Monográfico
Received: 02/10/2022
Accepted: 10/05/2023
Abstract: Language is one of the main constituents of transnationalism that is increasingly gaining ground in research. Language use leads to the creation and/ or preservation of connections between distant spaces, frequently across national boundaries (Jiménez et al, 2009). An idiom is a regularly used phrase in the language to carry its cultural and historical heritage and play a vital role in language use. However, at times its meaning might present a challenge while little is known about it in transnational contexts. This paper deals with idiomatic transnationalism in countries proclaiming Islam as their religion. Choice fell on western Algeria as a transnational study case where Islamic idioms make an important part of Arabic varieties and reflect diverse cultural and historical aspects of the Algerians’ everyday life. Not only language specialists are involved in transnational activities, but also individuals moving to Algeria, including immigrants, foreign business investors, European Erasmus students, in addition to emigrants leaving the country: Idiomatic understanding helps school foreign language teachers in the host country to better instruct their children. Therefore, this paper suggests the application of meaning-oriented model of foreign language knowledge (Purpura, 2016) to Islamic idioms as a way to contribute to the comprehension of Algerian transnationalism. It also attempts to check the extent to which this model applicability could be currently effective. Observation was undertaken to collect data and eighty eight informants were interviewed. Results showed that most of the model resources could be applied to the idiom collected. Yet, not all transnational individuals needed to go subsequently through all the model layers to reach idiomatic understanding and production in the present context. Further suggestions that might improve the newcomers’ proficiency of Islamic idioms in western Algeria were provided.
Keywords: Idiom, transnationalism, Islam, meaning-oriented model, daily interaction, Arabic varieties.
Resumen: La lengua es uno de los principales componentes del transnacionalismo que está ganando cada vez más terreno en la investigación. El uso de la lengua conduce a la creación y/o preservación de conexiones entre espacios distantes, frecuentemente a través de las fronteras nacionales (Jiménez et al, 2009). Un modismo es una frase de uso habitual en la lengua que lleva consigo una herencia cultural e histórica y desempeña un papel fundamental en el uso de esta. Sin embargo, su significado es un reto y se sabe poco sobre él en contextos transnacionales. Este trabajo se interesa por el transnacionalismo idiomático en los países que proclaman el islam como su religión. Se ha optado por Argelia occidental como caso de estudio transnacional en el que los modismos islámicos constituyen una parte importante de las variedades árabes y reflejan diversos aspectos culturales e históricos de la vida cotidiana de los argelinos. En las actividades transnacionales participan no sólo los especialistas en idiomas, sino también las personas que se trasladan a Argelia, como los inmigrantes, los inversores empresariales extranjeros y los estudiantes europeos de Erasmus, además de los emigrantes que abandonan el país: la comprensión idiomática ayuda a los profesores de la lengua extranjera en el país de acogida a instruir mejor a sus hijos. Por lo tanto, este trabajo sugiere la aplicación de este modelo orientado al conocimiento de la lengua extranjera (Purpura, 2016), a los modismos islámicos como una forma de contribuir a la comprensión del transnacionalismo argelino. También intenta comprobar hasta qué punto esta aplicación del modelo podría ser efectiva en la actualidad. Para ello, se han recogido datos de campo y se ha entrevistado a ochenta y ocho informantes. Los resultados muestran que la mayoría de los recursos del modelo pueden aplicarse a los modismos recogidos. Sin embargo, no todos los transnacionales necesitaron pasar posteriormente por todos los estratos del modelo para llegar a la comprensión y producción idiomáticas en el contexto actual. Se aportan además otras sugerencias que podrían mejorar el dominio de los idiomatismos islámicos por parte de los recién llegados a Argelia occidental.
Palabras clave: Idiomatismo, transnacionalismo, islam, modelo orientado al significado, interacción diaria, variedades árabes.
