Pride and Prejudice is a romance novel by Jane Austin, first published in 1813., The story charts the emotional development of the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential. The comedy of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money in the British Regency. Since its publication, many scholars have done numerous researches on this brilliant novel. The researches include the marriage in 18th century, the style of language in Pride and Prejudice, the social trend in 18th century and so on. On the other hand, idioms are very important in English, many scholars have put many efforts in …show more content…
Based on the previous classifications of idioms, this article intends to make a classification of the idioms in Pride and Prejudice and draw a conclusion of what kinds of idioms does Jane Austin …show more content…
(5) Idiomatic prepositional phrases and adverbial phrases, such as “due to” and “in vain”.
(6) Phrasal verbs, such as “bring about” and “add to”.
(7) Idiomatic linking verb phrase, such as “be proud of” and “be different from”.
Ren Fang He in her article《试论英语习语的分类及特点》suggests that there’re five kinds of idioms:
(1) Standardized word combination, such as “break the record” and “arm to the teeth”. The meaning of the words is often easy to understand
(2) Phraseological unity, such as “walking on thin ice” and “kill two birds with one stone”. The meanings of this kind of words are not simply the combination of all words, but the extension on the basis of the literary meanings of the words.
(3) Phrases of logical fusion, such as “apple of love” and “bury the hatch”. One cannot understand the meaning of these words from their literary meanings,
(4) Idioms between standardized word combination and phraseological unity, such as “fair-weather friend” and “the law of the jungle”. In these words, a part of the words retains its original meaning, another part’s meaning is extended.
(5) Idioms between phraseological unity and phrases of logical fusion, such as “rain cats and dogs” and “smell a