The Decomposition Hypothesis suggested that with decomposable idioms the figurative meaning of semantically compositional idioms would be conceptually comprehended by native speakers, even if the idiom were encountered for the first time, due to their semantic analysability. More recently, cognitive linguists (Skoufaki, 2009: 22) have proposed another theory to explain how non-native speakers deal with unfamiliar idioms. This is known as the Idiom Transparency Intuition Hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests that, outside of the context of use, non-native speakers who are not familiar with the idiom’s overall figurative meaning would visualise the same sort of the image
emerging from transparent idioms as a native speaker, who is familiar with the overall figurative meaning (Skoufaki, 2009: 22).
As previously noted (2.2), idiom transparency refers to the degree to which native speakers are able to access the motivation linking an idiom’s surface form with its underlying structure. Using this framework, Bortfeld (cited in Skoufaki, 2009: 22) conducted experiments aimed at investigating the influence of idiom transparency on non-native speaker comprehension of idiomatic expressions. Her English-learner participants were presented with a set of transparent English idioms and were asked to picture the metaphorical image in each idiom and to answer relevant questions before and after the revelation of the figurative meanings. The results show that non-native speakers used their own knowledge of conceptual metaphors to read and describe unknown, imaginable idioms. Although it is clear that many conceptual metaphors differ from one culture another (Kovecses, 2005), 49% of the participant responses successfully identified the intended figurative meanings.
Building on this result, Bortfeld (2003) carried out a further in-depth study investigating how native and non-native speakers understand decomposable and non-decomposable idioms. As previously noted (2.2), transparency is one aspect of compositionality, which categories idioms as normally decomposable, abnormally decomposable and non-decomposable. The difference between normal and abnormal idioms depends on whether their
individual words make figurative or literal contributions. With regard to the connection between decomposition and transparency, Bortfeld (2003) established three experiments involving native speakers of English who were asked to define the figurative meanings of sets of English, Latvian and Mandarin idioms that were presented outside of the context of use. The main task was to select the most suitable concept provided in order to describe an idiom’s figurative meaning. These concepts were Revelation, Insanity, Control, Anger, and Secretiveness. All the idioms included in the experiment were presented in English, the Latvian and Mandarin idioms having been translated literally into English. Before starting the main task, the degree of compositionality and transparency of each group of idioms (English, Latvian and Mandarin idioms) was rated by native speakers in order to distinguish the three classes of normally decomposable, abnormally decomposable and non- decomposable idioms. The main tasks then began, and involved the following three experiments:
1. English idioms were linked to their concept group by native speakers of English.
2. Native speakers of English were asked to relate the Latvian idioms to one of the five concept groups.
3. Native speakers of English were asked to relate the Mandarin idioms to one of the five concept groups.
In each task, participants were given three types of idioms, namely normally decomposable, abnormally decomposable and non-decomposable idioms.
In the first rating task, which focused on English idioms (ibid: 222), the result shows that, in the case of normally decomposable idioms, participants scored 89% for correct judgements. In the case of abnormally decomposable idioms, the percentage of correctly categorised idioms was 76% and finally, with regard to non-decomposable idioms, the proportion of correct responses was 68%.
In the second task, which focused on Latvian idioms, the result shows that correct judgements of normally decomposable, abnormally decomposable and non-decomposable idioms were 79%, 69% and 44%, respectively.
In the third and final task, which focused on Mandarin idioms, the percentage of correct responses for normally decomposable, abnormally decomposable and non-decomposable idioms was 82%, 59% and 50%, respectively.
The overall results (Ibid: 226) show that, regardless of whether participants were dealing with idioms in their L1 or with idioms translated literally from other languages, they were able to define the figurative meaning of normally decomposable idioms more often than they could that of abnormally decomposable, and of abnormally decomposable idioms more often than was the case with non-decomposable idioms. Thus, the findings of Bortfeld’s (2003) studies are in favour of the Idiom Transparency Intuition Hypothesis.
It can be argued that, the primary reason for obtaining a high degree of transparency for normal idioms compared to the low one recorded for abnormal idioms in Bortfeld’s experiments (2003), is due to the absence of the
division of abnormally compositional idioms into transparent and opaque. Integrating opaque-abnormally compositional and transparent-abnormally compositional idioms into one class would negatively affect the total percentage of the transparency for abnormal idioms. In other words, some abnormally compositional idioms are highly opaque in motivation. Therefore, if the abnormally compositional idioms in Bortfeld’s experiments were divided into transparent and opaque idioms and transparent-abnormal idioms contain only universally metaphoric idioms, transparent-abnormal idioms would obtain a similar rate of transparency than would normally compositional idioms. Transparent metaphor can be easily understood by native and non-native speakers (Littlemore’s, 2010). According to Littlemore’s (2010) study, which tested native and non-native speakers’ metaphoric competencies, both groups showed similar performances when asked to find meanings for novel metaphors in their L1 and L2 suggesting that a L2 learner who performs well with his/her L1 metaphors would probably maintain the same performance with L2 metaphors.
Building on Bortfeld’s contribution to this field, Skoufaki (2009) examined the validity of the Idiom Transparency Intuition Hypothesis. Her experimental participants were Greek L2 learners of English, and were English idioms that were classified as being high-transparency of low-transparency were used in the experiment. The idioms were presented to the subjects in two different ways, namely within the context of use and outside of the context of use. Participants were first instructed to indicate whether they were familiar with their figurative meanings or not. If the answer was no, the participant was
asked to guess all the possible figurative interpretations of the unknown idiom. The author (Ibid: 25) hypothesised that low-transparency idioms would produce a greater number of interpretational attempts than high-transparency idioms.
The results (Ibid: 30) show that the largest number of interpretations was produced for low-transparency idioms presented outside of the context of use. By contrast, the smallest number of interpretations was noted for high- transparency idioms presented within the context of use. In terms of the accuracy of interpretation, 71% of completely correct answers occurred in the case of high-transparency idioms. In contrast, 61% of entirely incorrect answers was found in the case of low-transparency idioms. The overall results suggest that L2 learners are probably capable of learning high-transparency idioms by predicting their meanings. As with Bortfeld’s (2003) studies, Skoufaki’s (2009) findings lend support to the Idiom Transparency Intuition Hypothesis.
It appears that compositionality judgements differ according to the differences in idioms comprehension between native and non-native speakers. According to Abel (2003: 341), unlike native speakers who tend to regard the idioms as non-compositional, non-native speakers tend to see L2 idioms as being decomposable. Abel’s study was conducted with German non-native speakers of English (ibid: 339), and showed (Ibid: 339) that 56.5% of the sample of English idioms was considered to be decomposable, while the remaining percentage, 43.5%, were seen as being non-compositional.