ملخص: تعدّ اللّغة مكوّنا رئيسا في سياق عبر الحدود الوطنية التي تكتسب أهمية متزايدة في مجال البحث العلمي المعاصر. و يؤدي استخدام اللغة إلى تقليص و/ أو الحفاظ على الرّوابط بين الأوطان البعيدة المسافات، غالبًا عبر الحدود الوطنية (خميناث، 2009). والتعبير الإصطلاحي عبارة تستخدم بانتظام في اللّغة لحمل تراثها الثّقافي والتّاريخي ويؤدّي دور حيوي في استعمالمها. ومع ذلك، فإن معناه يمثل تحدّيًا ولا يُعرف الكثير عنه في مجالات عبر الحدود الوطنية. ولذلك، يهتم هذا المقال بالتّعابير الاصطلاحية في سياق عبر الحدود الوطنيّة في البلدان التي تعتبر الإسلام دينا لها. وقد وقع الاختيار على غرب الجزائر كحالة عبر الحدود الوطنية لدراسة هذه الإشكاليّة، حيث أنّ التعابير الاصطلاحية الإسلامية تشكل جزءًا مهمًّا من التنوعات العربية في المنطقة وتعكس كذلك الجوانب الثّقافية والتّاريخية المتنوعة للحياة اليومية للجزائريين. وليست أنشطة عبر الحدود الوطنية من اهتمام اللّغويين فقط، ولكن أيضًا الأفراد الوافدون على الجزائر ، بما في ذلك المهاجرين ومستثمري الأعمال الأجانب والطلاب الأوروبيين المستفيدون من اتّفاقيّة إيراسموس، بالإضافة إلى المهاجرين من الجزائر الى الخارج. و من جهة أخرى، يساعد فهم التّعبيرالاصطلاحي مدرسي اللغة الأجنبية في مدارس البلد المستقبل على تعليم أفضل للأطفال. نقترح في هذا البحث تطبيق النموذج الموجه نحو معاني معارف اللّغة الأجنبيّة (بربورة، 2016) على التعابير الإصطلاحيّة الإسلامية كوسيلة للمساهمة في فهم عبر الحدود الوطنية الجزائريّة. كذلك تحاول الورقة أن تبحث في مدى فعالية هذا التطبيق في السياق الحالي. في البداية، إعتمد نا على تقنية ملاحظة الباحث للحصول على البيانات. ثم تمّ إجراء مقابلات مع ثمانية وثمانين طالبا لجمع أكبر عدد من هذه البيانات. و أظهرت النتائج أنه يمكن تطبيق معظم موارد هذا النموذج على التعابير الإصطلاحية التي تمّ جمعها ومع ذلك، لا يحتاج كل الأفراد العابرين للحدود الوطنية إلى المرور عبر جميع مستويات النموذج للوصول لمفهوم التعابير الإصطلاحية الإسلاميّة واستعمالها في السياق الحالي. وفي الأخير قد تم تقديم المزيد من الاقتراحات التي من شأنها تحسين كفاءة الوافدين الجدد في مجال التّعابير الإسلامية في غرب الجزائر.
الكلمات المفتاحية: التّعبير الإصطلاحي, عبرالحدود الوطنية, الإسلام, النموذج الموجه نحو المعنى, التفاعل اليومي, الأصناف العربي.
UN ENFOQUE ORIENTADO AL SIGNIFICADO DE LOS IDIOMATISMOS ISLÁMICOS EN LA COMUNIDAD TRANSNACIONAL ARGELINA OCCIDENTAL
Zohra Labed*
École Normale Supérieure d’Oran, Algeria
1. Introduction: Algeria as a Transnational Country
Transnationalism covers the globalised process of mobility whereby individuals, after crossing the frontiers of the country of their destination, contribute in creating a variety of (cultural, linguistic, religious, economic, educational and political) connections between the home nation and the host nation (Duff, 2015). It is, then, one main source of redrawing national borders under the impact of contact of the newcomers originating from one or diverse nations of departure and the population of the host nation. The new situation leads to raise the question of migratory identity within the other’s borders, and re-think of the new sense of belonging after having left behind relatives, neighbours and friends and met other people. Transnational individuals are new residents who are either long-term or short-term migrants. They have permanently or non-permanently chosen a particular host country for their destination for academic, commercial, political or other purposes, but still display their transnational attachments (Jiménez et al, 2009; Duff, 2015).
Migrants (immigrants or emigrants) get familiar with new practices and communities by interacting in the novel space. They socialise with their interactants into new identities covering new policies, cultures, religions, language practices, and social modes of living. Their socialisation may take place in educational institutions, workplaces, academic research centres, neighbourhood, family, and online through both oral and written literacy. If the past research was limited to physical mobility, when people used to move from one geographical space to another, the increasing interest on transnationalism nowadays has encompassed virtual mobility after the spread of Internet and the provision of its facilities, such as social networks and media, video-conferencing, texting and e-mailing in many parts of the world. Such online transnationalism has contributed importantly in maintaining ties across borders with relatives, friends, and business contacts for many migrants. As for the reasons for transnational migration, they are various. They were previously more due to motives like colonisation, missionisation, conquest (Duff, 2015), but today’s transnationalism is more orientated to finding better life conditions or in search of new experiences. Transnational immigrants could be study-abroad students (e.g. Erasmus students), teachers (fellow or Full bright fellow), scientific researchers, translators, business investors, tourists or embassy and consulate staff. They are immigrants if they have arrived to the host country while emigrants if they have left their home country.
