19th February 2025: Dr Katie Ní Loingsigh

Interdisciplinary Seminar: Wednesday 19 February 2025 (Week 4 of term) 1.10-2pm

‘Scéal ó Shamhain go Bealtaine‘ (lit. a story from November to May), a long rambling story: phraseology, culture and modern Irish literature

Dr Katie Ní Loingsigh (University College, Cork)

This paper will consider how idioms preserve traditional images and concepts and are reimagined in modern Irish literature as intertextual references. Phraseology, the study of usual or typical turns of phrase, has developed as a broad and varied field of linguistics in recent years. Idioms, often described as the prototypical category of phraseological units, can be classified as a form of intangible cultural heritage in the form of living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on from one generation to the next. Such expressions in language are frequently not restricted to an individual culture, but often reflect a shared heritage and promote mutual respect for traditions and living expressions passed down from one generation to the next. Nic Eoin (2002: 23) has noted the widespread use of such phraseological units in the form of intertextual references in modern Irish poetry which aim to recultivate and reach back into the tradition. Such phraseological units reflect the continuing impact Ireland’s rich oral tradition has on its modern literature. This paper aims to provide an insight into such concepts encoded in Irish-language idioms and how they are reflected and reimagined in modern Irish literature.

References

Nic Eoin, M. (2002). ‘Athscríobh na Miotas: Gné den Idirthéacsúlacht i bhFilíocht Chomhaimseartha na Gaeilge (Rewriting the myth: intertextuality in Modern Irish poetry)’, Taighde agus Teagasc 2, 23-47.

This virtual seminar can be viewed in Room 3.58 of the John Percival Building. If you cannot come along, join online.