and content, 5 subjective, 6 allowing multiple interpretation, 7 timeless and universal, 8 using special devices to ‗heighten‘ communicative effect, and 9
tendency to deviate from the language norms. Newmark 1998 in Melkumyan Dabaghi 2011: 129 mentions five
most important features of literary text that have to be rendered by translator, they are: 1 figurativeness and allegory; 2 onomatopoeic nature; 3 rhythm; 4 each
word counts; and 5 full of polysemous words and collocations. Meanwhile, Riffaterre 1992 in Hassan 2011: 3 suggests that literary translations must
reflect all the literary features of the source text such as sound effects, morphophonemic selection of words, figures of speech, etc.
In terms of the success of literary translation, several scholars share different opinions. Gutt 1991 in Hassan 2011: 3 stresses that in translating a
literary work, one should preserve the style of the original text. Gutt argues that a wr
iter‘s style is known from his diction and his sentence construction. Therefore, it is important for translator to translate a literary work literally.
However, Savory 1957 in Hassan 2011: 3 rejects Gutt‘s idea of literal
translation of literary work. He believes that literal translation of a literary work does not reproduce the effect of the original text. He claims that literature allows
the readers to interpret differently and therefore there should be freedom in translating literary work. To maintain the equivalent effect of an original text, one
has to have freedom to explore multiple interpretations of the source text and translate it how he sees fit.
2.2.5. Idioms
English, just like any other languages, has many ways to express intent and meaning. One of them is figurative expressions. Figurative expressions often
found both in literary work and daily life because it is bound to the culture. Therefore, the presence of figurative expressions in literary work is very natural.
One of the most frequently used figurative expressions is idiom. The term ‗idiom‘ itself has multiple interpretation. According to Cacciari
Tabossi 1995: 27, this is caused by the fact that idioms are quite difficult to define. There are some debates about what expressions are included in idiom and
what are not. However, some scholars have given their points of view related to the definition of idiom.
Idiom is defined by Larson 1984 as cited in Adelnia Dastjerdi 2011: 879 as ―a string of words whose meaning is different from the meaning conveyed
by the individual words‖. Larson also adds that idiom ―carries certain emotive connotations not expressed in the other lexical items‖ Adelnia Dastjerdi, 2011:
879. Therefore, the first thing to mention here is that idiom cannot be translated literally because the meaning can‘t be predicted from the meaning of their
constituents. Mollanazar 1997 in Ferdowsi 2013: 349 defines idiom
as ―the combination of at least two words which cannot be understood literally and which
function as a unit semantically‖. Moreover, Mollanazar, in comparing idioms with proverbs, provides several characteristics to idioms. Mollanazar states that idioms:
1 are a part of a sentence, 2 sometimes have variant elements, 3 are not
intended to teach anything, 4 are used in every type of text, 5 are figurative extensions of word meaning, 6 are more common and frequent, and 7 are
sometimes used literally Ferdowsi, 2013: 350 According to Langacher in Meryem 2010: 11
―an idiom is a kind of complex lexical item. It is a phrase whose meaning cannot be predicted from the
meanings of the morphemes it comprises ‖. This definition shows that idiom is a
complex lexical item and its definition cannot be inferred from its parts. Baker 2001: 63 appends that idioms have neither flexible patterns nor
transparent meaning. Instead, they are ―frozen patterns of language‖ which do not let any kind of ―variation in form under normal conditions‖ unless a
speakerwriter wants to ―make a joke‖ or ―attempts a play on words‖. Then she lists five items which cannot be done on idioms which are: 1 change the order of
the words in it, 2 delete a word from it, 3 add a word to it, 4 replace its word with another, and 5 change its grammatical structure.
From the definitions above, it can be concluded that idiom is an unchangeable special phrase whose meaning cannot be traced from the meaning
of its constituents.
2.2.6. Types of Idioms