Algeria is one of such transnational countries. In the course of its long history, many civilisations left their mark on this land and therefore contributed to its present multilingual situation, where various Arabic and Tamazight dialects, as well as French, Spanish and English co-exist with each other. The varieties of Arabic form a diglossic context (Ferguson, 1959) where Classical Arabic (interchangeably used with Standard Arabic, and henceforth, CL) represents the (high) register (e.g. official documents, religion, educational public institutions) and dialectal Arabic (henceforth, DA) is the low variety, i.e., it is used for everyday interaction. Yet, diglossic switching also manifests, as there is a frequent interplay between the two varieties for both formal and informal purposes (Boussofara-Omar, 2006). According to the Constitution, the official religion of Algeria is Islam. The main Muslim ’s belief is that there is only one God, Allah, and that Muhamed is his last prophet. This religion is a source of God’s commands, guidelines for worship and practices that the Prophet Mohamed used to teach to Muslims to follow them in their daily social life. His teaching is based on Allah’s messages revealed to him in CL, and then collected in the form of a holy book named القرآنQur’an. On the other hand, His rules for moral behaviour rested on the الحديث Hadith prophetic sayings and exemplary actions which were also recorded to still be followed after his death. Both Qur’an and Hadith place special emphasis on the individual acts (e.g. prayer, Ramadan) and relations among Muslims (e.g. greeting, marriage, condolence, visiting the sick) (6.2.1).
The impact of Islam on the ordinary life of Muslims and their daily speech is remarkably high and in diverse forms. Many everyday expressions are taken from Islamic guidelines, Quranic verses and prophetic sayings, and are idiomatically employed in Algerian everyday conversations with diglossic switching characteristics. However, it is largely observed that many transnational individuals find it challenging to communicate in the Algerian context where very few sociolinguistic studies have been undertaken on Algerian transnationalism. Efforts are limited to the individual level as many transnationals tend to learn CL as the official language before coming to Algeria, but once there, they realise that it is not the main Arabic variety of everyday interactions. When others try to get involved in conversations in dialectal Arabic they again face idiomatic expressions used in either CL or DA, a fact which creates an uncomfortable situation for them. One fundamental reason behind this fact is that Islamic idioms are still widely unexplored by scholarship. The present paper attempts to approach Islamic idioms as transnational expressions, specifically used in Western Algeria, within the framework of meaning-oriented model of foreign language knowledge (Purpura, 2016). The model is initially designed for instruction, learning and assessment; yet, it is mainly a model of communicative language ability that detects the resources required to communicate accurately, meaningfully and appropriately (Purpura and Dakin, 2020). The second objective of this paper is to evaluate the applicability of this model in the current context. The third objective is to suggest tools that support further the meaning-oriented understanding and production of transnational idioms in western Algeria.
2. What is an Idiom?
The meaning of an idiom is usually understood not only through its individual components, but from its whole combination of items. The meaning of utterances in isolation is different from their use together as an idiom. In other words, the idiom is ''an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from its separate parts'' (Richards and Schmidt, 2002: 246). What happens is that any idiom first appears as a phrase with a literal meaning (see 6.1.2) which would change through time to finally acquire a figurative meaning (Howwar, 2013) (see 6.2). Therefore, the majority of idioms have a historical and cultural origin, a fact which makes understanding their meaning a challenge, particularly for transitional individuals. According to Husni and Newman (2015), Arabic (CL and DA) idioms which are both language- and culture-specific originate from sources like Quran, Hadith, historical figures, literature, and calques. They add that “What is undoubtedly clear to even the most casual observer is that religion-based idioms are more frequent” (p.29) in Arabic dialects. Some of the issues (see Davies, 2004) that could face transnationals to comprehend idioms are, recognition; the absence of equivalence and similar counterpart between one’s language and the other’s language; an idiom used in both its literal and idiomatic sense simultaneously.
3. Meaning-oriented Model
The meaning-oriented model enables language communication (including, ideas, viewpoints, assumptions, beliefs) to take place by identifying the essential communicative tools for accurate, meaningful and appropriate use of that language. This is different from the previous frameworks in the sense that it integrates basic resources of communication that serves competencies in the real-life (Purpura, 2016). The model is illustrated by the author as follows:
Two distinct conceptualisations of this model are perceived and each conceptualisation is composed of two layers, each building on the previous level of language proficiency as follows: I. Semantico-grammatical Meanings (1. grammatical forms & meanings; 2. literal propositional Meanings); II. pragmatic meaning (1. functional meanings; 2. implicational meanings). So, the semantico-grammatical meanings or knowledge covers grammatical forms and semantic resources to understand and build topical knowledge with literal meanings in the form of well-formed propositions to specify what information is being communicated. The propositional knowledge encodes the pragmatic meanings that cover the functional intended meaning (what is the communicative goal of expressing this information) together with the implicational meaning (what else is being communicated in a given communicative context). The contextualised meanings could be situational, sociolinguistic, sociocultural, psychological, rhetorical, literary (Purpura and Dakin, 2019).
