Categories of Idioms Idiom

22 Allegory, based on Tarigan 1985, is an improved metaphor. It is usually in a form of story which has value. For example is Cerita si Kancil. Next is euphemism. Euphemism, according to McCarthy and O’Dell 2010, is a figure of speech that avoids the use of words which may offend or be considered unpleasant. For example, the phrase pass away is more polite than died to express sympathy to the death of someone who is respected. The last is exclamation. It is a figure of speech which is used exclamatory form to draw greater attention to a point. 6 Slang Another type of idioms is slang words. According to Dumas 1978, slang words can be associated with a language, which uses the non-standard vocabulary. Eble 1996 adds that slang is an ever changing set of colloquial words and phrases that the speakers used to establish and reinforce the social identity or cohesiveness within a group in the society. Another definition is also given by Kernerman 2006, who states that slangs are words and phrases is often used temporarily, which are used very informally. Because of its informality, slang words only restricted to a certain group of people. Leech and Svartvik 1981 state that slang is a language which is very familiar in style, and is usually restricted to the members of a particular social group, such as teenage slang, army slang or theatre slang. The example of slang is “wanna” which means “want to” or “gonna” which means “going to”.

c. Categories of Idioms

23 Based on its closeness in structuring the meaning, Chaer 1986 divides idioms into two categories. First is pure idiom idiom penuh and second is semi idiom idiom sebagian. Different from Chaer, Fernando 1996 categorizes idioms into three. The two of the categories are similar to Chaer’s, namely, pure idiom and semi idiom. However, in his theory, he adds one more category, which is literal idiom. Pure idioms are a sort of idioms in which the elements constructing the idioms have lost their lexical meaning or become non-literal Chaer, 1986. This definition is agreed by Fernando 1996, who defines that pure idioms are always non-literal, however, they may either invariable or may have little variation. It can be said that each of the word in it is become one entity. Thus, the meaning of the idioms cannot be translated literally. For example, “gulung tikar” means “bankrupt”. From the example can be seen that the words gulung and tikar cannot be translated into “roll” and “mat”. However, they are translated as an entity, which means “bankrupt”. Based on Chaer 1986, semi idioms are a sort of idioms in which there is still the lexical meaning in a part of the elements constructing idioms. Fernando 1996 also adds that it can be said to have one or more literal constituents and one with non literal sub sense. In other words, semi idioms can be said to have both, literal and non literal constituents in it. For example is “white lie”, which means “saying something which is not true to deceive someone with good intentions”. In this idiom, the word “lie” is still maintaining its lexical meaning 24 which is “saying something which is not true to deceive someone”. However, the word “white” has lost its lexical meaning, which is “a color like that of snow”. The third category is literal idiom. Fernando 1996 states that it allows little variation. Thus, it can be considered to be transparent. Zarei and Nahid 2012 also state that the transparent idioms are those idioms which are easy to comprehend and translate. In addition, their meaning can be derived from the meaning of their constituent parts, e.g. of course, for once, all right.

d. Strategies of Idioms Translation