From “Burning Bridges” to Bridging Cultural Gaps: Water and Fire Idioms in English and Romanian
From “Burning Bridges” to Bridging Cultural Gaps: Water and Fire Idioms in English and Romanian

Summary/Abstract: The relation between culture and language can offer important information to the language learner. In fact, one way to understand a culture is through its language. Teachers of English as a foreign language (ought to) provide knowledge of the culture along with the mandatory curriculum items as a means to support students in bridging any cultural gaps. This paper aims to analyze English water and fire idiomatic expressions by describing their meanings and origins and identifying their Romanian equivalents. The research starts with a theoretical overview of the definitions and classifications of idiomatic expressions in the specialized literature, followed by the contrastive analysis of twenty English idioms functioning as verbs. More specifically, the description of their meanings and origins is provided, as well as the Romanian counterparts, and where possible, the origins of the translated items. The last part of the paper draws some conclusions on the significance and practical teaching implications of this analysis.

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