4. Participants
The informants of this study were my students who were Algerian pre-service teachers in the department of English at Ecole Normale Supérieure d’Oran Oran Higher School of Education. They were twenty-three second year cohort (twenty females and three males); twenty-five third year cohort who are all females; forty fourth year cohort (thirty-six females and four males). They are all aged between eighteen and twenty years old and originate from different western regions of Algeria (e.g., Oran, Tiaret, Mostaganem, Relizane, Sidi Belabes, Ain Temouchent). They were interested in the study and all accepted to take part of it. On the other hand, and as an Algerian native speaker of Arabic varieties, I acted as an additional informant for collecting data.
5. Research Instruments and Procedure
The data was first collected by me during the academic year 2021/2022, when I undertook observation in its unstructured and semi-structured forms depending on the requirements of the speech situation. While attending special events organised by acquaintances, my observation was unstructured as it was spontaneous without any special prior plan. However, I used to take notes on my Smartphone Memo to preserve any kind of Islamic idioms I heard. I gradually started becoming aware of different idioms I, myself, used unconsciously and took notes of them, too, whenever noticed or remembered. After gathering a good amount of data I carried on my semi-structured observation which means that I still added idioms to my list that I heard or used spontaneously, and checked from time to time what I gathered by asking my family, friends, relatives, colleagues, or other acquaintances if they say such idioms. Another method that I used was structured interview with my students during the beginning of the academic year 2022/2023. I prepared questions like: How do you greet your friends in your daily life? What do you say when you attend a funeral, marriage, birth event? Do you use such or such an idiom? Due to time limitations, I was content with the present list of Islamic idioms I had collected so far, and proceeded to the application of the meaning-oriented model.
6. The Results
Most of meaning-oriented resources, semantico-grammatical meanings and pragmatic meanings, could be applied to data as required by Purpura (2016)’s model. The application could be illustrated as follows. The transcription was undertaken following Bouhadiba (1988).
6.1. The Semantico-grammatical Dimension
Lado (1961) has written about language proficiency with reference to isolated grammatical forms, and far from any categorisation of the forms or indication of related semantic meanings. As a reaction, Purpura (2004, 2016) broadened the grammatical knowledge-based model by embodying, as well, the semantic resources (see Figure 1).
6.1.1. Grammatical Forms and Semantic Meanings
In what follows in this section, transnational idiomatic instances will be given on the left in their Arabic script followed by their phonetic transcription, and then their equivalents in English.
a. Morphosyntactic Forms and Meanings
Morphosyntactically, form and meaning are distinguished within idioms. The verbal forms ʕaɖɖam magnified and taqabbal accepted in the following examples have the past meaning that the action is over
The verbal forms jsæXXær accomplish, jraħmu have mercy and jwassaʕ enlarges, below, have the present meaning which is permanent action.
The verbal forms taffɑʈru eat (plural) and jbadalna changes, below, have the present meaning which is temporary action.
superlative
The adjectival form kbir great has the comparison form ʔakbar the greatest with a superlative meaning in the first example below. In the second example, the adjectival form mliħ good has the comparison form in xayrun mina better than with a comparative meaning.
b. Cohesive Forms and Meanings
The cohesive form laa….laa… neither nor in the following idiom is a correlative conjunction with the meaning of negation,
The cohesive form ʔin in CL and the cohesive form jla in DA respectively in the idioms below are the with the subordinate conjunction if with the meaning of condition,
c. Information Managerial Forms and Meanings
The information managerial form huwa lli jmaʃi fiha who rientates circumstances in the below idiomatic cleft sentence carries the semantic meaning of emphasis.
d. Interactional Forms and Meanings
The interactional form allahu ʔakbar unbelievable! is an exclamatory discourse marker in the first idiom below with the semantic meaning of shock. The interactional form subħan allah Glory be to Allah! is an exclamatory discourse marker in the second idiom below with the semantic meaning of astonishment. Other examples are provided below,
6.1.2. Literal Propositional Meaning
The semantico-grammatical dimension has, yet, proved insufficient to cover language meaning comprehension in general. The single grammatical forms with their isolated meanings cannot convey the literal meaning of an idiom unless they combine into one unified proposition. In this case, idioms specifically could have their propositional meaning. As seen above, the morphosyntactic forms, as well as cohesive, information managerial and interactional forms have each their semantic meanings, and these forms and meanings together convey literal, propositional or topical meanings (Purpura, 2004) which in turn may carry facts, feelings, opinions, suggestions, events. Broadly speaking, endophoric meanings in the propositional knowledge including transnational idioms are explicit. For example,
If the propositional knowledge complements the semantico-grammatical dimension to make the linguistic meaning of an utterance, it is still restricted in scope to reach the interpretation of meaning in context. The pragmatic knowledge is required to contextualize this utterance and achieve a communicative meaning. The examples above have a literal meaning which may not be the same as the pragmatic meaning of idioms.
6.2. The Pragmatic Dimension
As said above, “language is efficiently designed to convey propositional meanings through topical content, together with functional meanings and layers of implied pragmatic meaning relevant to some language use context” (Purpura, 2016: 3). So, the second component of the meaning-oriented model relates to the pragmatic knowledge. Pragmatically, idioms are characterised by functional knowledge and implicational knowledge.
