122250 AR Linguistics Advanced Course 1/2 - Focus: Functional and Cognitive Linguistics (2018S)

Course content:
Idioms form an essential part of the English language. Typically defined as constructions that are semantically non-transparent and non-compositional (i.e. the meaning of the idiom as a whole cannot be predicted on the basis of the meaning of the component parts), they are often regarded as fixed multi-word expressions that simply need to be learned. Closer examination, however, shows that there is huge amount of variation within the class of idioms, in terms of degree of transparency, compositionality, conventionality, collocability and (morpho)syntactic flexibility. In order to come to a better understanding of the use, internal structure and formal behaviour of English idioms, this course will address such questions as how they can be defined and classified, how they can be analysed (semantically and syntactically), how they are used (creatively), and how they are processed and acquired.

Course aims:
By focusing on a single, but very versatile, type of construction, students will learn:
(i) to recognize the complexity of the linguistic system as manifested in English idioms
(ii) to approach what looks like a straightforward, unitary phenomenon from different angles
(iii) to decide which research questions and methodology are appropriate in studying the different aspects of idioms
(iv) to understand how these different aspects are interconnected and mutually dependent
(v) to tackle some of the issues involved individually and in small groups.