Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language 1788922360, 9781788922364

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency on Idiom Comprehension in a First and Second Language
3 Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Students’ Comprehension and Retention of L2 Idioms?
4 Persisting Ignorance and (Partial) Misinterpretations of L2 Idioms After Treatment
5 L2 Comprehension of Creative Idiom Variants
6 Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing
7 Summing Up and Directions for Future Research
Research
References
Author Index
Subject Index

Citation preview

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editors: Professor David Singleton, University of Pannonia, Hungary and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and Associate Professor Simone E. Pfenninger, University of Salzburg, Austria This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisition and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussion of empirical fi ndings and, on the other, some degree of theoretical reflection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective – sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, etc. – deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes fi nal-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgraduate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers, teachers and policymakers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: 130

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language Monica Karlsson

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/KARLSS2364 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Karlsson, Monica, author. Title: Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language/Monica Karlsson. Description: Bristol; Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Multilingual Matters, 2019. | Series: Second Language Acquisition: 130 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018038736| ISBN 9781788922364 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781788922388 (epub) | ISBN 9781788922395 (kindle) Subjects: LCSH: Swedish language—Idioms. | Language acquiusition. | English language—Idioms. | English language—Study and teaching—Swedish speakers. | Second language acquisition. Classification: LCC PD5460 .K38 2019 | DDC 418.0071—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018038736 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-236-4 (hbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2019 Monica Karlsson. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Nova Techset Private Limited, Bengaluru and Chennai, India. Printed and bound in the UK by the CPI Books Group Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by Thomson-Shore, Inc.

Contents

Acknowledgements

viii

1

Introduction 1.1 Idiomatic Expressions 1.2 The Purpose and Outline of the Book

2

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency on Idiom Comprehension in a First and Second Language 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Theoretical Background and Previous Research Age Context Transparency Frequency 2.3 The Present Study Research question addressed The informants The test items The design 2.4 Results and Discussion 2.5 Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

3

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Students’ Comprehension and Retention of L2 Idioms? 3.1 Introduction to the Chapter as a Whole 3.2 Theoretical Background Relevant to Both Experiments The Dual Coding Theory The Levels of Processing Theory Experiment 1: The Effects of Captioned Audio-Visual Contexts on Learners’ Comprehension and Retention of L2 Idioms 3.3 Introduction to Experiment 1 3.4 Theoretical Background and Previous Research Previous studies on the effects of audio-visual input in the form of movie clips v

1 1 3

6 6 7 7 11 16 19 21 22 22 24 26 28 40 67 67 68 68 71 73 73 74 74

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Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Factors pertaining to the audio-visual mode as implemented in the present study 3.5 The Present Study – Captioned Audio-visual Context Research question addressed The informants The test items The design 3.6 Results and Discussion Results on the pretest Results on the comprehension test Results on the retention tests Experiment 2: The Effects of (A) Still Pictures, (B) Etymological Notes and (C) Still Pictures + Etymological Notes on Learners’ Comprehension and Retention of L2 Idioms 3.7 Introduction to Experiment 2 3.8 Previous Research Etymological elaboration (with a few comparisons to other techniques) Still pictures (with a few comparisons to other techniques) 3.9 The Present Study – Still Pictures, Etymological Notes and A Combination of the Two Research question addressed The informants The test items The design 3.10 Results and Discussion Results on the pretest Results on the comprehension test Results on the retention tests 3.11 Conclusions Based on the Two Experiments and Pedagogical Implications 4

Persisting Ignorance and (Partial) Misinterpretations of L2 Idioms After Treatment 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The L1/L2 Mental Lexicon and the L1/L2 Lexical Interlanguage 4.3 The Present Study Research questions addressed The informants, test items and design The answers for which no points were awarded 4.4 Results and Discussion 4.5 Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

76 84 84 84 85 87 91 91 92 98

106 106 106 106 113 119 119 119 120 123 128 128 129 137 148 152 152 153 165 165 165 169 169 184

Contents

vii

5

L2 Comprehension of Creative Idiom Variants 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Theoretical Background and Previous Research Systemic versus creative manipulations A continuum of creativity 5.3 The Present Study Research question addressed The informants The test items The design 5.4 Results and Discussion 5.5 Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

6

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Theoretical Background and Previous Research Factors that may influence production of idioms in a second language A study on L2/L3 idiom use in composition writing 6.3 The Present Study Research questions addressed The informants The test items The design The students’ erroneous uses 6.4 Results and Discussion 6.5 Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

215 220 226 226 226 227 234 235 235 260

Summing Up and Directions for Future Research

263

References

272

Author Index

298

Subject Index

305

7

187 187 188 188 192 195 195 195 196 196 204 211 213 213 215

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Marika Rasmussen, Anna Bresche and Maryam Marzban at Falkenbergs gymnasieskola and Anette Andertoft and Anna Grandén at Markaryds skola for so willingly letting me include their students in my study, Stuart Foster for reading and offering valuable comments on all my chapters, and Birgitta Svensson for giving me support throughout the entire process. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank all the students without whom there would not have been a book at all.

viii

1 Introduction

1.1 Idiomatic Expressions

The term ‘idiom’ is often used as an umbrella term for a wide variety of different kinds of multi-word sequences, such as phrasal and prepositional verbs, prefabricated patterns, sayings and proverbs (Liu, 2008; Moon, 1998). There are also what Moon (1997) categorizes as classical idioms, exemplified by bite off more than I can chew, have an axe to grind, kick the bucket, rain cats and dogs and spill the beans. It is these latter kinds of idioms that are the focus of the present study. Irrespective of type, as evidenced in the research literature, idiomatic expressions form one of the most difficult areas of the lexicon for second language learners (Bagheri & Fazel, 2010; Cacciari & Tabossi, 1993; Fotovatnia & Khaki, 2012; Kövecses, 2010; Lewis, 2009; Noroozi & Salehi, 2013). This holds true even for very advanced students (Ellis, 2009; Prodromou, 2007), and it concerns comprehension as well as retention and, in particular, productive knowledge. The major reason for this is most likely idioms’ double layer of semanticity (Bahns & Eldaw, 1993). An additional reason may be that a vast number of idiom uses occur in their non-conventional form (Moon, 2009; Szczepaniak, 2006). These facts may also explain why many instructors tend to neglect teaching figurative language in a structured way (Danesi, 1991; Lazar, 1996; Mäntylä, 2012; Mohamadi Asl, 2013; Wray & Fitzpatrick, 2008), despite the fact that curricula often mention multi-word sequences as one important part of vocabulary teaching. In the Swedish national curriculum for years 7–9 (ages 13–15), for instance, it is stated that ‘[l]anguage phenomena such as […] words with different registers, as well as fi xed language expressions’ should be taught (Skolverket, 2011: 34). Within the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR), the importance of knowledge of figurative language is also recognized and regarded as a ‘significant component of the linguistic aspect of sociocultural competence’ (CEFR, 120). Here an understanding of idiomatic usage is expected from level B2 and up. One explanation as to why idioms are neglected in the L2 classroom may be that, while there are quite a few self-study books on the subject matter, there are still comparatively few EFL text books that include idiomatic expressions in a systematic way (Vasiljevic, 2015).

1

2

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Avoiding learning and teaching idioms does not, however, appear to be an option (Bagheri & Fazel, 2010; Lazar, 1996; Mohamadi Asl, 2013; Szczepaniak, 2006), as, contrary to what many people seem to believe, these items are highly prolific in a wide variety of genres of spoken as well as written text (Baleghizadeh & Bagheri, 2012; Boers, 2000; Brenner, 2003; Irujo, 1986; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Examples are casual conversation, newspapers, movies, sitcoms, soap operas, cartoons, radio broadcasts, political debates, comic strips, horoscopes, etc. (Cignoni & Coffey, 2000; Fotovatnia & Khaki, 2012; Liu, 2008; Moon, 1997, 1998; Pollio et al., 1977). In fact, the extent to which these types of multi-word units are used would, if completely avoided, make it excessively more difficult to function effectively in an L2 setting (Bagheri & Fazel, 2010; Fotovatnia & Khaki, 2012; Gibbs, 1980; Pawley & Syder, 1983; Secord & Wiig, 1993). A total lack of these expressions, or even only an underuse, also makes L2 speakers sound unnatural and formal (Cooper, 1999), as familiarity with a great number of multi-word sequences and the ability to use them correctly are important features of nativelike command in any language (Bagheri & Fazel, 2010; Baleghizadeh & Bagheri, 2012; Cowie & Mackin, 1975; Mohamadi & Asl, 2013; Wray, 2000). Some researchers therefore believe that the true measure of nativelike mastery of a second language is having achieved a solid ability to metaphorize (Danesi, 1991). An increased knowledge of idiomatic expressions also entails gaining a deeper understanding of the history of the language and of the culture and customs of the people speaking it. This may in turn act as a motivator in the L2 classroom (Bagheri & Fazel, 2010; Dong, 2004). Formulaic language is also often considered to form an important link between vocabulary and grammar (Ghanavati Nasab & Hesabi, 2014; Lennon, 1998). Accordingly, owing to the individual words of which they are made up, multi-word sequences keep poking and pushing syntax, and syntax keep poking and pushing back because of restrictions as to, for example, what variations are acceptable before a sentence becomes erroneous (Bardovi-Harlig & Stringer, 2013; Bell, 2009; Szczepaniak, 2006). In a constant tug-of-war, these aspects of a learner’s linguistic progression further appear to develop at approximately the same pace. This interdependent relationship tallies with brain research which has been able to show that larger areas of the brain are activated when items of high imageability are processed than is the case with, for instance, function words (Pulvermüller, 2003). It also agrees with linguistic research which has found that a solid understanding of fi gurative language has positive eff ects on all aspects of proficiency (Garcia Moreno, 2011; Secord & Wiig, 1993; Szczepaniak, 2006; Tabatabaei & Gahroei, 2011). These facts indicate that many neurological links are made when the meaning of multi-word sequences are processed. It may also mean that a solid command of idiomatic

Introduction 3

expressions does not only enhance learners’ lexical understanding, but their syntactical knowledge too. 1.2 The Purpose and Outline of the Book

As suggested in the previous section, this book delves into the world of figurative language. More precisely, it aims to investigate aspects of comparatively advanced learners’ comprehension, retention and production of idiomatic expressions in a fi rst (Swedish) and second (English) language, canonical forms as well as distorted forms referred to as creative variants. The book begins by focusing on students’ comprehension of canonically used idioms, making quantitative and qualitative comparisons between learners’ mother tongue and their second language. Students from six educational levels (ages between 13 and 18) are here included. In addition to age, the eff ects of three other well-known facilitators – context, transparency and frequency – are simultaneously investigated by subjecting the participants to two parallel tests, one in Swedish and one in English, each consisting of 27 test items. Furthermore, the idioms tested are not only provided with contextual support of varying degrees, but also display different levels of compositionality1 and commonality. The proficiency levels of the groups, as depicted by their teachers, are also incorporated in the equation. In the light of theoretical approaches as well as the results of empirical investigations, as presented in the theoretical section, the students’ achievements on the two tests are then contrasted and discussed. Based on the results of Chapter 2, the third chapter explores the effects of contextual support even further. More specifically, the chapter aims to determine whether multimedia and visualization techniques may enhance comparatively advanced learners’ knowledge of L2 idioms to a greater extent than written context as a single modality. Again, canonically used idioms are in focus. In the fi rst of two experiments, learners are supplied with captioned audio-visual input, whereas in the second experiment three different student groups are presented with (a) still pictures, (b) etymological elaboration and (c) still pictures + etymological elaboration respectively. In both experiments, the results of these informant groups are then compared to the results of groups provided with the idioms in short written contexts. In this case, the two experiments focus not only, as in the previous chapter, on learners’ comprehension, but also investigate treatment effects on retention. Moreover, the experiments draw on the theories of Dual Coding and Levels of Processing, which hypothesize that input pertaining to meaning provided in two modalities concurrently will enhance learning more so than structural or phonetic information in a single modality. Research and criteria relevant to each experimental type, as

4

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

presented in the theoretical section, will also be considered in connection with the results. While a great many studies point to figurative language being an error-prone area, there are very few that explore incorrect answers in more detail. For this reason, Chapter 4 revisits the students’ replies in Chapter 3, focusing on non-answers and (partial) misinterpretations. Based on comprehensive accounts of the L1/L2 mental lexicon, drawing on compositional as well as connectionist approaches, and the L1/L2 lexical interlanguage, including concepts such as blends, fossilization, avoidance and attrition, as well as individual learner characteristics, the five error types found – ‘incorrect answer’, ‘underspecified answer’, ‘overspecified answer’, ‘literal answer’ and ‘test-induced answer’ – are analyzed and discussed. Non-answers are also considered, and are, together with ‘incorrect answer’ and ‘underspecified answer’, related to the idioms’ transparency and frequency. While in Chapters 2–4 the focus is on canonically used idioms, Chapter 5 moves on to non-canonical uses. More precisely, the investigation included here is dedicated to learners’ understanding of L2 creative variants, which is a largely unexplored area within second language acquisition (SLA). The informants, a group of Swedish 17-year-olds, and their achievements are here judged along a creativity continuum, ranging from systemic variants, i.e. non-creative variants, to those variants that bear hardly any resemblance to their canonical form. The effects of the students’ grades for English as whole, as predicted by their teacher, are also related to their level of mastery. In the fi nal investigation of the book, we turn our eyes on learners’ production of L2 idioms. For this study, the students involved in the two experiments discussed in Chapter 3 were asked to compose a fictional essay, incorporating ten of the idioms for which they had received treatment, i.e. the sixth chapter focuses on learners’ ability to produce idiomatic expressions in free composition writing. This is, similar to L2 comprehension of creative variants, largely unexplored territory, and further considered by most linguists to be one of the most difficult aspects to master. The students’ erroneous uses are here seen to fall into five main categories. (1) (2) (3) (4)

Category A: errors with meaning/context. Category B: errors with lexical set-up and form. Category C: syntactical errors induced by the idioms. Category D: errors not directly induced by the idioms, but part of the idioms’ make-up. (5) Category E: multiple errors, involving two or more of the error types in A, B, C and/or D.

Introduction 5

The errors made are partly discussed in relation to the only other comprehensive study found on the subject matter, as well as, where relevant, analyzed in relation to the L2 mental lexicon as depicted in Chapter 4. Moreover, to explore what may help promote learners’ idiom use, the students’ compositions are investigated in the light of a number of facilitators, not only those well-known to help in the disambiguation process – transparency, frequency and familiarity – but also those that in the research literature are thought to be especially relevant to production – syntactic fi xedness and grammatical structure. In the fi nal chapter, the results are summed up and suggestions for future research are discussed. Note (1) In this book, the two terms (non-)compositionality and (non-)transparency will, except when explicitly stated otherwise, be used interchangeably to refer to the ease or non-ease with which learners disambiguate idiomatic meaning based on an expression’s constituents. However, a distinction is sometimes made. This can be illustrated with the help of the idioms break the ice and spill the beans. While the former is compositional, break meaning swift changing and ice meaning uncomfortable social situation, as well as transparent, the latter is also compositional, spilling meaning unintentional revealing and beans meaning secret information, but semantically opaque (Vasiljevic, 2015).

2 The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency on Idiom Comprehension in a First and Second Language

2.1 Introduction

As a point of departure, this book will begin by looking into comparatively advanced students’ comprehension of canonically used idioms. In research focusing on learners’ understanding of figurative language, four factors emerge as the main facilitators: age, context, transparency and frequency. The simultaneous effect of these four facilitators will be explored quantitatively as well as qualitatively, and differences and similarities between the students’ L1-L2 achievements will be investigated and discussed. Each of the four subsections that follow – age, context, transparency and frequency – will generally start by presenting research on the effects of the facilitator at hand from a fi rst language perspective, and then continue to discuss research on its effects from a second language perspective. Whenever possible, comparisons between the two will be made. Furthermore, in each part, theoretical approaches as well as empirical investigations will be presented and weighed against each other. Also, as the reader will become aware, these facilitators are recurring themes in all the chapters to come. For that reason, the present chapter can be considered to partly set the stage for the rest of the book.

6

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

7

2.2 Theoretical Background and Previous Research Age

Over the years, a great many hypotheses regarding the processing and comprehension of figurative language have been put forth. Of special interest to the present subsection is the Global Elaboration Hypothesis (Levorato & Cacciari, 1995). This approach is non-compositional in character, i.e. it makes no distinction between literal and figurative language, but considers both types to be based on the same linguistic knowledge, processes and strategies. More importantly, the hypothesis is explained in the light of first language learners’ cognitive and general linguistic development, which means that it is able to discuss the development of L1 figurative language over time (Cacciari & Levorato, 1989; Levorato & Cacciari, 1995). According to the Global Elaboration Hypothesis, it is not until around the ages of four to six that children start to show the very first few rudimentary signs of what will later develop into a full understanding of idiomaticity (Levorato et al., 2004; Vosniadou & Ortony, 1983; Winner, 1988). Once learners’ cognitive ability, and consequently their linguistic proficiency, has matured enough, figurative understanding can be seen to develop according to certain phases. The fi rst three of these were confirmed in a number of experiments performed by Cacciari and Levorato (1989). It needs to be mentioned that these phases are, of course, not discrete, but may overlap, and that they depend more on maturity than the actual age of the individual learner. Moreover, it is not only idiomatic expressions that are included in this description, but all sorts of figurative language, since, Cacciari and Levorato claim, the same mechanisms are involved in all sorts of idiomaticity. This is often referred to as a learner’s ‘figurative competence’ (Pollio & Pollio, 1974). In the first phase, due to limitations in cognitive development regarding the distinction between concreteness and abstractness (Douglas & Peel, 1979), children up to around the age of seven are only able to approach language in a word-for-word fashion. That is, the only way in which children of this age can approach language is literally, their cognitive level of understanding only enabling them to make use of lexical and morphosyntactic information (Liu, 2008). This is supported by research not only on idiomatic expressions (Ackerman, 1982; Lodge & Leach, 1975; Nippold & Martin, 1989; Prinz, 1983), but also research done on proverbs (Honeck et al., 1978; Piaget, 1923) and metaphoric language (Pollio & Pickens, 1980; Vosniadou, 1987; Winner, 1988). Children’s literal take on language during this phase also makes them unable to exploit contextual information to any greater extent, quite consistently disregarding evidence that might point to the need for an idiomatic interpretation (Abkarian et al., 1992; Markman, 1979). It should here be mentioned that there is research that contradicts this last statement. Cain et al. (2009), for

8

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

instance, were able to show that children as young as seven years old might actually have acquired the ability to use context in determining whether they are dealing with a figurative expression or not. However, these deviant results could perhaps have been explained if maturity level instead of age had been considered. Also, in Levorato and Cacciari (1999), incorporating 7- and 9-year-olds, it could be shown that younger children benefitted more from the presence of an informative context than older ones. Levorato and Cacciari argue, however, that this result may have been achieved because the older participants had already maxed out. (See also Gibbs (1991) who drew the same conclusion.) Between the ages of eight and nine, as children gain a better cognitive comprehension of the existence of abstract elements (Piaget, 1923), they also better understand, mainly due to their knowledge of the world, that what appears to be an anomaly in relation to the context when interpreted word for word, may instead be a figurative message that should be approached as a multi-word sequence. During this second phase, inferencing thus becomes an integral part of disambiguating language (Keil, 1986; Winner, 1988). This means that learners are now considerably less likely to offer literal interpretations of contextualized idiomatic expressions (see Gibbs (1991) for L1 and Jelčić (2014) for L2.) At this stage, a clear correlation can hence also be seen between a learner’s reading comprehension skills and his/her understanding of figurative language (Levorato et al., 2004; Nippold, 1988). During the third phase, occurring between the ages of 10 and 12, children gain an even better understanding of the fact that one and the same message can be conveyed in many different ways, such as literally, idiomatically, ironically, etc. (Schmidt & Paris, 1983; Trabasso & Van der Broek, 1985). Moreover, they do not only base their inferences on the spoken/written context, but also on the speaker’s/writer’s intentions, now being able to see a message from another point of view than merely from their own. That there is a clear progression in figurative competence during these three phases was, as mentioned above, detected in Cacciari and Levorato (1989). In the first two of three experiments, three age groups were incorporated: 7-year-olds, 9–10-year-olds and, as a control group, some college students. The results on a comprehension test showed that, regardless of the degree of contextual support, the number of idiomatic responses increased with age, and that the difference in such responses between the two groups of children was great. In the third experiment, 8-year-olds were compared to 11-year-olds. This time, the children were asked to complete the last part of a number of idiomatic expressions, thus focusing on their productive capacity. As with the first two experiments, the older children were able to offer more figurative answers than the younger ones. Although not based on research, Levorato and Cacciari (1995, 2002) also propose two additional phases. In the fourth phase, occurring

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

9

between the ages of 13 and 15, young adults are not only assumed to gain comprehension of an increasingly number of figurative expressions, but also thought to start, to a greater extent than before, to make use of them themselves. During the last phase, all of adulthood, learners’ understanding of figurative language is considered to develop further and noncanonical uses can now be understood as well as produced. Nevertheless, as Nippold states, ‘there seems to be no clear point in human development when it can be said that idioms have been mastered’ (1991: 101). In addition to the studies already presented above, quite a few other investigations support the predictions of the Global Elaboration Hypothesis. In Nippold and Martin (1989), for instance, 475 American adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17 were tested on a number of variables concerning their L1 idiom comprehension, one of which was the effect of age. Irrespective of whether the test items were contextualized or not, the results showed that the older the informants were, the better the understanding of the idiomatic expressions. However, it should be pointed out that not even the oldest participants had acquired complete mastery, even when those idioms for which contexts were provided were considered. This indicates that, although an L1 figurative understanding of language increases as a function of age, it is an incremental process that takes an enormous amount of time. In line with the Global Elaboration Hypothesis, Nippold and Martin were also able to show that the younger learners were more prone to offer no response and to give responses that were literal interpretations of the idioms. Additionally, the younger informants were also more likely to provide answers that were completely unrelated as well as, more surprisingly, answers that were noticeably related to the correct meaning. Studies found on Swedish learners’ idiom knowledge in their mother tongue also point to the legitimacy of the Global Elaboration Hypothesis. In Trulsson (2007), several research questions were addressed, two of which were concerned with the effects of age on idiom comprehension and production. The investigation compares learners between the ages of 13 and 16 with learners above the age of 50, mostly between 50 and 65. Both informant groups were tested on the same 20 idioms, all of which were from the source domain of animals and presented out of context. The results of the study show that while an average of 87% of the older informants offered the correct meaning on a multiple-choice test, only an average of 54% of the younger subjects did the same. Age was therefore indeed a determining factor as to whether the meaning of an idiom was known or not. Moreover, when idiom use was considered, the results pointed to the same difference. Here an average of 20% of the older informants indicated that they had ‘never’ used the expressions, whereas as many as an average of 76% of the younger subjects testified to the same non-use. The conclusion was drawn that older people use idioms more actively in their everyday language than do younger speakers. (See also Karlsson, 2012.)

10

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

In Karlsson (2012) too, the effect of age, although not the main focus, was noticed. The investigation is a comprehensive study comparing university students’ L1 (Swedish) and L2 (English) mastery of vocabulary in eight different areas, one of which deals with figurative language. While all of the other informants were under the age of 28, and the majority between 19 and 21, the oldest participant, a male student, was 49 years old. On the L1 test, consisting of 80 idioms and 20 proverbs, this student outperformed as many as 11 of the 14 subjects tested. The results of investigations by Gibbs (1987, 1991), Johnson (1989, 1991), Nippold and Taylor (1995) and Nippold and Duthie (2003), for example, also offer support to the Global Elaboration Hypothesis. We now turn to explore research on the effects of age on idiom comprehension in a second language. Of great interest here is the Model of Dual Idiom Representation1 (Abel, 2003; Titone & Connine, 1994), as it addresses the effects of all four facilitators discussed in the present chapter. The hypothesis is based on four assumptions (see also Karlsson, 2013a), the third and fourth of which are relevant to the present discussion. (The fi rst assumption (concerned with transparency) and the second one (concerned with frequency) will instead be discussed in the last two subsections.) These assumptions posit that, as students of a second language have not encountered L2 idioms to the same extent as native speakers, there are not as many idiom entries in their L2 mental lexicon. Indirectly, this of course has to do with age, as the younger you are when you begin to learn a second language and the older you become, the more encounters with L2 figurative language you will have had. This agrees with Wagner (2005) who noticed an increase in the number of English idioms known by native speakers of Swedish from the second term in upper secondary school (2.74% correct answers) to the fourth term (3.92%), and from the first term at university level (8.74%) to the second term (11.45%). Furthermore, as the model, just like the Global Elaboration Hypothesis for an L1, considers figurative processing from a general cognitive perspective, it suggests that if there is no lexical entry for an idiomatic expression, which is very often the case with non-native speakers, the processing of figurative language instead takes place at a conceptual level (Gibbs, 1990; Kecskes, 2000; Kövecses, 2010; Kövecses & Szabó, 1996; Lakoff, 1987). That is, learners may instead resort to metaphors. ‘Anger is fi re’ will, for instance, help learners disambiguate idioms like smoke was coming out of his ears, she was spitting fire and he was fuming; ‘ideas are food’ will aid the understanding of expressions like to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth, to sink one’s teeth into something and food for thought; as a fi nal example, ‘life is a gambling game’ will help learners comprehend idioms like to have an ace up one’s sleeve, to hold all the aces and to play one’s cards right (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Sometimes conceptual metaphors may also be based on cultural experience (Kövecses, 2005), e.g. ‘life is sport’, which is discussed further in

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

11

the subsection on transparency. As the reader will become aware in Chapter 3 (the fi rst subsection in 3.8), it is the existence of conceptual metaphors that has enabled researchers to present figurative language to learners in a systematic way. Moreover, the regularity with which metaphors such as the ones above appear in all languages are thought to reflect how links between electrical connections in the brain are mapped (cf. Feldman & Narayanan, 2004). When a comparison regarding age is made between a first and second language, one major difference is obvious. Whereas L1 idiom comprehension is directly dependent on L1 cognitive development/linguistic skills, the same interdependent relation between L2 idiom comprehension and L2 cognitive development/linguistic skills is much less clear. This is of course mainly due to the fact that when a student starts encountering L2 figurative language, a(n) (adequate) cognitive level for idiom processing already exists in that student’s mother tongue. While there is evidence of links between L2 proficiency and L2 idiom comprehension, as suggested by Al-kadi (2015) where those students who scored high on listening and speaking tests also scored high on idiom comprehension, and Matlock and Heredia (2002) and Cieślicka (2004) where the proficiency level of a learner was observed to determine whether an idiom was interpreted literally or not, Liu (2008) suggests that students who possess an advanced knowledge of L1 figurative language, but comparatively low L2 profi ciency, may outperform students who possess a low competence in L1 figurative language, but achieve relatively well from an L2 proficiency perspective. Such a standpoint is substantiated by Cummins (1979, 1991) in which learners’ L1 and L2 proficiency in relation to academic text, the language of which contains many multi-word sequences (Littlemore et al., 2011), was investigated. The results of Karlsson (2013a) point to the same conclusion. For 10 of the 15 students tested, clear correlations between their first and second language were noticed, six learners achieving high scores on idiom comprehension in both Swedish (L1) and English (L2) and four students doing very poorly in both. See also Gan (2014) for similar results with Chinese learners. The conclusion can be drawn that age based on cognitive/linguistic ability is indeed an important factor in the processing of idiomatic expressions, indicating that idiom acquisition is a gradual process in which each expression is fi rst interpreted literally but slowly broadens into encompassing a figurative interpretation too. This is especially the case in a learner’s L1, where an understanding of figurative language develops for the fi rst time, but also applies to a learner’s L2. Context

Research has shown that inferencing based on contextual clues in written text is the most common approach to disambiguating items of

12

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

vocabulary in a first language (Nation, 2001). This is followed by morphologically based inferencing and classroom teaching (Nation, 2001). Moreover, research has also been able to show the beneficial value of such inferencing (e.g. Clarke & Nation, 1980; Nation, 1990, 2001; Ortony et al., 1978; Saragi et al., 1978), provided, of course, that certain requirements are met. On a general level, the degree of success appears to be linked to a learner’s reading skills (Herman et al., 1987), reading comprehension (Bialystok, 2002; Cain et al., 2005; Hafner, 1967) and verbal IQ (Hafner, 1967). In a specific inferencing situation, success also depends on the presence of a number of so-called mediating variables (Jenkins & Dixon, 1983). In addition to a density of 95–98% of already familiar words (Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984; Laufer & Sim, 1985; Liu & Nation, 1985; Laufer, 1988; Nation, 2001; Schmitt & McCarthy, 1997), the importance of the unknown word for the understanding of the text (Nation, 2001; Sternberg, 1987), its number of occurrences (Horst et  al., 1998; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986; Sternberg, 1987) and the proximity of recurrence (Nation, 2001) are examples of such variables. While factors such as a learner’s familiarity with the topic of the text and the concept expressed by the sought-for word may also make or break a learner’s chances of being able to infer successfully (Daneman & Green, 1986; Nagy et al., 1987; Nation, 2001; Shefelbine, 1990), the most useful information comes from clues in the same or adjacent sentence(s) to the unknown word itself (Chihara et al., 1994; Leys et al., 1983; Rye, 1985; Weaver & ChavezOller, 1977). Here the number of relevant clues (Nation, 2001) as well as their explicitness and proximity are of vital importance (Carnine et al., 1984). (See also Chapter 3 (Section 3.4) for a similar discussion and Karlsson (2014a).) Based on the above, lexical inferencing is thus seen as the process of making informed guesses as to the meaning of a word in the light of all available linguistic cues in combination with the learner’s general knowledge of the world, her awareness of the co-text and her relevant linguistic knowledge. (Haastrup, 1991a: 13)

The meanings of some lexical items are especially dependent on supportive contextual clues. The interpretation of polysemous words, for example, the non-core senses of which have taken on figurative meanings through the process of layering (Alm-Arvius, 1998; Yule, 1996), relies for their disambiguation entirely on the context provided. Considering the double semanticity of idiomatic expressions, it is therefore not too farfetched to suggest that written contexts could assist learners in their struggle to make sense of these items of vocabulary too. This is probably especially true for non-transparent expressions. (For more on the effects of transparency, the reader is referred to the following subsection.) Research by Nippold and Martin (1989), also discussed in the previous subsection, points to this. As explained above, the study included a

