Idioms Semantic Transparency, Opacity and Compositionality

According to Cruse (1986, p. 37), idioms should be lexically complex which is should consist more than one constituent. For example, killing the birds with one stone a, hot soup, cold feet, butterflies in my stomach are idioms and they consist of more than one constituent. Furthermore, idioms should have a single, minimal constituent as explained by Cruse (1986) through this sentence ‘This will cook Arthur’s goose’. According to the test of recurrent semantic contrast, ‘this’, ‘will’ and ‘Arthur’ are regular semantic constituents whereby ‘cook ___’s goose’ constitute a minimal semantic constituent. A minimal semantic constituent refers to meaning that cannot be inferred from the meaning of the constituent of its parts (Dweik, 2013; p. 59. ‘cook ___’s goose’ carries a meaning of ruin and will also imply a meaning of help if it is taken literally.

Semantic transparency and opacity analyse the degree of the idioms that can be understood by the readers through inferring the constituents and their parts. In opaque idioms, like green thumb where the meaning is hardly transparent, it requires extended clues such as other phrases or sentences that are attached to the idioms. Palmer (1976, p.

98) defined opaque idioms as “Individual words from the idioms that are not connected

to the meaning. However, to a certain extent, it may be nearer to the meaning of the single word.” Cruze (1986, p. 39) stated that idioms are semantically opaque when they consist of expressions that are non-transparent. The transparency of idioms has a big role in interpreting idioms. However, it is important to note that transparency is the degree of opacity. Certain idioms may fall into fully transparent idioms, semi opaque or completely opaque depending on the semantic characters (Cruze, 1986). For fully transparent idioms, it requires less effort to infer the meaning as the literal and figurative meanings are closely connected. For semi opaque idioms, it should have at least one semantic indicator. This semantic indicator will help to indicate the degree of the opacity in idioms. For example,

‘cold hearted’ has two full indicators which are ‘cold’ and ‘heart’ in giving clues to the meaning compared to ‘red herring’. ‘Heart’ is associated with feeling and it is paired with the word ‘cold’, a condition that is not pleasant. ‘Cold’ and ‘heart’ are two indicators that contribute to derivation of its figurative meaning which is someone who is not sympathetic. Meanwhile for ‘red herring’, the two constituents hardly consist any indication of figurative meaning. The word ‘red’ is a type of colour whereby ‘herring’ is a small silvery fish and when these two meanings connect with each other, it will give an image of ‘red small silvery fish’. It is hard to guess the figurative meaning of red herring as the word ‘red’ and ‘herring’ do not imply other extended meaning rather than a type of fish. ‘Red herring’ figuratively brings a meaning of information that is intended to be misleading is hardly to derive from its forms. From the explanation above, it is shown that cold hearted is less opaque compared to red herring due to semantic indicator in the phrases.

Besides transparency, idioms can be identified on the basis of compositionality Glucksberg (2001, p. 73). Compositionality refers to the relationship between idiom

constituents and their meaning. Some idioms may have fully compositionality and others may be non-compositional. The constituents in the phrases that contribute to the meaning of idioms have a high compositionality. To illustrate, the idiom such as ‘by and large’ is a non-compositional idiom because one cannot infer its meaning from its constituents.

According to Glucksberg (2001, p. 83), non-compositional idioms have less lexical flexibility and thus are unlikely to be comprehended easily. He also stated that compositional idioms whether opaque or transparent offer more flexibility. As for opaque idioms such as ‘kick the bucket’, even though the constituents do not contribute to their meaning but they can uncover the meaning from the background and origin of the idioms.

Another view on idioms identification is that, idioms can be categorized into three different types based on their composability which are ‘normally decomposable, abnormally decomposable and non-decomposable’ (Gibbs & Nayak, 1989). For idioms that are normally decomposable, the literal and figurative meaning has a close similarity.

They are semantically similar and thus require a short analysis. ‘Lend me a hand’ can be considered normally decomposable as it literally carries the meaning ‘give me your hand’

and when it compares with the intended figurative meaning which is ‘give me a help’ is quite closely related. Bortfeld (2003) illustrated the example of normally decomposable idioms with ‘lose your temper’. The literal and figurative meanings are almost similar and are easily interpreted by the learners.

It is important to note that idioms that are transparent do not mean they are decomposable. According to Cieslicka (2015, p. 213) some idioms can be transparent and non-decomposable such as ‘jump the gun’. ‘Jump the gun’ is transparent because the

phrase is a metaphorical motivation where one will run when listening to the sound of the gun and can be analysed through a literal analysis. It is non-decomposable because its figurative meaning cannot be derived from its constituents. Idioms such as ‘pop the question’ can also be opaque and decomposable. It is an opaque idiom because it does not have a clear figurative meaning but at the same time it is decomposable because we can establish its literal meaning from its components with its figurative meaning to form an idiomatic phrase (pop=ask and question= proposal).

2.5 Factors affecting the comprehension of idioms among ESL learners