Phraseology and Collocation

Phraseology

• Refers to fixed or idiomatic expressions that can range from a word to a sentence.
• Their meaning is often not deducible from their components due to their idiomatic nature.
• Context is important, and can be highly culture and language-specific.
• These phrases are rarely signposted and can cause translation pitfalls, where translators may translate them literally, losing connotative meaning.
• Phraseology is grouped with multiword items like collocations and phrasal verbs

Collocation

• Refers to the way words tend to be used with each other.
• Plays a big role in phraseology regarding number and incidence.
• Is often encountered by translators and language learners.
• Correct usage is a key feature of idiomatic language.
• Speech consists of strings of words, making it easy to choose the wrong component.
• Collocation rules often defy logic, making them unpredictable.
• Collocation presupposes a semantic relation between elements, though it may not always be transparent and can be figurative.
• Connotative meaning restricts co-occurrence.
• Positive collocates are unlikely to be used with words with negative connotations, and vice versa.
• Pragmatic failure can achieve comic or sarcastic effects.

Collocates

• Are a function of the propositional meaning of a word.
• Collocates can be free or open when each element occurs freely with other components and is used in its literal sense.
• The meaning of a lexical item may vary depending on the collocates with which it occurs.
• Combinations where one or both elements are subject to restrictions within a specific semantic field are considered restricted.
• Specialized items may link up with varying numbers of collocates.
• In restricted collocations, one element can be used figuratively or metaphorically.
• Restrictions can involve forms where the collocational relationship can be extended.
• Bound collocations include words that collocate uniquely with only one item, such as noun phrases, genitive constructions, and verb-object phrases.
• Collocations can be culture-specific like idioms.

Binomials

• Also known as lexical couplets which are sets of coordinated near-synonyms that tend to be fixed.
• Their meaning is transparent and deducible from their constituents.
• Coordination typically occurs through "and".
• These are usually fixed, formulaic, and do not allow morphological or syntactic modification.
• Both elements often belong to the same grammatical class
• Arabic couplets often rely on paronomasia (word play with similar-sounding words).
• Binomials in Arabic rely on reduplication as an intensifying device.
• In binomial sets, elements may be antonyms or semantically unrelated yoked together via joint use.

Phrasal Verbs

• Phrasal verbs are simple verbs that occur with prepositions or particles, creating a "phrasal" unit that functions as a single word.
• Their meaning cannot generally be deduced from the constituent parts and are often classified as idioms.
• Miscomprehension can be lethal.
• Prepositional verbs have literal, transparent meanings based on the combination of the verb and preposition.
• Phrasal verbs often have figurative meaning.
• Phrasal verbs can be divided into groups where both elements retain their literal meaning, one element is used figuratively, or the combination is entirely metaphorical.

Phrasal Verbs in Arabic

• Their existence has been doubted due to the inapplicability of English criteria, such as the lack of distinction between adverbial particles and prepositions.
• A subcategory of verb-preposition combinations in Arabic may be termed "phrasal verbs" on semantic grounds, even if syntactically they remain prepositional verbs.

Lexicogrammatical Collocation

• This can occur as a combination of lexical and grammatical collocation, with a particular lexical item collocating with a grammatical combination.

Translation of Collocations

• Problems in translation occur at three levels: recognition, comprehension, and reproduction.
• Translators must negotiate three obstacles to successfully render a collocation.
• Comprehension uses a dictionary.
• Recognition is hampered when basic words combine to create different meanings.
• Recognition is harder with figurative meanings or specialized terminologies.
• Arabic to English translation is greatly impacted by the connotative features of many Arabic roots, as well as the cultural or pragmatic meaning of words.
• Collocational variants within the same language complicate translation between British and American English.
• Problems arise from the arbitrary nature of collocations.
• Translators may need to use equivalent collocations, paraphrases, or functional equivalents.

The translator's choices in translation will be determined by

• Text type and genre
• Register
• Target audience

Translation of Binomials

• The are subject to specific features.
• Strategies such as similar binomials, another binomial in the target text, omission of near-synonyms, and compensation may be applied.
• Culture-specific binomials pose a challenge, often requiring the use of paraphrases.

Idioms

• Idioms are fixed expressions with figurative or metaphorical meaning.
• The meaning of an idiom cannot be deduced by its parts.
• Pure idioms are entirely opaque and invariable.
• Figurative idioms are slightly variable, with a figurative and a rarely used literal interpretation.
• Restricted collocations have one figurative and one literal element.
• Open collocations have both elements used literally and freely combined.
• Idioms allow variability, whether grammatical or lexical.
• There are limits to the variability like replacing core lexical items or changing the word order.
• Avoid omitting/adding a word unless it is a modifier.