6.2.1. Functional Meaning
Indeed, all contextualised propositions not only convey a literal meaning, but also carry a communicative function to perform speech acts (e.g. praising, condoling, greeting, criticising, persuading) which could either be direct or indirect. In direct speech acts, the literal and intended meaning of an utterance can share the same meaning. Yet, the propositional meaning may also be significantly dissimilar from the functional meaning, when the speech act is indirect with reference to context. As regards idioms, they are in general in the form of indirect speech acts.
a. Speech Acts
Illustratively, I will tackle these acts in the form of request, thanking, greeting, condolence, interrupting, and praising. In transitional western Algeria, speech acts are primarily meant to reach a certain degree of formality and politeness in various speech situations where the social culture is largely based on Islam. They also can manifest in the same interaction involving positive or negative attitudinal turn-taking parts.
Request and Thanking
A request is a speech act used to ask for something politely, while thanking is a different act of speech that is employed to express recognition and/ or appreciation. However, the latter could be used to complement the former in case the response is satisfactory. To draw the attention of the hearer, a request could start by please in one of the following idiomatic forms,
If the requester is satisfied, s/he is expected to recite another idiomatic prayer as to thank the addressee for responding properly to his/ her request, such as, ربّي يحفظك من ولاد لحرام rabbi jaħfɑɖɑk mən wlad laħram with the literal meaning of May God protect you from the sin’s offspring but which entails May God protect you from harmful people. Other indirect similar idiomatic prayers (with their literal meaning) to say thank you to the responder are,
Greeting
A greeting or salutation is a speech act of saying something politely when meeting someone else to display attention and facilitate contact between individuals. The different language-background Muslims around the world, including the Muslim Algerians, greet one another in a particular way. Whether arriving or leaving first, the greeter usually utters the CL speech act السّلام عليكم assalaamu ʕalajkum which literally means peace be upon you. The interlocutor is expected to respond by وعليكم السّلام (ورحمة الله تعالى و بركاته) wa ʕaljkumu assalaam (wa raħmatu allahi taʕaala wa barakaatuhu) conveying the literal meaning of and peace be upon you, too (and mercy and blessings of God Almighty). Obviously, the functional meaning diverges significantly from the propositional meaning, while both expressions are idiomatically the equivalent of Hi (when arriving) or Good-bye (when leaving). So, what is the purpose of such geeting idioms? Islamic salutation serves at fostering Muslims ’ relationships and facilitating daily contact by spreading the feeling of peace and harmony from the start of interactions until the end.
Condolence
Condolence(s) is an expression of communicating feelings of sympathy to express one’s emotional support towards the distressed individual(s). In funerals, the addresser usually condoles with someone who has lost a member of his/ her family, for example, by uttering the speech act (in CL), عظّم الله أجركم ʕaɖɖam allahu aʒrakum or in dialectal Arabic (see 1) الله يعظم الاجر allah jʕaɖɖam lʔaaʒar which means literally May God magnifies the reward. The addressee would respond by أجرنا و أجركم aʒrana wa aʒrakum Our reward and your reward. Both idioms entail that showing patience for Muslims during this painful event guarantees considerable rewards in the hereafter. Other idiomatic acts of speech to express condolence are,
This idiom is uttered by someone who is informed about the incident of someone else ’ death. It is said to express s shock unbelievable! It could be followed subsequently by the speech act below to say that one shows submission to Allah’s will and believes that the human will all sooner or later goes back to Allah who has created him/ her.
Endophorically, losing someone’s cherished one (such as, a family member, friend, colleague, neighbour) is one of the most painful life stages that the human being may experience. Islamic idioms in the form of indirect speech acts of condolence are expected to help mitigate suffering caused by such an inevitable eternal separation.
Interrupting
Many other religious and idiomatic expressions are used to request the floor politely in a way to ask for permission to interrupt and speak. They could endophorically be in the declarative form with the literal meaning, May God have mercy on your parents?
Or, they can be produced in the interrogative way, such as this example with the propositional meaning: Do you believe in Allah?
Or even in the imperative form, such as صلي على النبي ʂɑlli ʕla n-nbi pray on the Prophet, and expect the following answer from the hearer, صلى الله عليه وسلّم ʂɑllɑ allahu ʕaljhi wa sallam peace be upon him. The latter response is a sign of accepting to give the floor to the interrupter. Here again, the literal meaning and the functional meaning obviously diverge.