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

13

number of American adolescents between the ages of 14 and 17 who were tested on their L1 comprehension of 20 idiomatic expressions. While half of these idioms were presented in isolation by asking questions like: What does it mean to take a back seat?, the other ten expressions were supplied with two-sentence stories, as in: Billy often gets into fights with other kids at school. His mother says that he has a chip on his shoulder. What does it mean to have a chip on one’s shoulder? The results of this part of their study show that all four age groups (14-, 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds) did better with those expressions that were contextualized and that the success rate, as discussed in the previous subsection, increased with age. Compare accuracy rates, for each age group respectively, of 54%, 57%, 63% and 67% for the 10 decontextualized idioms with accuracy rates of 65%, 68%, 72% and 72% for the 10 idioms offered in two-sentence stories. However, statistical confi rmation of these differences could not be obtained between the 14- and 15-year-olds or between the 16- and 17-year-olds. Instead, improvements were most noticeable between nonadjacent age groups. This, as already discussed in the previous subsection, indicates that idiom comprehension is a slow incremental process, even in a learner’s mother tongue. Moreover, Nippold and Martin (1989) also found that more literal interpretations, related and unrelated meanings as well as no answer were given for the idioms that were presented in isolation than for those test items that had been provided with conducive contexts. Inferencing based on contextual clues in written text is not only the most common type of strategy in a learner’s mother tongue, but in a second language too (Nation, 2001). However, the number of successful inferences a learner can achieve in an L2 hardly ever matches what he/she can accomplish in his/her first language (Nation, 2001). There seem to be two main reasons for this. Firstly, the size of a learner’s L2 vocabulary is usually not equal to the number of words known in an L1. Albrechtsen et al. (2008) believe that such ‘deficiencies in declarative knowledge in the foreign language often prevent learners from transferring their procedural potentials to demanding L2 communicative situations’, one example of which is lexical inferencing. That is, ‘learners below a certain threshold of L2 vocabulary knowledge are’, thus, ‘unable to transfer the higher order skills they may have developed in their L1 to L2 tasks’ (2008: 24). Secondly, the knowledge of each lexical item and of the interrelationships between items is not as deep and well organized in an L2 as an L1 (Albrechtsen et al., 2008). This is important as research has shown that there is a clear correlation between knowledge depth and organizational knowledge on the one hand and knowledge depth and inferencing success on the other hand (Nassaji, 2004). (See also Karlsson (2014a).) Both issues are thoroughly investigated in Albrechtsen et al. (2008), which focuses on students’ inferencing of individual words in their fi rst (Danish) as compared to their second (English) language, and on how

14

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

these skills relate to their L1 and L2 vocabulary size, depth and reading proficiency. Three age groups were tested: 13–14-year-olds, 16–17-yearolds and some university students in their early twenties. The results focusing on the informants’ inferencing capacity showed that there was a higher success rate in their mother tongue than in their L2. Moreover, a clear increase from one educational level to the next was detected. Here the 13–14-year-olds achieved 28.93% correct answers in their L1 versus 16.83% in their L2, the 16–17-year-olds 50.07% versus 37.27%, and the university students, fi nally, achieved a correctness rate of 58.80% in Danish versus 48.10% in English. Furthermore, in all cases, the students’ results could be related to their vocabulary size and depth. When it comes to multi-word sequences in a second language, the presence of contextual clues in written text are shown to be equally important to the inferencing process (Adkins, 1968; Kainulainen, 2006). In Cooper (1999), for instance, using contextual clues constituted 28% of all the strategies investigated (followed by ‘discussing and analysing’ (24%) and ‘using literal meaning’ (19%)). These accounted for as many as 57% of all the correctly interpreted idioms. (See also Karlsson, 2012.) Other studies show the same positive effects. In Liontas (2002), for example, the comprehension of French, German and Spanish idioms in and out of context by 53 native speakers of English (between 18 and 55 years of age) was studied. The expressions tested were of three different kinds: (1) those that had L1 counterparts, (2) those that were partly similar to an L1 idiom and (3) those that had no counterparts in the learners’ L1. This means that the degree of contextual support offered was investigated in relation to the idioms’ degree of transparency. (For more on the effects of transparency, the reader is again referred to the following subsection.) The expressions supported by context were presented in running text, five idioms from each type listed above. All of the participants were faced with decontextualized as well as contextualized test items, the former type preceding the latter in two separate tasks. The results clearly show the beneficial effects of contextualizing idiomatic expressions in a second language, the learners achieving a mean of 78.07 for the idioms provided with context as compared to 49.46 for those idioms that were offered in isolation. Furthermore, the same trend was seen irrespective of which idiom type was considered, the idioms of a fully transparent nature receiving the highest scores and the opaque ones the lowest scores in both test modes. In Liontas (2003), a number of third-year students of L2 Spanish were also tested on their idiom comprehension. All of the 28 subjects were native speakers of American English and had a mean age of 23.03. The exact same set-up as in Liontas (2002) described above was used, i.e. the effects of the degree of contextual support as well as transparency were under scrutiny. The results also mirror those seen in the 2002 study, transparent idioms provided with contextual support receiving the highest

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

15

score and opaque idioms with no contextual support the lowest score. It should be noted, however, that even in those cases where context was offered, only 71.19% of the answers were correct. In Karlsson (2013a), the informants made extensive use of context in their second language. For the 80 English expressions tested, the 15 university students indicated that they had used the context as many as 605 times, 358 of which were successful inferences, which yields an accuracy rate of 59.17%. This can be compared with their achievements in their L1 (Swedish), where for the 80 idioms in focus, the testees used the written context 188 times, in 148 of which they succeeded in arriving at the correct meaning. This yields an accuracy rate of 78.72%, the lower number of successful inferences in the students’ L2 (as well as the lower number of necessary attempts in their L1) here clearly displaying the limitations of the learners’ quantitative and qualitative knowledge in their second language (see Albrechtsen et  al. (2008) above). (Naturally, the difference between the number of potential inferences in the two languages also plays a role in this L1-L2 difference.) Being able to infer meaning from text does of course not necessarily imply that the word will be retained in memory (Nation, 2001). Nevertheless, there is some research that indicates that written context of an informative nature may in fact also aid learners’ retention of individual words (Cohen & Aphek, 1980; Craik & Tulving, 1975; Li, 1988) as well as idiomatic expressions (Mohamadi Asl, 2013). In Mohamadi Asl, the aim was to investigate students’ short- and long-term memorization of idioms in English as a second language. All of the participants, whose mother tongue was Persian, were at an upper-intermediate profi ciency level. Their average age was 15. While the informants in the two experimental groups were offered the test items in brief stories and individual sentences respectively, the students making up the control group were only provided with short defi nitions. All three student groups were exposed to the same 40 expressions, which were presented to them in four sessions. At the end of each session, the participants were given gap-fi ll exercises to practise on, after the completion of which they received the correct answers. The students were then tested with the help of two multiple-choice exercises, one occurring immediately after the last teaching session, after which no feedback was given, and the other one taking place two weeks later. The results of the study show that the learners who were supplied with extended contexts did considerably better on the immediate as well as the delayed post-test than the two other groups, the students offered individual written sentences achieving the second-best result. Other studies, however, seem to indicate that written context is more useful for comprehension purposes than for recall. Long-term retention appears especially problematic (see Mondria & Wit de Boer (1991) on individual words and Afram (2016) on idiomatic expressions).

16

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

As long as a cognitive level/proficiency level sufficient enough has been attained, there is, with few exceptions (one is Jelčić, 2014), very little evidence speaking against supportive context being able to help L1 and L2 learners infer the meaning of idiomatic expressions from written input. As discussed above, some research even indicates that inferencing may also be beneficial to students’ retention of figurative language. (If the reader is interested in fi nding out to what extent these statements hold true when written context is compared to various visualization techniques, they are referred to Chapter 3.) Transparency

A great deal of research performed during the last few decades has shown that transparency is a viable factor in the processing of L1 figurative language, transparent expressions usually being considerably easier to interpret than opaque ones (Gibbs, 1993; Gibbs, Nayak and Cutting, 1989). In Gibbs (1991), for example, focusing on kindergartners and first, third and fourth graders’ idiom comprehension in their mother tongue (English), a high degree of transparency had a positive effect on all four informant groups. Similarly, in one of two experiments, Nippold and Rudzinski (1993) tested native speakers of American English (children/adolescents aged 11, 14 and 17) on their idiom comprehension in relation to the expressions’ transparency and familiarity. The results showed that the idioms for which an accuracy rate of 80% or more was achieved were not only categorized as familiar but were also of a highly transparent nature. See also Cacciari and Levorato (1998), Garcia Moreno (2011), Gibbs (1987, 1991), Levorato and Cacciari (1999) and Nippold and Taylor (1995, 2002) for similar results. The same beneficial value of transparency has also been noted in second language learning. In Boers (2000), non-native speakers of English were asked to guess the meaning of previously unknown decontextualized expressions. Even though there were no close equivalents in the learners’ L1, 47% correct answers were, for instance, offered for the idiom keep something under one’s hat. Based on such results, one of the conclusions drawn was that the lower the degree of transparency, the more likely it is that a learner, if given the opportunity, will instead resort to contextual clues. Similarly, Elkiliç (2008), testing Turkish EFL students’ comprehension in relation to the expressions’ transparency and commonality, observed that the informants scored the highest for idioms that were of a transparent nature and lowest for those that were opaque and infrequently used. Those idioms that were opaque as well as frequent ended up in between. This thus agrees with the Model of Dual Idiom Representation (Abel, 2003), which assumes that it is the degree of decomposability of an idiom (together with its frequency (see the following subsection)) that determines how the idiom is represented in a learner’s mental lexicon. Whereas a special idiom entry has to be created for an idiom that is of a

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

17

non-decomposable nature, the entries of the constituents of which the idiom is made up can instead be accessed directly for an idiom of a decomposable character. The main reason for this is that for transparent idioms there exists a clear link between the literal and figurative meaning, the latter being a metaphorical extension of the former, while for opaque idioms there is no such obvious connection (Langlotz, 2006; Libben & Titone, 2008; Szczepaniak & Lew, 2011). In the second experiment in the Nippold and Rudzinski study (1993) referred to above, a somewhat more unexpected result was also noticed. In this sub-study, the two informant groups, consisting of high school students (mean age: 18) and university students (mean age: 29) were asked to judge how closely related the literal and figurative meanings of an idiom were. Here the younger participants, somewhat surprisingly, generally rated the idioms more transparent than did the older subjects. The reason for this result is, Nippold and Rudzinski (1993) argue, that, as older learners usually understand more idioms than younger learners, there is generally less reason for them to try to infer an idiom’s figurative meaning from its literal meaning. That is, older learners may be less prone to consider transparency as a useful tool to disambiguate idiom meaning. The same difference has also been observed between fi rst and second language learners. In Titone and Connine (1994), L1 speakers of English were asked to judge whether a number of idioms were decomposable or not. While 41.9% of the test items were categorized to be of a transparent nature, as many as 58.1% were categorized to be non-transparent. Replicating the Titone and Connine set-up, Abel (2003) instead focused on native speakers of German learning English as a second language. In the first of two sub-studies, 56.6% of the test items were considered to be decomposable and 43.5% to be non-decomposable. In the second substudy, the corresponding percentages were 55.2% versus 44.8%. When a comparison is made between the Titone and Connine study (native speakers) and the Abel study (non-native speakers), it can be observed that native speakers seem to judge fewer idioms to be decomposable than do non-native speakers. This indicates that L2 learners are more inclined to try to decompose idioms than native speakers who, according to the Model of Dual Idiom Representation (Abel, 2003), instead simply activate their many idiom entries. That is, L2 learners seem to be more likely to consider transparency than L1 learners when searching for idiom meaning. (See also Karlsson, 2013a.) One reason for this may be that whereas children acquire the ability to make contextual inferences before performing semantic analyses in their fi rst language (Cain et al., 2009), second language learners develop these skills in tandem during their formal education. This implies that while first language learners are more likely to make use of contextual clues than to explore idiomatic expressions’ transparency, second language learners are not (Jelčić, 2014). This interpretation is substantiated in Karlsson (2013a), in that while the transparent as

18

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

well as the semi-transparent test items as compared to the opaque ones received top-scores in the learners’ second language (English), the same concentration of high scores for semi-transparent items in the participants’ mother tongue (Swedish) was not detected. When an idiom is considered from a second language learner perspective, there are also a number of other factors that decide its degree of transparency. The fi rst thing to consider is that many idioms in any language are usually based on a number of source domains which very often mirror that country’s history. In British English, for example, due to its maritime background, there is a wealth of idioms, such as money for old rope, rock the boat and walk the plank, that have to do with boats and sailing. In American English, for instance, quite a few idioms have to do with sports, such as cover your bases, the whole nine yards and to be a Monday morning quarterback. Many such culture-dependent expressions seem to put an extra weight on a learner’s shoulders, i.e. such idioms are generally less transparent than those that are based on a more general outlook on life. In Boers and Demecheleer (2001), for example, it was found that French-speaking learners of English thought it much more difficult to understand idioms involving different kinds of nautical references than expressions from the source domain of food, as the former type does not exist in French to the same extent as the latter one. Idioms that are derived from a culture-specific situation or event, such as carry coals to Newcastle and kiss the Blarney stone, are naturally even less transparent to a non-native speaker. (See also Boers et  al., 2004; Engel, 1996; Glucksberg, 2001; Karlsson, 2012.) While many expressions are indeed based on culture-specific source domains, there are also L1 idioms that, to varying degrees, are literally and/or semantically related to expressions found in an L2. Such relations also play a role in the perceived degree of transparency by a second language learner. In Cieślicka (2006b), studying native speakers of Polish, for example, the English idioms tested were categorized according to their degree of translatability (adopted from Liontas (2002), described in the previous subsection). The results of the study showed that those idioms for which there were exact translation equivalents in the informants’ first language were the easiest ones to understand, whereas those idioms for which there were no translation equivalents were the most difficult ones. That is, while the meanings of the expressions belonging to the former category, due to their L1-L2 similarity, were transparent to the learners, the ones belonging to the latter category were not. The results further showed that those expressions that were partly translatable also caused a lot of problems from a comprehension perspective. In such cases, the problems were mainly found on a lexical level. Compare, for instance, the English expression to promise someone the moon with its Polish counterpart to promise someone golden mountains. (This factor that will be discussed in more detail in the following paragraph.) In Irujo (1986),

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

19

incorporating Venezuelan learners of English, and Abdullah and Jackson (1998), investigating Syrian college students, similar results were observed. Abdullah and Jackson (1998) further noticed that their informants, while quite willing to translate L2 idioms into their L1, were hesitant about doing the reverse, even in those cases cognates existed. This indicates, the researchers claim, that learners perceive idioms to be of a highly culturespecific nature. (See also Karlsson, 2013a.) Finally, an L2 learner’s general level of vocabulary knowledge may of course also play a role in whether an expression is considered transparent or not. This becomes especially noticeable for words that have key positions in idiomatic expressions. In Boers et al. (2004), three main categories of such words were discerned to affect transparency in especially negative ways. In addition to low-frequency words such as loggerheads and tether as used in to be at loggerheads and to be at the end of one’s tether (see also the following subsection which deals specifically with the effects of frequency), there were those key words which were misinterpreted due to their polysemic or homophonetic nature. This was the case with, for example, the word suit in to follow suit, which some of the informants thought belonged to the source domain of clothing. It was also the case with, for instance, the word rein in to give someone free rein, which some of the testees wrongly assumed meant ‘royal rule’, thinking the intended word was reign. A second category of key words causing problems was made up of comparatively obsolete words, often confi ned to one specific idiomatic expression, and thus also infrequently used. Examples given are doldrums and shrift as used in the idioms to be in the doldrums and to get short shrift. A third category, lastly, involved key words where the disambiguation of the idiomatic expression required cultural knowledge. Grapevine in to hear something through the grapevine is one example belonging to this category. Here it is essential to know, for the idiom to take on a transparent character, that the word grapevine originally referred to telegraph poles that were erected in a hurry and, when falling down, were likened to grapevines. (See also Karlsson, 2013a.) Based on the discussion above, it is easy to understand that transparency cannot and must not be regarded as an all-or-nothing concept, but rather forms a continuum from expressions that are completely opaque to those for which literal readings will almost immediately reveal their meanings. Nor is the concept of transparency static, but a subjective phenomenon, linked to each individual learner’s maturity, experience, linguistic knowledge, etc. at a certain point in time (Mäntylä, 2012). Frequency

Based on the research literature, it is evident that word frequency plays an important role for a learner’s linguistic competence. For instance, it has been shown that around 80% of any text in English is made up of around

20

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

1000 of the most frequently used words, the next 3–8% by another 1000 words of a slightly lower degree of frequency, and so on (Nation, 2006). High-frequency items thus constitute an important foundation for any learner’s linguistic repertoire (Nation, 2001, 2006; Schmitt, 2008; Strömqvist, 2009). Superficially, idioms may not be as frequently used as other vocabulary items (Liu, 2008). However, highly register-sensitive, idiomatic expressions are comparatively prolific in, for example, spoken language of an informal nature (Bagheri & Fazel, 2010; Cooper, 1998; Liu, 2008; Pollio et al., 1977). It thus appears likely that at least some of these items of vocabulary have an almost equally important role to play for a learner’s linguistic competence as the high-frequency words discussed above. That is, frequency has a place in the planning of any L1/L2 teaching syllabus for individual words (Hargevik, 1998; Milton, 2009) as well as multi-word sequences (Alexander, 1987; Carter, 1987; Carter & McCarthy, 1988; McGavigan, 2009; Simpson & Mendis, 2003). Research on the effects of frequency on vocabulary acquisition/learning has focused on two issues that are especially interesting to the present investigation. Firstly, is the individual frequency of an item of vocabulary able to predict whether it is likely to already be known or not? Secondly, is high individual frequency of an item conducive to its disambiguation in context? Considering, for example, that 75–80% of native-speaking children’s language production in English is covered by the 250 most frequently used words by beginners (Roessingh & Cobb, n.d.), the answer to the fi rst question is an unequivocal yes for individual words. This is the case in a fi rst as well as a second language (Milton, 2009; Nation, 2001, 2006; Schmitt, 2008; Strömqvist, 2009). Put differently, it is clear that the more frequent a word is, the more likely it is that it is transferred to long-term memory. The answer for L1 idiomatic expressions, though less obvious due to their double semanticity, also appears to be in the affirmative. In Nippold and Taylor (1995), for instance, targeting L1 children and adolescence of English in grades 5, 8 and 11, it could be shown that not only did the degree of transparency decide whether an idiomatic expression was known or not, its familiarity2 was also a determining factor. See also Nippold and Taylor (2002) for the same result on idioms and Nippold and Haq (1996) on proverbs. For idiomatic expressions in an L2, the Model of Dual Idiom Representation (Abel, 2003; Titone & Connine, 1994) also suggests an answer in the affirmative. The model posits that it is the frequency of an idiom (in addition to its transparency (see the previous subsection)) that determines whether an idiom entry is developed or not. That is, the more frequent an expression is, the more times it will be encountered in everyday life, and the more likely it is that an idiom entry is formed. This claim finds support in the third chapter of the present book, where two experiments on the effects of multimodality and visualization on advanced learners’ mastery of L2 idioms are discussed. Prior to these experiments,

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

21

the informants took a decontextualized pre-test. In all the test groups, it became clear that frequency played a role in whether the idioms were already familiar or not. See also Piasecka (2006), the results of which point in the same direction. In Karlsson (2012), on the other hand, the conclusion was drawn that frequency was a poor predictor of whether an expression was previously known or not. Moreover, the lack of predictive power of frequency was noticed in both languages (Swedish (L1) and English (L2)). However, in that study, the conclusion was based on test items that were contextualized, which may of course have distorted the results a great deal. Regarding the second question, if high individual frequency assists the disambiguation process in a contextual environment, the answer is considerably more ambiguous (Karlsson, 2014b). According to the Acquisition via Exposure Hypothesis 3 (Ezell & Goldstein, 1991; Lodge & Leach, 1975; Nippold & Martin, 1989; Prinz, 1983), children’s acquisition of L1 idioms relies heavily on the number of encounters in every-day life. More precisely, the hypothesis suggests that idioms that are frequently used in a child’s environment should be easier to interpret in context than those expressions children meet on a more irregular basis. Results of the relatively few studies done to explore the validity of this hypothesis do not appear unanimous. In Levorato and Cacciari (1992), for instance, the hypothesis was disproved. Their informants, children between the ages of 6.9 and 11.9, did not comprehend more of the contextualized idioms that were categorized as familiar than those that were unfamiliar. Familiarity did, however, affect the older children’s ability to produce the expressions in a positive way. In Nippold and Rudzinski (1993), on the other hand, the hypothesis was confirmed in that they could show that the rate with which their learners (11- 14- and 17-year-olds) displayed successful inferencing did not only increase with age but with idiom familiarity too. The same results were seen in Nippold et al. (1996), replicating the Nippold and Rudzinski study, but instead focusing on L1 learners of Australian English in grades 5 and 8. The effects of frequency on contextualized idioms thus seem as yet unsettled in fi rst language research. Moreover, its effects in a second language appear largely unexplored, as the present author was unable to fi nd any such research. Based on the above, it is clear that frequency may help predict whether an idiom is previously known or not, but unclear to what extent it may assist in an actual disambiguation situation. 2.3 The Present Study

As indicated in the previous subsections, all four facilitators considered – age, context, transparency and frequency – have the potential, individually and/or together, of assisting learners in their search for L1 and L2 idiomatic meaning. The following investigation will explore to what extent this holds true.

22

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Research question addressed

In the present chapter, two main research questions are addressed. (1) What are the quantitative and qualitative differences between comprehension of canonically used idioms in a fi rst and second language during learners’ teen years (13–18)? (2) How do (a) age, (b) context, (c) transparency and (d) frequency simultaneously affect comparatively advanced learners’ comprehension of canonically used idioms in a fi rst (Swedish) and second (English) language? The informants

A total number of 71 students participated in the present experiment. These were divided into six groups according to their level of education. Three come from secondary school (grades 7 (age: 13), 8 (age: 14) and 9 (age: 15)); the other three from upper secondary school (levels 1/5 (age: 16), 2/6 (age: 17) and 3/7 (age: 18)).4 While the former three grades are compulsory in the Swedish education system, the latter three are not. However, once a student has decided to study at upper secondary school level, Swedish 1, 2 and 3 generally automatically become compulsory parts, as do English 5 and 6. English 7, on the other hand, is an optional course, usually taken by students who are especially interested in the English language. There are three main reasons why this age span was selected. Firstly, according to the Global Elaboration Hypothesis, major changes in the comprehension of figurative language appear to take place. L1 learners have, for example, acquired the ability of making use of contextualized input and have just gained an enhanced understanding of the fact that a message can be interpreted in more ways than literally (see the subsection on age). As comparisons are being made between students’ L1 and L2 mastery, it was therefore thought that these age groups would yield interesting results as to differences in idiom comprehension between a first and a second language. Secondly, for all expressions to be categorized from the same perspective, as transparency is a subjective phenomenon (Mäntylä, 2012), it was deemed difficult to include younger as well as older informants (see the subsection on transparency). Lastly, learners younger than 13 years of age would, due to their comparatively low level of proficiency, simply fi nd the test in English too challenging. Table 2.1 gives an overview of these six informant groups. It was also ascertained that the mother tongue of all the informants was Swedish and that none of them used English or any other language as their fi rst language. The learners from secondary level come from a relatively small municipal school hosting around 200 students. It is divided into two

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

23

Table 2.1 The student groups in the present study Gender Student groups

Age

N

F

M

Grade 7

13

11

6

5

Grade 8

14

13

9

4

Grade 9

15

10

5

5

Level 1/5

16

17

14

3

Level 2/6

17

14

9

5

Level 3/7

18

6

5

1

Secondary school

Upper secondary school

units, one covering pre-school up to and including grade 6 (ages between 6 and 12) and the other unit incorporating students in grades 7–9 (ages between 13 and 15). Located in the countryside, the students’ two teachers describe the school as calm and quiet, with few disciplinary problems. In fact, during the term the data for the investigation were collected, the municipality in which the school is located was ranked the eighth best of Sweden’s 290 municipalities. Furthermore, the students are generally described as high-achieving in both languages, except possibly for the ones making up grade 7, who are thought to be slightly less advanced as compared to other 7th graders. This description agrees well with the students’ subject grades. While the students in the 7th grade generally received average grades as well as grades below average, the students making up the 8th and 9th grades generally received average grades or grades above average. (In the Swedish school system, grades between A and F are given, where A is only offered to students who have passed a course with special distinction.) The learners from upper secondary level also come from a school owned by the municipality. It hosts about 1200 students (ages between 16 and 18) and offers 14 different study programmes. The test was done in classes taking the social science programme. Although located in a comparatively small town, the school wrestles with problems like reading and writing disabilities and lack of motivation. As a matter of fact, the teachers testify that quite a few of the students in the classes tested are affected by these kinds of problems and that many of them are low-achievers. This again tallies with the students’ grades, those taking level 1/5 and 2/6 usually receiving average grades or grades below average. Nevertheless, according to the teachers, the students generally found idiomatic expression interesting, as did the learners from secondary school. In fact, together with their teachers they decided they would spend some time on learning a few new idioms every week.

24

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

The test items

Two parallel tests, one in Swedish and one in English, were constructed. Each test comprised 27 test items. Nine of these test items were provided with supportive contexts, as exemplified in: a green thumb

Jill grows the most beautiful flowers. She really has a green thumb.

In the majority of cases, these contexts were taken from Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary (2002), some of which were simplified so as to avoid unnecessarily difficult vocabulary. In the remaining cases, the contexts were constructed by the present author. Another nine test items were offered semi-supportive contexts, opening up for more than one possible interpretation, as in: have bats in the belfry

If you tell anyone about this, they will think you have bats in the belfry.

These contexts too were mainly taken from Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary (2002), but adjusted to give fewer solid clues. For yet another nine test items, the context provided no clues as to the idiom’s meaning, as seen in: dot one’s ‘i’s and cross one’s ‘t’s

You need to dot your ‘i’s and cross your ‘t’s.

Furthermore, while nine of the idioms were chosen for their transparent nature, another nine were picked for their semi-transparency. The last nine test items, to complete the continuum, were selected because of their opaqueness. The categorization system used to differentiate between the idioms’ degree of transparency is based on Karlsson (2013a). (See also Chapter 3 for further examples of this categorization.) In addition to taking the students’ knowledge of the world into account, the degree of transparency was considered from a Swedish second language learner perspective and based on two main criteria. In order for the idioms to be categorized as transparent items (either fully transparent or semi-transparent), (1) degrees of literal and/or semantic translations that are not too rarely used or old-fashioned in character should exist and/or (2) literal readings that to different extents would help to explain the idioms’ figurative meanings should be possible. (The fi rst criterion was for obvious reasons not considered when the degree of transparency of the Swedish test items was determined.) In neither case, key words that could be regarded as relatively infrequent and/or obsolete should be present, preventing easy access to meaning. The idioms not belonging to either of the two categories above, and possibly containing non-frequent and/or old-fashioned vocabulary, were regarded to be non-transparent items. For example, scrape the bottom of the barrel was considered to be of a transparent nature, as the disambiguation of its meaning is very likely to

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

25

be aided by a literal reading. Similarly, every cloud has a silver lining was, due to its decomposability (although the word lining may be unknown) in combination with the fact that Swedish has a semantic counterpart (efter regn kommer solsken (=‘after rain there will be sunshine’)), also categorized as a transparent idiom. Fly-by-night and tie the knot, on the other hand, were only considered to be semi-transparent in character. In the former case, the fact that something takes place during the night may imply that there is something shady going on, which might help learners arrive at the correct meaning, but not to the point of the idiom becoming fully transparent. In the latter case, in addition to the idiom being of a decomposable nature, there is a semantic equivalent in Swedish (knyta hymens band (= ‘tie the knots of Hymen’)), but it is somewhat old-fashioned and therefore not thought to give students full access to the meaning of the English idiom. Tongue in cheek and mum’s the word, fi nally, due to their nondecomposable nature and due to the fact that no literal/semantic equivalents exist in the Swedish language, were regarded as opaque idioms. The test items were also selected based on their relative frequency. For the English idioms, Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary (2002) was used. It has taken its material from the Bank of England (Corpus) and includes both British and American expressions. The dictionary distinguishes between ‘very frequent’ idioms, making up one third of all the items listed, and expressions that are ‘frequent’. A third category in the present investigation consists of those idioms that could not be found in the dictionary at all. These items are here considered to be ‘infrequently used’. As no frequency dictionary exists for Swedish idioms, Språkbanken (http:// spraakbanken.gu.se/) was consulted instead. The particular part of the corpus used for the present investigation is made up of around 105,000,000 words of written language taken from a daily newspaper. (Regrettably, no spoken texts are included.) Those expressions that were found to occur more than 100 times in the corpus were considered to be ‘very frequent’, those occurring between 30 and 70 times were regarded as ‘frequent’, and those that could not be found at all were categorized as being of an ‘infrequent nature’. The fact that the frequencies of the Swedish test items were based on written text only may of course have affected the distribution of the idioms according to the three frequency bands. To what extent this is the case is difficult to determine. Finally, whereas the majority of the English test items were taken from Ringstad (2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d), Thapar (2007) and Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary (2002), most of the Swedish test items were taken from Jansson (2006) and Luthman (2002, 2006). However, for both tests, to meet the requirements explained above, a few idioms were also picked elsewhere. Tables 2.2 (English test items) and 2.3 (Swedish test items) give overviews of the distribution of test items according to context, transparency and frequency as described above.

