【正文】 prehension of such expression, to the neglect of their functions in text. Actually idioms are heavily used not only in spoken English but also in written English. And the reason why the speakers or writers apply idioms to their conversation or articles and what functions the idioms play in texts have been raised the author’s attention when reading English newspapers and magazines. After some survey of the use of idiom in texts, it is found that English idioms play three functions in text, which is in accordance with Halliday’s theory of language function, that is, ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function.Many English idioms are semantically inseparably, not a simple literal meaning plus of words posing idioms, and at the same time bearing the metaphorical characteristic. Besides, metaphor provides us with a way of moving from known ideas and familiar concepts to new and unknown ones. “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”. (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 5) Our current repertoire of concepts is inadequate for expression, thus, familiar concepts or sayings are used in new ways through metaphor in order to explore different and startling perspectives. Since many English idioms are metaphorical in nature, the use of idioms that have connection with the context in the literal meaning and also suits the contents of the text is a way to express new concepts or certain unfamiliar events, meanwhile, achieving some stylistic effect and add gusto to the text or obtain some kind of humorous style effect. Text can be regarded as a “questionanswer” dialogue between writer and reader. What a reader expects is the “question”, and what a text states is the “answer”. Both writer and reader are on the equal footing and possess equivalent values. With the dialogue built up, the meaning of text is constructed in the course of textual interaction between the writer and the reader. Since some allusions and habitual expressions are wellknown to people and are usually persuasive, the writers apply English idioms largely in texts, establishing some better interaction with the readers, so as to help them to get the right information they need or facilitate their interpretation of the economic articles. English idioms in texts also have close connection with macroscopical structure of the text. They often appear in the hypertheme and macrotheme part of the economic texts, helping to organize text structure, signaling the ongoing information following the text. Concepts like HyperTheme, MacroTheme etc. are put foreword by linguists like Martin etc. to further develop the theory of functional linguistics for the purpose of studying the information stream in text. Thus they apply the concepts as Theme and New in functional grammar to the text level (Martin, 1992). For instance, the topic sentence of a paragraph can be regarded as the HyperTheme of the paragraph which can help the readers to predict the content of the context. Corresponding to the HyperTheme, MacroTheme, and Theme in the text are HyperNew, MacroNew and New.According to Halliday (1976), Cohesion can be achieved by five means, Reference, Substitution, Ellipsis, Conjunction and Lexical. Cohesion is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through the lexis. Usually, types of cohesion as reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction are grammatical cohesion. Lexical cohesion refers to the role played by the selection of vocabulary in organizing relations with a text. A given lexical item cannot be said to have a cohesive function in and of itself (such as reference, conjunction), because the concept of cohesion is a semantic one。 it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text. Many English idioms play a role as a cohesive tie in linking to the proceeding and following message. According to the analysis of English idiom in texts above, 20 examples of texts from economicrelated newspapers and magazines will be given in the following part.5. The functions of idiom in the English economic news textsEnglish idioms in the text play an important role to achieve multifunction. After some survey of the English economic news articles in newspapers and magazines, it is found that English idioms are largely used in the economic texts. According to the theory mentioned above, the functions that English idioms play in the English economic texts include ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. Ideational function(1): “…The carnage in stock funds — the biggest moneyspinners for management panies — is far bloodier. Assets have slumped 20% this year, to $% trillion, while net new sales are off by 95%.... ” The slang moneyspinners itself is metaphorical, it’s a blending word pounded by ‘money’ and ‘spinner’, a noun form of the verb ‘spin’, and one meaning of ‘spin’ refers to “(a spider or silkworm) produce thread from its body to make a web or cocoon.”, thus the word money spinner can be interpreted in this way: a person who has the ability to make a lot of money forever like a unexhausted treasure house. From the context of this text, the slang ‘moneyspinner’ is the SOURCE, and the implied TARGET is the ‘stock funds industry/market’. (2): “After a decade of restructuring, the pany is making a belated attempt to regain a steady foothold on its traditional stamping ground.” The phrase “stamping ground” is an American slang, means “a place that someone likes and where they often go.” Apparently, due to its metaphorical use in this sentence, it no longer means as its literal meaning goes, but there is some connection with it. From a series of strategies the pany takes up, “restructuring”, “making a belated attempt”, and “regain”, the phrase here means the traditional market of the pany.(3): “Through his darkhorse struggle, he made it to the CEO’s chair and started the GE transformation.”(4): “…h(huán)e