Praising
The endophoric functional meaning of idiomatic praising is to show the other one ’s approval and express a favourable attitude or perception to this person. Such Islamic idioms are widespread among Oran city ’s population to display more respect and gain the addressee ’s positive emotions. In this case, praising could be demonstrated through the following speech acts to say that the person has good qualities as in,
Other idioms may seem more difficult to grasp. They are also in use for persuasion that someone has high qualities. One may hear, for example the idiom يخاف ربي jXaf rabbi which means literally he fears God, but which is intentionally meant as to say that someone is good enough not to anger God by making harm. The same could be said about the indirect speech act ملايكه malajka which literally means he is an angel.
b. Speech Events
A speech event refers to a conversational interaction in which a set of speech acts prevail to perform a functional goal. Illustratively, marriage, the holy month of fasting (Ramadan), the Islamic Festivals, and the event of visiting the sick are outlined below.
Mariage
The functional goal of marriage in Islam has to do with a legal contract between a man and a woman, and that would contribute to building a family as a basic building block of human society. The couple will permanently live together as a husband and wife and bring their children up according to the moral principles of this religion. As Muslims give a special importance to this event, as well as its duties, concessions, and responsibilities, they tend to express their wishes for a successful relationship between the couple in a wide variety of ways, but often idiomatically in the form of a prayer. As an illustration, ربّي يسخّر rabbi jsæXXær means literally May God make everything at the service of the couple, to reinforce their relationship. However endophorically, the sayer would like to wish a fruitful and permanent life to them, or May God make this marriage successful. Another idiom is still a prayer addressed to the the bride, but with a different entailment: الله يجعل سعدها خير منها allah jaʒʕæl sæʕdha Xir manha. Literally, it means May God make her happiness but than her while idiomatically it says May God make her husband better than her. This idiomatic speech act implies that the husband is considered by the Western Algerians as a source of happiness for his wife, and the better he is, the happier this wife will be in their conjugal life.
Ramadan
One may hear in western Algeria special idioms dedicated to the holy month of Ramadan. The endophoric meaning behind these speech acts indicates that this month is an act of worshipping Allah and getting closer to Him by fasting from dawn to sunset and displaying patience in its various forms. During this time Muslims neither eat nor drink, in addition to the fact that they endeavour to stay far from sinful acts. Some idiomatic speech acts used in this event are like,
The idiom means literally generous Ramadan. Muslims invite one another to increase charity and kindness as another sign of worshiping. Still another idiom is said by the Muslim who is fasting to avoid anger, quarrel or when getting in front of any sinful act.
Different other well-known speech acts are numerous to be used idiomatically. صح صحورك ʂaħħa ʂħurək is one idiom that means word for word Have your shoor with health. It is said because before starting fasting, Muslims have an early morning meal before dawn, s(u)hoor. So, the idiomatic entailment is Have a nice early morning meal. Also, they break their fast after sunset for the meal, known as fʈor and would wish to one another: تفطروا بالصّحة təfeʈru bəʂʂaħħa May you eat with health to convey the idiomatic interpretation Have a nice Ramadan meal.
Islamic Festivals
Islam celebrates two Islamic Festivals a year as part of the endophoric knowledge, Eid-al-Fitr Meal Festival and Eid-ul-Adha Greater Festival or the Festival of Sacrifice (see 6.2.2). Muslims congratulate one another in the first day (or even the following days of the same month) and express their happy wishes. The following table illustrates two speech acts, (while the second is idiomatic the first is not) used in these events and give their corresponding functional meanings respectively.
The direct speech act in the table above is used alternatively with the idiom عيدك مبروك ʕidək mabruk. Here, the literal meaning and the functional meaning converge for both speech acts as they aim to congratulate the addressee. The idiomatic speech act usually follows these direct speech acts in such events.
Visiting the Sick
Idiomatic speech acts employed when visiting someone who is sick convey functional endophoric meanings: It is a sign of empathy and charity on the part of the visitor. Such idioms allow sharing positive feelings and energy with the sick person to get better and recover sooner. The visitor could make use of direct speech acts to wish a quick recovery by saying ربي يرزق الشفاء rabbi jərzuq əʃʃifa that is in interchangeable use with ربي يشافيه rabbi jʃafih I hope he will recover soon! But, before expressing this wish, the visitor may make reference to other idioms as a smooth transition of his/her feelings of solidarity an empathy with the sick ’s family. The first means literally No worries about him. The second idiom has the literal meaning I wish you no worries, too.
However, the sickness sometimes is critical and a source of a lot of suffering. Another idiomatic expression is frequently used to pray for the sick.
