ABSTRACT
A few extensive corpus-based studies have examined a variety of idiom use issues in English, including their discourse functions, usage patterns, frequency, and register distribution. Idiom use frequency even varies quite significantly from fiction to conversation, with a great deal more idioms occurring in fiction than in actual conversation. Research has shown that, like non-idiomatic linguistic items, idioms are used for a variety of functions. Although idioms are used extensively and for a variety of functions, there are situations where they may need to be avoided, considering especially the fact that idioms are proportionally more negative than positive, and that idioms are often more informal than single words. In general, idioms are more common in informal discourse, such as fiction and conversation, than in other, more formal registers. Thus, culture should not be neglected in the discussion of the use of idioms.
