Exploratory task 2.8

Give the interpretations of the following idioms featuring a “national reference” and comment on the associations that a “national reference” has in English

(Most examples are taken from Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture. Longman. 1998)

Language models of the world differ from language to language. A commonly quoted fact is that al languages will have terms for denoting colours but the inventory of the colour terminology is different in many known languages. Italian has over 500 names for different types of macaroni, e.g. “vermicelly” (little worms), “spaghetti” (little strings). They have become part of English vocabulary. Some words are distinctly English and do not have direct equivalents in Russian, e.g. “meal”, “efficiency”, “gentleman” etc. There are taboo areas in languages. The use of “chicken breast” caused social anxiety in the 19^th century and was substituted by a euphemism “white meat”. In all languages there is a category of Grammar Tense, which denotes reference of speaker to time. Yet, the languages differ in modelling the Time. In Hindu the system of Tenses denotes the “Now”, “24 hours from now”, “a month from now” and “three months from now” both looking into the Future and glancing back to the Past. Japanese has no future tense and it is to be comprehended from context (Bryson, B. 1990. Mother Tongue. N.Y: Avon Books). Russian language expresses one’s individual “existence” as relevant to “Past”, “Present” and Future”. In the English language the “tenses” are relevant not only to one’s’ existence in the Past, Present and Future, but also to the “moment of speech”. E.g. “Present Progressive” is the action that is taking place at the moment of speech” etc. The system of Russian and English Grammar Tenses is shown on the graph:

English Tenses

Past Perfect Present Perfect Future Perfect

Past Progressive Present Progressive Future Progressive