Idioms: A View From Cognitive Linguistics

Idiom is one of the important items researched by linguists. In light of theory of prototype categorization and theory of conceptual metaphor in cognitive linguistics, this article attempts to analyze idioms in cognitive view, the purposes of which are to give a tentative definition of idiom, to point out idioms are motivated, and to establish a teaching model for idioms teaching.The first part of this paper provides a theoretical foundation for the analysis, including a brief review of the previous study on idioms and basic theories in cognitive linguistics. The second part of it applies those theories to the analysis of idioms and the teaching of them.The paper gives a tentative redefinition of idiom and points out that most idioms are semantic-motivated. This paper also applies those theories to the teaching of idioms and come up with a new teaching model: the teaching of idioms should focus on their meaning, and attach importance to their motivation.