6.2.2. Implicational Meaning (Endophoric and Exophoric)
As indicated in Figure 1, the pragmatic implicational knowledge demonstrates what other situational, sociolinguistic, sociocultural, psychological, rhetorical, literary meanings are being communicated in this context. On the other hand, it is either endophoric whereby the meaning is grasped within the idiomatic text, or exophoric whereby the meaning is understood beyond the idiom (presently, it depends on prior knowledge related to Islam in terms of Quranic verses, prophetic sayings, worshipping activities, and daily practices). The first endophoric sociocultural norm that is deduced is that most of the speech acts above are prayers. The Prayer act, or in CL/DA دعاء duʕaa? implicates an important form of Islamic worship whereby the Muslims talk to Allah to seek something from Him for Whom, they believe that, nothing is impossible in whatever act, circumstance, space or time. Exophorically, Its importance is revealed through the Prophet Mohamed sayings, such as الدّعاء هو العبادة adduʕa?u huwa al ʕibadatu Dua is the very essence of worship (عرموش، 1988 ), and in various Quranic verses such as, أدعوني أستجب لكم udʕuuni astaʒib lakum Call on Me, I will answer your (Prayer) (Yusuf, 2000). So, Muslims expect to hear prayers from other Muslims in events such as when visiting the sick, celebrating el Eid or Ramadan to show modesty, solidarity and politeness in different formal ways, in CA (formal variety) or DA (informal variety) with their various figurative meanings. This is because the Muslim’s society is collectivist as reflected in An-Nu‘mān ibn Bashīr’s report that the Prophet Mohamed (عرموش، 1988 ) said: The believers, in their mutual love, compassion, and sympathy are like a single body; if one of its organs suffers, the whole body will respond to it with sleeplessness and fever (مَثَلُ المُؤْمِنِينَ في تَوَادِّهِمْ وتَرَاحُمِهِمْ وتَعَاطُفِهِمْ، مَثَلُ الجَسَدِ إذا اشْتَكَى مِنْهُ عُضْوٌ تَدَاعَى له سَائِرُ الجَسَدِ بالسَّهَرِ والحُمَّى ).
In happy events the psychological meanings convey positive attitudes while they convey negative attitudes in unhappy events such funerals (see 6 .2.1). As for the festivals, Eid-al-Fitr Meal Festivalcorresponds, on the Islamic Lunar Calendar, to the first day of Shawwal and is celebrated to announce the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The second celebration, Eid-ul-Adha Greater Festival or the Festival of Sacrifice, commemorates the day when Prophet Ibrahim was going to sacrifice his son, Ismail, for the sake of God who replaced the latter by a ram to be slaughtered instead. It is celebrated on the tenth day in Dhu-al-Hijjah of the Islamic Lunar Calendar. On the other hand, Ramadan is the ninth holiest month during which the first verses of Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhamed. It is one of the Five Pillars of Islam (الشّهادتان faith, الصّلاةprayer, الزّكاةcharity, صوم رمضانRamadan fasting andالحج Mecca pilgrimage) that are compulsory acts from Allah. All the events are interactional where turn-taking takes place in the form of sequencing practices as seen earlier.
The islamic idioms hide endophoric literary meanings including figures of speech, too. One figure is metaphor which allows comparing two distinct things who/ which evidently have, among themselves, differences and similarities, but particularly emphasises one of these similarities. It is a figure of speech which is perceived as one manifestation of linguistic embellishement (Nørgaard et al, 2010). In the case of marriage (see 6.2.1), the idiom الله يجعل سعدها خير منها allah jəʒʕæl sæʕdha Xir mənha includes the explicit metaphorical term سعدها sæʕdha her happiness which is transferred to the implicit subjectهي hija she to indicate that the husband, as her happiness, is the source of serenity and comfortable life for the bride. Regarding personification, it refers to human qualities as figuratively assigned to non-human entities (Crystal, 2003: 456). An illustration in the present speech situations is the idiomatic act ان شالله يدخل علينا بالصّحة و الهناء inʃallah jədXul ʕlina bəʂʂaħħa w əlhna God willing, it brings us health and happiness. The agent, here, is a human being while the personified actual agent a Festival (Eid-al-Fitr or Eid-ul-Adha) or Ramadan that is attributed the human act of having access to the Muslim ’s home. But in fact, it is assigned God ’s role of giving health and happiness.
7. Discussion
The meaning-oriented model is a framework which displays the different meanings required to communicate and produce idioms particularly. They are ordered subsequently as the semantico-grammatical meaning including the grammatical, semantic, and propositional meanings, and the pragmatic meaning involving the functional and the implicational meanings. The question that could be raised so far, do transnational residents need to follow the meaning-oriented model to understand Islamic idioms and use them in real-life situations? Are they required to go through all the layers in this order? Purpura (2016) talks about two important parameters in relation to the present model: language proficiency and background knowledge.
7.1. Proficiency Level
The ability to use language effectively in different situations means proficiency of language. Proficient users are expected to both understand and communicate in a language, by applying its rules properly. However, the level of language mastery varies from one user to another one. It depends whether this user is a beginner, or have an intermediate or advanced level. This study is in line with Purpura (2016) stating that each layer of the two different model conceptualisations build on the previous level of language proficiency, when the transnational individual is a beginner and needs to know how language works from scratch, or accuracy within the semantico-grammatical frame. However, it does not totally agree with the the author when the user ’s level is intermediate or advanced. So, it is rather a matter of priority. Just like Richards and Schmidt (2002) put it, the meaning of an idiom is deduced from the whole expression unit, and not from its constituents. So, more advanced levels place more emphasis on fluency or the pragmatic knowledge. This study also supports the idea of divergence, not convergence, between the propositional meaning and the functional meaning in the case of idioms (Purpura, 2016). Indeed, it also stands in agreement with Howwar (2013) who believes that the idiom first appears with a literal meaning. Yet, the latter is subjected to diachronic change to acquire, later, a figurative or implicational meaning. In this case, the background knowledge should be activated.
