Cultivating ISI: Shaping the Future of Idiomatics in Language Education and Research

This article advances the evolving field of Idiomatics, devoted to the rigorous study of idiomatic and figurative language. It is organized into five main sections, framed by a preamble and a prologue that establish the conceptual stage, and concluded by an epilogue and a coda that reflect on the work’s implications and future directions. Positioned between inherited nomenclatures and emergent inquiry, the article confronts a labyrinth of competing terms that have long obscured conceptual clarity. Rather than offering a fixed taxonomy, it proposes a living lexicon shaped by the ethical demands of scholarly precision and the generative possibilities of rhetorical craft. Idiomatics is envisioned not as a static discipline, but as a restless, dialogic practice sustained by communal inquiry and a collective vow that no idiom or shimmer of meaning goes unclaimed. The article outlines eight acts of cultivation through which the International Society of Idiomatics (ISI) might grow—not as a monument, but as a living ecology where language, thought, and form perpetually remake one another. It invites readers to serve as active stewards in shaping a discipline whose evolving contours will guide future generations through the intricacies of idiomatic and figurative expression. Keywords: Idiomatics, idiomaticity, discursive labyrinth, living lexicon, rhetorical craft, communal inquiry, International Society of Idiomatics (ISI)