26

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Table 2.2 Overview of the English test items, indicating the degree of support of the context as well as the degrees of transparency and frequency Non-supportive context

Semi-supportive context

Supportive context

1) transparent

1) transparent

1) transparent

a) not frequent: blue blood

a) not frequent: graveyard shift

a) not frequent: green thumb

b) frequent: not rocket science

b) frequent: scrape the bottom of the barrel

b) frequent: when pigs fly

c) very frequent: every cloud has a silver lining

c) very frequent: get the picture

c) very frequent: off the hook

2) semi-transparent

2) semi-transparent

2) semi-transparent

a) not frequent: fly-bynight

a) not frequent: give tit for tat

a) not frequent: throw someone a bone

b) frequent: dot one’s ‘i’s and cross one’s ‘t’s

b) frequent: let the cat out of the bag

b) frequent: pick someone’s brain

c) very frequent: pull the plug on something

c) very frequent: pass the buck

c) very frequent: tie the knot

3) opaque

3) opaque

3) opaque

a) not frequent: bell the cat

a) not frequent: do something with bells on

a) not frequent: mum’s the word

b) frequent: as the crow flies

b) frequent: have bats in the belfry

b) frequent: money for old rope

c) very frequent: tongue in cheek

c) very frequent: hear something through the grapevine

c) very frequent: have no truck with

The design

The informants included in the present investigation are, as explained in the previous subsection, students from six different educational levels within the Swedish school system. As none of these learners seemed to have encountered figurative language in a structured way, and to ascertain that they understood what they were going to be tested on, the concept of idiomaticity was, prior to testing, explained by comparing the literal and figurative interpretation of kick the bucket. Next, all participants were provided with a worksheet containing the 27 expressions. The idioms were here indicated in bold. During treatment, with a short hiatus between each test item, the contexts were read aloud to the students. No additional information, such as the meaning of other words, was offered. For each test item, the students were also requested to give information about the degree of familiarity, either indicating that they were sure of the idiom’s meaning, or that they thought they knew its meaning, or that they did not know its meaning. They were also asked to indicate whether they had used the idiom’s context to disambiguate its meaning,

a) not frequent: gå åt som smör i solsken

a) not frequent: lägga sten på börda

(=to about-turn)

c) very frequent: göra en kovändning

(=to do a disservice to someone)

b) frequent: göra någon en björntjänst

(=to line one’s pocket)

c) very frequent: sko sig

(=to face (down) someone)

b) frequent: se någon i vitögat

(=to take)

a) not frequent: lägga rabarber på

(=to shout)

3) opaque

a) not frequent: ge hals

(=to stick one’s neck out)

c) very frequent: sticka ut hakan

(=to have the winning edge)

b) frequent: ha ett ess i rockärmen

3) opaque

(=at the eleventh hour)

c) very frequent: i elfte timmen

(=to bite the bullet)

b) frequent: bita i det sura äpplet

(=to really step on it)

a) not frequent: ha eld i baken

a) not frequent: sätta sig på sina höga hästar

(=to get on one’s high horse)

2) semi-transparent

(=to fizzle out)

c) very frequent: rinna ut i sanden

(=to have nothing to hide)

b) frequent: ha rent mjöl i påsen

2) semi-transparent

(=to forcefully instruct)

c) very frequent: peka med hela handen

(=to fit like a glove)

b) frequent: passa som hand i handske

(=to sell like hot cakes)

1) transparent

1) transparent

(=to add insult to injury)

Semi-supportive context

Non-supportive context

(=completely contrary)

c) very frequent: stick i stäv

(=to have an interest to the point of it being an obsession)

b) frequent: ha en käpphäst

(=to throw in the towel)

a) not frequent: kasta yxan i sjön

3) opaque

(=put one’s foot down)

c) very frequent: sätta ner foten

(=to get one’s act together)

b) frequent: ta sig i kragen

(=to bang one’s fist on the table)

a) not frequent: slå näven i bordet

2) semi-transparent

(=to bear fruit)

c) very frequent: bära frukt

(=to have butterflies in one’s stomach)

b) frequent: ha fjärilar i magen

(=people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones)

a) not frequent: sopa rent framför egen dörr

1) transparent

Supportive context

Table 2.3 Overview of the Swedish test items, indicating the degree of support of the context as well as the degrees of transparency and frequency

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 27

28

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

again differentiating between degrees of certainty. This forms the continuum seen with the expression pick someone’s brain below. pick someone’s brain

As she had never been outside of the US and was thinking about a trip to England, she picked my brain about London.

◻ I am sure I know what this expression means. = ◻ I think I know what this expression means. = ◻ Based on the context I am sure what this expression means. = ◻ Based on the context I think I know what this expression means. = ◻ I don’t know what this expression means.

After the completion of the test, the students were given some extra minutes to go through their answers. The worksheets were then collected. On separate occasions, all six informant groups were faced with both tests, the L1 test preceding the one in English. The two tests were conducted on separate days, but each test was completed in one session which lasted between 45 and 60 minutes. While the three student groups in secondary school fi nished both tests within three school days, it took, due to more complex timetables, ten days for the tests to be completed by all three student groups in upper secondary school. On both tests, answers in English, Swedish or a combination of both languages were all accepted. Each correct answer was awarded one point. No half points were given. A total of 27 points were thus awarded on each test.

2.4 Results and Discussion

Table 2.4 presents the students’ results on the two tests, focusing on the tokens for which correct answers were provided. Firstly, if the learners’ overall L1 development is considered, it is apparent that major progress is made between grade 7 and level 3, their mastery of figurative expressions/ability to disambiguate figurative meaning increasing by as many as 31 percentage points. This consolidation of L1 idiomatic understanding during the learners’ teens is also what is predicted by the Global Elaboration Hypothesis (see the subsection on age). It is therefore very encouraging to note that the students develop at almost the same pace in their L2 (29 percentage points). (To some extent the learners may here of course have been helped by the fact that the L1 test

13

10

Grade 8

Grade 9

17

14

6

Level 1/5

Level 2/6

Level 3/7

Upper sec. school

11

71

46.91% (=76/162)

29.89% (=113/378)

30.72% (=141/459)

35.93% (=97/270)

17.95% (=63/351)

17.51% (=52/297)

28.27% (=542/1917)

12.67

8.07

8.29

9.70

4.85

4.73

7.63

1.51

2.84

4.19

4.19

3.31

2.69

4.04

SD

Highest: 0.89 Lowest: −1.77

Highest: 1.38 Lowest: −2.14

Highest: 2.08 Lowest: −1.26

Highest: 1.74 Lowest: −1.36

Highest: 2.16 Lowest: −1.46

Highest: 1.59 Lowest: −1.39

Highest: 2.32 Lowest: −1.89

Standardized scores

6

14

17

10

13

11

71

62.35% (=101/162)

51.06% (=193/378)

50.54% (=232/459)

45.93% (=124/270)

42.17% (=148/351)

30.98% (=92/297)

46.43% (=890/1917)

Idioms known

N

Mean

N

Idioms known

Swedish test

English test

Grade 7

Secondary school

All grades/levels

Student group

Table 2.4 The results on the two tests – the answers that were correct

16.83

13.79

13.65

12.40

11.38

8.36

12.52

Mean

3.54

1.76

3.87

2.41

4.57

3.01

3.95

SD

Highest: 1.74 Lowest: −1.36

Highest: 1.82 Lowest: −1.58

Highest: 2.42 Lowest: −1.98

Highest: 1.08 Lowest: −1.41

Highest: 2.10 Lowest: −1.40

Highest: 2.21 Lowest: −1.78

Highest: 2.65 Lowest: −2.41

Standardized scores

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 29

30

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

preceded the L2 test.) Put simply, it is obvious that, between years 13 and 18, in a first as well as a second language, the students’ progression in their understanding of figurative language constitutes a considerable leap forward. Nevertheless, partly cracking the figurative code in a fi rst language does not imply that students have done so to the same degree in their second language, as evidenced by the fact that they here start at a lower level in all grades, i.e. while not having to start from scratch, they here have to retrace their steps somewhat. In short, in similar circumstances, understanding figurative language in an L2 is still inherently more difficult than in an L1, at all age levels. This agrees with the L2 mental lexicon generally being less developed quantitatively as well as qualitatively than the L1 mental lexicon (Albrechtsen et al., 2008) (see the subsection on context). Furthermore, in their fi rst language, again tallying with the Global Elaboration Hypothesis, the learners display a steady increase in accuracy from one educational level to the next. As discussed in the subsections on age and context, the same steady increase was noted in Nippold and Martin (1989), focusing on native speakers of American English between the ages of 14 and 17. However, as statistical confi rmation could mainly only be ascertained between non-adjacent age groups in the present study, the slow process involved in gaining L1 idiomatic knowledge is clearly emphasized. (No statistical confi rmation could be obtained between grades 8 and 9, grade 9 and level 1/5, grade 9 and level 2/6, and between levels 1/5 and 2/6.) As pointed out in the subsection on context, this lack of statistical confirmation between adjacent age groups was also observed in Nippold and Martin (1989). In fact, not even the most advanced group (level 3/7) produced more than 62.35% correct answers for the L1 idioms, which can be compared to 30.98% achieved by the youngest informant group. This again agrees with Nippold and Martin (1989) who also showed that their oldest participants were far from achieving complete L1 mastery (67% correctness rate for the decontextualized expressions and 72% for those idioms supplied with contextual input). This in turn tallies with Trulsson (2007), in which the older informants, between 50 and 60 years of age, attained an accuracy level of 87%. When the learners’ L2 achievements are considered from the same perspective, a different picture emerges, the lack of a steady increase from one educational level to the next being the most obvious part (see Table 2.4). While the youngest informant group just barely produced the lowest number of correct meanings (17.51%) and the oldest informant group achieved the highest correctness rate (46.91%), thus agreeing with Wagner (2005) (see the subsection on age), the results of the other educational levels do not follow the L1 developmental pattern, i.e. the L2 results do not tally with what is predicted by the Model of Dual Idiom Representation. The reader is here reminded that the students in level 1/5 and 2/6 were  characterized by their teachers as constituting comparatively

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

31

low-achieving groups, whereas the students from grade 9 instead were described as forming a comparatively high-achieving group in both languages. (This was also the description of the learners in grade 8, but, for some reason, this is not reflected in their accuracy score on the L2 test.) Hence, it is obvious that whereas proficiency has less of an impact in the students’ fi rst language, it plays a crucial role when students are faced with idiomatic expressions in a second language. This tallies with Al-kadi (2015), Cieślicka (2004) and Matlock and Herredia’s fi ndings, as discussed in the subsection on age. Moreover, the claim made by Liu (2008), and also discussed in Cummins (1979, 1991), that a solid L1 figurative understanding is more important for the comprehension of expressions in a second language than an advanced level of L2 proficiency (see again the subsection on age) is also substantiated. When the students’ individual results on the two tests were considered, it was shown that for 52 of the 71 students (73.24%), there were clear correlations between L1 and L2 idiom knowledge, 23 students achieving results above the mean in both Swedish and English and 29 students producing scores below the mean in both languages. As discussed in the subsection on age, this is in line with Karlsson (2013a), in which learners who achieved high scores on an L1 idiom comprehension test most typically received good results on a corresponding L2 idiom test, while low-achieving students usually did poorly on both. Next we will explore the answers for which no points were awarded (see Table 2.5). These are divided into four subcategories: (1) ‘no answer’, (2) ‘incorrect answer’, (3) ‘related answer’, i.e. answers showing clear connections with the meaning of the idiom, but offering too little information or incorporating more information than is really part of the idiom’s definition, and (4) ‘literal answer’. In their mother tongue, although not a steady decrease from the highest educational level to the lowest, the students in grade 7, the youngest participants, left more blanks than any of the other student groups (68.29%). This is again in line with what was seen in Nippold and Martin (1989). A comparison can here be made with the level 2/6 group, the second highest educational level, who gave the least number of non-answers (28.11%). It may be that younger informants are simply less prone to offer guesses for idioms of whose meanings they are unsure, as, in accordance with the Global Elaboration Hypothesis, their general understanding of figurative language is less developed than that of older learners. As a consequence of this, the 13-year-olds also provided the fewest number of incorrect answers (16.10%), the other student groups displaying considerably higher percentages in this category. Furthermore, contradicting the results of Nippold and Martin (1989), the youngest participants also offered the least number of related answers (13.17%). The difference in result between the two studies may, however, here be explained by the fact that the youngest informants in the Nippold and Martin study were one year older than the

82.05% (=288/351)

64.07% (=173/270)

Grade 8

Grade 9

69.28% (=318/459)

70.11% (=265/378)

53.09% (=86/162)

Level 1/5

Level 2/6

Level 3/7

Upper sec. school

82.49% (=245/297)

32.56% (=28/86)

34.72% (=92/265)

43.40% (=138/318)

41.04% (=71/173)

51.74% (=149/288)

65.31% (=160/245)

71.72% 46.40% (=1375/1917) (=638/1375)

41.86% (=36/86)

55.85% (=148/265)

47.17% (=150/318)

48.55% (=84/173)

37.50% (=108/288)

28.98% (=71/245)

43.42% (=597/1375)

25.58% (=22/86)

9.06% (=24/265)

9.12% (=29/318)

9.83% (=17/173)

7.64% (=22/288)

3.67% (=9/245)

8.95% (=123/1375)

Related

0%

0.38% (=1/265)

0.31% (=1/318)

0.58% (=1/173)

3.12% (=9/288)

2.04% (=5/245)

1.24% (=17/1375)

Literal

37.65% (=61/162)

48.94% (=185/378)

49.46% (=227/459)

29.51% (=18/61)

28.11% (=52/185)

31.72% (=72/227)

31.51% (=46/146)

32.51% (=66/203)

57.83% (=203/351) 54.07% (=146/270)

68.29% (=140/205)

38.36% (=394/1027)

No answer

69.02% (=205/297)

53.57% (=1027/1917)

Total

Incorrect

Total

No answer

Swedish test

English test

Grade 7

Secondary school

All grades/levels

Student group

Table 2.5 The results on the two tests – the answers that yielded no points

34.43% (=21/61)

44.32% (=82/185)

43.61% (=99/227)

41.10% (=60/146)

50.25% (=102/203)

16.10% (=33/205)

38.66% (=397/1027)

Incorrect

34.43% (=21/61)

27.57% (=51/185)

24.67% (=56/227)

26.71% (=39/146)

17.24% (=35/203)

13.17% (=27/205)

22.30% (=229/1027)

Related

1.64% (=1/61)

0%

0%

0.68% (=1/146)

0%

2.44% (=5/205)

0.68% (=7/1027)

Literal

32 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

33

youngest testees included in the present investigation. Finally, the results also show that the lower the educational level, the more the incorrect answers displayed a lack of precision; the higher the educational level, the more details, not part of the idiom’s definition, were included. The results in the learners’ L2 here mimic those detected in their L1, i.e. the youngest informants display the highest percentage of ‘no answer’ (65.31% as compared to 32.56% for the oldest informant group), the least number of incorrect answers (28.98% which can be contrasted with 55.85% for level 2/6), as well as the lowest percentage of related answers (3.67% as compared to 25.58% achieved by the oldest participant group). Furthermore, similar to their L1 results, but to a lesser degree: the lower the educational level, the more answers were found to be too imprecise to be awarded a point; the higher the educational level, the more answers contained details not part of the idiom’s meaning, thus also not yielding any points. Precision thus appears difficult to achieve for all learners, in a fi rst as well as a second language. This is certainly something that most people have experienced when encountering an idiomatic expression. That is, we may very well recognize it and even know roughly what it means, but when asked to give its precise defi nition, it becomes a great deal more difficult. In Nippold and Martin (1989), in accordance with the Global Elaboration Hypothesis, it was also noticed that younger learners produced more literal answers than older learners (see the subsection on age). Although not statistically confi rmed, the same is indicated in the present study where the students in grade 7 produced five of the seven literal interpretations observed on the L1 test. The same trend, again not confi rmed statistically but, interestingly enough, more pronounced, can be seen on the English test. Here grades 7 and 8, the two youngest test groups, together produced 14 of the 17 literal interpretations detected. Moreover, if these errors are considered on an individual basis, there are three students who stand out in grade 7, offering literal interpretations in both languages (eight of the 10 tokens found on the two tests). Similarly, in grade 8, two of the participants supplied all of the nine literal interpretations on the English test. It thus seems that some learners, even at this age, are still in a transitional phase of coming to grips with a full understanding of the very concept of figurativeness. Furthermore, as more literal interpretations were found in the learners’ second language than in their first, conceptual comprehension, from a general perspective, may be interpreted to be slightly less complete in the students’ L2 than in their L1. It should here be pointed out that while some of these idioms were found in non-supportive contexts, which of course would increase the likelihood of a literal interpretation, the majority were actually found in supportive or semi-supportive contexts. That is, some learners’ literal take on language makes it inherently difficult for them to exploit contextual information to any great extent. This result also concurs with Matlock and

34

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Heredia (2002) and Cieślicka (2004), in both of which the level of proficiency was seen to determine whether a literal answer was given or not (see the subsection on age). One main question springs to mind at this point. If the age span had been widened, would there, in terms of literal answers, have been a clearer distinction in the degree of figurative understanding between the learners’ L1 and L2? Or does second language comprehension of idiomaticity always follow close behind L1 development? Or, as indicated by statistical analysis, once an understanding of the concept of figurativeness has been attained in an L1, will it also automatically be (fully) understood in an L2? The present author is of the belief that there is likely to exist a delayed understanding of idiomaticity in a second language up to a certain age, the more erratic developmental pattern in the learners’ L2 may indicate this, but that this gap will eventually close. Cieślicka’s study (2006a), which shows that L2 learners are prone to activate idioms’ literal meanings even in cases where the meanings are already known to them and the contexts offered are of a supportive nature, also points to such a conclusion. See also Mäntylä (2012), who tested Finnish university students’ L2 idiom comprehension, for the same conclusion. Additional research including a wider span of age groups will most likely be able to supply a defi nite answer to this important question. Next, in order to explore the simultaneous effects of context, transparency and frequency, the scores attained for each individual idiomatic expression will be considered. The reader is reminded that the context offered was either supportive, semi-supportive or non-supportive in character. As for decomposability, the expressions tested were either fully transparent, semi-transparent or completely non-transparent. Finally, one third of the idioms tested were very frequent, another third frequent and the last third of a non-frequent nature. (For the categorization of the test items, the reader is referred to Section 2.3.) Tables 2.6 and 2.7 offer such details for the whole cohort (71 students), the former focusing on the English test items and the latter on the Swedish ones. In both tables, the idioms are presented in descending order, the test item for which most of the informants supplied the correct answer offered fi rst. Also, those expressions that received correct answers are indicated in grey, while those that obtained no correct answers remain in white. Based on Tables 2.6 and 2.7, it is clear that in a competitive situation, context is the main facilitator. This is true in the learners’ first as well as their second language, but it is more pronounced in the former case. The fact that many students perceive L2 expressions to be culture-specific and therefore not analyzable (see the subsection on transparency) may here be a reason why they did not consider transparency to the same extent as contextual clues. Nevertheless, it is also clear that when context is less supportive, students’ do resort to decomposition. Again this is the case in the learners’ first as well as their second language, but, interestingly enough,

X

X

X

when pigs fly (49)

off the hook (40)

tie the knot (39)

give tit for tat (15)

X

X

graveyard shift (16)

pick someone’s brain (15)

X

let the cat out of the bag (17)

X

X

hear sth through the grapevine (26)

X

X

do sth with bells on (32)

money for old rope (24)

X

X

Context semi-supportive

have bats in the belfry (33)

not rocket science (36)

mum’s the word (36)

X

X

green thumb (54)

get the picture (38)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.6 Results on the English test – all grades

X

Context not supportive

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

Semitransparent

X

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 35

X X X

tongue in cheek (1)

as the crow flies (0)

bell the cat (0)

X

X

fly-by-night (2)

pass the buck (3)

have no truck with sth/sb (3)

X

X

dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (8)

scrape the bottom of the barrel (5)

X

blue blood (9)

X

X

throw someone a bone (13)

X

Context not supportive

pull the plug on sth (13)

Context semi-supportive X

Context supportive

every cloud has a silver lining (15)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.6 (Continued)

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

Semitransparent

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

36 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

X

X

X

X

sätta ner foten (67)

slå näven i bordet (64)

ta sig i kragen (63)

ha fjärilar i magen (62)

sopa rent framför egen dörr (58)

X

X

X

bära frukt (53)

ha en käpphäst (47)

kasta yxan i sjön (37)

ha ett ess i rockärmen (29)

lägga sten på börda (32)

ha rent mjöl i påsen (33)

X

stick i stäv (53)

passa som hand i handske (55)

gå åt som smör i solsken (56)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

X

X

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

Table 2.7 Results on the Swedish test – all grades

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 37

ge hals (2)

se någon i vitögat (4)

X X

X

peka med hela handen (4)

X

sticka ut hakan (10) X

X

sko sig (12)

göra någon en björntjänst (9)

X

rinna ut i sanden (13)

X

göra en kovändning (19) X

X

sätta sig på sina höga hästar (22)

lägga rabarber på (15)

X

i elfte timmen (22)

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

X

Context supportive

bita i det sura äpplet (24)

ha eld i baken (25)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.7 (Continued)

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

38 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

39

more so in their L2 than in their L1. This is in line with Titone and Connine (1994) and Abel (2003) in which, while learners may generally be more prone to make use of contextual clues than compositional links, the conclusion was drawn that L2 learners are more likely to consider idioms to be of a transparent nature than L1 learners, and therefore are also more likely to try to decompose. One reason for this, as pointed out in the subsection on transparency, may be that whereas L1 learners’ ability to infer from context precedes the skill to analyze semantically, L2 learners develop these skills simultaneously (Cain et al., 2009). Since the same learners took both tests in the present study, the result indicates that their approaches are language-specific, depending entirely on whether they are dealing with an L1 or an L2. Another reason for the L1-L2 difference may be that the students already knew more L1 items to begin with and therefore, regardless of the degree of contextual support, did not have to disambiguate those idioms. Put differently, in accordance with the Model of Dual idiom representation, as more idiom entries have been created in an L1 than in an L2, there is a lesser need for learners of a first language to resort to decomposition. This is confi rmed if the learners’ self-evaluation is considered (see Section 2.3). On the L1 test, where, in the majority of cases, the students were (comparatively) certain of the idioms’ meanings, they simply let the information offered by the contextual support confirm their preconceived notion of the idiom’s meaning, while on the L2 test, where the same degree of certainty was not testified to, they either tried to make use of contextual clues and failed or simply did not make use of the context provided at all. Lastly, frequency plays even less of a role than transparency. This thus partly contradicts what is assumed by the Model of Dual Idiom Representation, in which frequency is considered a strong predictor of whether an L2 idiom is known or not, but also partly what was observed in Karlsson (2012), where frequency was a very poor predictor of familiarity (see the subsection on frequency). It here needs to be pointed out that there is of course a difference between knowing the meaning of an expression based on its frequency and, as discussed by the Acquisition via Exposure Hypothesis (see again the subsection on frequency), disambiguating an expression based on its frequency, the latter of which was the case with a great many of the tokens in the present study. Put differently, it may very well be that some of the idioms for which the students provided correct answers are indeed based on the idioms’ commonality. As all tokens, even those the informants indicated they were sure of in their selfevaluation, are included in the test results, the effects of frequency, when compared with those of context and transparency, may in such cases simply have been obfuscated, and so the assumption put forth by the Acquisition via Exposure Hypothesis can here neither be confirmed nor refuted. This may, of course, be true for both languages. (The reader is referred to Chapter 3, the first subsection in 3.6 and the fi rst subsection in 3.10, where the effects of frequency are discussed further.)

40

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

In order to detect any differences in the effects of context, transparency and frequency between educational levels, Tables 2.8–2.19 offer the same information as Tables 2.6–2.7, but for each subgroup, starting with the youngest informants. Again the results on the L2 test precedes the L1 achievements, the idiom for which most of the students produced the correct answer offered first. As before, those expressions that received correct answers are indicated in grey, while those that obtained no correct answers remain in white. What was noticed for the cohort as a whole is, as seen in Tables 2.8– 2.19, largely replicated at the six different educational levels respectively. Accordingly, irrespective of age, context clearly plays the leading role, again especially so in the learners’ L1. Transparency, where the use of compositional links is especially prolific in the learners’ L2, and perhaps to some small extent frequency, on the other hand, generally only play supporting roles. There are two exceptions to this pattern. For the participants in level 2/6, on the Swedish test, transparency takes on, if not the most important role, at least an equally important role as context. It may be, that these students, as they constitute the group who achieved the second highest score, felt they had exhausted all available contextual clues and therefore instead resorted to decomposition. For the participants in level 3/7, on the English test, transparency, instead of context, takes on the leading role. Although it is their second language, the reason may be the same as for the level 2/6 group discussed above. Another explanation may simply be that this student group only consisted of six informants, which makes it difficult to generalize about the results. 2.5 Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

In the present chapter, the aim was to gain an understanding of learners’ comprehension of canonically used idioms in a first (Swedish) versus a second language (English). Adolescents from six educational levels (ages between 13 and 18) were subjected to two parallel tests, one in their L1 and one in their L2. The test items included were not only provided with contextual support of varying degrees, but the idioms themselves displayed different levels of compositionality and commonality. Thus, the simultaneous effects of age, context, transparency and frequency could be explored. Firstly, as predicted by the Global Elaboration Hypothesis, it is clear that L1 learners between 13 and 18 years of age develop considerably in their understanding of figurative language (31 percentage points). What is even more exciting is that their L2 development is almost on par (29 percentage points), even though they begin at a lower level in all grades. One major difference was, however, detected. While there was a steady, although slight, increase from one level to the next in the learners’ fi rst

X

X

X

X

green thumb (9)

tie the knot (6)

when pigs fly (5)

off the hook (5)

money for old rope (1)

graveyard shift (1)

pick someone’s brain (2)

X

X

X

do sth with bells on (2)

X

X

get the picture (3)

not rocket science (2)

X

X

throw someone a bone (3)

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

have bats in the belfry (3)

X

mum’s the word (4)

hear sth through the grapevine (4)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.8 Results on the English test – secondary school, grade 7

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

(Continued)

Frequent

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 41

X

X

X

fly-by-night (0)

pass the buck (0)

X

bell the cat (0)

scrape the bottom of the barrel (0)

X

X

tongue in cheek (0)

have no truck with sth/sb (0)

X

blue blood (0)

X

X

dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (0)

give tit for tat (0)

X

as the crow flies (0)

X

X

let the cat out of the bag (0)

every cloud has a silver lining (1)

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive X

Context supportive

pull the plug on sth (1)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.8 (Continued)

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

42 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

ha fjärilar i magen (11)

slå näven i bordet (10)

ta sig i kragen (9)

sätta ner foten (9)

sopa rent framför egen dörr (9)

stick i stäv (7)

bära frukt (5)

X X X

se någon i vitögat (3)

lägga rabarber på (2)

X

ha en käpphäst (4)

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

gå åt som smör i solsken (3)

X

kasta yxan i sjön (4)

ha ett ess i rockärmen (4)

passa som hand i handske (5)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.9 Results on the Swedish test – secondary school, grade 7

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 43

sätta sig på sina höga hästar (0)

X X

peka med hela handen (0)

ha rent mjöl i påsen (0)

X X

göra någon en björntjänst (0)

X

X

göra en kovändning (0)

sticka ut hakan (0)

X

X

rinna ut i sanden (0)

ge hals (0)

X

X

sko sig (1)

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

i elfte timmen (1)

Context supportive

lägga sten på börda (1)

ha eld i baken (2)

bita i det sura äpplet (2)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.9 (Continued)

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

44 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

pick someone’s brain (2)

off the hook (2)

X

X

give tit for tat (2)

X

throw someone a bone (2)

X

X

every cloud has a silver lining (3)

money for old rope (2)

X

X

not rocket science (3)

have bats in the belfry (4)

X

tie the knot (5)

X

X

mum’s the word (5)

do sth with bells on (4)

X

when pigs fly (6)

X

X

green thumb (10)

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

hear sth through the grapevine (4)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.10 Results on the English test – secondary school, grade 8

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

(Continued)

Frequent

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 45

X

bell the cat (0) X

X

tongue in cheek (0)

pass the buck (0)

X

X

let the cat out of the bag (0)

X

as the crow flies (0)

X

graveyard shift (0)

fly-by-night (1)

scrape the bottom of the barrel (1)

X

blue blood (1)

have no truck with sth/sb (1)

X X

dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (1)

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

X

X

Context supportive

pull the plug on sth (1)

get the picture (3)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.10 (Continued)

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

46 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

X

X

X

X

sätta ner foten (13)

ha fjärilar i magen (13)

slå näven i bordet (12)

sopa rent framför egen dörr (10)

ha en käpphäst (9)

X

kasta yxan i sjön (7)

lägga sten på börda (4)

ha eld i baken (6)

X

bära frukt (7)

passa som hand i handske (8)

stick i stäv (8)

X

X

ta sig i kragen (13)

gå åt som smör i solsken (8)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

X

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

Table 2.11 Results on the Swedish test – secondary school, grade 8

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

Frequent

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 47

X

X X

ha rent mjöl i påsen (2)

rinna ut i sanden (1)

se någon i vitögat (0)

ge hals (0)

sticka ut hakan (1)

X

X

X

sko sig (2)

peka med hela handen (1)

X

X

X

X

göra någon en björntjänst (3)

lägga rabarber på (2)

X

göra en kovändning (3)

X

sätta sig på sina höga hästar (4)

ha ett ess i rockärmen (3)

X

bita i det sura äpplet (4)

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive X

Context supportive

i elfte timmen (4)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.11 (Continued)

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

Not frequent

48 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

tie the knot (8)

X

hear sth through the grapevine (2)

X

money for old rope (3) X

X

throw someone a bone (4)

give tit for tat (3)

X

X

let the cat out of the bag (5)

green thumb (5)

X

X

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

graveyard shift (5)

off the hook (7)

have bats in the belfry (7)

not rocket science (7)

mum’s the word (7)

X

X

when pigs fly (9)

get the picture (8)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.12 Results on the English test – secondary school, grade 9

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

(Continued)

Frequent

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 49

X X

fly-by-night (0)

X

bell the cat (0)

X

X

X

X

X

as the crow flies (0)

scrape the bottom of the barrel (1)

tongue in cheek (1)

pick someone’s brain (1)

every cloud has a silver lining (2)

pass the buck (2)

have no truck with sth/sb (2)

X X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

blue blood (2)

X

Context supportive

dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (2)

do sth with bells on (2)

pull the plug on sth (2)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.12 (Continued)

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

50 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

X

sätta ner foten (10)

slå näven i bordet (10)

X

X

ta sig i kragen (8)

bära frukt (8)

X

ha en käpphäst (7)

lägga sten på börda (5)

ha fjärilar i magen (6)

X

X

sopa rent framför egen dörr (7)

ha ett ess i rockärmen (6)

X

kasta yxan i sjön (8)

passa som hand i handske (8)

X

stick i stäv (8)

gå åt som smör i solsken (9)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

X

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

Table 2.13 Results on the Swedish test – secondary school, grade 9

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 51

se någon i vitögat (0)

ge hals (0) X

X

lägga rabarber på (0) X

X X

peka med hela handen (1)

sticka ut hakan (1)

X

göra någon en björntjänst (1)

X

X

göra en kovändning (1)

sko sig (1)

X

i elfte timmen (2)

X

X

X

sätta sig på sina höga hästar (3)

ha eld i baken (3)

bita i det sura äpplet (3)

X

ha rent mjöl i påsen (4)

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive X

Context supportive

rinna ut i sanden (4)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.13 (Continued)

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

52 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

X

when pigs fly (14)

green thumb (13)

X

graveyard shift (5)

pull the plug on sth (4)

X

hear sth through the grapevine (6)

X

X

get the picture (8)

money for old rope (7)

X

have bats in the belfry (10)

X

mum’s the word (10) X

X

off the hook (11)

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

do sth with bells on (10)

X

tie the knot (11)

not rocket science (11)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.14 Results on the English test – upper secondary school, level 1/5

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

(Continued)

Frequent

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 53

X

X

X

tongue in cheek (0)

X X

bell the cat (0)

fly-by-night (0)

have no truck with sth/sb (0)

X

as the crow flies (0)

pass the buck (1) X

X

scrape the bottom of the barrel (2)

throw someone a bone (1)

X

give tit for tat (2)

X

dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (2)

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

X

X

Context supportive

blue blood (3)

pick someone’s brain (3)

let the cat out of the bag (3)

every cloud has a silver lining (4)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.14 (Continued)

