Unlike L1 and L2 research into idioms, there are few previous studies regarding the acquisition and comprehension of D2 idioms. Nonetheless, it has been claimed (Siegel, 2010; Britain, 2006) that D2 learners would find it easier to acquire D2 lexical items than phonological forms. This means that D2 learners are more likely to be native-like in terms of acquiring and producing D2 vocabulary. In addition, Siegel (2010: 134) has compared the difficulties of acquiring a D2 as opposed to an L2. He concluded that, due to the similarities of most grammatical patterns and lexical items between D1 and D2, D2 learners may have an advantage over L2 learners when comprehending and acquiring more linguistic items in the D2. However, he states that the motivation for learning an L2 is much stronger than it is for learning a D2. For example, in the case of immigrants, while D2 learners seem to be able to communicate readily with D1 learners using their D1, L2 learners find themselves obligated to learn L2 lexical items and expressions to enable them to integrate into the host society. In conclusion, acquiring a D2 is less necessary than acquiring a L2, but at the same time it is assumed to be much easier than acquiring L2.
With regard to research on acquiring and producing metaphors, Van Lancher- Sidtis (2003) pointed out that native speakers of a language, regardless of their D1, are easily able to distinguish figurative uses from literal ones in literally plausible idioms. Her study (2003: 47) investigates the extent to which native and non-native speakers are able to recognise prosodic cues (auditor signals, such as timing, stress and rhythm) that occur in utterances to aid speakers to distinguish idiomatic expressions from non-idiomatic ones. Her study focuses on identifying figurative and literal usages of ditropically ambiguous idioms (dual meaning idioms). She used a comparative approach to test idiomatic comprehension in four levels of spoken English, as follows:
1. Native speakers of American English
2. Native speakers of non-American English (participants from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia)
3. Fluent non-native speakers of English
4. English-language learners who have achieved an advanced level.
Participants were asked to listen to tape-recorded utterances containing American-English idiomatic expressions that were recorded twice, once figuratively and once literally. Afterwards, participants had to distinguish idiomatic uses from literal ones. Since the idioms used in the experiments were introduced in a spoken form, the only clues provided were acoustic.
In previous work, Van Lancher-Sidtis (in Van Lancher-Sidtis, 2003: 47) found that native speakers benefited from prosodic cues to differentiate figurative from literal use. Thus, she was not surprised to find that native speakers of English were easily able to distinguish between figurative utterances and literal usage and, as a result, they responded correctly to most sentences. By contrast, non-native speakers of English experienced some difficulties in the distinguishing task. In general, the fluent non-native speakers’ performance was much better than that of the English-language learners and, with a marginal difference, native speakers of American English scored more highly than did native speakers of a non-American dialect. Further investigation with regard to the results of non-native speakers shows that English-language learners admitted that they had no difficulty in understanding the literal use of idioms but, possibly due to a lack of prior familiarity with idiomatic meanings, they were unable to track their different usages (ibid: 52).
The overall findings of Van Lancher-Sidtis (2003) suggest that native speakers of a language are reliably qualified to notice the different usage of idiomatic expressions occurring in utterances, whereas non-native speakers of a language would probably struggle with the discrimination process, especially in the absence of rich informational contexts.
The above discussions (4.5) suggest that the likelihood of achieving native-like fluency with regard to lexical, grammatical and metaphorical sense is much higher for D2 learners than it is for L2 learners.
4.6 Conclusion
As this literature review has shown, a considerable number of experiments has been conducted in order to investigate the processes involved in the comprehension and acquisition of idiomatic expressions. These studies have concluded that native and non-native speakers have different comprehension abilities in terms of understanding known and unknown idioms. With regard to known idioms, while native speakers tend to access their figurative meaning faster than they their literal one, non-native speakers show rapid processing in terms of literal use and slower comprehension with regard to figurative use.
Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain how native and non-native speakers process idiomatic expressions. The most relevant of these in relation to the current study are:
The Idiom-List Hypothesis which proposes that literal and figurative language are processed differently.
The Literal Processing Hypothesis which argues that language users encountering idioms usually attempt to process literal before figurative meaning.
According to the Lexical Representation Hypothesis, idiomatic expressions are stored in the mental lexicon in the same way as other words and language users process the figurative meaning in idioms as they would literal words.
The Direct-access Hypothesis proposes that language users access the figurative meaning of highly conventional idioms directly, without processing their literal meaning.
According to the Decomposition Hypothesis, a conceptual metaphor is activated in the process of idiomatic comprehension.
The Configuration Hypothesis proposes that the ability to access the figurative meaning of idioms stems from recognising the connections between the component parts of an idiom.
The Hybrid Hypothesis states that while non-compositional idioms are more likely to be processed as a long word, decomposable idioms show semantic cues (conceptual domains) in their constituent components.
