Contrastive Analysis of English and Indonesian Idioms of Human Body

Abstract

This research analyzes English Idioms which are equivalent in Indonesian Idioms especially idioms in
relation to human body. This research is conducted due to limited research on contrastive analysis in both
languages in the field of semantics. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative method. The
data in this research are idioms in English which have an equivalent in Indonesian idioms and vice versa
taken from dictionary of idioms and websites discussing idioms in both languages. Data are analyzed under
the framework of idiom classification by Fernando (1996) and types of contrastive analysis by Lado (1957).
Based on the analysis that has been done, it can be concluded that mostly the equivalence of English and
Indonesian idioms are in the form of pure idioms. In the level of contrastive analysis, the idioms are
categorized into three. The first is idioms in Indonesian and English which have similar meanings and
similar forms of expressions. The second is idioms in Indonesian and English which have different meanings
but similar forms of expressions. The third is idioms in Indonesian and English which have similar
meanings but different forms of expressions. The causes of similarities between the two idioms between
English and Indonesian is cultural factors between English and Indonesian in terms of percieving human body.

Keywords: contrastive analysis, English Idiom, Indonesian Idiom, human body.