Abstract
In the quest to fill the gap in the research studies on set expressions, we started this research paper to show in particular that forms and functions of idiomatic expressions are not necessarily related. We want to know if our advanced students have the dynamic equivalent of their idioms or proverbs stored in their mental lexicon. Often, the students just translated the idioms even when they understand the meaning and function of the idiom. Accordingly, their knowledge of form and function in the set expressions is limited and they have to be largely exposed to these expressions in different contexts. This paper provides a detailed analysis of some of the most frequent verbal expressions in Kurdish and English from a pragmatic perspective into more complex patterns of interaction between the two. Furthermore, several expressions may also interact in the communicative processes that underlie the understanding of verbal expressions, making it necessary to approach many of our examples function in language use. We will explore the ways in which necessity and transparency may vary in the use of the expressions that arise from the same situation where the pragmatic function is the ultimate aim which learners are not aware of. Therefore, we put forward Kurdish verbal expressions with their equivalent English highlighting their functions in different contexts. This is done through distributing (20) Kurdish set expressions to (20) MA students in the Department of English/ College of Languages/ Salahaddin University- Hawler, to provide their equivalents in English. At the end of the procedure and the analysis of the results, it was conclude that in order to communicate effectively in the target language, learners of English need to develop pragmatic competence, which can be accomplished through pragmatic instruction in the classroom, particularly in the oral English class. With the raise of pragmatic awareness, it is expected that learners will acquire the competence and their target language performance will improve. Besides the teachers who are to explore and enhance materials form the textbook, material developers and curriculum designers should also include examples about pragmatic awareness in the books and curricula. Key Words: language and communication, set expressions, verbal communicative expressions, pragmatic functions.
Highlights
Recently considerable attention has been given to communicative approaches to language learning and teaching, which have grown from the realization that knowledge of grammatical forms and structures alone does not adequately prepare learners to use the language they are learning effectively when communicating with others. It is an outgrowth of renewed interest in the view of language as communication, a view associated with functional approaches to linguistics, which have been acknowledged as the theoretical base of the development of communicative language teaching theory and practice
We have to keep in mind that pragmatic competence and communicative competence overlap in the point that both of them contain sociolinguistic competence and discourse competence, they differ from each other in that the former has as its parts illocutionary competence and competence of interpreting and expressing real intention while the latter consists of linguistic competence and strategic competence
That is pragmatic features of the target language should be incorporated in language instruction as well as linguistic features
Summary
A Scientific Quarterly Refereed Journal Issued by Lebanese French University – Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq. A Functional Analysis of Verbal Communicative Expressions in Kurdish and English
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