The metaphorical character of the colocations: Colocational interference between related languages

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to inform the Italian students of the Spanish language that there are frequent combination of words belonging to the Spanish language that due to their semantic precision could be the cause of negative transference when translating from the mother tongue language to the target language. We refer to, for example, metaphorical combination of words such as acariciar el equilibrio, la tranquilidad, cosechar un resultado, un triunfo, una victoria, una derrota, aparcar las diferencias, el asunto, discusiones, el debate, levantar un castigo, una prohibición, un secreto, el misterio, etc., where the choice of the collocative (the semantically non autonomous element) from the base (the element semantically autonomous), is normally translated in the semantic specialization of the collocative which, after losing its basic acceptation, takes on, together with the base, a specific meaning. Considering that, a semantic classification of the collocations formed by a verb + a noun, in facilitating the memorization of the possible syntactic structures adopted by a language, could help our students to familiarize with the collocational phenomenon and, therefore, avoid those linguistic interferences which compromise the lexical competence in the second language.