According to the Idiom Familiarity Hypothesis, familiarity with idioms facilitates access to their figurative interpretations.
The DIR model focuses on how frequency affects the lexical representation of idioms.
Table 4.4 highlights the most significant experiments carried out regarding idiomatic comprehension.
Table 4. 4 Hypotheses regarding the comprehension of idiomatic expressions
RESEARCHERS
SUBJECTS AND EXPERIMENTAL
MATERIAL
MAIN RESULTS PROPOSALS Bobrow and Bell (1973) English native speakers and English idiomatic Literal-bias co- text decreases proportion of Idiom-List Hypothesis and
expressions subjects accessing figurative meaning in idioms with high idiomatic bias; figurative-bias co- text increases proportion of subjects accessing figurative meaning in idioms with a low idiomatic bias Literal Processing Hypothesis Swinny and Cutler (1979) English native speakers and English idiomatic expressions Subjects read idiomatic expressions more rapidly than literal phrases
Lexical
Representation Hypothesis
Gibbs (1980) English native speakers, and English idiomatic expressions With regard to both figurative meaning bias contexts and conventional use of idioms, subjects encountering idioms can only access their figurative meaning. Direct-access model Schweigert (1986) English native speakers and English idiomatic expressions Familiar idioms are processed faster than unfamiliar ones, regardless of the degree of idiom compositionality. She highlighted the importance of idiomatic familiarity for idiomatic expression comprehension Cacciari and Tabossi(1988) Italian native speakers and Italian idioms High predictability induces subjects encountering idioms to access figurative meaning faster than the literal one. Configuration Hypothesis Gibbs et al. (1989) English native speakers and Subjects encountering Decomposition Hypothesis
English idiomatic expressions idioms attempt to map their motivation using figurative and literal meanings of idioms. Decomposable idioms are understood more quickly because their motivation is easily mapped. Titone and Connine (1999)
Observing study The process for accessing non- compositional idioms is different from that for compositional ones. Hybrid Model Abel (2003) German- speaking participants and English idioms Frequency plays a central role in idiomatic representation. High-frequency idioms are stored and comprehended as a single idiom entry; low frequency idioms are comprehended via a conceptual mechanism. DIR model
With unknown idioms, experiments show how verbal, situational and cultural contexts contribute to reducing the semantic opaqueness of L1 and L2 idioms. The verbal context may play a central role in determining their intended meaning. In addition, according to the “Idiom Transparency Intuition Hypothesis”, both non-native and native speakers would draw on the same mental imagery regarding imaginable-transparent idioms that is related to their overall figurative meaning. Moreover, the discussion here has established that
non-native speakers can easily understand L2 idioms which are identical or similar to those occurring in their L1, whereas they have more difficulties understanding different L2 idioms which lack an L1 equivalent, particularly in the absence of a supporting context.
The second part of this chapter focused on the important role played by frequency in the acquisition of idioms. Native speakers are assumed to be familiar with much larger amounts of L1 idioms than non-native speakers. However, transparent idioms and cross-cultural idioms may initially be noticed and then acquired by L2 learners. Finally, D2 learners are assumed to be more capable of acquiring and comprehending D2 linguistic items than are L2 learners.
Chapter Five: Research Methodology
5.1 Introduction
As outlined in Chapter One, the major focus of the present research is on analysing the correlation between the transparency degree of an idiom’s motivation and the recognition and comprehension of idioms, taking into account the difference in linguistic skills of first dialect (hereafter D1) learners, D2 learners and L2 learners. The purpose of studying these factors is to provide a better understanding of the types of idioms that are easily recognised and comprehended, and those that are likely to pose certain problems for non-native speakers in terms of recognition and comprehension.
As discussed in Chapter Four, the debate regarding the influence of transparency, compositionality and language proficiency on the representation of, storage of and access to idioms reflects disagreements regarding the potential effect of these factors on the development and understanding of idioms.
This research uses a comparative statistic, drawing on much of the previous literature on idioms that combines L1 and L2 learners’ linguistic ability. In this study, in addition to L1 and L2 learners, the ability of D2 learners to deal with
D2 idioms is also explored. It is hoped that including D2 learners will further enhance the understanding of the linguistic skills required to facilitate the recognition and comprehension of foreign idioms.
Quantitative and qualitative research methods have been designed to measure three levels of linguistic proficiency with the aim of collecting sufficient data to shed light on the relationship between the semantic features of idioms and their potential to be comprehended.
The current chapter will detail the key steps that were necessary in order to achieve the main goal of the present research, and will begin by highlighting the research gaps that were observed in the previous literature on idioms. The research objectives that have been established in order to address the central issues of this current study will then be explained. Next, the database that was used will be described, and the criteria for participant selection in the current research will be explained. Finally, the format of the questionnaire will be presented.