‘Taking the Bull by the Horns’ with English Business Idioms

Abstract

This study looks at the recognition of written idioms by Romanian business students learningEnglish as a second language. An experiment has been conducted, in which 114 students ofeconomic sciences were given definitions of idioms, with the task of finding the idiom that best fitsthe definition. They were also asked to rate the degree of familiarity with the idiom (1 – Familiar, 2– Less familiar, 3 – Unfamiliar). The analysis of the students’ matches reveals that less than half of the students involved in thestudy were able to make a clear connection between the idiom and the proposed definition. Uponfurther evaluation, we are confident in our assessment that students in the field of business are inneed of a more detailed course presentation on idioms and colloquial language commonly found ina corporate office building.

Keywords

• idiom
• business
• ESL
• ambiguity
• literal interpretation