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1. Definition and name ‘Jargon’ may be broadly defined as “the modifications that a socioprofessional group brings to the national language (especially in vocabulary and pronunciation)” (Ducrot and Todorov 1979:59). These modifications appear to arise from the particular or specific nature of the topic, the need for group members not to be understood by others, or the wish to identify the group as somehow different (Ducrot and Todorov 1979:59). Jargon thus includes technical terminology and speciali…

Orality refers to the ways in which information is processed and knowledge is transmitted in cultures that do not rely on the written word. The notion of orality derives primarily from work on oral-formulaic techniques of verse composition by Parry (1971) on Homeric Greek poetry and Lord (1960) on Serbo-Croatian verse epics (poetic koine). They describe oral texts as composed of standardized themes associated with formulaic phrases, all of which make up a poetic repertoire upon which the experie…

Frozen expressions are also known as ‘set expressions’ or ‘frozen structures’. They are “[a] group of words standing in a fixed association” (Crystal 2001:304–305). Examples of frozen expressions include a number of structures and genres. They may have general applicability, as do phrasal verbs (such as daʿā li- ‘to pray for’ and daʿā ʿalā ‘to curse’) and other collocations, or be restricted to particular events and situations, as are certain courtesy expressions (such as the Levantine yaʿṭīk ilʿāfiya ‘may God give you strength’, said to a person who is working; greeting…