A contrastive analysis of frequently used idioms in English and Albanian

Abstract

Idioms constitute one of the most fascinating elements of a language, therefore, there is an extensive body of research concerning their use and function, particularly from a cross-linguistic perspective. The present study aims at providing a picture of frequently used idioms in English and Albanian, thus helping non-native speakers of the respective languages to understand them better and use them accurately in any communicative situation. It presents a contrastive analysis based on three types of equivalence, namely full equivalence, partial equivalence, and non-equivalence. The corpus of idioms used for analysis derives from the main dictionaries of idioms in both English and Albanian. Common European heritage, as well as the impact of English as the lingua franca of our days, accounts for a considerable number of idioms in both languages that display full (semantic and lexical) equivalence. There are also many frequently used idioms that display partial equivalence, most likely because of specific features of each of the languages with regard to their grammatical and lexical systems as well as the different cultural and social backgrounds. Consequently, both English and Albanian also make use of idioms that are not lexicalized in the respective languages precisely because of the different mindsets resulting from the impact of the said cultural, social, and linguistic factors.