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

54 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

X

ta sig i kragen (14)

bära frukt (14)

ha fjärilar i magen (14)

ha eld i baken (8)

kasta yxan i sjön (9)

ha rent mjöl i påsen (10)

ha en käpphäst (11)

X

X

X

slå näven i bordet (15)

bita i det sura äpplet (11)

X

X

sopa rent framför egen dörr (15)

X

X

Context supportive

sätta ner foten (15)

passa som hand i handske (15)

stick i stäv (15)

gå åt som smör i solsken (17)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

X

X

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

Table 2.15 Results on the Swedish test – upper secondary school, level 1/5

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 55

X

ha ett ess i rockärmen (4)

X

peka med hela handen (1) X

X

göra någon en björntjänst (2)

se någon i vitögat (0)

X

X

X

X

ge hals (2)

rinna ut i sanden (3)

sätta sig på sina höga hästar (4)

sko sig (4)

X

X

sticka ut hakan (5)

göra en kovändning (4)

X

lägga rabarber på (6)

X

i elfte timmen (7)

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive X

Context supportive

lägga sten på börda (7)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.15 (Continued)

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

56 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

tie the knot (5)

give tit for tat (5)

pick someone’s brain (5)

X

X X

X

let the cat out of the bag (5)

X

X

X

X

X

have bats in the belfry (6)

money for old rope (6)

not rocket science (7)

mum’s the word (7)

hear sth through the grapevine (7)

off the hook (9)

X

do sth with bells on (9)

X

when pigs fly (10) X

X

green thumb (11)

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

get the picture (10)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.16 Results on the English test – upper secondary school, level 2/6

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

(Continued)

Frequent

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 57

X

fly-by-night (0)

pass the buck (0)

X

bell the cat (0)

X

X

have no truck with sth/sb (0)

X

tongue in cheek (0)

X

X

as the crow flies (0)

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

X

X

X

Context supportive

every cloud has a silver lining (1)

scrape the bottom of the barrel (1)

blue blood (1)

graveyard shift (1)

dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (2)

throw someone a bone (2)

pull the plug on sth (3)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.16 (Continued)

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

58 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

sätta ner foten (14)

X

bära frukt (13)

X

ha fjärilar i magen (12)

X

X

ha en käpphäst (11)

stick i stäv (10)

göra en kovändning (10)

X

slå näven i bordet (11)

lägga sten på börda (11)

ha rent mjöl i påsen (12)

X

sopa rent framför egen dörr (12)

passa som hand i handske (13)

X

ta sig i kragen (13)

gå åt som smör i solsken (13)

Context supportive

Idioms, starting with the highest score

X

X

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

Table 2.17 Results on the Swedish test – upper secondary school, level 2/6

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 59

X

sko sig (2)

X X

peka med hela handen (0)

X

se någon i vitögat (1)

X

ge hals (0)

X

sticka ut hakan (1)

göra någon en björntjänst (1)

lägga rabarber på (1)

X

X

rinna ut i sanden (3)

bita i det sura äpplet (2)

X

ha eld i baken (4)

X

X

kasta yxan i sjön (4)

sätta sig på sina höga hästar (5)

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

X

X

Context supportive

i elfte timmen (6)

ha ett ess i rockärmen (8)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.17 (Continued)

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

60 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

off the hook (6)

have bats in the belfry (3)

mum’s the word (3)

hear sth through the grapevine (3)

every cloud has a silver lining (4)

X X

X

X

let the cat out of the bag (4)

X

X

graveyard shift (4)

tie the knot (4)

X

X

when pigs fly (5)

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

do sth with bells on (5)

X

money for old rope (5)

get the picture (6)

X

Context supportive

green thumb (6)

not rocket science (6)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.18 Results on the English test – upper secondary school, level 3/7

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

Not frequent The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 61

pass the buck (0)

bell the cat (0)

scrape the bottom of the barrel (0)

X

X

X

tongue in cheek (0)

X

X

as the crow flies (0)

have no truck with sth/sb (0)

X

X

X

fly-by-night (1)

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

X

X

X

Context supportive

dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (1)

throw someone a bone (1)

blue blood (2)

pick someone’s brain (2)

pull the plug on sth (2)

give tit for tat (3)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.18 (Continued)

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

62 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

bära frukt (6)

X

X

ha fjärilar i magen (6)

slå näven i bordet (6)

X

X

X

kasta yxan i sjön (5)

sopa rent framför egen dörr (5)

ha en käpphäst (5)

ha rent mjöl i påsen (5)

X

stick i stäv (5)

sätta sig på sina höga hästar (6)

X

sätta ner foten (6)

passa som hand i handske (6)

X

Context supportive

ta sig i kragen (6)

gå åt som smör i solsken (6)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

X

X

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

X

X

X

X

X

X

Transparent

Table 2.19 Results on the Swedish test – upper secondary school, level 3/7

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency 63

X

ge hals (0) X

X

peka med hela handen (1)

se någon i vitögat (0)

X

X

ha eld i baken (2)

göra en kovändning (1)

X

X

bita i det sura äpplet (2)

sticka ut hakan (2)

X

X

X

göra någon en björntjänst (2)

sko sig (2)

X

X

i elfte timmen (2)

X

X

Context Context not semi-supportive supportive

rinna ut i sanden (2)

Context supportive

ha ett ess i rockärmen (4)

lägga sten på börda (4)

lägga rabarber på (4)

Idioms, starting with the highest score

Table 2.19 (Continued)

X

X

X

Transparent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Semi-transparent Opaque

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

64 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

The Simultaneous Effects of Age, Context, Transparency and Frequency

65

language, no such incremental pattern could be observed in the students’ L2. In addition to a general lack of understanding of idiomaticity for some learners, two main factors appear to be the cause of the more erratic pattern seen here: low L2 proficiency in some of the classes and poor individual L1 idiom comprehension, the latter accumulating to class-level deficiencies. The impact of idiomatic mastery in the learners’ fi rst language can especially be considered in the light of the fact that for 52 out of 71 students (73.24%), a correlation between L1 and L2 idiom knowledge was observed. It is thus not only essential for instructors to be aware of the negative effects of low L2 proficiency as well as poor L1 idiom comprehension when introducing multi-word sequences in the L2 classroom, but also that an assessment of the students’ degree of knowledge takes place in both cases before teaching begins so that individual exercises adapted to these levels can be offered. Furthermore, when provided with contextual support of varying degrees as well as different degrees of transparency and frequency, it is the former that acts as the main facilitator when comprehension is in focus. Put differently, in a situation where a choice exists, students (subconsciously?) rely more heavily on context than on transparency or frequency. While this is the case in a first as well as a second language, it is especially pronounced in a learner’s L1. The reason for this difference is thought to be linked to the fact that the skill to make inferences is acquired before the skill to analyze semantically. To enhance contextual inferencing even further and to decrease the gap between L1 and L2 inferencing success, it is hence of great importance to introduce lessons on the use of contextual clues. According to the results, these lessons should start in the L1 classroom and continue in the L2 classroom (see Karlsson (2013a) where the same conclusion was drawn), and be based on each individual student’s level of quantitative and qualitative vocabulary knowledge. Teachers are here referred to the English Daily website (http://www.englishdaily626. com/idioms.php) and Språkbanken (http://spraakbanken.gu.se/), which provides contexts for a number of English and Swedish expressions respectively. Development of graded readers incorporating L1/L2 idiomatic expressions would also be desirable. In an intricate interplay with context, transparency also plays a role in whether an idiom is successfully understood or not, although to a lesser degree. Similar to context, this is true in a fi rst as well as a second language, but especially so in an L2 where learners acquire the skills to draw conclusions based on contextual clues and analyze semantically in tandem. Thus, while certainly all learners could benefit from a structured discussion regarding the concept and effect of transparency, low-achievers, who maintain a literal perspective on matters even when clues indicate the opposite, would probably gain the most. This would most defi nitely help bring them into the world of figurativeness at an earlier stage than if left to their own devices. Presenting sentence pairs for which one literal and

66

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

one figurative interpretation of the same string of words can be given, as in Poor blood circulation often gets you cold feet versus He said he was going to try bungee jumping but he got cold feet when he saw how tall the tower was, may be one point of departure (Vasiljevic, 2015). Another approach would be to work with source domains. The website http:// www.hltmag.co.uk/jan06/mart05.htm offers such support. Also, there is here too a need for cooperation between L1 and L2 instructors. Such cooperation may help students overcome their attested-to belief that idioms are often culture-specific, which prompts them to not consider decomposition as a worthwhile road to solving the puzzle. Finally, frequency plays, if not a completely insignificant role, only a marginal one in aiding idiom comprehension, at least in competition with context and transparency. Nevertheless, as learners’ declarative knowledge appears to be partly based on commonality, teachers would do wisely to consider including high-frequency idioms in the initial stages. This will hence give students a well-deserved boost of first being faced with items they may recognize, which in turn will make it easier to consolidate the idioms’ meanings in long-term memory. Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary will provide teachers with information about the frequency of a number of different expressions. Notes (1) This approach is also referred to as the Dual Idiom Representation Model. (2) It should be noted that the two terms ‘frequency’ and ‘familiarity’ appear to be used interchangeably by some researchers. Strictly speaking, while the former term refers to an objective opinion based on statistical evidence, the latter is a subjective approach (Baayen, 1992, 1993; Baayen & Lieber 1997). This distinction in meaning does not, however, imply that they are disconnected, as the more frequent an item is, the more familiar the item is likely to be (Abel, 2003). The frequency/familiarity dichotomy is also addressed in Chapter 6, the fi rst subsection in 6.2. (3) It is also referred to as the Language Experience Hypothesis. (4) English in upper secondary school is, depending on educational level, referred to as English 5, 6 or 7, whereas Swedish is labelled Swedish 1, 2 or 3. English 5 thus involves the same age group as Swedish 1, and so on.

3 Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Students’ Comprehension and Retention of L2 Idioms?

3.1 Introduction to the Chapter as a Whole

In the previous chapter, the focus was on learners’ L1/L2 idiom comprehension. One of the conclusions drawn was that contextual support is the main facilitator in students’ disambiguation process, especially in their L1. In the present chapter, with the aim of enhancing L2 learning even further, the effects of contextual support will be revisited, this time not only in connection with encoding but also in relation to retrieval, an even more elusive accomplishment. From a neurological point of view, the retrieval of words occurs via the links of synapses between neurons, electrical connections that run through the brain trying to fi nd the sought-for information. Idiomatic expressions, which often can be interpreted both figuratively and literally, seem especially difficult to fi nd. From a second language learner perspective, this thus means that the route of a familiar word such as dog may be likened to a motorway, much travelled and without obstructions. The route of a slightly less familiar word such as outskirts may instead be likened to a country road, less travelled and with some bumps and stops along the way. The retrieval route of an idiomatic expression, on the other hand, particularly opaque ones like mum’s the word, is more like a forest trail, even less travelled and with plenty of sticks and stones preventing a free pathway. So, how can we then pave the way to achieve smoother access to these semantically challenging items of vocabulary? The present chapter includes two research experiments that investigate the contextual effects of multimodal and visualization techniques. In 67

68

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Sections 3.3–3.6, the role played by captioned audio-visual contexts will be explored. In Sections 3.7–3.11, the focus will be on the effects of (a) still pictures, (b) etymological notes and (c) a combination of the two. In each of these parts, the reader will be provided with previous research relevant to the experiment at hand. The present chapter also includes subsections on theory relevant to both studies. These can be found below. Finally, at the end of the chapter, based on both experiments, conclusions will be drawn and pedagogical implications discussed (Section 3.11). 3.2 Theoretical Background Relevant to Both Experiments

This section will discuss two theories that are relevant to both experiments presented in the present chapter: the Dual Coding Theory and the Levels of Processing Theory. Together the two models address the cognitive processes relevant to language learning in general: noticing, encoding, storage and retrieval (cf. Lindstromberg & Boers, 2008; McPherron & Randolph, 2014). However, the focus in the following two sections will be on how these two approaches may aid comprehension and retention of linguistic items, especially idiomatic expressions. The Dual Coding Theory

The Dual Coding Theory, fi rst proposed by Paivio in 1971 (see also Clark & Paivio, 1991; Paivio, 1975, 1986, 1991), suggests that cognition, i.e. encoding, storage, organization and retrieval, is made up of two independent, but connected systems. One deals with verbal coding and the other with non-verbal coding. This means that while the verbal system is specialized in representing and processing language, the non-verbal system is specialized in dealing with events, experiences, memories of smells, sounds and tastes, and emotions (Clark & Paivio, 1991; Paivio, 1972; Sadoski, 2005). While written and spoken language codes are the primary forms of representation in the verbal system, imagery is the primary form of representation in the non-verbal system. Evidence of the two systems being modality-specific can be seen when multi-tasking is attempted. If the tasks are within the same modality, interference will occur (Sadoski, 1985; Sadoski & Paivio, 2013). An example would be if we tried to listen to two conversations at the same time (two auditory tasks). If on the other hand the tasks are in two separate modalities, no interference will occur. An example of this situation would be if we listened to music and at the same time reminisced about what we felt the last time we heard that song (one auditory task and one task dealing with emotions). Furthermore, while the verbal code uses arbitrary symbols to represent concrete objects as well as abstract ideas, of which a word is a good example, the imagery code tends to be similar to whatever it is that it

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention

69

symbolizes. This means that, in the verbal mode, the word dog, for instance, has become the representation for such an object without having any intrinsic connection to it. In the non-verbal code, on the other hand, the word dog may evoke images that have similarities to an actual dog. The word may further call forth images of feelings a person experiences when hearing/reading this word. The verbal and the non-verbal system each consist of building blocks that form neural pathways in the brain. In the verbal code system, these units are referred to as logogens and they generate spoken and written language; in the imagery code system, the corresponding units are referred to as imagens and they generate images of different kinds. Logogens and imagens can both be activated by external as well as internal stimuli. In addition to the different modalities dealt with by these basic units, logogens are serial in nature, whereas imagens are typically synchronous in character. This means that while logogens deal with one piece of information at a time, such as the words making up a sentence, imagens are able to deal with a lot of information at the same time, creating an overall impression of several images. Logogens are, however, only theoretically sequential, which means, for example, that they are able to deal with multi-word words, such as idiomatic expressions, as one unit (Clark & Paivio, 1991; Sadoski & Paivio, 2013). When it comes to processing of information, it may on the one hand occur in only one of the two systems, i.e. signals are sent from one logogen to another logogen or from one imagen to another imagen. It is, for example, possible to listen to someone without creating mental pictures of what was said, as well as creating mental pictures without having heard anyone say anything. Processing within each system is referred to as associative processing. Within the verbal code, this type of processing allows words to be related to other words. This may occur via links such as synonyms and antonyms (e.g. over-under and above-below), subordinates and superordinates (cup versus container; animal versus dog) and prefabricated patterns where also idioms can be found (Sadoski & Paivio, 2013). Other types of links are also possible. A person who loves dogs, for instance, may have created links to words like cute and loyal, while a person who does not have the same positive feelings may connect the word dog to items like dangerous and allergy. Within the non-verbal system, the image of a dog may evoke other images that have to do with, for example, the smell or feel of a dog. These images are, as described above, melded together into even larger images. Processing of information may on the other hand also occur between the two systems, i.e. signals are sent from a logogen to an imagen or from an imagen to a logogen. In such cases, both systems are activated as connections are being made between them. This type of processing is called referential processing and this makes it possible to assign a linguistic reference to what is shown in a picture, as well as apply a mental image to a

70 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

word. However, simultaneous activation does not always mean that a logogen activates another imagen or vice versa. Many images may in fact not prompt any words to appear, just like many words may not prompt any images to appear. This means that the two systems may both be activated independently of each other. Function words such as a/an, the and of are examples of the latter scenario (Sadoski & Paivio, 2013). Repeated encounters between these building blocks make some words more clearly embedded in memory, while others, where few encounters occur, may eventually be lost. Put differently, if the verbal coding system is taken as an example: [a]s words are encountered in various contexts and as our cognitive system (both language and imagery) develops, the underlying meaning base changes, perhaps ever so slightly: old representations and their connections are strengthened or weakened, new representations and connections are formed, and so on. Experience constantly modifies dual coding structure and processing potential. (Sadoski & Paivio, 2013: 52)

Based on the discussion above, it can be noted that the Dual Coding Theory makes a clear and important distinction between concrete and abstract language. While concrete language (e.g. words like dog, house and tree) most often has direct links to non-verbal imagery, as is shown by the fact that these types of words are comparatively easy to draw, abstract language (e.g. words like angry, beautiful and true) has less access to non-verbal imagery, as is shown by the fact that pictorial illustrations of such words are much more difficult to achieve. Put simply, the non-visual code is more readily prompted by concrete language than abstract language (and still more by pictures than concrete language). It thus seems that, as concrete language can more readily be represented and accessed in both the verbal and non-verbal system, it has a clear advantage over abstract language, such as idiomatic expressions. That there is such a distinction between concrete and abstract language is substantiated by the fact that concrete words are learned and remembered more readily than words that are abstract in character (Paivio & Clark, 1986; Sadoski & Paivio, 2004, 2013). The fact that information may not only be processed independently but also additively entails that learners can, if they fail to retrieve information from one of the two systems, resort to the information supplied by the other system. This means that an extra retrieval route is provided. Put differently, low activity in one of the two systems may be compensated for by the other system. This approach seems to be especially useful with figurative language (Paivio & Clark, 1986; Paivio & Walsh, 1993), as it is highly abstract in nature. For example, by providing a picture, a direct link is created to the non-verbal coding system; by providing etymological support (verbal information), a link (i.e. a mental image) is made between the original, literal meaning and the idiom’s present-day figurative

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention

71

meaning. In accordance with the Conceptual Peg Hypothesis (e.g. Sadoski & Paivio, 2013), which forms an integral part of the Dual Coding Theory, such retrieval paths are created with the help of what can be referred to as memory pegs. These memory pegs can be in the form of individual sentences, phrases and words, concrete and abstract, as well as images (e.g. Begg, 1972; Dilley & Paivio, 1968; Kobayashi, 1977; Paivio, 1965; Sadoski, 1985). Nevertheless, this mnemonic device may not be able to assist all learners. Cognitive learning style here comes into play. As research has found that literal and figurative language is represented in different cerebral hemispheres (Van Lancker, 1975, 1990; Van Lancker & Kempler, 1987), students who primarily use their right hemisphere, i.e. so-called ‘visualizers’, may in fact have difficulties processing verbal input, whereas students who primarily use their left hemisphere, so called ‘verbalizers’, may fi nd it equally difficult to resort to pictorial information (e.g. Boers, 2000; Dörnyei, 2005; Ehrman et al., 2003; Gazzaniga, 2000; Oxford & Ehrman, 1995; Paivio, 1986; Plass et  al., 1998; Richardson, 1994). In Kraemer et al. (2009), it is even shown that learners who prefer the verbal code have a tendency to convert pictorial input into linguistic information, while input presented in the verbal code may be converted into imagery by those learners who are categorized as ‘visualizers’. Also, some research indicates that very weak readers are inhibited by imagery (Gambrell, 1982; Pressley, 1976). Providing such learners with illustrations may therefore hinder rather than help their comprehension and retention of idiomatic expressions. All in all, this means that replacing one retrieval route with another does not appear to be an option for all learners to the same extent. The Dual Coding Theory displays clear similarities with the key word method that uses key words as memory pegs (e.g. Avila & Sadoski, 1996; Levin, 1985, 1993; Levin et al., 1992; Rodriguez & Sadoski, 2000; Shapiro & Waters, 2005; Williams & Konopak, 1988; Wyra et al., 2007). The theory also has affinities with theoretical models of multimedia learning, where, for example, the positive effect of using imagery as a supplement to written information has been proven (e.g. Mayer, 2009; Nesbit & Adescope, 2006; Plass & Jones, 2005; Schnotz, 2002; Sweller, 2005). The Levels of Processing Theory

As a reaction to previous theories focusing on distinctions between sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968), the Levels of Processing Theory was first put forth by Craik and Lockhart in 1972 in an attempt to explain how qualitatively different forms of processing may produce different levels of memory, and that memory is independent of the amount of repetition a stimulus is subjected to (see also Craik, 1973; Cermak & Craik, 1979; Craik &

72

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Jacoby, 1975; Craik & Tulving, 1975; Lockhart et al., 1975; Lockhart & Craik, 1990; Schulman, 1971). Three different types of processing are discussed: structural, phonetic and semantic. Structural processing, which deals with the letters of a word or its font, is the shallowest level of processing. If you, for example, see the sign of a store and engage in structural processing only, you may simply remember the shape of the letters, but not the actual name. Such processing generally does not pave the way for lasting retrieval routes in memory. Phonetic processing, which deals with the sounds that are made when letters are spoken together, is regarded as deeper than structural processing. If the name of the aforementioned store has no meaning to you, being in a language you do not master, you might still be able to remember its name if you process it phonetically somehow. This might occur if you, for instance, make a note to yourself that the name starts with an M sound and that it rhymes with another word that you do know. Such processing generally creates some sort of retrieval path in memory. Finally, semantic processing is the deepest type of processing in which we make associations with already existing knowledge by, for instance, comparing and relating a word to other words we already know or to images we have created of already acquired vocabulary. Such processing generally has great potential for creating strong retrieval routes that will not easily fade away. The difference in quality between these three types of processing was shown in an experiment by Craik and Tulving (1975) in which subjects were presented with written words, either in lower-case or upper-case letters. They were then asked to answer yes or no to questions that preceded these words. These questions were meant to create different levels of processing. To evoke shallow processing for a word, the question focused, for instance, on the size of the print of the word. (e.g. Is the word in capital letters?) To evoke deep processing, the question instead focused on the meaning of the word (e.g. Does the word go in this sentence?) Finally, to evoke neither the shallowest nor the deepest type of processing, the question focused on sound. (e.g. Does the word rhyme with X?) The results of the study show that the words preceded by deep-processing questions were remembered a great many more times than those words that were preceded by processing that was more shallow in character. Similar results were also seen in an earlier study by Hyde and Jenkins from 1973. The above description entails that while the Levels of Processing Theory focuses on the level of depth achieved, where semantic processing is thought to produce the best conditions for memory retrieval, the Theory of Dual Coding rather focuses on the number and type of codes involved in the memory process. That is, according to the latter theory, semantic processing that does not cause dual coding to occur may not produce better recall than non-semantic processing. In a study by D’Agostino et al. (1977), an experiment was put together with the aim to compare the two theories. It involved an equal number of pictures and concrete and abstract

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention

73

words that were processed either structurally, phonetically or semantically. For concrete words, the predictions of the Levels of Processing Theory were accurate in that the informants remembered those words that had been processed semantically the best and did the worst on words that had been processed structurally. However, for pictures and abstract words, although the subjects did the poorest with structurally processed items for both types, there was no statistically confi rmed difference between semantic and phonetic processing. This lack of difference could, the researchers claim, be explained by the Dual Coding Theory. Here both pictures and abstract words are coded only once (pictures in the nonverbal system and abstract words in the verbal system), reducing the chances of remembering such items. Concrete words, on the other hand, as they easily evoke imagery, is most often coded in both the verbal and non-verbal system. Different opinions of the best way of achieving deep learning exist. While some researchers claim that learners should be prompted to create their own mental pictures in connection with semantic processing (Clark & Paivio, 1991; Lockhart & Craik, 1990), others believe it might be enough to just present a learner with a visual image (Lockhart & Craik, 1990). As was discussed in connection with the Theory of Dual Coding, another way to induce deep learning is to combine visual imagery with verbal input (Nelson et al., 1976). However, research suggests that not all methods work equally well for all learners.

Experiment 1: The Effects of Captioned Audio-Visual Contexts on Learners’ Comprehension and Retention of L2 Idioms 3.3 Introduction to Experiment 1

One of the pillar-stones of good language teaching is for instructors to be able to create positive and engaging learning situations in which students become motivated and feel a genuine eagerness to learn. Research shows that such situations can be created by making use of language to which native speakers are naturally exposed, i.e. authentic text (Cameron, 2001; Halliwell, 1992). Since idiomatic expressions are especially prolific in informal spoken language (Cooper, 1998; Larzar et al., 1989; Liu, 2000, 2008), TV shows, reality shows, soap operas, films and situation comedies are all genres that may be used to create such pleasurable learning situations by forming links between society and the L2 classroom. Using films, for example, is thought to be motivating because ‘a film with a story that wants to be told’ is more likely to be engaging ‘than a lesson that needs to be taught’ (Ward & Lepeintre, 1996, see also Chang et al., 2011; Clifford et al., 1995; Fisch et al., 2001; Massi & Merino, 1996; Secules et al., 1992; Silvia, 2008; Stempleski, 2000). Also, as this type of teaching material is

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still comparatively infrequently used in classrooms today, it may ignite an extra spark of interest among students (Saffarian et al., 2013). In the present chapter, the fi rst experiment will explore this further by investigating the effects of captioned audio-visual input in the form of movie clips. Both the learners’ comprehension and retention of idiomatic expressions, when provided with such input, will be investigated. 3.4 Theoretical Background and Previous Research

The present section is divided into two main parts. In the first part, previous investigations on the effects of movie clips on learners’ comprehension and retention of idiomatic expressions will be presented. In the second part, the effects of factors pertaining to the showing of audiovisual material as implemented in the present experiment will be discussed. Previous studies on the effects of audio-visual input in the form of movie clips

A great deal of research shows that audio-visual input generally appears to enhance vocabulary learning (e.g. Akbulut, 2007 (annotations); Chih-cheng, 2009 (animation); Chun & Plass, 1996 (annotations); Arikan & Ulaş Taraf, 2010 (cartoons); Barani et al., 2010 (watching and listening, listening and drawing, etc.)). Just a handful of studies, however, have been performed to explore the value of audio-visual input in the form of movie clips on the learning of idiomatic expressions specifically. In Tabatabaei and Gahroei (2011), 60 intermediate Iranian male students (ages ranging from 16 to 18) were divided into two homogenous groups. While the subjects belonging to the control group were taught the test items in a more traditional manner by using synonyms and antonyms, the subjects in the experimental group were shown movie clips with the same expressions. The study included 30 items, the selection of which was based on the students’ level of proficiency, culture, religion, interest and availability. During the teaching process, three idioms were presented during each of the ten teaching sessions. Prior to these sessions, the subjects were also asked to take a pretest in the form of a multiple-choice test. No statistically confi rmed difference between the two groups was then detected. After ten weeks, a post-test, which was a replica of the pretest, was administered. It included 20 of the original 30 test items. The results of this post-test show that the students in the experimental group remembered more idioms (mean: 16.33) than those students who had been taught the idioms in a more conventional way (mean: 15.37). This difference was also proven to be statistically significant. The researchers therefore concluded that using movie clips seems to be a fruitful technique when teaching/learning L2 idioms in a classroom setting.

