The nature of fixed language in the subtitling of a documentary film

Table 4. Scale of idiomaticity according to Fernando (1996: 32). 
IDIOMS 
HABITUAL COLLOCATIONS 
I. Pure idioms 
a)
Invariant and non-literal (red herring, smell a rat) 
b)
Restricted variance and non-literal (seize/ grasp 
the needle) 
II. Semi-literal idioms 
a)
Invariant (drop names) 
b)
Restricted variance (good morning/ day) 
I. Restricted variance/ Semi-literal 
(explode a myth/ theory/ notion/ idea/ belief; thin/ 
flimsy excuse) 
III. Literal idioms 
a)
Invariant (on foot, on the contrary) 
b)
Restricted variance (for example/ instance) 
II. Restricted variance/ Literal 
(for certain/ sure; in-the-not-too distant past/ future) 
III. Unrestricted variance/ Semi-literal 
(catch a bus/ ferry/ plane) 
IV. Unrestricted variance/ Literal 
(beautiful/ lovely/ sweet woman) 
IV. Literal idioms 
a)
Restricted variance with optional elements 
(develop from/ into) 
V. Restricted variance/ Literal/ Optional elements 
(
shrug one’s shoulders; clap one’s hands) 
The several subclasses of idioms reveal that they not only resist their internal 
lexical substitution, because they are whole lexical units, but also that they are non-
literal, a feature that results from a progressive loss of meaning of their constituents and 
imposes an external meaning to the whole of the expression. 
Additionally, for Fernando (1996: 37-38), form is also an aspect to distinguish 
between idioms and non-idioms, due to the fact that conventional phrases bear lexical 
and grammatical characteristics that are not specific of single lexemes or ad-hoc 
constructions. That’s why idioms are phrases that have limits to their extension, 
whereas non-idioms may comprehend from small phrases to recursive phrases or multi-
phrasal structures. 
Therefore, the higher limit to idioms would be non-idioms or complex phrases 
and the lower limit compounds (see sub-chapter 3.1), which share some of the features 
of idioms, namely the fact that they represent habitual co-occurrences between two or 
more words, being literal, semi-literal or non-literal. 

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In conclusion, after the presentation of these several approaches to word 
combinations, that emphasize the complexity of this issue, it is our intention to go 
further into this at the level of the thesis, in order to be able to summarise a number of 
possible tests to be applied to restricted word combinations. We believe this will allow 
us to identify in a trustworthy way the examples that are collocations and the ones that 
are idioms within our findings and also come up with explanations for this, following 
the principle of Toury’s descriptive approach. 
3.5. Metaphorical construction 
Metaphors, as well as metonymies and other figurative language resources, have 
frequently been identified as the basis for the construction of set phrases, because of the 
natural connection between metaphors and imagery. Idioms, for instance, are viewed by 
Kövecses (2002: 193, 201) as a blend that comprehends metaphors, metonymies, word 
pairs, similes, sayings and proverbs, phrasal verbs, grammatical idioms, among other 
multilexemic expressions; they are also products of their conceptual system. 
As Butcher (cit Johnson & Malgady in Hoffman & Honeck, 1980: 260-261) puts 
it metaphors demand 
“an eye for resemblances” – it enables to see similarities between 
things. They relate two concepts that, even slightly similar, are far from each other in 
their own conceptual fields, one being concrete, the other abstract. Their main function 
is for Kövecses (2002: 147) to allow the understanding of one thing in terms of the 
other by mapping the elements of a conceptual field into another. 
According to Harris, Lahey & Marsalek (in Hoffman & Honeck, 1980: 164), the 
imagery representation functions as an effective mnemonic to understand and recall 
metaphors, because these are closer to memory representations than merely linguistic 
ones. Moreover, Cormac (1985: 143-144) claims that metaphors are linguistic 
expressions constitutive of cognitive processes, being one of the chief cognitive ways of 
understanding fuzzy concepts. 
As far as Lakoff & Johnson (1980) are concerned, metaphors not only provide 
meaning to the human experience by highlighting some aspects and omitting others, but 
also organize the conceptual system. For them, there are several types of metaphors: 
conceptual metaphors, in which one conceptual domain is understood in accordance to 
another; structural metaphors, when one concept is metaphorically organized according 
to another concept; the conduit metaphor that represents the placement of ideas and 

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objects into words, playing the role of a container; and orientational metaphors that 
allow the semantic organization of concepts according to their spatial relationships 
within their own conceptual system, giving them a spatial orientation.