Measuring the impact of cross-cultural differences on learners' comprehension of imageable idioms

Frank Boers

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Second Language Acquisition and Learning EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning Language, Metaphor, and Cognition

Abstract

Imageable idioms are figurative expressions that tend to call up a conventional scene in the native speaker's mind. However, do these imageable idioms call up the same scene in the language learner's mind? We report an experiment in which 78 French-speaking students were asked to 'guess' the meaning of unfamiliar English idioms, without the benefit of contextual clues. The results invite teachers and learners to approach the semantics of many imageable idioms as non-arbitrary, while giving due attention to obstacles to comprehension raised by both cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variation. The article concludes with a set of guidelines to anticipate and remedy those comprehension problems.

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1988Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind 1996Idioms and idiomaticity 1999Processing of Idioms by L2 Learners of English 1997Current trends in teaching second language vocabulary 1997Teaching English metaphors using cross-linguistic awareness-raising activities 1978Giving Learners a Break: Native Language Intuitions as a Source of Predictions about Transferability 1994Vocabulary acquisition: The implicit ins and outs of explicit cognitive mediation.1986A piece of cake: learning and teaching idioms

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2010A new look at metaphorical creativity in cognitive linguistics 2003Applied Linguistics Perspectives on Cross-Cultural Variation in Conceptual Metaphor 2012A Conceptual Approach to the Instruction of Phrasal Verbs 2017Context in Cultural Linguistics: The Case of Metaphor 2015Idiom Acquisition and Processing by Second/Foreign Language Learners 2001REMEMBERING FIGURATIVE IDIOMS BY HYPOTHESIZING ABOUT THEIR ORIGIN

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