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In Mahmoodi-Shahrebabaki (2014) too, a group of 60 intermediate Iranian male EFL students (aged 16–20) were tested on their retention of English idioms. The set-up mimics the Tabatabaei and Gahroei (2011) study discussed above precisely: the learners making up the control group taught with the help of synonyms and antonyms, while the subjects in the experimental group were provided with movie clips. The treatment period lasted six weeks for both groups, during which 20 idioms were presented to the students as described above. At the end of term, a post-test was then administered. The results again showed that the learners who had received input in the form of movie clips remembered more idioms than those who had been taught in a more traditional way. One obvious drawback of these two studies is that neither addresses the effects of the degree of transparency and familiarity. As seen in Chapter 2, these are factors that may influence students’ performance. Freyn and Gross’s investigation (2017) instead focuses on 81 Ecuadorian university students (male and female, ages between 18 and 25) with majors in a wide variety of subjects, none of which are languageoriented. In contrast to Tabatabaei and Gahroei (2011) and MahmoodiShahrebabaki (2014) presented above, the 20 expressions incorporated were, the researchers claim, of varying transparency and familiarity, although no details are given of this. While, provided with a list of the idioms and their defi nitions, the informants taking part in the control group were simply asked to study the expressions for the upcoming quiz, the subjects making up the experimental group were instead requested to participate in a number of teaching sessions. In the first session, they were presented with the idioms in clips from various movies and television shows. Next, in pairs, they were asked to put together a digitally composed interpretation of one of the idioms, which was randomly selected. Finally, in a group of two to three students, the testees were requested to re-enact the meaning of two of the idioms. These too were chosen randomly. All three sessions took one week to complete, after which the learners in the experimental group as well as those in the control group were tested by means of a multiple-choice quiz. (To ascertain that the two groups were homogenous, a pre-test was also administered.) The results of this test showed that the multimodal group outperformed the control group, and that the difference was statistically confirmed. It is of course difficult to determine what role the first session, i.e. the use of video clips, played in this successful outcome. Also, the paper includes no discussion regarding the students’ achievements in relation to the expressions’ compositionality and commonality, which could have made an interesting contribution. In Asschier (2014), the effects of audio-visual contexts versus written contexts on idiom comprehension in English as an L2 were studied. Two groups of Swedish second-year upper-secondary-school students were faced with the same nine idiomatic expressions. Whereas Group 1 was

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presented with the idioms in clips from sitcoms and TV dramas, none of which were captioned, the students making up Group 2 were confronted with the same idioms in a transcribed version. Furthermore, of the nine idioms tested, three were categorized as transparent, another three semitransparent and the last three as opaque in nature. The categorization was based on Karlsson (2013a). Prior to treatment, both groups also took a decontextualized test, where the tokens for which correct meanings were given were removed from the comprehension test. Most of the idioms that were already known or whose meanings were guessed correctly here fell into the transparent category. The results of the investigation clearly show that an audio-visual context helps comprehension of L2 idioms to a greater extent than a written one, as in the former case, 31% of the answers offered were correct, as compared to 14% in the latter case. Additionally, in only 27% of the cases in the audio-visual group, the students indicated that they still did not understand the meaning of the idiom after treatment, while the corresponding figure for the group faced with a written context was as high as 63%. It seems, according to the author, a possible reason for this result is that the audio-visual input may have constituted a new and exciting way of learning idioms, and the students belonging to this group may therefore have tried a bit harder. However, it needs to be pointed out that for some of the students being confronted with an audio-visual context was no mean task. In this group, 38% of the answers given were incorrect, while this was the case with only 20% of the answers in Group 2. This suggests that some students are more likely to benefit from an audio-visual context than others. That is, there may be individual preferences independent of the performance of the group as a whole. This will be explored further in the section that follows. Finally, when the idioms were regarded from a transparency perspective, the results again indicated that an audio-visual context assists comprehension more than a written one. In the former case, 13%/11% correct answers for semi-transparent/opaque items were given; in the latter case, the corresponding figure was 4.5% for each group respectively. However, the fact that a great number of transparent idioms were removed from the comprehension test due to their positive result on the pretest may of course have distorted these results. Based on the relatively few investigations that exist in this area of research, it appears that movie clips may enhance both learners’ comprehension and retention of L2 idioms. Factors pertaining to the audio-visual mode as implemented in the present study Contextual clues in listening comprehension versus written text

Today it seems an indisputable fact that supplying learners with written context has positive effects on students’ comprehension and retention

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of previously unknown words, provided, of course, that the context is supportive enough (Nation, 2001). In addition to the fact that between 95% and 98% of the words in a text need to be known in order for a learner to be able to make successful inferences (Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984; Laufer, 1988; Laufer & Sim, 1985; Liu & Nation, 1985; Nation, 2001), there are a number of other so-called mediating factors. Examples of such factors are the familiarity of the topic of the text (Nation, 2001) and the concept of the word sought (Daneman & Green, 1986; Nagy et al., 1989; Shefelbine, 1990), the degree of importance of the unfamiliar word to the understanding of the text (Nation, 2001; Sternberg, 1987), the number of occurrences (Horst et  al., 1998; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986; Sternberg, 1987) and the proximity of the recurrence of the unfamiliar word (Nation, 2001). See also Chapter 2 (the subsection on context) where this is discussed in more detail. However, most research on inferencing has, as Cai and Wu (2007) state, primarily focused on written text (e.g. Bengeleil & Paribakht, 2004, Bensoussan & Laufer, 1984, Haastrup, 1991, Haynes, 1993; Huckin & Bloch, 1993; Nagy, 1997; Nassaji, 2004; Riazi & Babaei, 2008), i.e. comparatively little is known about how L2 learners deal with unfamiliar words in listening comprehension tasks. The research that does exist shows that success in L2 lexical inferencing in listening is, unsurprisingly, linked to learners’ general level of listening proficiency (Goh, 2000; Khomeijani Farahani & Mohammadi Foomani, 2015) as well as their level of vocabulary knowledge (Alderson, 2005; Kurita, 2012; Staehr, 2009; Van Zeeland, 2014). Furthermore, even though the factors listed above may apply to listening comprehension too, some of the existing research suggests that there may be some fundamental differences between making inferences from a spoken text as compared to a written one. In one part of Cai and Lee (2010), L2 learners’ inferencing strategies based on spoken text are explored and discussed. Twenty Chinese major students of English (ages ranging from 18 to 20) made up the informant group, half of whom displayed advanced listening skills, while the other half were low-achievers in the same modality. All subjects were asked to listen to nine texts in which popular science was the main theme, each text comprising about four to five sentences with one word to be inferred. All of the nine test items were invented words but kept the morphological make-up, inflectional as well as derivational, of the original word. Furthermore, three of the test words were provided with local contextual clues, i.e. clues found in the same sentence as the target item itself. Examples of such clues are cohesive ties, such as synonyms and antonyms, subordinates and superordinates, collocations and different types of coherence, such as causal, consequential and contrastive relations. Another three of the test words were supplied with global contextual clues, i.e. making successful use of these clues entailed being able to integrate information all throughout the text. Finally, the last three test items

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were provided with extra-textual clues, i.e. these clues did not come from the actual text but here the students had to resort to their general knowledge of the world. On a more general level, the students made a great many inferences in connection with all nine texts. This supports the claim that inferencing is not only part of the reading process, but a very essential part of the listening process too (Buck, 2001; Field, 1998; O’Malley et  al., 1989; O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Nation, 2001; Oxford, 1990; Richards, 1983; Ross, 1997; Rost, 1990). The experiment also revealed that the learners made most inferences with the words for which global contextual clues were offered. This thus differs substantially from what has been found in studies focusing on reading comprehension where learners tend to favour local contextual clues (e.g. Haynes, 1993; Huckin & Bloch, 1993). According to Cai and Lee (2010), this is a natural consequence of the transient nature of a spoken text in which rechecking information, an integral part of working with a written text, cannot be done (see also Weber & Scharenborg, 2012). Dealing with a text that quickly fades away instead means that a general understanding, resorting to all kinds of information throughout the entire text, takes precedence. Put differently, several global clues are better than one local clue for a text that does not last very long, as the more clues there are the more traces are left in the learner’s memory. This agrees with Lund (1991) and Park (2004). In Lund (1991), L2 learners of German were presented with either a written version or a spoken version of one and the same text. The results showed that the readers generally remembered more details than did the listeners, who in turn better remembered general ideas. In Park (2004), with the help of questions focusing on local and global information, the same conclusion was drawn. A second determining factor noted in Cai and Lee has to do with whether the word to be inferred dealt with the theme of the text or with a detail only. Here theme-related items generally received higher scores than those words that were less prominent in the text. Both factors that were shown to play important roles in the listening inferencing process thus deal with the level of depth of the attention paid. These results hence tally with what is predicted by the Levels of Processing Theory, as discussed in the second subsection in 3.2. As the study allowed the informants to listen to each text twice, making it easier to attend to global clues, and only involved a relatively small sample (20 students and nine short texts), the results should perhaps be interpreted with some caution. In fact, in Van Zeeland (2014), the opposite conclusion was drawn. She tested native (47 subjects, between 18 and 36 years old) as well as non-native university students of various linguistic backgrounds (30 subjects, between 20 and 40 years old) on two spoken texts in English, one on a topic that was thought to be familiar to the informants (methods used by the police to fight crime) and one that was thought to be less familiar (new technique to fight malaria). Each text

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was in turn divided into 10 chunks, each chunk incorporating one test item. Most importantly, half of the 10 test items were supplied with local clues and the rest with global clues, the latter ones always provided in a paragraph preceding the sought-for meaning. Also, all of the test items were non-words. The results showed that while the NSs achieved a higher accuracy rate than the NNSs, all learners made more correct inferences of items with local than global clues. That is, Van Zeeland’s learners displayed the same pattern with spoken text as the one generally seen when learners approach written text (Bengeleil & Paribakht, 2004; Paribakht, 2005; Wesche & Paribakht, 2010). The fact that only two types of clues were provided (as compared to three in Cai & Lee, 2010), that the informants only listened to the texts once, as well as the incorporation of some older learners and the greater number of learners are all factors that may have contributed to a result different than what was obtained in Cai and Lee (2010). Captioned subtitles

Quite a few studies show that captions (subtitling in the target language), when added to audio-visual input, generally improve learners’ L2 listening comprehension skills (Baltova, 1999; Chang et al., 2011; Garza, 1991; Ghasemboland & Nafissi, 2012; Guillory, 1998; Markham, 1993, 2001; Price, 1983; Vanderplank, 1988; Woottipong, 2014). Research also indicates that captions may strengthen students’ comprehension and retention of the form and meaning of L2 vocabulary (Danan, 1995; D’Ydewalle & Pavakanun, 1996; Ebrahimi & Bazaee, 2016; Etemad, 2012; Harji et  al., 2010; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Rizkiani, 2015; Sydorenko, 2010; Urkedal York, 2016). That is, in accordance with the Dual Coding Theory (see the fi rst subsection in 3.2) (see also Jones, 2003 and Grgurović & Hegelheimer, 2007), simultaneous exposure to spoken and written text as well as visual cues appears to enhance students’ chances of learning L2 vocabulary. More recently, studies have appeared that specifically focus on the effects of multimedia input with captions on idiomatic expressions. In an article by Bagheri and Ghoorchaei (2014), 75 Iranian learners, all female between the ages of 16 and 24, were divided into three groups, all of which were taught the same 30 English idioms. While one group was shown movie clips with captions, another one was shown the same clips without the written input. The students in the last third, making up the control group, received no multimedia input, but were simply presented with the idioms orally. For all three informant groups, the treatment consisted of ten sessions, during each of which three idioms were in focus. The achievements of the different informant groups on an immediate multiple-choice post-test tally with what was predicted by the researchers. That is, the students supplied with movie clips outperformed the students who did not receive any multimedia input, those learners provided with

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captions performing the best. However, there are two major drawbacks with the study. Firstly, although compositionality is discussed in the theoretical background, it is unclear if expressions of different degrees of transparency were actually included. As discussed in the previous chapter, compositionality may affect the level of learnability. Also, a pre-test was administered, but it is not clear if this focused on the items selected for treatment. If not, the value of such a test is questionable. In Jahanyfard (2015), Arab, Chinese and Japanese students (ages between 20 and 40), trying to learn English phrases and idioms, were divided into three test groups. All three groups received the same input, which consisted of a 5-minute-long interview, shown twice, with a famous movie star. The interview included eleven phrases/idioms, whose degree of transparency was not considered. One group saw the interview without captions; another group with captions; a third group with captions in which the phrases/expressions also were highlighted. The results on an immediate multiple-choice post-test showed that the two test groups that had received captioned input achieved the highest scores, the students having seen the phrases/idioms in a highlighted form doing the best. (Tokens of correctly answered meanings on a pre-test were here removed before analysis began.) Similar to Bagheri and Ghoorchaei (2014) discussed above, Ketabi and Sadeghi (2013) focused on Iranian students (82 female learners, ages ranging from 15 to 20) trying to learn English idioms. However, instead of movie clips, the informants belonging to the experimental group were offered captioned slides with audio-visual input, while the subjects making up the control group were faced with the same slides but without audio and captions. In total, 40 expressions were taught during a 15-week treatment period. In addition to this input, after each teaching session, all students did different kinds of exercises, such as matching, multiple-choice, fi ll in the blanks and retelling of stories. At the end of the treatment period, all learners took a post-test, which was in the form of a multiplechoice test including four alternative answers. This investigation too shows an advantageous outcome for the group having received input with captions as compared to the group that had to do without such input. Interestingly enough, when proficiency level was considered, no differences could be detected. This made the researchers draw the conclusion that slides with captions may work for low- and high-achievers as well as students who are at an intermediate level. In Pasban et al. (2015), it is shown that captions also have a positive effect on the learning of phrasal verbs. 60 intermediate Iranian learners of English as a second language (ages between 16 and 22, and evenly distributed between male and female students) were here divided into two homogenous groups. Again, the informants who had watched movie clips with captions clearly outperformed those who had not received any subtitling input.

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Yilmaz Atagul (2016), lastly, focuses on foreign learners of Turkish. While the 81 students incorporated in the experimental group were shown the target items in captioned movie clips, the 56 students making up the control group were only supplied with lists of the idioms and proverbs tested and asked to study them. The results on a post-test showed that the informants who had received treatment did considerably better than those who had not, the researcher drawing the conclusion that captioned movie clips is a fruitful approach to teaching figurative language in Turkish. The overall impression of the studies presented above is that captions can promote learning in a second language. However, there are studies where no gain has been shown. The explanation usually offered for such a result is that learners, as they are trying to attend to three types of stimuli at the same time (audio, imagery and text), may, in accordance with the Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 2005; Sweller et al., 1998), experience an overload due to the limits of working memory (Baddeley, 1986, 1992; Borrell, 2000; Chandler & Sweller, 1991; Robinson, 2003; Sweller, 1999). Put differently, students who are unable to process three modalities simultaneously may, instead of being helped, be impeded or even rendered linguistically paralyzed. This seems especially to be the case with less advanced learners (Borrás & Lafayette, 1994; Danan, 2004; Garza, 1991; Guillory, 1998; Markham, 1993; Mitterer & McQueen, 2009; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Stanovich, 1986; Yoshida et al., 1998), as they tend to process L2 input word by word in both written and spoken language (Baltova, 1999; Cziko, 1978; Davis & Bistodeau, 1993; Geva & Clifton, 1994; Haastrup, 1991b). In Taylor (2005), for example, where the effects of presenting students of Spanish with three-modality input was investigated, it was shown that while the more advanced learners were able to make use of all three types of input to a great extent, the beginners found captions distracting. One reason for this may be that subtitling, unlike other types of written text, is as transient as the audio-visual output it is intended to support. A normal two-liner (2 times 40 letters (De Linde & Kay, 1999)) is usually displayed for 5–7 seconds only (Ivarsson & Carroll, 1998), which makes it difficult to pay attention to all three modalities simultaneously. Research suggests that in order for L2 learners to be able to make use of such input, they need to have developed a certain threshold of competence (Cummins, 1979). Other investigations indicate that less advanced learners may benefit from captions if word form is the focus of the task at hand (Sydorenko, 2010). Still other studies suggest that the ability to process captions may be culture-dependent. In Vanderplank (1988), for instance, it was shown that while the learners who were used to captioned subtitles, students from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, processed them successfully, students from Arabicspeaking countries, where captions are not implemented to the same extent, were not equally successful. The latter students instead reported that the L2 text distracted them.

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Phonetic and prosodic features of idiomatic expressions versus individual words

In the area of figurative language, comparatively little research has been done on L2 students’ ability to perceive phonetic and prosodic features, such as intonation, loudness, pitch, rhythm, stress, timing and voice quality. Studies that have been performed, however, clearly show that these factors play important roles in distinguishing literal interpretations of strings of words from idiomatic ones, i.e. such cues seem to be tightly knit to constituent size and type (Hallin & Van Lancker Sidtis, 2015; Maltese et al., 2012; Van Lancker Sidtis, 2003). This is the reason why a native speaker would not only perceive the use of the idiom be in someone’s shoes in I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes like that as semantically incorrect (like that being impossible to include), but also perceive it to sound utterly wrong, as a native speaker places the accent on his instead of on shoes (Lindfield et al., 1999). Such attunement is confi rmed in several studies on native speakers. In Van Lancker and Canter (1981), for example, informants whose mother tongue was English were presented orally with ambiguous sentences that could be interpreted both literally and figuratively. The study revealed, among many things, that not only did the literal interpretations and each individual constituent in them generally take longer to say, but the pauses made between the key words were longer than in the figurative versions. Moreover, in the literal interpretations there were many more rapid rises and falls and a higher mean frequency on the individual constituents than in the idiomatic versions. All of these features thus help the native speaker to distinguish a figurative interpretation from a literal one. (See also Van Lancker et  al. (1981) in which these diff erences are confi rmed.) In another study by Van Lancker-Sidtis (2003), four student groups were compared: (1) native speakers of American English, (2) native speakers of non-American English, (3) non-native speakers who at the point of testing used English as their primary language, and (4) students of English from varying backgrounds. All subjects were between 22 and 45 years of age. Presented in an auditory channel only, the sentences the testees were confronted with could be interpreted in three different ways: literally only, figuratively only or either literally or figuratively. Also, in one task, randomized single sentences were offered, while in another task, contrastive sentence pairs were played. The results of the experiment, irrespective of task type, confi rms the superiority of native speakers’ ability to use phonetic and prosodic cues to distinguish between idiomatic phrases and literal interpretations. See also Lin (2012) whose results point in the same direction. This also suggests that such features are among the last to be learned in a second language, and they are therefore likely to cause major problems to L2 learners (Van Lancker-Sidtis, 2003).

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Gestures, facial expressions and lip movements

Closely linked to phonetic and prosodic features, though not considered to any great extent in the present study, is non-verbal communication (McNeill, 1992), such as body and head movements, hand and arm gestures, facial expressions, eye gaze, posture and interpersonal distance (Kellerman, 1992), all of which have been shown to strengthen learners’ language comprehension in various ways. See, for instance, Cassell et al. (1999), Goldin-Meadow (1999), Goodwin (2000), Hadar et al. (1998), Kendon (2000), McNeill (1992), Morrel-Samuels and Krauss (1992), Riseborough (1981) and Von Raffler-Engel (1980) who all focus on fi rst language learners, and Baltova (1994), Cabrera and Martinez (2001), Gass (1997), Hernandez (2005), Jylha-Laide and Karreinen (1993), Long (1996), Pica (1994), Rubin (1990) and Secules et al. (1992) who deal with L2 learners. Lip movement too has been shown to enhance learners’ language comprehension. See Hardison (1999) and McGurk and McDonald (1976). In an investigation by Sueyoshi and Hardison (2005), for example, the effects of gestures and facial cues (i.e. lip movements) on second language learners’ listening comprehension skills were explored. 42 ESL students with mixed L1 backgrounds made up the informants. They were divided into three groups. One group received oral input, accompanied with cospeech gestures and lip movements. Another group received oral input with co-speech lip movements only. The third group received oral input only. Each of these three groups were then divided into a high- and lowachieving subset. Results on a multiple-choice test clearly show that the two groups who received visual support outperformed the group who did not. Furthermore, a difference between advanced students and lowachievers could be detected in that the former group did the best when the oral input was combined with lip movement only, while the latter group did the best when they received both types of visual input, thereby offering them alternative clues to choose from. In Cornejo et al. (2009), the effects of gestures on the comprehension of figurative language by Spanish L1 students were investigated. While fi lmed, an actor was asked to use 68 metaphoric expressions in simple, yet complete sentences. These metaphors were all co-produced with hand and arm movements, half of which were congruent with the meaning of the expression at hand, while the others were not. As the students did much better with the expressions that were supported in a congruous way, the results of the experiment clearly indicate that gestures, when added to spoken language, enhance learners’ understanding of metaphors. Other studies, such as Gibbs et al. (2002) and McNeill (2000), confirm this conclusion. It is not too far-fetched to assume that L2 learners too could benefit from gestures when trying to disambiguate the meaning of metaphoric language, but that there may be, as suggested in Sueyoshi and Hardison (2005) discussed above, differences between advanced and less advanced students. More research is defi nitely needed in this area.

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Learner attention span

To a certain point, a learner’s attention span appears to vary functionally according to age. For children, it has been suggested that it corresponds to their chronological age + 1 minute. That is, a child who is six years old seems to have an attention span of approximately seven minutes (The Student Coalition for Action in Literacy Education). For grown-ups, the average attention span seems to be around 20 minutes, but may vary quite a bit depending on how engaging the task is, how useful the learner fi nds the information provided, etc. Furthermore, due to the fast pace of modern technologies, which has been observed to cause rewiring in the brain to accommodate to this new pace, the average attention span appears to be decreasing and may be as low as five minutes for some individuals in certain situations (Kohn, 2014). 3.5 The Present Study – Captioned Audio-visual Context Research question addressed

The present investigation aims to address the following research question: Do captioned audio-visual contexts in the form of movie clips enhance comparatively advanced learners’ comprehension and retention of L2 idioms? The informants

A total number of 57 students, all of whom were studying within the Swedish educational system to become school instructors teaching learners between the ages of six and 12, participated in the present experiment. These students form two main groups, one of which was tested on comprehension (C-group) and the other on retention (R-group). Each of these two main groups then form two subsets in which the test items were contextualized in different ways. In one of the two subsets, as a point of reference, the informants were presented with the idioms in a written context (CW-group and RW-group); in the other subset, the treatment group, the students were subjected to a captioned audio-visual context (CA-group and RA-group). (The tests themselves will be explained further in the subsections that follow.) Table 3.1 offers an overview of the four student groups. The reason why the number of informants differs between the groups is that the learners were tested different terms and the present author was thus limited to the students available during those specific times. It was also ascertained that the mother tongue of all the informants was Swedish and that none of them used English or any other language as their first language.

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Table 3.1 The student groups in the present experiment Student group

N

Gender F

Age M

Range

Mean

SD

Comprehension/ Written context (CW)

10

7

3

20–38

23.00

5.62

Comprehension/Audiovisual context (CA)

11

8

3

20–29

23.45

2.88

Retention/Written context (RW)

17

16

1

20–42

26.06

7.34

Retention/Audio-visual context (RA)

19

17

2

20–46

25.21

6.65

The test items

All four informant groups were confronted with the same 23 idioms.1 The selection of test items was entirely based on the availability of idioms in captioned audio-visual contexts supportive enough to give solid clues about their meanings. As idioms are highly register-sensitive items of vocabulary, mostly occurring in informal spoken language (Cooper, 1998; Larzar et al., 1989; Liu, 2000, 2008), the present author decided to explore the possibility of using sitcoms as a source. Having noted a prolific number of idioms in the American comedy The Big Bang Theory earlier, this sitcom was looked into first and immediately proved useful. The Big Bang Theory is about the trials and tribulations of a group of young science nerds. First there is Sheldon, the mother of all nerds, and Leonard, Sheldon’s roommate. Then there is Howard, the only one in the group without a PhD and reminded of this again and again, and Raj, who without being inebriated cannot talk to girls. The show also includes Sheldon and Leonard’s nextdoor neighbour Penny, who is Leonard’s on-off girlfriend, and an aspiring actress. Later in the series, two other main characters, both of whom are also scientists, make an entrance: Amy, who, despite Sheldon’s unwillingness, becomes his girlfriend, and Bernadette, who, even though everyone thinks she is too good for him, becomes Howard’s girlfriend. Twenty-one of the 23 test items come from this series. All of these idioms were shown in a captioned form, i.e. they were subtitled in the informants’ L2. The last two idioms (hear something through the grapevine and do something with bells on) were found accidently while watching The Real Housewives of Vancouver, which is a reality show depicting the luxurious lives of a group of jet set women. This show was subtitled in Swedish, but the two idioms were not translated. Thus, despite the fact that captioned audiovisual context is in focus, it was decided to include these two idioms in the present experiment. To familiarize the informants with the audio-visual material, the above descriptions were also offered to them. It turned out that most of

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them had already watched The Big Bang Theory, while only a few had seen The Real Housewives of Vancouver. All 23 test items are presented in Table 3.2 in the order in which they were shown to the informants on the pretest. (The reader will receive more information about the treatment in the subsection that follows.) Written contexts of a supportive nature were then constructed for the same 23 items. In the majority of cases, these contexts were taken from Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary (2002), some of which were simplified so as to avoid unnecessarily difficult vocabulary. In the remaining cases, the contexts were put together by the present author.

Table 3.2 The test items in the present experiment, including details about the audio-visual showing Clips/Idioms Global/ Theme

Idiom

Local/ Detail

Clips Length of scene

Occurrence of idiom Initially

X X

hear sth through the grapevine

2.48

Mid-scene At the end

X

have a bone to pick with sb

0.59

X

mum’s the word

2.05

X

X

do sth with bells on

2.00

X

X

bark up the wrong tree

2.15

throw sb a bone

2.15

X2

as the crow flies

1.29

X

X X

X

X

X

pick sb’s brain

0.49

X

X

beat around the bush

1.20

X

X

knock sb’s socks off

1.17

X

X

cut to the chase

1.17

X

X

tilt at windmills

0.45

X

X

call shotgun

1.31

X

dot one’s ‘i’s and cross one’s ‘t’s

1.06

X

give tit for tat

2.08

X3

X X X X X

beyond the pale

4.53

I’ll have no truck with sb/sth

1.20

spill the beans

1.55

bite the dust

1.10

X

like two peas in a pod

1.15

X

be the worse for wear

0.47

X

paint the town red (beige)

0.32

X

tie the knot

1.48

X

X X X X X X X X

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87

Another three pieces of information, relevant to the audio-visual presentation of the idioms only, are included in Table 3.2. As discussed in Section 3.4, there may be two main qualitative differences in the inferencing process of a listening comprehension task versus a written comprehension task, both being due to the fact that oral input is of a much more transient nature than written input. The reader is reminded that in Cai and Lee (2010), the results showed that learners, when subjected to an auditory test, are more likely to resort to global clues, i.e. clues found throughout a text, than local ones, i.e. clues found in the proximity of the unknown word, and that they do better when the sought-for meaning pertain to a theme than a mere detail. These two factors were therefore taken into consideration in the present study. Interestingly enough, in all of the clips the two factors co-occur, so that when global clues were offered, the meaning of the idiom sought was also the theme of the scene, and when only local clues were offered, the meaning of the idiom only dealt with a detail in the clip. Accordingly, 12 of the test items are of the former type, while 11 are of the latter type. This is presented in Table 3.2. Also, as there is a limit to learners’ attention span (see the last part of Section 3.4), both the lengths of the scenes in which the idioms occurred and when in the scenes the idioms occurred (initially, mid-scene or at the end) were considered. The scenes span from 32 seconds for the shortest one to 4 minutes and 53 seconds for the longest one. Three idioms occur initially, nine mid-scene and eleven at the end. This information is also given in Table 3.2. Furthermore, as the degree of transparency plays a role in whether idioms are understood or not (see Chapter 2, the subsection on transparency), this factor was deemed important to consider for the test items at hand. Thirteen of the 23 test items were categorized as opaque, 10 as semi-transparent and none fully transparent (see Table 3.3). For a more detailed description of the categorization process and examples thereof, the reader is referred to Chapter 2, Section 2.3. Moreover, idiom frequency was taken into consideration (see also Chapter 2, the subsection on frequency). As in Chapter 2, this categorization was based on Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary (2002). Accordingly, 6 of the 21 test items are very frequently used, 12 are frequently used and 5 are infrequently used (see again Table 3.3). For a more detailed description of this categorization process, the reader is again referred to Chapter 2, Section 2.3. The design

The entire research project took place within the framework of a proficiency course in English, of which vocabulary in general and idiomatic expressions are part. It is regularly given to learners studying to become

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Table 3.3 The English idioms used as test items in the present experiment, including information about their degree of transparency and frequency Transparency Semitransparent

Idiom Nontransparent

Very frequent

X

hear sth through the grapevine

X

have a bone to pick with sb

X

mum’s the word

X

do sth with bells on

X

bark up the wrong tree

X

throw sb a bone X

Frequency Frequent

X X X X X X

as the crow flies

X

X

pick sb’s brain

X

X

beat around the bush

X

X

knock sb’s socks off

X

X

cut to the chase

X

X

tilt at windmills

X

X

call shotgun

X

X

dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s

X

X

give tit for tat

X

X

beyond the pale

X

X

I’ll have no truck with sb/sth

X

X

spill the beans

X

X

bite the dust

X

X

like two peas in a pod

X

X

be the worse for wear

X

paint the town red (beige)4

X

tie the knot

Not frequent

X X X

elementary and middle school teachers at the university where the present author currently works. Before any of the testing took place, all of the learners were introduced to the concept of idiomaticity. This was done by briefly discussing the literal versus the idiomatic interpretation of the expression kick the bucket, thus making sure that they understood on what they were going to be tested. Prior to treatment, all of the informants, irrespective of which subgroup they were assigned to, were also subjected to a decontextualized pretest in order to ascertain with which of the idioms they were already familiar, as exemplified in:

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89

knock someone’s socks off A  I have heard/seen this expression before  I have not heard/seen this expression before B  I am sure I know what this expression means = _________________  I think I know what this expression means = ___________________  I do not know what this expression means

Moreover, the students were also asked to give information about whether they had heard/seen the expression before and, if so, to what degree they were certain of the meaning of the idiom. The tokens for which individual learners were here able to offer the correct meanings were then excluded from the students’ achievements on all the following tests. In the group which was met with a written context and tested on comprehension (the CW-group), the subjects were provided with a test sheet on which all of the 23 idioms could be found, according to the following example: spill the beans

He always seemed scared to death I was going to spill the beans = ________________ to the police about what he had done.

The items were simultaneously shown in a PowerPoint presentation and each context read aloud by the present author. On the test sheet as well as in the PowerPoint presentation, the idioms were presented in bold. After each test item, the students were given the time to write down their inferred meaning of the idiom at hand. The informants were not provided with any additional information, such as the meaning of other words in the given context. In the test group which was tested on comprehension audio-visually (the CA-group), the students were presented with the 23 scenes one by one with a short hiatus in between so as to give them enough time to write down their interpretation of the idiom at hand. (The idiom itself was given on the answering sheet.) Also, before each scene, to set the stage, the present author offered a brief account of what had previously transpired. Similarly to the CW-group, however, no further information was provided. The following is an example of one of the scenes and the information given before the showing: Pre-scene information: Two women, who have been quarrelling for quite some time, meet in a restaurant to talk things out.

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Description of scene: While walking into a restaurant, where Mary is already waiting, Judy tells the TV viewers that she has heard through the grapevine that Mary has been spreading rumours about her. Judy therefore intends to have it out with her. In the rest of the scene, the two women argue about who has said what, neither Judy nor Mary admitting that they have done anything wrong. In the end, Judy storms out of the restaurant without having resolved anything.

On both the CW and CA tests described above, the test items were given in the same order as on the pretest (i.e. the same order as presented in Tables 3.2 and 3.3). In the subgroups that were tested on retention (i.e. the RW-group (written context) and the RA-group (captioned audio-visual context), the procedure was identical to the one described above, but for one part: instead of asking the informants to provide their answers on their own, the meanings of the idioms, based on their contexts, were discussed in the subgroup as a whole. All of the learners were encouraged to participate as much as possible. Once a correct answer had been arrived at, the students were asked to write this down in their worksheets. In connection with this, there was also a short discussion about the clues that had led them to the correct answer. The worksheets were then collected. Immediately after, these two test groups were subjected to their first of two post-tests. Here the idioms occurred in a decontextualized form, different from the order in which they were presented on the pretest/worksheet. In addition, the students were also asked to verbalize, if they now remembered the meaning of the idiom, what it was that had helped them. This is summarized in the following example: bark up the wrong tree  I am sure I know what this expression means = _________________  I think I know what this expression means = ___________________  I do not know what this expression means If you did not know this expression before but now do (either sure or think you do), is there any particular reason why you now remember it? __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________

Exactly three weeks later, which follows Schmitt’s (2010b) suggestion that a minimum of three weeks is necessary to be able to show durable learning, a delayed post-test was administered to the RW and RA-groups. This test too was in a decontextualized form, in yet another order of presentation.

