The series will provide much-needed descriptions of modern English which take the revelations of recent research into account. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of idioms and idiomaticity from a functional perspective. It examines the use of idioms in discourse to combine the novel and the conventional, to convey representations of the world, evaluate people and situations, signal conviviality or conflict, and create coherent, cohesive texts. The book goes on to consider implications for language learning and development.