7.2. Background Knowledge
Prior or background knowledge refers to the individual ’s set of information on a given topic. It is gained throughout life experiences, interacting with other individuals, or reading. Activating the transnational migrants ’ prior knowledge on Islamic mode of living paves the way to their integration in Algeria, and serves largely to understand the Algerians ’ everyday interactions. Their prior knowledge could be acquired through contact with other Muslims in their country of origin, watching TV, navigating the Internet, or book-reading related to the topic. It could also be formed via comparison between different religions which all fundamentally serve the same purpose of serving positively the human existence. If they could detect similarities, they still have to meet the challenge of their differences. They need to improve their prior knowledge on what is particular to the host country. As seen above, this idea, which agrees with the current study, has already been tackled by Husni and Newman (2015) when referring to idioms as language- and culture- specific on the one hand and on the other, when they have specified that the frequency of religion-based idioms is high in this context. With regard to the meaning-oriented model, the transnational migrant’s background knowledge correlates with the exophoric implicational meaning of idioms. The wealthier previous life experiences gained about Islamic modes and practices, the more idiomatic understanding is reached, and the more appropriate production of the Islamic idioms by the transnational newcomers to Algeria.
8. Conclusions
As transnational migration is either short-term or longer-term (see 1), it has distinct objectives, and therefore different language needs. And, as the objective of long-term migrants is generally to integrate in the new speech community: getting a wider social network, finding better job opportunities, feeling more psychological stability, getting involved in the civic engagement, the meaning-oriented model might be an effective tool to become proficient in communication in the host country ’s language. However, transnational short-term migrants ’ (educational, scientific, commercial or political) objective tend to be more specific and needs to be fulfilled in a limited period of time (see 1). It is observed that western Algeria is more exposed to the latter migration more than the former. Many of them face the challenge of communication in a community characterised by high Islamic idiomaticity. Therefore, I might provide below some suggestions that could be a source of their understanding and use of Islamic idioms in daily interactions with in this situation.
8.1. Scientific Production
More advanced language transitionals need to feel sound more natural and more involved in daily interactions in the new country. They need real life dialogues based on more pragmatic resources rather than long detailed semantic-grammatical knowledge. As culture has an important impact on communication and social context where language is employed, misunderstanding may occur among speakers coming from different backgrounds. Producing a booklet with a list of the most frequent CL/DA idioms, for example, could provide an effective guidance particularly to short-term residents in western Algeria. An idioms booklet in which more data is gathered including the idioms collected for the present study can be represented with a functional goal in the form of indirect speech acts (e.g. greeting, thanking, requesting, complaining, persuading), given in a variety of speech events (e.g. engagement/wedding, birth, pilgrimage, funeral, visiting someone), and occurring in different speech situations. Such glossary accompanied by audio transcribed can play the role of providing authentic language for transnationals to communicate more easily with the local population, and also help them achieve the specificity of their objectives in the host country.
8.2. Technology
Unlike ordinary speakers, the meaning-oriented model can be remarkably effective for translation specialists whose task is to negotiate both the semantic-grammatical and pragmatic dimensions to reach a proper translated production in the other’s language. It is also their task in collaboration with computer scientists, software developers, or natural language processing specialists to provide special software providing idioms for ordinary speakers and used in context. Real-life dialogues, authentic interactions, daily conversations, contextualised taking-turns can all be related to translation to be in the service of transnational individuals who look for equivalent idioms in particular events and or situations. Sociolinguists, corpus analysts, lexicographers and any other language specialists could also make a valuable contribution to design a quality work in this field. This might be done through web-based technology, computer-assisted translation platforms, or even phone applications to facilitate immediate research.
8.3. Education
As seen in Section 1, transnationalism covers both immigrants to Algeria and those leaving Algeria, or emigrants, whose number is important. According to Duff (2015), both categories of migrants need more attention and space in educational curricular and pedagogical activities in the classroom. Jiménez et al (2009) supports the idea of integrating transnational literacies into the instruction as for transnational learners rather than only relying on school-like practices. In fact, it is “[… ] one way for teachers to begin to build productive relationships with students” (Jiménez et al, 2009: 16). They also need to “consider that these feelings of belonging, legitimacy, and membership are major issues for […] students from immigrant families” (Jiménez et al, 2009: 16). In this way, they can teach on the basis of the learners’ background knowledge (Purpura, 2016): relating the learners’ past knowledge to new learning experiences, make their teaching more meaningful, and therefore get their students more motivated and engaged.
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