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91

The students were not informed beforehand that they would be given immediate and delayed post-tests checking their retention. Irrespective of whether comprehension or retention was in focus, the captioned audio-visual material took in each case more than double the time (about 1½ hours) as the written material to go through with the students. On all of the tests, each correct answer was awarded one point. No half points were given. Answers in English, Swedish or a combination of both languages were all accepted. 3.6 Results and Discussion

In the following subsections, the students’ results on the comprehension test and immediate and delayed post-tests will be discussed. As the students’ knowledge before treatment bears relevance on some of these results, their achievements on the pretest will also be presented. Results on the pretest

Table 3.4 shows that all four student groups had some previous knowledge of the test items. The scores are, however, quite low, indicating that the learners’ prior mastery was limited. This is substantiated further by the fact that in the self-evaluation, many of the students indicated that they only thought they knew the meanings instead of being completely sure (see the last subsection in 3.5). Five expressions received scores in all four groups. These are, in descending order of accuracy: cut to the chase (28 correct answers for the four student groups), knock somebody’s socks off (21 correct answers), have a bone to pick with somebody (also 21), call shotgun (16) and like two peas in a pod (8). As four of these idioms are opaque in character, the students’ knowledge of these particular items is apparently not based on their degree of transparency (see Table 3.3). Also, although none of these five expressions are very frequently used, as based on Collins Cobuild Idioms Table 3.4 The students’ results on the decontextualized pretest Student group

N

Idioms known

Mean

SD

Standardized scores

Comprehension/ Written context (CW)

10

21/230 = 9.13%

2.10

1.52

H: 1.25; L: −1.38

Comprehension/Audiovisual context (CA)

11

36/253 = 14.23%

3.27

3.61

H: 1.86; L: −0.91

Retention/Written context (RW)

17

22/391 = 5.63%

1.29

1.36

H: 2.73; L: −0.95

Retention/Audio-visual context (RA)

19

63/437 = 14.42%

3.32

2.36

H: 1.56; L: −1.41

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Dictionary (2002) (see again Table 3.3), they are not infrequently used either. The students’ achievements on the pretest may therefore, to some extent, be concluded to be based on the number of times the learners had previously heard/seen these expressions rather than their degree of decomposability. This in turn, as discussed in Chapter 2 (the subsection on frequency), lends support to frequency being able to help predict what idioms are most likely to already be a part of a learner’s mental lexicon. Superficially, this does not seem to tally with the Levels of Processing Theory, which suggests that it is not the number of encounters but the depth of the encounter/s that determines whether a vocabulary item is remembered or not. In this case, however, frequency and the Levels of Processing Theory are not irreconcilable, since the more times you encounter an item, the more likely it is that one or several of those encounters involves semantic processing, maybe through dual coding, which is the deepest type of processing and thought to create solid retrieval paths in memory. Results on the comprehension test

Table 3.5 shows the students’ results on the comprehension test. The reader is reminded that while the participants in the control group (CW) were offered the idioms in short written contexts, the subjects in the treatment group (CA) were presented with the idioms as used in captioned audio-visual clips. Although the results indicate a slight advantage of the CA-group, no statistical confi rmation could be obtained of this. The conclusion can therefore be drawn that presenting learners with captioned audio-visual input generally does not enhance students’ comprehension of L2 expressions much more than short written contexts. Considering the fact that the experimental group had a better understanding of figurative language than the control group at the outset, as shown by the mean scores on the pretest (see Table 3.4), this interpretation is strengthened even further. This result disagrees with what was seen in Asschier (2014), discussed in the first subsection in 3.4, where the multimodal approach aided comprehension more than transcribed versions of the scenes. However, while in the present study the audio-visual material was supplied with captions, this was not the case in the Asschier study. As research has shown that learners, especially low-achievers, may experience difficulties when having to deal with Table 3.5 The students’ results on the comprehension test Student group

N

Idioms known

Mean

SD

Standardized scores

Comprehension/ Written context (CW)

10

72/209 = 34.45%

7.20

2.82

H: 0.99; L: −1.84

Comprehension/Audiovisual context (CA)

11

75/217 = 34.56%

6.82

2.07

H: 2.02; L: −1.36

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention 93

several modalities at the same time (see Section 3.4), i.e., in this case spoken language, written language and non-verbal communication, it may be that the L2 subtitling, when added to the audio-visual input, caused some of the weaker students to experience a cognitive overload of information. This may, for example, be the case with those students whose reading skills are below average, which of course becomes especially pronounced with captions since they are not displayed for a very long time, as such learners are often inhibited rather than helped when imagery is added to the equation (see the first subsection in 3.2 and the second subsection in 3.4). The threemodality input may also have affected the students whose listening skills are very poor. As discussed in the second subsection in 3.4, phonetic and prosodic features of idiomatic expressions may be difficult to discern for L2 learners. This makes it likely that some of the weaker informants did not even catch the idiom in the stream of spoken text, as other parts of the input may have been distracting them. Asschier too noted that, although the students who were provided with audio-visual context did better as a whole than those who received written input, some learners in the former group did very poorly, indicating that the audio-visual input did not agree with their preferred style of learning. In order to shed some more light on the mean scores obtained, the students’ individual results were also looked into. Here six of the 10 learners in the CW-group took (considerable) advantage of the written input. Some of these learners may therefore be interpreted to be ‘verbalizers’, i.e. students especially prone to do well if supplied with written input. Similarly, six of the 11 learners in the CA-group benefitted ((especially) well) from the captioned audio-visual input. These learners may either be regarded as ‘verbalizers’, taking (great) advantage of the verbal part of the input, or ‘visualizers’, benefitting (considerably) from the non-verbal part. Additionally, some of these students may have been able to draw conclusions based on all the information offered, which is, as discussed in the second subsection in 3.2, typical of more advanced learners. Conversely, it is clear that some of the learners were not helped to any great extent by the input with which they were supplied. It may thus be that they were offered the type of input that did not suit their individual learning style or, in the CA-group, that the three-modality input was simply too much. It is therefore possible that these students might have performed significantly better if they had been offered the opportunity to participate in the other student group. The even distribution of high- and low-achievers between the two test groups hence mirrors what was shown by the mean scores, i.e. written input in the form of a few short sentences and captioned audiovisual input prove generally equally good at aiding learners in their disambiguation process. Despite this somewhat disappointing result, it must be mentioned that captioned audio-visual input may of course still awaken an interest in idiomatic expressions in a way that written input may not, as this is as yet a relatively infrequently used teaching method. For this

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reason alone, it may still be worth the while to introduce such an approach in the L2 classroom. Based on the similar performance of the CW- and CA-group, the choice between a written and a captioned audio-visual context when focusing on the comprehension of idioms in the L2 classroom may thus appear irrelevant. However, if individual data of the test items as used in the captioned audio-visual mode are considered, a somewhat different picture emerges. In Table 3.6, the idioms are presented in order of accuracy, starting with the expression for which most of the students were able to provide the correct meaning. If two or more idioms have the same score, these are listed in the order they were presented on the pretest. Those expressions for which correct answers were given are colour-coded in grey, while those expressions that none of the students understood remain in white. The reader is reminded that those tokens for which students gave correct answers on the pretest have here been excluded (see the last subsection in 3.5). The picture displayed in Table 3.6 is not a clear-cut one, where one factor stands out as the main facilitator. Nevertheless, a number of conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, it is clear that the captioned audio-visual input did not only help the learners disambiguate semi-compositional items, but, quite unexpectedly, even more so the non-compositional ones. Among the expressions that received the highest scores (9–4 points) as many as seven out of 10 were of the latter type, including those two that received most correct answers. While this is promising, it is not unique for this type of input, as the short written contexts offered to the students in the CW-group were also able to do so. This does not concur completely with Asschier (2014), discussed in the first subsection in 3.4, who was able to show that the students supplied with audio-visual input outperformed those who received written transcripts when disambiguating nontransparent idioms. The fact that captions were added to the input in the present study may explain this difference in result, i.e. dealing with a third modality was perhaps beyond the capacity of some of the less advanced learners. Table 3.6 also shows that the quality of the clue and idiom is not irrelevant as to whether an expression was disambiguated correctly or not. This is especially clear with the idioms that received the bottom scores (0–2 points) where, in seven out of 10 cases, the clues are of a local kind and the idioms deal with details of the clips rather than their themes. Although not as clear among the items that received the top scores, there is here a tendency for the clues to be of a global kind and for the idioms to be of a thematic character. This concerns six out of the 10 items that received the highest scores (9–4 points). It is of course especially noteworthy that the four top-most idioms are of this type. As shown in Cai and Lee (2010) (Section 3.4), in input of a transient nature, clues scattered throughout a text in combination with sought-for items of a thematic

Transparency

X X

7 as the crow flies (5/22 = 22.73%)

10 knock somebody’s socks off (4/19 = 21.05%)

X X

17 I’ll have no truck with sb/sth (4/23 = 17.39%)

2 have a bone to pick with somebody (3/19 = 15.79%)

X

X

13 call shotgun (5/20 = 25.00%)

15 give tit for tat (4/23 = 17.39%)

X

X

19 bite the dust (6/22 = 27.27%)

11 cut to the chase (5/18 = 27.78%)

X

X

16 beyond the pale (9/23 = 39.13%)

9 beat around the bush (6/20 = 30.00%)

X

Semi-trans Non-trans

1 hear something through the grapevine (9/21 = 42.86%)

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

Comprehension Test – CA-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very freq. Freq. Not freq.

Frequency

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

0.59

1.20

2.08

1.17

1.29

1.31

1.17

1.10

1.20

4.53

2.48

X

X

X

X

X

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

X

Global clues/ Local clues/ Length Initially Mid-scene At the end Idiom: theme Idiom: detail

Clip

Table 3.6 Understood idioms on the comprehension test, presented in order of frequency – CA-group Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention 95

X

X

X

14 dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (2/22 = 9.09%)

22 paint the town red (2/22 = 9.09%)

5 bark up the wrong tree (2/23 = 8.70%)

X X X

12 tilt at windmills (0/23 = 0%)

X

6 throw somebody a bone (0/22 = 0%)

4 do something with bells on (0/23 = 0%)

X

8 pick somebody’s brain (0/19 = 0%)

X

3 mum’s the word (0/23 = 0%)

X

20 like two peas in a pod (1/21 = 4.76%)

21 be the worse for wear (2/23 = 8.70%)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very freq. Freq. Not freq.

Semi-trans Non-trans X

Frequency

Transparency

23 tie the knot (3/22 = 13.64%)

18 spill the beans (3/20 = 15.00%)

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

Comprehension Test – CA-group

Table 3.6 (Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

0.45

2.00

2.05

2.15

0.49

1.15

0.47

2.15

0.32

1.06

1.48

1.55

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Global clues/ Local clues/ Length Initially Mid-scene At the end Idiom: theme Idiom: detail

Clip

96 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

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97

nature generally offer better chances of successful inferencing than a clue given in close proximity of a sought-for item pertaining to a detail only. The reason for this is most likely that while the former type provides several opportunities for semantic processing, the latter type only provides one, which is short-lived at that. Interestingly enough, the results of the present study agree with the results arrived at in Cai and Lee (2010), despite the fact that the present students were not only supplied with audio, but visual cues as well as written input. One explanation may be that as the audio-visual approach was quite new to the students, it may have made them pay more attention to that part of the input than to the written information. Consequently, the results of the present study disagree with Van Zeeland (2014) whose L2 informants, similar to what is seen with processing of written input, made more successful inferences with local clues than global clues in the listening comprehension task set before them. (See Section 3.4.) The difference in result may be due to there being other crucial factors that have still not been explored. In any case, more research is defi nitely needed. It should also be mentioned that familiarity may have played a part in the students’ results, as two of the idioms that are in the top half of the table (cut to the chase and call shotgun), both of which involve local clues and idioms dealing with details in the clips, are among those five idioms that were known by some learners in all four student groups on the pretest. It may be that the audio-visual viewing, after having encountered these comparatively frequent idioms quite a few times before, was what fi nally helped the students figure out their meanings. Furthermore, with the exception of hear something through the grapevine, which was presented fi rst when the students’ attention must have been at its peak, the order of presentation does not appear to have had any discernible impact on the students’ results. When it comes to the length of the scenes and timing of the idioms, however, the results indicate that longer scenes, providing learners with ample time to make inferences (see the two top-most expressions in Table 3.6), and items occurring towards the end of a clip may be easier to disambiguate. The most likely reason for the latter observation is that the late occurrence forces a student to take in all the available clues. This is not the case with an idiom that comes early or even mid-scene, as, after having caught the idiom, a student might stop paying attention and miss clues appearing later in the clip, clues that may contradict the hypothesis formed up to that point. (See Table 3.6.) Based on what has been said above, the conclusion can be drawn that if teachers want to use captioned audio-visual material and focus on comprehension, they should perhaps select scenes in which the clues provided are of a global kind and the expressions sought deal with themes of the clips and not mere details. Also, teachers should try to select longish clips in which sought items occur towards the end of the scene, so that students will have to base their conclusions on all the available clues. If these requirements are

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met, captioned audio-visual input may gain the potential of surpassing short written contexts, and thus provide learners with passports to success. Results on the retention tests

Table 3.7 presents the students’ results on the immediate post-test, which occurred directly after treatment, as well as the delayed post-test, which took place three weeks later. On the fi rst post-test, although the result indicates a slight advantage of the RA-group, no statistical confi rmation could be obtained. Three weeks later, however, the positive effect of the captioned audio-visual input, noticed only as a slight tendency on the immediate post-test, is strengthened further. Put differently, while the students in the RW-group experienced a knowledge loss of 27.65 percentage points during the time that passed between the two post-tests, the corresponding loss of knowledge for the students in the RA-group is only 23.79 percentage points, a difference close to being confi rmed at a significance level of 10%. This result agrees with Tabatabaei and Gahroei (2011) and MahmoodiShahrebabaki (2014), discussed in the fi rst subsection in 3.4, where the learners who had been offered movie clips did better on a delayed post-test than those students who had been taught in a more conventional way by means of synonyms and antonyms. It also tallies with Freyn & Gross’s investigation (see again the fi rst subsection in 3.4) in which the learners who, in addition to two types of visualization exercises, had been presented with movie clips outperformed the students who had been provided with a written list of the idioms and their meanings only. More importantly, the results on the delayed post-test tally with the Theory of Dual Coding, which suggests that when more than one modality is offered, as the verbal code and the non-verbal code are dealt with in different systems, more than one retrieval path will be created. This thus accommodates both ‘verbalizers’ and ‘visualizers’, as well as learners who Table 3.7 The students’ results on post-test 1 and 2 Student group

N

Idioms known

Mean

SD

Standardized scores

Retention/Written context (RW)

17

246/369 = 66.67%

14.47

4.47

H: 1.46; L: −2.12

Retention/Audiovisual context (RA)

19

254/374 = 67.91%

13.37

4.31

H: 1.54; L: −2.64

Retention/Written context (RW)

17

144/369 = 39.02%

8.47

4.12

H: 1.83; L: −1.33

Retention/Audiovisual context (RA)

19

165/374 = 44.12%

8.68

4.37

H: 2.36; L: −2.21

Post-Test 1

Post-Test 2

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are able to make use of all the modalities provided, and this can be contrasted with the one-modality input the informants in the RW-group received, which apparently helped fewer students create long-lasting retrieval paths. In addition, the results on the second post-test also agree with the Levels of Processing Theory, which states that semantic processing, as compared to structural and phonetic processing, is the deepest type. It is hence during semantic processing that solid retrieval routes are most likely to be created in long-term memory. As the learners in the RA-group were provided with three modalities – spoken, written and non-verbal input – all of which focused on one specific idiom meaning, the possibility of deep learning, in the form of semantic processing, was created in three different ways at the same time. This can again be compared to the RW-group in which the learners only received one kind of input, albeit of a semantic kind. Consequently, based on the difference in performance between the RW- and RA-group on the delayed post-test, the choice between a written and a captioned audio-visual context when focusing on long-term retention of idioms in the L2 classroom does not appear to be entirely irrelevant. To shed some more light on the situation, individual data for the test items as used in the captioned audio-visual mode are presented in Tables 3.8 (immediate post-test) and 3.10 (delayed post-test). In both cases, the idioms are presented in order of accuracy, starting with the expression for which most of the students were able to remember the correct meaning. If two or more idioms have the same score, these are listed in the order they occurred on the pretest. Those expressions for which correct answers were given are indicated in grey, while those expressions that none of the students remembered remain in white. The reader is again reminded that those tokens for which students gave correct answers on the pretest have here been excluded (see again the last subsection in 3.5). If, for the captioned audio-visual mode, a comparison is made between the comprehension test (Table 3.6) and the post-tests (Tables 3.8 and 3.9), it can be noticed that while in the former case transparency had comparatively little impact on whether the idioms were disambiguated correctly or not, it has, if not a leading role, certainly a supporting role, in whether the students offered the correct answer or not on the post-tests. This change in the impact played by transparency is not so strange if the treatment of the RA-group is considered. The reader is reminded that after the viewing of each scene, a general classroom discussion ensued during which the meaning of the idiom in question was inferred. In such a situation, it may be the case that some learners, especially low-achievers, do not have enough time to process the input before the correct meaning is offered by one of their fellow classmates. Thus, when, in the present study, such learners were subjected to retention tests, they had to rely more heavily on transparency, as deep processing had not (had time to) occur(red) for them. Also, this confirms the conclusion drawn in Chapter 2 (Section 2.4)

X

19 bite the dust (13/23 = 56.52%)

4 do something with bells on (12/23 = 52.17%)

23 tie the knot (12/18 = 66.67%) X

X X

15 give tit for tat (13/22 = 59.09%)

13 call shotgun (12/17 = 70.59%)

X

20 like two peas in a pod (13/20 = 65.00%)

3 mum’s the word (15/21 = 71.43%)

8 pick somebody’s brain (15/20 = 75.00%)

X

X

X

X X

22 paint the town red (16/23 = 69.57%)

7 as the crow flies (17/23 = 73.91%)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very Frequent Not frequent frequent

Semi- Nontrans trans X

Frequency

Transparency

1 hear something through the grapevine (17/21 = 80.95%)

Order of presentation/Idiom (no. of correct answers)

Post-Test 1 – RA-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

2.00

1.48

1.31

1.10

2.08

1.15

2.05

0.49

0.32

1.29

2.48

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Global clues/ Local clues/ Length Initially Mid- At the Idiom: theme Idiom: detail scene end

Clip

Table 3.8 Remembered idioms on post-test 1, presented in order of frequency – RA-group

100 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X X X X

21 be the worse for wear (8/23 = 34.78%)

10 knock somebody’s socks off (6/15 = 40.00%)

2 have a bone to pick with somebody (5/12 = 41.67%)

11 cut to the chase (4/11 = 36.36%)

X X

17 I’ll have no truck with sb/sth (8/23 = 34.78%)

X

X

12 tilt at windmills (9/23 = 39.13%)

6 throw somebody a bone (9/23 = 39.13%) X

X

5 bark up the wrong tree (9/21 = 42.86%)

16 beyond the pale (9/22 = 40.91%)

X

X

9 beat around the bush (9/18 = 50.00%)

18 spill the beans (11/22 = 50.00%)

14 dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (11/22 = 50.00%)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

1.17

0.59

1.17

0.47

1.20

0.45

2.15

4.53

2.15

1.20

1.55

1.06 X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention 101

X

15 give tit for tat (8/22 = 36.36%)

4 do something with bells on (6/23 = 26.09%)

23 tie the knot (7/18 = 38.89%)

X

X

20 like two peas in a pod (8/20 = 40.00%)

18 spill the beans (8/22 = 36.36%)

X

9 beat around the bush (8/18 = 44.44%)

13 call shotgun (8/17 = 47.06%)

19 bite the dust (10/23 = 43.48%)

X

X

8 pick somebody’s brain (12/20 = 60.00%)

3 mum’s the word (11/21 = 52.38%)

X

X

X

X

X

1 hear something through the grapevine (16/21 = 76.19%)

22 paint the town red (14/23 = 60.87%)

X X

7 as the crow flies (17/23 = 73.91%)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very Frequent Not frequent frequent

Nontrans

Semitrans

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

2.00

1.48

1.55

2.08

1.15

1.20

1.31

1.10

2.05

0.49

0.32

2.48

1.29

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Global clues/ Local clues/ Length Initially Mid-scene At the end Idiom: theme Idiom: detail

Clip

Post-Test 2 – RA-group Frequency

Table 3.9 Remembered idioms on post-test 2, presented in order of frequency – RA-group

Transparency

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

102

X

X

16 beyond the pale (3/22 = 13.64%)

X X

17 I’ll have no truck with sb/sth (1/23 = 4.35%)

21 be the worse for wear (1/23 = 4.35%)

X

10 knock somebody’s socks off (3/15 = 20.00%)

5 bark up the wrong tree (2/21 = 9.52%)

X X

12 tilt at windmills (4/23 = 17.39%)

X

11 cut to the chase (4/21 = 19.05%)

14 dot one’s i’s and cross one’s t’s (4/22 = 18.18%)

X

X

2 have a bone to pick with somebody (4/12 = 33.33%)

6 throw somebody a bone (6/23 = 26.09%)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

0.47

1.20

2.15

4.53

1.17

0.45

1.06

1.17

0.59

2.15

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention 103

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that while context is the main facilitator, learners, especially in a second language, generally resort to decomposition when contextual input is only partly supportive or lacking completely. The qualitative difference between the comprehension test and the two post-tests is to some extent also reflected in the distribution of global clues/ thematic idioms versus local clues/non-thematic idioms in that both types are more scattered among high- and low-scoring items on the retention tests than on the comprehension test. That the dichotomy between global clue on the one hand and local clue on the other hand becomes less relevant on a retention test is, of course, only natural as clues tend to fade away. Many of the learners in the present study appear, however, to have been able to compensate for this. The reader is here reminded that the students were, if they remembered the meaning of an idiom, asked to provide reasons why this was the case (see the last subsection in 3.5). In addition to showing evidence of having created memory pegs based on the scenes, as exemplified by some more general comments such as (comments in Swedish were translated into English by the present author): • • •

Mostly I remember these expressions because of how they use them in the TV series. Funny! For all these idioms, I feel that you can visualize the context from the TV series and put the idioms in the context to remember their meanings. Awesome! Because of the images you get when you hear the words.

as well as some more specific ones: • • • •

Sheldon’s way of expressing it. (idiom: tit for tat) I was thinking of Sheldon in the scene we watched. (idiom: pick somebody’s brain) I remember it from The Big Bang Theory when he said that they were going out to paint the town beige. (idiom: paint the town red) They did an experiment. (idiom: mum’s the word) (The student is here referring to Sheldon and Amy in The Big Bang Theory.)

the comments also showed signs of the students having created individual memory pegs, as seen in: • • • • •

Because it’s such a silly expression. (idiom: give tit for tat) Because that was the idiom I didn’t know when I was asked in class. (also tit for tat) Because at first I didn’t know the meaning of the word windmill, so therefore it stuck in my mind. (idiom: tilt at windmills) Because I thought it meant something totally different fi rst. (idiom: call shotgun) Because it is a strange expression to use about going in a car. (also call shotgun)

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As the students were not forewarned about the upcoming post-tests, these comments are all examples of naturally formed retrieval routes. It thus seems that while the conducive clues and idioms discussed above are used naturally in a disambiguation process, in a retention situation, as clues fade away, students also resort to individual ways of remembering, which in the present study also may have been induced by the structure of the treatment. This is somewhat similar to a discovery made in an investigation by Boers et al. (2008) in which the learners were prompted, in order to enhance retention, to hypothesize about idioms’ origin. It was noticed that it did not matter to any great extent whether the students’ hypotheses were correct or not, it was the mental picture they had created – right or wrong – that jogged their memory into remembering the idiom. (The Boer study referred to here is also discussed in the theoretical background provided for the second experiment in the present chapter (see the second subsection in 3.8).) Of course, creating memory pegs is something we all do quite frequently, although the way we form them is based on individual preferences. The above can be compared to the fact that very few comments were made by the students in the RW-group, indicating that written input is not able to create as many (individual) retrieval routes as captioned audiovisual material. Put differently, it appears multimodal input can more readily help inspire learners to create memory pegs that will form viable retrieval routes without blockage than written input. What has been said above is also mirrored in the students’ individual results. Only six of the 17 students benefitted (considerably) from the written input they were offered. At least some of these six learners are thus very likely students that usually do (especially) well if supplied with this type of text. Another three learners within this group displayed retrieval paths that were very short-lived, only achieving (relatively) high scores on the immediate post-test. These students can therefore not be regarded to be ‘verbalizers’ in the word’s true sense. The captioned audio-visual input, on the other hand, was able to create long-lasting memory routes for as many as ten of the 19 students who, from a proficiency perspective, most likely are (very) advanced learners. Only two students in this test group experienced retrieval paths that did not last for very long. These two learners must therefore be regarded as less advanced. Conversely, some of the learners in both informant groups did (comparatively) poorly based on the input they were subjected to. For as many as eight participants in the RW-group, very few retrieval paths were created. In the RA-group the same was seen for seven learners. It is especially interesting to note that one participant in this group actually knew more idioms on the pretest than on the delayed post-test, perhaps having been rendered linguistically paralyzed by the multimodal input. All of these students might thus have done better if provided with the opposite modality from what they were offered. Research focusing on learner preferences

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in relation to type of (multimodal) input with idiomatic expressions will most likely be able to determine if this is an accurate prediction. Reconsidering the results of the two post-tests (Tables 3.8 and 3.9), the first question that springs to mind is: What would have happened if a third post-test had been administered a few weeks later? Would the gap between the informant groups have widened, levelled out, or would it have shrunk? Regrettably, the students went on their different ways to new challenges, so no such test could be given, but the positive change for the RA-group as compared to the RW-group between the first and second post-test certainly looks very promising. Only more research will be able to shed some light on this important issue.

Experiment 2: The Effects of (A) Still Pictures, (B) Etymological Notes and (C) Still Pictures + Etymological Notes on Learners’ Comprehension and Retention of L2 Idioms 3.7 Introduction to Experiment 2

As captioned audio-visual input, due to its transient nature, requires an additional level of competence not likely to be attainable for all learners (Borrás & Lafayette, 1994; Danan, 2004; Garza, 1991; Guillory, 1998; Markham, 1993; Mitterer & McQueen, 2009; Neuman & Koskinen, 1992; Stanovich, 1986; Yoshida et al., 1998), the present experiment will instead explore the effects of other types of material that can narrate, unfold and revive the story of an idiom. The imagery that will be used is both concrete in the form of still pictures, and mental in the form of etymological input, as well as a combination of the two. As in the previous experiment, both the learners’ comprehension and retention, when provided with such types of input, will be investigated. 3.8 Previous Research

The present section is divided into two main parts. While the main focus of the first part is the effects of etymological elaboration, the second part deals primarily with the effects of still pictures. The reader is reminded that theory relevant to this second experiment is also presented in the two subsections in 3.2 (The Dual Coding Theory and The Levels of Processing Theory). Etymological elaboration (with a few comparisons to other techniques)

Quite a lot of research has focused on exploring the value of etymological elaboration, the idea of which originates from research on

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conceptual metaphors. Such investigations have not only focused on individual words but, more recently, also on idiomatic expressions. In an article from 2000, for example, Boers presents three experiments focusing on raising metaphoric awareness to aid learners’ retention and production of individual words and multi-word verbs in English as a second language. In the first experiment, intermediate Dutch learners (ages between 16 and 17) were asked to read a text about managing your emotions. The students were then divided into an experimental group, who received a vocabulary list organized into different metaphoric themes, and a control group, who received the same vocabulary list but where the words were organized from a functional/pragmatic point of view. After a classroom discussion on the topic of anger and conflicts, the learners were asked to take a gap-fill exercise made up of a running text meant to elicit 10 of the words on the vocabulary list provided. The results of the experiment showed that the informants who had received the list of words organized into metaphoric themes did better than the informants who had been offered a vocabulary list with a functional/pragmatic approach (mean: 4.41 versus 3.67). See also Csábi (2004) whose study points to metaphoric themes being a useful teaching technique to conjure up meaning. In the second experiment, intermediate French learners (ages between 19 and 20) studying business and economics were given a vocabulary list focusing on words describing upward and downward economic trends (e.g. surge, peak, decline, plunge). The informants were then again divided into an experimental group, which received information on the source domains of the words, and a control group, which also received information about the meaning of the words but not in terms of etymological elaboration. Next, both student groups were shown some graphs and asked to describe them by writing a short essay. Here too the results pointed to the usefulness of providing learners with etymological support, the experimental group outperforming the control group in the number of uses of words taking on a figurative meaning (mean: 7.1 as compared to 4.9). In the fi nal experiment, intermediate French learners (ages between 19 and 20) were given a list of prepositional and phrasal verbs. Once again, the informants were divided into an experimental group, which received information about the verbs organized into orientational metaphors, and a control group, which received information about their meaning in an alphabetical order. Next, the students were asked to do a gap-fill exercise, in which half of the 20 gaps were to be fi lled in with some of the verbs from the list provided earlier and the other 10 with verbs not previously discussed. The results showed that the experimental group did better than the control group on the verbs about which they had received etymological input (mean: 5.65 versus mean: 4.23), but not on the verbs that were completely new (mean: 4.07 versus mean: 4.2). Based on the results of these three experiments, Boers drew the conclusion that providing learners with imagery in addition to verbal

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information generally enhances recall and that it is the extra cognitive effort it takes to process imagery and its organizational framework that promotes long-term memorization. One drawback in all three experiments, which Boers recognizes, is that the vast majority of the vocabulary tested was of a transparent nature. This may, of course, have boosted the students’ achievements. The promising results with individual words described above ignited an interest in trying to approach idiomatic expressions in the same way. To begin with, retention became the focus. In Boers (2001), for example, the effects of autonomous etymological elaboration on the recall of form and meaning were investigated. This time the participants were upperintermediate Dutch learners of English (average age 21) who were divided into two groups, both of which were provided with a list of 10 idiomatic expressions in isolation. The idioms picked did not have any Dutch counterparts, contained quite a few key words that were likely to be unknown to the students and they were of an infrequent nature, only occurring between one and three times per 10 million words in the Bank of England (Corpus). With the help of a dictionary, all the informants in both test groups were then asked to explain, in writing, the meaning of the 10 expressions. However, whereas the learners in the control group were also asked to offer a context in which each idiom could be used, those participating in the experimental group were additionally asked to give a likely origin of each idiom. The researchers hoped that the informants in the experimental group would not only spend time on looking up the idiom itself but also its key words, a process which was believed to help them hypothesize about the origin of the idiom and thus create a mental image. One week later, without having been informed, all students were confronted with a retention test focusing on form. Here they were provided with the meaning of the idiom and its fi rst content word and then asked to supply the rest. Four weeks later, all the participants, again without having been forewarned, were also confronted with a test focusing on meaning. When the experiment was analyzed, only those answers for which the learners had chosen to consult the dictionary in the fi rst exercise were considered. The results showed that whereas only 9.09% of the answers regarding form were right in the control group, the corresponding figure for the experimental group was as high as 30.86%, a statistically confi rmed difference. Furthermore, the results on idiom meaning show that while the learners in the control group only offered 34.94% correct answers, those in the experimental group achieved 68.89% accuracy. Again the difference was statistically confirmed. These results thus clearly show that autonomous imagery processing helps learners remember the form and meaning of idiomatic expressions. In Boers et al. (2004), which presents a number of experiments performed during several years, the main objective was to fi nd out if

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etymological elaboration can facilitate recall of idioms that are opaque in nature to the same extent it is able to enhance retention of transparent expressions. The issue is not as straightforward as one might think. While etymologically transparent idioms are comparatively easy to visualize and thus thought to be likely to induce dual coding, etymologically opaque idioms cannot as readily be visualized and may therefore be less likely to prompt dual coding. This hence indicates that etymological elaboration may not be as efficient for opaque idioms as it is for idioms that are more transparent. However, as images can easily be created for etymologically transparent idioms, identifying their source domains does not involve the same amount of effort, i.e. the processing is not as deep, as when identifying the source domains of opaque idioms. This could then indicate that long-term memorization of opaque expressions can in fact, just like transparent items, be aided by etymological support. The fi rst experiment, which was a voluntary self-study, involved a group of Flemish learners studying English at various levels at a tertiary education college. The informants were divided into a control group and a treatment group, both of which were tested on their receptive skills by means of multiple-choice tasks. While the students in the control group were given three alternative meanings, the students in the experimental group were offered three alternative source domains to choose among. After this session, the students in the latter group also received feedback about the origin of each idiomatic expression. One week later, both test groups were subjected to the same gap-fill exercise in which they were to provide the last word of an idiom offered in a supportive context. It turned out that for 65% of the idioms tested, the score of the experimental group was higher than the corresponding score achieved by the control group. That is, as in Boers (2001) discussed above, etymological elaboration seemed to have a general positive effect on the retention of idiom form. However, when the results for the transparent idiomatic expressions were compared with the scores for the opaque expressions, the same general positive effect could not be detected for the latter type. This may indicate that there is no point in offering students etymological explanations for idioms whose origins are so opaque that it is impossible for the students to retrace them themselves. This tallies with Bergstrand (2017) in which 15-year-old secondary school students’ retention of non-transparent idioms in English as a foreign language was under investigation. While the informants in the control group here were faced with the test items in short written contexts of a supportive nature, the participants in the treatment group were offered etymological notes, trying to create viable links between the idioms’ original, literal senses to their present-day meanings. Tested on both short- and long-term retention, the results showed that in neither case did the students in the experimental group achieve higher scores than those who took part in the control group. This again indicates that for opaque items, etymological notes may not be the most fruitful way go.

