourage researchers to discuss related phenomena in other languages and from other perspectives.
Dr Ahmed Seddik Al-Wahy
Faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain Shams University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Lexical Variation in Arabic Phraseological Units Calqued from English: An Explanatory Approach, Textual Turnings An International Peer-Reviewed Journal in English Studies, January 2019, Egypts Presidential Specialized Council for Education and Scientific Research,
DOI: 10.21608/ttaip.2019.123774.
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