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To gain a better understanding of this result, Boers et al. looked more thoroughly at the idioms with high error scores. They appeared to be of four types. Either they contained key words that were unknown or obsolete, or key words that, for various reasons, could be misinterpreted. The fourth type was made up of those idioms for which learners had to possess cultural knowledge to be able to figure out their meanings. (See also Chapter 2, the subsection on transparency.) In order to address the negative effects of these four factors, Boers et al. set up a new experiment in which all informants, again Flemish students studying English at tertiary level, took three tests: a comprehension test, an identify-the-source-domain test and a gap-fi ll test. Also, while the previous experiment was in the form of an optional self-study exercise, the informants in the present experiment were tested in class. This meant that the students were informed about the idioms for which they had given incorrect answers. As in the fi rst experiment, the informants, after having identified the source domain, also received feedback about the origin of the idiom. The new set-up yielded some interesting results. For example, in the majority of cases (66.6%), students who were able to pick the right meaning of an idiom in the comprehension task were also able to identify the idiom’s source domain. This appears to indicate that many expressions of a more non-transparent nature may, even for L2 learners, be quite predictable after all. Interesting results were also achieved on the gap-fi ll exercise which tested the students’ recall. Here students scored the highest on the production task with idioms for which they had been able to pick both the right meaning and indicate the right source domain. As soon as the source domain was unidentified but comprehension still accurate, the score dropped. The third highest score was achieved for idioms for which the students had failed to offer the right meaning but succeeded in giving the right source domain. Unsurprisingly, the students scored the lowest on idioms for which they failed on both receptive tasks. The most interesting discovery arising from these results is that, in contrast to the fi rst experiment, etymological support did not only appear to have a great impact on transparent expressions (i.e. idioms whose source domains are easy to identify) (68.68%), but a similarly strong effect on the retention of opaque expressions (i.e. idioms whose origins are hard to retrace) (67.96%). This appears to indicate that while etymological elaboration may not be able to help students decipher opaque idioms in a learner autonomy situation, it may be highly beneficial to the retention of transparent as well as nontransparent expressions in contexts of explicit instruction. (See also Karlsson, 2013a.) Quite a few other researchers, e.g. Omazić (2004), Swanepoel (1992) and Vasiljevic (2014), are of the same opinion. More recently, research on the effects of etymological elaboration on students’ comprehension of figurative language has gained momentum. In

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Boers et al. (2007), for instance, Dutch second- and third-year college students of English (ages ranging from 19 to 21) took part in a study which mainly focused on comprehension, but also investigated retention and usage restriction. The two educational levels, which were confronted with different idiomatic expressions, each took a three-part test on three different occasions. While the younger student group was confronted with a set of 25 idioms each time, the more advanced students had to face a set of 30 idioms. The fi rst and second part of the test, both of which dealt with comprehension, were multiple-choice tasks. The former tested the learners on meaning, while the second focused on identifying source domains. In the third part, dealing with retention, the students were asked to provide the correct key word, based on a supportive context. Furthermore, each grade was divided into a control group and an experimental group. Whereas the control group started by identifying the meaning of the expression, the experimental group did the exercise on source domain first. Both groups did the fill-in task last. The three tests all showed that the informants in the experimental group did better on the identify-themeaning task than the informants participating in the control group. Based on this, the researchers drew the conclusion that being provided with an idiom’s original, literal meaning first enhances learners’ comprehension of its figurative meaning. Moreover, being given etymological information before providing the meaning of an idiom also seems to enhance learners’ retention, as five of the six trials pointed in this direction. Boers et al. acknowledge that their study has some weak points. For instance, offering the informants alternatives enhances their chances of getting the meaning of an idiom right in a way which is not proportionate to a learning situation with authentic input. The researchers also admit that the study may inadvertently have focused on expressions in which the connections are relatively clear. This is problematic as there may be a limit to how diffuse the link between the literal and figurative meaning can be in order for learners’ comprehension and retention to be enhanced by etymological elaboration. However, this is contradicted by the results of the 2004 study discussed above in which the mnemonic effects of the etymological support offered did not only play an important role with transparent idioms but opaque ones too. Additionally, confronting the informants with expressions without providing contextual clues is also different from real-life exposure. In order to address this issue, the researchers set up yet another experiment. Sixteen idioms, different than the ones encountered in the study described above, were selected and presented to the informants in three ways. The first time the idioms were offered in a decontextualized form, the second time with contextual support and the third time with contextual and etymological support. The result showed that not only did contextual clues, as expected, facilitate comprehension, but so did providing the students with etymological support. In 29.5% of the cases where the context did not aid the students, adding etymological information did.

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In Baleghizadeh and Bagheri (2012), Iranian students’ comprehension as well as retention of English idioms was investigated. Thirty-two intermediate/advanced learners (ages ranging from 18 to 28) were divided into two groups. Both groups were confronted with the same 30 idioms, five during each two-hour session. These 30 test items were selected based on the results of a pretest in which the idioms that were new to 90% of the informants were fi nally included in the experiment. In this pretest, which was also used as a post-test at the end of the treatment period, the participants were offered short written contexts accompanied by four defi nitions, only one of which was correct. Furthermore, while the informants in the control group were presented with written input only, the participants in the experimental group were also offered etymological support. Based on this treatment, the learners were asked to give a written defi nition of each idiom. Two people, one of the researchers and an EFL instructor, separately judged the informants’ answers. Both had to agree in order to be able to count an answer as acceptable. The results of the experiment showed that those students who had been offered etymological support in addition to written information understood far more idioms (mean: 20.92) than those who had been presented with written contexts only (mean: 10.08). Regarding retention, the treatment group again outperformed the control group (mean: 13.37 versus mean: 9.10). In both cases, the differences also proved to be statistically confi rmed. Baleghizadeh and Bagheri drew the conclusion that their results offer support to the Dual Coding Theory, etymological information providing learners with an extra retrieval route alongside the verbal information. One major criticism of the experiment is that only 90% of the items tested were certain to be previously unknown to the informants. This could possibly have distorted the results in favour of the treatment group. In Bagheri and Fazel (2010), the focus was also on Iranian students’ comprehension and retention of English idioms. In their investigation, 50 intermediate/advanced students (ages ranging from 18 to 22) were divided into two homogenous groups. While both groups were confronted with the same 15 idioms, the students in the experimental group received extra support in the form of etymological elaboration. These informants were then tested in three different ways. The first two tests, one matching exercise (the idiom and its origin) and one multiple-choice exercise (the idiom and its defi nition), focused on the learners’ receptive skills. The third test, an exercise in which the students were to complete sentences by adding suitable key words, focused on the learners’ retention. This was administered one week after the first two exercises. The informants in the control group were, for obvious reasons, only subjected to the multiple-choice and gap-fi ll exercises. As in the Baleghizadeh and Bagheri study described above, the experimental group outperformed the control group on comprehension (mean score: 9.8400 versus 6.9600) as well as retention (mean

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score: 10.7200 versus 6.4800), which reconfirms the value of etymological support. The differences in results were in both cases statistically confirmed. One major drawback of the study is that the informants’ previous knowledge of idiomatic expressions was not investigated. In Noroozi and Salehi (2013), the effects of etymological elaboration versus rote memorization were investigated. Sixty intermediate Iranian learners (ages ranging from 20 to 30) were evenly divided into two equally proficient student groups. While the participants in the experimental group were offered etymological input, the students in the control group were simply given the meanings of the test items and asked to memorize them. After treatment, both student groups were tested on their retention. The post-test was made up of 58 expressions, 33 of which were tested by means of translation and 25 by matching defi nitions with the correct idioms. Also, prior to treatment, to ascertain that the material contained a high number of previously unknown expressions, a pretest testing 45 expressions was administered. The results of the retention test clearly showed the benefit of providing learners with etymological support (mean: 38.57 versus 27.27, and proved to be statistically significant). Moreover, the researchers were also able to show, by comparing the results of the pretest with those achieved on the post-test, that rote memorization has no statistically significant effect on idiom retention (mean: 26.31 (pretest) versus 27.27 (post-test)), while etymological prompting does (mean: 25.24 (pretest) versus 38.57 (post-test)). One drawback of this investigation is that testing general knowledge of figurative language, as was the case with the pretest, does not yield information about individual expressions. This means that some of the test items on the retention test could in fact have already been known to the informants, hence rendering the results unreliable. From the above, it can be seen that a plethora of research offers support to using etymological elaboration in the teaching of L2 idioms from a comprehension as well as a retention point of view (see also Atrchian & Shalmani, 2015; Guo, 2007, 2008; Tabatabaei & Hajizadeh, 2015; Zarei & Rahimi, 2014; Zhang, 2009). In fact, with the possible exception of completely opaque idioms, there is no research indicating that etymological elaboration would not be able to assist students in their struggle to enhance their idiomatic mastery in a second language. Still pictures (with a few comparisons to other techniques)

The effects of supplying pictures on the comprehension and retention of individual words has been researched extensively. See, for example, Bull and Wittrock (1971), Kellogg and Howe (1971), Plass et al. (1998), Raimes (1983), Sadeghi and Farzizadeh (2013), Smith et al. (1987), Smith et  al. (1994), Terrell (1986) and Underwood (1989). Based on these

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references, it can be seen that this research goes as far back as the 1970s, and it appears to be quite unanimous regarding the conduciveness of various graphic illustrations. More recently, research on the effects of pictures on the comprehension and retention of idiomatic expressions has also been conducted. As the reader will become aware, the results achieved in this area are not entirely unanimous about the positive effects of such input. In Boers et al. (2006), one of the main aims was to investigate the effect of providing etymological information on learning style. It turned out that the learners who, according to themselves, were more likely to think in mental pictures did better on a task focusing on meaning as well as a task focusing on form than those learners who had described themselves as low-imagers. In order to fi nd out if pictures could improve these results further, the experiment was replicated in Boers et al. (2008), the only difference being that students were now also provided with illustrations. By adding pictorial information, there was an increase in the accuracy rate on the test focusing on meaning (81.0% correct answers versus 76.5% in the 2006 study). What was even more interesting was that, as the illustrations appeared to distract the high-imagers away from the verbal information, it was the low-imagers that accounted for most of this gain. However, when it came to the test focusing on form, the results dropped, the accuracy rate falling from 75.0% in the 2006 experiment to 71.5%. Boers et al. concluded that while picture elucidation appears to enhance retention of meaning, it does not have the same positive effects when the idiom’s exact lexical make-up is to be recalled. In Boers et al. (2009), the aim was, on the one hand, to fi nd out if pictorial elucidation enhances learners’ retention of L2 idiom form and, on the other hand, to investigate the correlation between the use of illustrations and learning style. All the informants involved in the experiment were Dutch college students (ages ranging from 19 to 21) from varying proficiency levels. They were all confronted with 100 English idioms of high frequency. Thirty of these expressions were provided with etymological information about their literal origin. Another 30 expressions were supplied with etymological information as well as pictures in the form of literal drawings or photographs. While these 60 idioms were tested with the help of gap-fi ll exercises, the remaining 40 test items were excluded before the testing began. During treatment, the expressions were presented 25 at a time and practised in three different multiple-choice exercises focusing on meaning. In the first exercise, the students were simply asked to choose the correct alternative of the meanings offered. This exercise also served as a pretest, so that the idioms that were already known could be excluded from the gap-fi ll exercise to follow. In the second exercise, etymological input was provided and the students asked about the idioms’ source domains. Finally, in the third exercise, the etymological input was accompanied by

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pictorial elucidation and the students again asked about the idioms’ source domains. The results showed that adding pictorial information did not enhance learners’ retention of form. Whereas a correctness rate of 63.71% was achieved for those idioms for which the students had been supplied with verbal information only, the corresponding rate of 49.12% was achieved for those items where verbal information had been accompanied by pictorial elucidation. This agrees with the fi ndings in Boers et al. (2008) discussed above. In fact, for those learners who were especially inclined to make use of visual input, the added pictorial information seemed to have detrimental effects. One typical mistake in the gap-fi ll exercise for the idioms that had been supplied with pictorial information was that the learners sometimes seemed to focus on the wrong element/s in the picture. For instance, instead of rein in the idiom keep a tight rein on someone, the word fi st was sometimes offered. Another typical mistake was to substitute the key word with a synonym. For example, instead of fiddle in playing second fi ddle, the word violin was given. Both these kinds of mistakes suggest that the learners paid too much attention to the picture, neglecting the written information almost completely. In fact, Skorge (2008) claims that different interpretations of one and the same illustration are not unusual. This agrees with the so-called picture superiority effect noted in experimental psychology (e.g. Nelson et al., 1976), according to which pictures are thought to be more memorable than words. In Vasiljevic (2013), on the other hand, it was shown that that illustrations did aid retention. However, in this case the pictures were learnergenerated, which, in accordance with the Levels of Processing Theory by involving a deeper type of processing, may have been the reason for the positive effect. This interpretation fi nds support in an earlier investigation by Vasiljevic (2012) where learner-generated pictures proved more beneficial receptively as well as productively than pictures supplied by the instructor. See also Baker (2011) for the same results. In contrast, in Ghorbani (2017), pictures, even though they were not student-generated, were seen to enhance learning when added to etymological support. This is also the case in Mousavi Haghshenas and Hashemian (2016) where informant groups provided with etymological support only, pictorial support only and a combination of the two were compared, the latter treatment group receiving the highest scores. In a study by Szczepaniak and Lew (2011), the aim was to investigate the effects of imagery and etymological notes, as offered in certain idiom dictionaries. Both short- and long-term recall was under scrutiny. Firstyear university students of English (ages between 18 and 19), whose native language was Polish, were tested on 18 idiomatic expressions. All of these were non-transparent in nature, easy to illustrate literally and had no equivalents in the learners’ first language. One student group was offered defi nitions of the idioms and example sentences. Another student group

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was provided with defi nitions, examples and etymological information. Yet another group was supplied with definitions, examples and literal pictures. The last group, finally, was given definitions, examples, etymological information as well as literal pictures. After exposure, all students received an immediate post-test. On the one hand, the informants were, by using one of the words in the idiom as a prompt word, asked to provide the correct form. On the other hand, among four alternative paraphrases, they were also asked to provide the correct meaning. One week later a delayed post-test took place. This replicated the immediate post-test to a tee. When the mean scores of all four informant groups were considered, accuracy rates between 66% and 49% for form and 79% and 66% for meaning were found on the immediate and delayed post-tests respectively. On all tests, the students who had been offered both pictures and etymological input scored the highest and those who had been offered defi nitions and example sentences the lowest. The informants in the group who had been given pictures without etymological information received the second highest result, followed by the group who had received etymological input but no pictures. However, it was only the results of the group that had received pictorial information without etymological input that could be confi rmed statistically. Also, while confi rmation here was obtained for the immediate post-test on form and meaning as well as for the delayed post-test on form (the latter of which is contradicted in the Boers et al. study (2009) described above), its long-term effects on meaning could not be confirmed. The results of the study led the researchers to draw the conclusion that etymological input is of lesser value when learners are able to receive pictorial support, especially when non-transparent idioms are in focus. Based on the Levels of Processing Theory, the less than encouraging results with etymological support in favour of illustrations may be explained by the fact that reading etymological notes taken from dictionaries does not involve processing at a very deep level. This can be compared to what was done in Boers et al. (2001), discussed in the previous section, where the students had to hypothesize themselves about the origin of the idioms, thus achieving a much deeper level of processing. In a study by Ghanavati Nasab and Hesabi (2014), the effects of using graphic illustrations on the comprehension of opaque idioms was investigated. Iranian B.A. university students at an intermediate proficiency level majoring in English translation and literature were assigned to two groups. While both groups were offered defi nitions and examples of usage, only the treatment group was provided with pictures illustrating the literal readings of the expressions. Instruction took place in three consecutive sessions, after the last of which testing immediately began. The comprehension test consisted of multiple-choice questions with four alternatives, only one of which was correct. The results showed that the participants in the experimental group did better than those in the control

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group. It is important to note that the informants reported themselves on their learning style, based partly on which the conclusion about the positive effect of using pictures was drawn. A lot of research has shown that self-reporting can be an unreliable tool, which the authors also recognize. The results should therefore perhaps be regarded with some caution. In Fotovatnia and Khaki (2012), the effects on idiom form and meaning of three different teaching techniques were investigated and compared. The informants included in the study were undergraduate students whose fi rst language was Persian. In one group, the participants were provided with pictures illustrating the idioms. In another group, the learners were given Persian translation equivalents. In a third group, fi nally, defi nitions and synonyms in English were offered. All three student groups received treatment in three sessions. In the fourth session, the expressions were reviewed and then the testing began. Also, a pretest ascertained that none of the test items were already known by the informants. The testing itself consisted of two recognition tests, one of which occurred directly after the review session and the other of which occurred three weeks later. On both tests, which consisted of multiple-choice tasks, form as well as meaning were in focus, form preceding meaning. Furthermore, in addition to the delayed recognition test, a delayed production test, by means of fi ll-in-the-blanks, took place, form again preceding meaning. Here the recognition test came before the production test. On all tests, form and meaning, recognition and production, immediate and delayed, the informants who had been presented with pictures performed considerably better than the other two student groups. It is interesting to note that the difference between the picture group and the other two test groups was especially pronounced on the delayed post-test, indicating that picture prompting appears to be especially beneficial to long-term retention. This result thus agrees with Boer (2008) discussed above regarding meaning, but disagrees concerning form where no advantage could be detected. (It should be pointed out that in the introduction to the Fotovatnia and Khaki (2012) study, transparent as well as opaque items are claimed to be included in the study. However, in the analysis only decomposable idioms are discussed, which makes the investigation somewhat unreliable.) In an investigation by Saffarian et  al. (2013), the researchers were interested in fi nding out the effects of using still pictures on the retention of body idioms specifically. The reason for choosing expressions focusing on body parts is that such idioms readily lend themselves to graphic illustrations. The informants (ages ranging from 17 to 22), whose native language was Persian and considered to be at a pre-intermediate proficiency level, were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group. Both groups were then confronted with the same 60 idioms in the form of multiple-choice questions. Thirty of these items had been selected

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from idiom dictionaries. The other 30, of frequent nature, had been taken from examples of natural-sounding dialogues. While the material and treatment period of 45 days were the same for both groups, the participants in the treatment group were not only provided with defi nitions of the idioms in English, but also offered illustrations and information about their usage. Ten days after the last lesson, all students were subjected to a post-test. This was also in a multiple-choice format. The results of this test clearly show that the learners in the experimental group benefitted from the extra input they received in the form of pictures and usage (mean for the experimental group: 32.9938 versus 27.7725 for the control group). The researchers therefore suggest that students should work with picture books when learning idiomatic expressions. One drawback of the study, though, is that the effects of the productive information supplied is not discussed at all. It is therefore difficult to determine whether it is the illustrations or the information about usage or both that led to the higher retention rate of the experimental group. Another drawback is that it is not clear if the illustrations are literal or figurative renderings of the idioms. In Afram (2016), fi nally, the focus was to investigate the impact of a written context versus using still pictures on Swedish learners’ retention of idioms in English as a second language. The 48 informants, who were taking the most advanced, and optional, course of English at uppersecondary-school level, were divided randomly into two groups. The control group was presented with the idioms in a written context. The treatment group, on the other hand, was presented with still pictures taken from a children’s book. While some of these pictures gave literal interpretations of the idioms, others offered illustrations of the idioms’ figurative meanings. Furthermore, the 15 test items were considered from a frequency perspective, where five were categorized as very frequent, five as frequent and five as infrequent. The items were also regarded from a decomposability perspective, where seven were thought to be transparent in character and the rest, eight items, were considered to be opaque to the learners. This classification was based on Karlsson (2013a). After treatment, the informants took two decontextualized tests, the first one seven days after the teaching sessions and the second one 14 days after the fi rst post-test. None of the subjects were informed about these tests beforehand. Also, prior to the treatment, the students took a pretest so that previously known items could be removed from the two post-tests. This pretest showed that the students generally knew or were able to guess the meanings of those idioms that were categorized as transparent/ frequent the best. The results of the first post-test showed that the group supplied with written contexts remembered slightly more idioms than did the group faced with still pictures. However, on the second post-test, three weeks after treatment, the leaners given visual aid achieved a higher rate of

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accuracy than the group offered written input, thus indicating that illustrations in the form of still pictures may help long-term memory more than a written context. Unfortunately, the study was unable to determine whether it was the pictures displaying idiomatic renderings or those offering literal interpretations that helped retention the most, nor was it able to say much about the effects of transparency and frequency. To sum up, while the effects of the use of still pictures appear less certain than those of etymological elaboration, it seems there is a place for perceptual imagery too in the teaching and learning of idiomatic expressions. 3.9 The Present Study – Still Pictures, Etymological Notes and A Combination of the Two Research question addressed

In the present investigation, one main research question, divided into three parts, is addressed: Do (a) still pictures, (b) etymological notes and/or (c) still pictures + etymological notes enhance comparatively advanced learners’ comprehension and retention of L2 idioms? The informants

A total number of 120 Swedish university students took part in the present study, all of whom were studying within the Swedish educational system to become school instructors teaching learners between the ages of six and twelve. In fact, some of these were the same informants that participated in the experiment in the former part of this chapter. 5 The students form two main groups, one of which was tested on comprehension (c-group) and the other of which on retention (r-group). These two main groups then make up four subsets each in which the test items were contextualized in different ways. In one of the four subsets, as a point of reference, the subjects were faced with the expressions in a written context (cw-group and rw-group). In the other three subsets, the experimental groups, the students were provided with (a) still pictures (cp-group and rp-group), (b) etymological notes (ce-group and re-group) and (c) still pictures + etymological notes (cpe-group and rpe-group). (The tests themselves will be explained in more detail in the subsections that follow.) Table 3.10 presents these student groups. The reason why the number of students is not the same in each subset is that the participants were tested different terms and the present author had to make do with the students available at the time. It was also ascertained that Swedish was the students’ mother tongue and that none of them used English or any other language as their fi rst language.

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Table 3.10 The student groups in the present experiment Student group

N

Gender

Age

F

M

Range

Mean

SD 3.42

Comprehension/Written context (cw)

18

16

2

20–33

24.17

Comprehension/Still pictures (cp)

13

13

0

20–31

22.31

3.04

Comprehension/Etymological notes (ce)

19

17

2

20–36

24.53

4.54

C/Still pictures + Etymological notes (cpe)

11

11

0

21–29

24.00

2.72

Retention/Written context (rw)

10

6

4

20–24

21.90

1.45

Retention/Still pictures (rp)

11

8

3

20–30

23.82

3.40

Retention/Etymological notes (re)

22

19

3

20–46

24.91

6.24

R/Still pictures + Etymological notes (rpe)

16

16

0

20–42

26.25

7.54

The test items

All eight informant groups were tested on the same 21 idioms. 6 These were all picked randomly, mainly from The intriguing sources of hold your horses (Ringstad, 2012b), where the pictures are in colour, but also from Curiosity killed the cat and other animal idioms (Thapar, 2007), where only monochrome pictures are incorporated. Both books offer etymological notes of varying degrees of support as well as pictures depicting the meanings of the idioms. To avoid unnecessarily difficult language, a few of the etymological elaborations were simplified. The illustrations used are of three main types. Either only the literal reading is represented, as exemplifi ed by the following picture of the idiom couch potato:

or only the figurative meaning, as illustrated by the following picture of the same idiom:

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© Shutterstock

or the illustration provides elements of both the literal and idiomatic layers of meaning, as in:

© Shutterstock

The reader will learn more about the pictures and the etymological notes in the subsection that follows. Written contexts of a supportive nature were then constructed for the same 21 idioms. In the majority of cases, these contexts were taken from Collins Cobuild Idiom Dictionary (2002), some of which were simplified so as to avoid unnecessarily difficult vocabulary. In the remaining cases, the contexts were put together by the present author. Table 3.11 offers the test items, presented in the same order in which they appeared on the pretest. (The testing will be discussed further in the following subsection.) Those items that were in monochrome are marked with an asterisk. The table also offers an overview of the type of picture involved and the degree of support of the etymological notes. In the majority of cases, eleven items, the pictures gave literal interpretations. For three expressions, the illustrations were of an idiomatic nature, and for the rest,

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Table 3.11 The test items in the present experiment, including information about the still pictures and the degree of support offered by the etymological notes Still pictures

Idiom

Figurative Both literal Literal interpretation and interpretation only figurative only X

Etymological notes – the degree of support Supportive Somewhat supportive

scrape the bottom of the barrel

X

*be the cat’s whiskers X

upset the applecart

X

once in a blue moon

X

X X X X

*bell the cat

X

X

get out of dodge

X

X

on pins and needles

X

X

cover your bases

X

X

*show a red rag to a bull X

X

*look a gift horse in the mouth

X

X

put your foot in your mouth

X

X

break the fourth wall

X

*eat crow

X

X X X

fly-by-night

X

down to the wire X

X

dressed to the nines

X X

X

money for old rope

X

a chip on your shoulder X

X

dry run

X

X

the jig is up

X

ducks in a row

X

X

seven items, literal as well as figurative elements were incorporated. When it comes to the etymological notes, they were judged to offer solid clues for 10 of the 21 expressions, while in the rest of the cases, 11 idioms, the support was deemed to be less solid. (Examples of the pictures and etymological notes will be given in the subsection that follows.) Since the degree of decomposability often plays a role in whether an idiom is disambiguated correctly or not (see Chapter 2, the subsection on transparency), the test items were, as in the previous experiment, also considered from a transparency perspective. Fourteen of the 21 test items were categorized as opaque, seven as semi-transparent and none fully transparent (see Table 3.12). For a more detailed description of the categorization process and examples thereof, the reader is referred to Chapter 2, Section 2.3.

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Table 3.12 The English idioms used as test items in the present experiment, including information about their degree of transparency and frequency Transparency

Idiom

SemiNontransparent transparent X

Frequency Very Frequent Not frequent frequent

scrape the bottom of the barrel

X

X

be the cat’s whiskers

X

X

upset the applecart

X

once in a blue moon

X

X X

bell the cat

X

X

get out of dodge

X

X

on pins and needles X

X

X

show a red rag to a bull

X

X

look a gift horse in the mouth

X

put your foot in your mouth

X

break the fourth wall

X

eat crow

X

X

cover your bases

X X X X

fly-by-night X

X

down to the wire

X X

dressed to the nines

X

X

money for old rope

X

X

a chip on your shoulder

X

dry run

X

the jig is up

X

ducks in a row

X X X X

As in the previous experiment, the test items were also regarded from a frequency perspective (see also Chapter 2, the subsection on frequency). Three of the 21 test items are very frequently used, 12 frequently used and the rest, six idioms, infrequently used (see again Table 3.12). For a more detailed description of this categorization process, the reader is again referred to Chapter 2, Section 2.3. The design

As with the previous experiment, the present investigation took place within the framework of a proficiency course in English given each term to students studying to become elementary and middle school teachers at the university where the present author currently works. Again, before any of the testing took place, the learners were all introduced to the concept of idiomaticity by briefly discussing the literal versus the idiomatic interpretation of kick the bucket, thus ascertaining that they understood on what they were going to be tested.

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First, all of the 120 informants were subjected to a decontextualized pretest, based on which already familiar idioms were removed from the scores achieved on the comprehension and retention tests that followed. For each test item, the informants were also asked to give information about whether they had heard/seen the expressions before and, if so, the degree of familiarity, as in: eat crow A  I have heard/seen this expression before  I have not heard/seen this expression before B  I am sure I know what this expression means = _________________  I think I know what this expression means = ___________________  I do not know what this expression means

In the control group tested on comprehension (cw-group), the informants were given a worksheet containing all of the 21 idioms (all items indicated in bold), each in a written context. This is here exemplified by the test item ducks in a row: ducks in a row

Tom and Susan’s tings were in a mess after having moved to a new apartment. However, after a few days they seemed to be getting = ____________________________ their ducks in a row.

Each test item was simultaneously shown in a PowerPoint presentation and the context read aloud by the present author. Between each idiom there was a short hiatus, so as to give the students enough time to try and infer the meaning of the idiom at hand. No additional information, such as the meanings of other words in the written contexts, was offered. In the subgroup in which the subjects were shown still pictures and tested on comprehension (cp-group), the illustrations (together with the idioms in their written form) were presented to the students in a PowerPoint slideshow. The learners were then asked to infer the meaning of the idiom based on the picture at hand and write it down in the worksheet provided (which also included the idiom in its written form). The reader is reminded that some of the pictures were literal drawings of the idiom constituents, while others depicted true renderings of the idioms’ figurative meanings. A third category involved pictures that incorporated both literal and figurative elements. (The illustrations below are all printed with permission from the publisher, The Child’s World, Inc. Mankato Minnesota, United States of America.) The first type is here illustrated with the help of the idioms cover your bases and a dry run (Ringstad, 2012b: 12, 27):

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© The Child’s World, Inc.

The second type can be seen with the pictures used to depict get out of dodge and down to the wire (Ringstad, 2012b: 10, 21):

© The Child’s World, Inc.

The third type, fi nally, is illustrated with the pictures of dressed to the nines and ducks in a row (Ringstad, 2012b: 22, 31):

© The Child’s World, Inc.

In the test group provided with etymological notes and tested on comprehension (ce-group), explanations of the meaning of each idiom together with the idioms themselves were again shown to the students in a PowerPoint slideshow. Based on the information offered, the informants were then asked to write in the worksheet what they believed to be the

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correct meaning of the idiom at hand. (This worksheet also contained all the 21 idioms in their written forms.) The reader is here reminded that some of the explanations offered were deemed to be supportive to the inferencing process, as exemplified by (Ringstad, 2012b: 19, 24): fly-by-night Elaboration on meaning: People who were trying to get away with something, such as not paying their rent, would leave town in the middle of the night. a chip on your shoulder Elaboration on meaning: The phrase comes from the United States in the early 1800s. If a person wanted to fight, he would put a chip of wood on his shoulder. An opponent accepted the challenge by knocking it off.

whereas other explanations were considered to give only some support, as exemplified by (Ringstad, 2012b: 5; Thapar, 2007: 48): scrape the bottom of the barrel Elaboration on meaning: The phrase comes from storing things such as wine in barrels. Whatever was left at the bottom of the barrel was usually lower quality. look a gift horse in the mouth Elaboration on meaning: One can tell how old and healthy a horse is by looking at its teeth. Long ago in England, if a horse was given as a present, it was very rude to look into its mouth to check its teeth. That would mean one was trying to fi nd out what it was worth.

In the last subgroup that was tested on comprehension, the subjects were provided (again with the help of a PowerPoint slideshow) with still pictures as well as etymological notes (and the idioms in their written form) (cpe-group). This is exemplifi ed by the idiom money for old rope (Rinsgstad, 2012: 23):

© The Child’s World, Inc.

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Elaboration on meaning: The origin of this phrase is uncertain. It may come from sailors selling rope from their ships after returning to shore.

As in the other subgroups, these students too were provided with a worksheet which contained the idioms in their written form and asked to write down what they thought each idiom meant. In all of the subgroups tested on comprehension, the test items were shown in the same order as they were presented on the pretest (see Table 3.11). Also, the time it took to go through the different contexts was approximately the same for each of the four test groups. In the subgroups that were tested on retention, the procedures were identical to the ones described for the comprehension groups above, but with one major difference: instead of asking the learners to give their answers individually, the meanings of the idioms were discussed in each subgroup as a whole. All of the learners were prompted to take part. In connection with this, there was also a short discussion about the clues that had led them to the correct answer. Once the correct meanings had been arrived at for all 21 expressions, the worksheets were collected. Again, the time spent on going through and discussing the idioms with the students was approximately the same for each of the four test groups. Immediately after, these four subgroups were faced with their first of two post-tests. In a different order than the test items were presented on the pretest/worksheet, the subjects were now confronted with the idioms in a decontextualized form. They were also asked to verbalize, if they remembered the meaning of an idiom, what it was that had helped them, as in: be the cat’s whiskers  I am sure I know what this expression means = _________________  I think I know what this expression means = ___________________  I do not know what this expression means If you did not know this expression before but now do (either sure or think you do), is there any particular reason why you now remember it? __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________

Twenty-nine days later for the rw- and rp-groups (written context and still pictures) and 27 days later for the re- and rpe-groups (etymological notes and still pictures + etymological notes), which agrees with Schmitt’s (2010b) claim that a minimum of three weeks is necessary for there to be durable learning, the second post-test was administered. This test was also in a decontextualized form, in yet another order of presentation.

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In none of the subgroups were the students informed beforehand that they would be given immediate and delayed post-tests checking their retention. On all the tests, each correct answer was awarded one point. No half points were given. Answers in English, Swedish or a combination of both languages were all accepted. 3.10 Results and Discussion

In the following subsections, the students’ results on the comprehension test and immediate and delayed post-tests will be presented. As the students’ knowledge before treatment bears relevance on some of these achievements, their results on the pretest will also be discussed. Results on the pretest

Table 3.13 shows that, as in the previous experiment, all eight informant groups had some previous knowledge of the test items. Again, these scores are quite low, indicating that the learners’ prior familiarity was limited. This is here too confirmed by the fact that in the self-evaluation, many of the students indicated that they only thought they knew the meanings instead of being completely certain (see the fourth subsection in 3.9). None of the expressions received scores in all eight test groups. However, two idioms (on pins and needles (a total of 33 correct answers for all eight student groups) and dressed to nines (14 correct answers)) received scores in seven out of the eight groups, and another two (show a red rag to a bull (18) and once in a blue moon (16)) in six of the eight groups. Since these four idioms are all frequently used, the students’ knowledge prior to instruction is, as in the previous experiment, apparently based on number of occurrences, offering support to commonality being able to predict what idioms are most likely to be known already. Table 3.13 The students’ results on the decontextualized pretest Student group

N

Idioms known

Mean

SD

Standardized scores

Comprehension/Written context (cw)

18

18/378 = 4.76%

1.00

0.97 H: 2.06; L: −1.03

Comprehension/Still pictures (cp)

13

15/273 = 5.49%

1.15

0.99 H: 1.87; L: −1.17

Comprehension/Etymological notes (ce)

19

18/399 = 4.51%

0.95

1.43 H: 2.83; L: −0.66

C/Still pictures + Etymological notes (cpe)

11

8/231 = 3.46%

0.73

0.79 H: 1.62; L: −0.92

Retention/Written context (rw)

10

5/210 = 2.38%

0.50

0.53 H: 0.95; L: −0.95

Retention/Still pictures (rp)

11

12/231 = 5.19%

1.09

0.94 H: 0.96; L: −1.16

Retention/Etymological notes (re)

22

22/462 = 4.76%

1.00

1.11 H: 2.70; L: −0.90

R/Still pictures + Etymological notes (rpe)

16

8/336 = 2.38%

0.50

0.73 H: 2.05; L: −0.69

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(See Chapter 2, the subsection on frequency.) As pointed out before, this does not, at least superficially, seem to be in accordance with the Levels of Processing Theory, which proposes that it is not the number of encounters but the depth of the encounter/s that decides whether a vocabulary item is memorized or not. However, the more times you encounter an item, the more likely it is that one or several of those encounters involves semantic processing, which, according to the Levels of Processing Theory, is the only type of processing that is able to create solid retrieval paths in memory. The fact that the students here remember idioms of a frequent nature can thus be reconciled with what is proposed by the theory. Moreover, these four comparatively high-scoring idioms are not only of a common nature, but also semi-transparent. This can be contrasted with what was seen in connection with the test items forming part of the previous experiment where only frequency played a part in whether the idioms were understood not. The greater reliance on decomposability appears to indicate that the expressions involved in the present experiment were, for some reason, more difficult to interpret than those involved in the first experiment. This is confi rmed by the fact that while 57 students knew 142 tokens on the pretest in the fi rst experiment, 120 students only knew 106 tokens before treatment in the present experiment. Results on the comprehension test

Table 3.14 presents the students’ results on the comprehension test. The reader is reminded that while the informants in the control group (cw-group) were offered the idioms in short written contexts, the participants in the treatment groups were presented with still pictures (cpgroup), etymological notes (ce-group) and still pictures + etymological notes (cpe-group). It can here be seen that all three experimental groups were outperformed by the students who were provided with the test items in short written contexts. This advantage was further confirmed statistically at a significance level of 5% in all three cases. At this point, the conclusion must therefore be drawn that presenting learners with imagery in the form of still pictures, etymological elaboration or a combination of the two Table 3.14 The students’ results on the comprehension test Student group

N

Idioms known

Mean SD

Standardized scores

Comprehension/Written context (cw)

18

130/360 = 36.11% 7.22

2.02 H: 1.87; L: −2.09

Comprehension/Still pictures (cp)

13

23/258 = 8.91%

1.77

1.30 H: 0.95; L: −2.13

Comprehension/Etymological notes (ce)

19

64/381 = 16.80%

3.37

2.09 H: 1.74; L: −1.61

C/Still pictures + Etymological notes (cpe) 11

37/223 = 16.59%

3.36

1.75 H: 1.51; L: −1.35

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does not enhance students’ comprehension of idiomatic expressions in a second language, but may in fact be somewhat detrimental to the inferencing process. Of the three treatment types, it was the still pictures that gave the least support. This conclusion is strengthened further by the fact that it was the students provided with this kind of input that constituted the strongest group percentage-wise on the pretest (see Table 3.13). One of the reasons for this result may be explained by the fact that, as pictures are quite likely to contain a wide variety of details, they will, by default, always be less precise than a written context of a supportive nature (Jones, 2003), hence the expression a picture says more than a thousand words. This may result in learners directing their focus on the wrong elements. As discussed in the second subsection in 3.8, this was noticed in Boers et al. (2009) where the students, after having been provided with pictorial input, sometimes gave the incorrect key words in a gap-fill exercise testing their retention. In fact, as mentioned in the same subsection, Skorge (2008) was able to show that complete consensus regarding pictorial input is very rare (with) informants even disregarding elements that are incongruent with their initial interpretation of the illustration. The poor result of the picture group hence does not concur with what was seen in Ghanavati Nasab and Hesabi (2014) where the learners’ comprehension was found to be enhanced by the pictorial input. However, as discussed in the second subsection in 3.8, the positive results were partly based on the students’ own reports on learning style, which may of course have boosted their achievements in an inaccurate way. The result arrived at in the present study also contradicts the fi ndings of Vasiljevic (2012, 2013) and Baker (2011), but in their studies the pictures were learner-generated and therefore also more likely to accommodate the students. (see the second subsection in 3.8.) Also, it should be noted that these three studies focused on retention, not comprehension, as is the case here. The fact that illustrations give less precise renderings of idiom meaning than written information may also explain why the students who were offered etymological notes only (the ce-group) did better than the learners who were provided with pictorial input. On the other hand, explanations offering the original, literal usage of expressions may, as the figurative meaning is the outcome of a fair degree of chance, also involve quite a few possible interpretations. This may then in turn explain why the ce-group did not do as well as those learners who were offered short written contexts. The only result for which no statistical confirmation could be obtained is the difference in mean scores between the ce- and cpe-group. In accordance with the Dual Coding Theory, it may, too easily, be assumed that two types of input (here pictures and etymological notes) will always offer better chances of making correct inferences than if only one type of input

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is provided (here etymological notes). There are two possible reasons for this not being so here. Firstly, as 18 of the 21 pictures used in the present investigation offer literal interpretations or elements thereof (see Table 3.11), it means that, when etymological notes are added to such pictures, students will be faced with conflicting clues, which appear, according to the results, to prevent links between the visual and verbal code from forming. The results in Saunders and Solman (1984), who performed a study on young learners’ knowledge of individual words, point in the same direction. Another reason may be due to what is referred to as the picture superiority effect (Nelson et al., 1976) (see the second subsection in 3.8), in line with which, in a competitive situation, illustrations are more likely to attract the attention of learners than written text, hence sometimes making students miss vital information in the written part of the input. In this respect, there may also exist a difference between high- and lowimagers. According to the Boers et al. (2006) study discussed in the second subsection in 3.8, when pictorial input was added to etymological information, it was the low-imagers that gained the most, as the high-imagers were distracted from the written input. Thus, the majority of the students in the cpe-group may have been especially inclined to make use of visual information. The fact that these learners displayed the lowest level of prior knowledge, as attested to on the pretest, may of course also have contributed to them not achieving better results (see Table 3.13). The disadvantage of the cpe-group is hence not in agreement with what was detected in Ghorbani (2017), Mousavi Haghshenas and Hashemian (2016) and Szczepaniak and Lew (2011), which all showed an increased level of mastery when pictorial input was provided together with etymological information. The fact that these investigations focused on retention may, however, explain the discrepancy in results. A situation in which the picture superiority effect is allowed to occur can be contrasted with a learning situation in which pictures are used to encourage learners to hypothesize about the origins of idioms. It is primarily in such contexts that research on idiomatic expressions has found the use of pictures most beneficial (see Boers et al. (2008) in the second subsection in 3.8). To explore the differences between the test groups further, the students’ individual results on the comprehension test were also considered. In the highest-achieving group, the cw-group, as many as ten of the 18 learners were able to take (great) advantage of the short, written contexts with which they were presented. Hence, some of these students are therefore most likely ‘verbalizers’ that would, if they were given a choice, fairly consistently prefer information that is provided in writing. Some of these high-achievers might of course also have been able to benefit simultaneously from visual input, but these are mere speculations, as the test type to which these informants were subjected does not provide any such information. The rest of the students in this group received comparatively low

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scores and may therefore have done better if put in one of the other test groups where visual input was in focus. In the ce- and cpe-group, with mean scores between the cw-group and the cp-group, a few students in each case were able to make slightly better use of the imagery than other learners. This may indicate that these students have a propensity for the visual code during inferencing. In these groups too, there are however quite a few students who did poorly. These learners might thus have improved their results if offered short written contexts instead, especially those participating in the cpe-group as they, in the majority of cases, were faced with conflicting pieces of information. In the lowest-achieving group, the cp-group, as there are no results which may be regarded as conspicuously positive, the conclusion can be drawn that none of the learners benefitted from the still pictures to any great extent. According to these descriptions, it is clear that the students’ individual results support the interpretation of the mean scores presented in Table 3.17. That is, no single student is solely responsible for the poor achievements in any of the three experimental groups. Based on the achievements of the three treatment groups as compared to the control group, introducing visualization techniques in the form of still pictures, etymological notes or a combination of the two may seem like a waste of time. Qualitative data for the test items as used in the three experimental groups will help to determine whether such a statement has any general validity. Tables 3.15–3.17 offer this information. As before, the expressions are presented in order of accuracy, starting with the idiom for which most of the students could supply the correct meaning. If two or more idioms have the same score, these are listed in the order they were presented on the pretest. Those expressions for which correct answers were given are highlighted in grey, whereas those expressions that none of the students understood remain in white. The reader is reminded that those tokens for which students gave correct answers on the pretest have here been excluded (see the last subsection in 3.5). If the results of the cp-group are considered first (Table 3.15), it can be seen that it is the degree of figurativeness of the pictures that plays a crucial part in whether an expression was interpreted correctly or not, the three figurative renderings being among those relatively few test items that received accurate answers. That there is at least some kind of figurative element present also seems essential, as another three of the eight test items that received scores are of this kind. The importance of figurative elements to the inferencing process is substantiated even further when the idioms that none of the learners understood are considered. While nine of these 13 test items were literal renderings, only four combined idiomatic and figurative elements, and none were, as discussed above, entirely figurative in character. This result is diametrically different from what was detected in

X

X

13 eat crow (0/21 = 0%) X X X X

17 money for old rope (0/21 = 0%)

18 a chip on your shoulder (0/21 = 0%)

19dry run (0/21 = 0%)

20 the jig is up (0/21 = 0%)

14 fly-by-night (0/21 = 0%)

X X

11 put your foot in your mouth (0/21 = 0%)

X

5 bell the cat (0/21 = 0%)

10 look a gift horse in the mouth (0/21 = 0%)

X

X

X

X

3 upset the apple cart (0/21 = 0%)

1 scrape the bottom of the barrel (0/21 = 0%)

12 break the fourth wall (0/20 = 0%)

7 on pins and needles (0/14 = 0%) X

X

21 ducks in a row (1/20 = 5.00%)

8 cover your bases (1/21 = 4.76%)

X

4 once in a blue moon (1/19 = 5.26%)

X X

9 show a red rag to a bull (2/21 = 9.52%)

2 be the cat’s whiskers (2/21 = 9.52%)

X X

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

Semi-trans

Non-trans

Frequency

Transparency

6 get out of dodge (2/20 = 10.00%)

16 dressed to the nines (6/19 = 31.58%)

15 down to the wire (8/20 = 40.00%)

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

Comprehension Test – cp-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

Table 3.15 Understood idioms on the comprehension test, presented in order of frequency – cp-group

X

X

X

Figurative

Still picture

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Both

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Literal

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention 133

X X

7 on pins and needles (6/16 = 37.50%)

16 dressed to the nines (6/16 = 37.50%)

X X X X X

15 down to the wire (2/21 = 9.52%)

10 look a gift horse in the mouth (1/21 = 4.76%)

11 put your foot in your mouth (1/21 = 4.76%)

17 money for old rope (1/21 = 4.76%)

20 the jig is up (1/21 = 4.76%)

X X

13 eat crow (0/21 = 0%)

18 a chip on your shoulder (0/21 = 0%)

14 fly-by-night (−1/20 = −5.00%)

X

2 be the cat’s whiskers (0/21 = 0%)

X

X

8 cover your bases (2/20 = 10.00%)

X

X

1 scrape the bottom of the barrel (0/20 = 0%)

X

12 break the fourth wall (3/21 = 14.29%)

X

4 once in a blue moon (3/17 = 17.65%)

X

3 upset the apple cart (3/21 = 14.29%)

X

21 ducks in a row (4/21 = 19.05%)

5 bell the cat (4/21 = 19.05%)

X

X

9 show a red rag to a bull (8/18 = 44.44%)

X

19 dry run (9/21 = 42.86%)

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

Semi-trans

6 get out of dodge (9/21 = 42.86%)

Frequency

Transparency

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

Comprehension Test – ce-group

Non-trans

Table 3.16 Understood idioms on the comprehension test, presented in order of frequency – ce-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Supportive

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Some support

Etymological notes

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

134

X X X X X X

8 cover your bases (0/21 = 0%)

10 look a gift horse in the mouth (0/21 = 0%)

11 put your foot in your mouth (0/21 = 0%)

12 break the fourth wall (0/21 = 0%)

13 eat crow (0/21 = 0%)

18 a chip on your shoulder (0/21 = 0%)

X

X

2 be the cat’s whiskers (0/21 = 0%)

1 scrape the bottom of the barrel (0/21 = 0%)

X

20 the jig is up (1/21 = 4.76%) X

X

17 money for old rope (1/21 = 4.76%) X

X

5 bell the cat (1/21 = 4.76%)

7 on pins and needles (0/15 = 0%)

X

3 upset the apple cart (1/21 = 4.76%)

21 ducks in a row (1/21 = 4.76%)

X

X

19 dry run (2/21 = 9.52%)

14 fly-by-night (2/21 = 9.52%)

X X

X

4 once in a blue moon (6/21 = 28.57%)

6 get out of dodge (2/21 = 9.52%)

X

15 down to the wire (4/21 = 19.05%)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very Frequent Not frequent frequent

Semi-trans Non-trans

16 dressed to the nines (6/19 = 31.58%)

Frequency

Transparency

9 show a red rag to a bull (10/21 = 47.62%)

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

Comprehension Test – cpe-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Figurative Both Literal

Still picture

Table 3.17 Understood idioms on the comprehension test, presented in order of frequency – cpe-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Supportive

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Some support

Etymological notes

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention 135

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Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Ghanavati Nasab and Hesabi (2014) in which literal pictures of opaque idioms yielded positive results. However, as mentioned before, this may partly be due to the fact that the participants were allowed to self-report on their learning styles, based on which conclusions of the results were drawn. Next, if the results of the ce-group are regarded (Table 3.16), it can be noticed that, unsurprisingly, it is the degree of support offered by the etymological notes that determined whether an expression was inferred correctly or not. Here the five expressions receiving the highest scores were provided with historical information of a helpful nature rather than just giving partial support. In the cpe-group (Table 3.17), fi nally, where, as pointed out above, the majority of the two pieces of input are contradictory, and thus competing for the students’ attention, the learners appear to have been more successful in those cases where they relied on the information offered by the etymological notes than on the input supplied by the still pictures. This interpretation can be based on the fact that the important role played by the figurative renderings seen in the cp-group, where pictures were the sole form of input (see Table 3.15), has here been somewhat downgraded. Additionally, it seems that degree of transparency also plays a part in the students’ results, a factor seen to be of importance already on the pretest (see the fi rst subsection in 3.10). This is particularly noticeable among those test items for which none or only a few of the learners gave correct answers, the majority of the idioms here being opaque in nature. For the ce- and cpe-group, this is perhaps not so strange as the etymological link that can be created between the original, literal sense of such an idiom and its present-day meaning is usually weaker than the connection that can be made to a transparent expression. This result agrees, to some extent, with what was seen in Bergstrand (2017) and in one of the experiments reported in Boers et al. (2004). In neither case did the etymological notes enhance students’ mastery of non-transparent idioms (see the fi rst subsection in 3.8). It disagrees, however, with another experiment reported in Boers et al. (2004). Here the etymological input, when provided during instruction (as compared to a self-study situation), was beneficial to the acquisition process of opaque idioms. However, as these investigations mainly focused on retention, an entirely fair comparison can here not be made. Based on the above, the conclusion can be drawn that if teachers want to introduce pictures, etymological notes or a combination of the two when focusing on students’ comprehension of idioms in the L2 classroom, the inclusion of certain criteria is more likely to make the inferencing process a successful one. Illustrations should be figurative, or at least contain some figurative elements, and etymological notes should be as supportive as possible. Moreover, if pictures of a literal nature cannot be avoided, as many (children’s) books on idioms incorporate such imagery, teachers

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should refrain from simultaneously introducing etymological input, since these two types of representation will provide conflicting clues, which is likely to confuse the learner. Results on the retention tests

Table 3.18 presents the students’ results on the immediate post-test, which occurred directly after treatment, as well as the delayed post-test, which took place 29 days later for the rw- and rp-group and 27 days later for the re- and rpe-group. On the immediate post-test, as on the comprehension test, the students faced with short written contexts achieved the best result. However, in this case the advantage of the rw-group could not be substantiated statistically in relation to the results of the rp- and re-group. When contrasted with the rpe-group, however, statistical confi rmation could be obtained at a significance level of 5%. Furthermore, the advantages of the rp- and re-group over the rpe-group were also confi rmed statistically, here too at a significance level of 5%. Hence the rpe-group did the poorest of all four test groups. As in Experiment 1, what is seen as a mere indication of a change in achievement on the immediate post-test, as compared to the comprehension test, is strengthened further on the delayed post-test, where the group who received input in the form of still pictures achieved the highest percentage of correct answers, with a knowledge loss of 40.64 percentage points (69.86–29.22). This thus stands in stark contrast to what was observed on the comprehension test, where the picture group did the poorest, and can be compared to the rw-group, achieving only the third best result, with a corresponding loss of 47.32 percentage points, the highest in Table 3.18 The students’ results on post-test 1 and 2 Student group

N

Idioms known

Mean SD

Standardized scores

Post-Test 1 Retention/Written context (rw)

10 152/205 = 74.15% 15.20

3.33 H: 1.44; L: −1.56

Retention/Still pictures (rp)

11 153/219 = 69.86% 13.91

3.27 H: 1.25; L: −1.50

Retention/Etymological notes (re)

22 320/440 = 72.73% 14.55

4.46 H: 1.00; L: −3.26

R/Still pictures + Etymological notes (rpe) 16 189/328 = 57.62% 11.81

4.97 H: 1.45; L: −1.57

Post-Test 2 Retention/Written context (rw)

10 55/205 = 26.83%

5.50

4.33 H: 2.66; L: −0.81

Retention/Still pictures (rp)

11 64/219 = 29.22%

5.82

3.03 H: 1.38; L: −1.26

Retention/Etymological notes (re)

22 124/440 = 28.18% 5.64

3.29 H: 2.24; L: −1.71

R/Still pictures + Etymological notes (rpe) 16 78/328 = 23.78%

4.88

3.86 H: 2.62; L: −1.26

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all four test groups. The rp-group is followed by the students who received etymological input, who experienced a knowledge loss of 44.55 percentage points. Consequently, this means that, as on the immediate post-test, the lowest score was achieved by the rpe-group. However, as their result was low already on the immediate post-test, their knowledge loss is not as great (33.84 percentage points). Based on the above, it is clear that the two student groups provided with still pictures (cp-group) and etymological notes (ce-group) were slightly better at creating long-lasting retrieval paths than the students in the rw- and rpe-group. The question is of course what would have happened if yet another post-test had been administered. Unfortunately, no such test could be given, but, even though none of the results on the delayed post-test could be confi rmed statistically, the dramatic change seen to occur during a period of one month indicates that still pictures and etymological notes may be fruitful techniques in a situation where longterm retention is strived for. This means that the result on the post-test achieved by the rp-group agrees with the investigations of, for instance, Boers et al. (2008), Fotovatnia and Khaki (2012), Saffarian et al. (2013) and Afram (2016), all of which point to the positive effects of using still pictures in a situation where long-term retention is in focus (see the second subsection in 3.8). Similarly, the result of the re-group tallies with, for example, Baleghizadeh and Bagheri (2012), Bagheri and Fazel (2010) and Noroozi and Salehi (2013), in all three of which etymological support was seen to have beneficial effects on learners’ long-term retention (see the first subsection in 3.8.) More importantly, the results of the rp- and re-group on the delayed post-test also concur with the Theory of Dual Coding. As the verbal and non-verbal codes are processed in different systems, more than one retrieval path is here created, thus accommodating ‘verbalizers’ as well as ‘visualizers’. This can be compared to the one-modality input the participants in the rw-group received, where only one memory path was created in the verbal system, hence weakening the chances of students who prefer visual input to retrieve information successfully. Moreover, the results on the second post-test are also in accordance with the Levels of Processing Theory. As discussed before, semantic processing is here considered to achieve the deepest type of processing, during which solid retrieval routes are more likely to be created in long-term memory than if only structural and/or phonetic processing occur. As the learners in the rp- and re-group were provided with two modalities, both of which focused on one specific idiom meaning, deep learning, in the form of semantic processing, was created in two different ways simultaneously. This can again be compared to the rw-group in which the participants only received one kind of input, although of a semantic type. As for the poor result of rpe-group, there may, as on the comprehension test, be two main reasons for this. Firstly, the literal renderings in

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combination with etymological notes of varying degrees of supportiveness very likely created disharmonious memory pegs, causing confusion when trying to retrieve the information stored. Secondly, the picture superiority effect, according to which the attention of students is more likely to be drawn to illustrations than written text, may have made some learners miss vital information offered by the historical input (see again Nelson et al. (1976) and Boers et al. (2006)). The result of the rpe-group hence does not tally with what was achieved in Ghorbani (2017) and Mousavi Haghshenas and Hashemian (2016), in both of which a combination of pictures and etymological input strengthened the informants’ retention as compared to the single modality input tested. However, in neither case were the pictures considered according to a literal-figurative continuum, so it is unclear to what extent different types of illustrations were included. If primarily idiomatic in character, this would, in accordance with the results of the present investigation, most likely have boosted their results. As in connection with the comprehension test, the results were investigated further by exploring the students’ individual results. In agreement with the mean scores on the delayed post-test, it was observed that only two learners in the rw-group benefitted (greatly) from the input they received. Their achievement can be contrasted with the results of another two learners whose retrieval paths were very short-lived, doing well on the immediate post-test only. Whereas the former students thus can be regarded as ‘verbalizers’ in the word’s true sense, the latter ones cannot. The individual results of the students in the rw-group can be compared with the corresponding results of the students participating in the rp- and re-group, where in each test group about half of the learners were able to take (great) advantage of the input with which they were provided. Many of these learners are therefore probably ‘visualizers’, preferring, in a situation where a choice exists, to pay more attention to imagery than written text. The rest of the students in these two groups only managed to create short-lived memory pegs, and can therefore not be regarded as true ‘visualizers’. Even in the cpe-group, where a discord between the two types of input exists, there were a few learners who did comparatively well. Since this input in many cases forced the learners to make a choice as to which clues were the more believable ones, the students achieving comparatively high scores in this treatment group must be considered very advanced learners. Based on the preceding discussion, the choice between short written contexts on the one hand and still pictures or etymological notes on the other hand when focusing on long-term retention of idioms in the L2 classroom does not appear to be completely irrelevant. To shed some more light on this, individual data of the test items as used in the three different treatment groups were also considered. While Tables 3.19–3.21 show the results of the treatment groups on post-test 1, Tables 3.22–3.24 offer the

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groups’ results on post-test 2. As before, the idioms are presented in order of accuracy, starting with the idiom for which most of the students could supply the correct meaning. If two or more idioms have the same score, these are listed in the order they were presented on the pretest. Those expressions for which correct answers were given are colour-coded in grey, whereas those expressions that none of the students had previous knowledge of remain in white. The reader is here again reminded that those tokens for which students gave correct answers on the pretest have here been excluded (see again the last subsection in 3.5). As seen in Tables 3.19–3.24, the criteria noticed to be of importance for successful inferencing on the comprehension test (i.e. figurative interpretations of the pictures, or at least partly so, and etymological notes of a supportive nature) are less pronounced on the retention tests. In addition to the fact that clues may eventually fade away, the treatment, as explained in connection with Experiment 1, may be the cause of this. The reader is again reminded that after each presented test item, a general classroom discussion took place, during which the meaning of the idiom at hand was inferred, implying that some learners may not have had enough time to process the input before the correct meaning was arrived at by one of their fellow classmates. This in turn means that when subjected to the post-tests in the present study, as deep processing had not (had time to) establish(ed) itself, fewer retrieval routes had been created for these learners with the help of the treatment input. Nevertheless, as in the previous experiment, the students taking part in the present experiment were also able to compensate for this. So, in addition to creating viable retrieval paths based on the treatment, as shown by the following comments (see the last subsection in 3.5), some of which are of a more general character (comments written in Swedish were translated into English by the present author): • • • •

I remember them because I remember the pictures and I can pair up the pictures with the idioms. And the idioms I’ve heard of before, I’ve now learned the meaning of. Sort of an aha-experience. I remember after having seen the pictures and been given the meaning of the idioms. The story behind the expression makes it easier to remember. The explanations of the expressions give you clues to what they are about. Some have stuck for life, I think, like horse mouth.

while others are more specific: • • • •

Picture of a cat eating a crow. Cat doesn’t look happy. (idiom: eat crow) I think of the picture with a lot of apples. (idiom: upset the apple cart) Because of the picture, duck mom taking care of her little baby ducks. (also ducks in a row) Because of the picture with the funny nine. (idiom: dressed to the nines)

X X

19 dry run (9/21 = 42.86%)

8 cover your bases (8/21 = 38.10%)

X

5 bell the cat (5/21 = 23.81%)

21 ducks in a row (5/20 = 25.00%) X

X

7 on pins and needles (5/18 = 27.78%)

3 upset the apple cart (5/21 = 23.81%)

X

14 fly-by-night (6/21 = 28.57%)

11 put your foot in your mouth (6/21 = 28.57%)

16 dressed to the nines (6/19 = 31.58%)

X

X

X

20 the jig is up (7/21 = 33.33%) X

X

18 a chip on your shoulder (7/21 = 33.33%)

9 show a red rag to a bull (6/18 = 33.33%)

X X

13 eat crow (7/21 = 33.33%)

X

15 down to the wire (7/20 = 35.00%)

X

X

12 break the fourth wall (9/21 = 42.86%)

4 once in a blue moon (7/19 = 36.84%)

X

6 get out of dodge (9/21 = 42.86%)

X

X

17 money for old rope (10/21 = 47.62%)

1 scrape the bottom of the barrel (9/21 = 42.86%)

X X

10 look a gift horse in the mouth (10/21 = 47.62%)

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

Semi-trans

Non-trans

Frequency

Transparency

2 be the cat’s whiskers (10/21 = 47.62%)

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

Post-Test 1 – rp-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

Table 3.19 Remembered idioms on post-test 1, presented in order of frequency – rp-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

X

X

X

Figurative

Still picture

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Both

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Literal

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention 141

X X

11 put your foot in your mouth (9/18 = 50.00%)

X

20 the jig is up (11/20 = 55.00%)

16 dressed to the nines (11/19 = 57.89%) X

X

9 show a red rag to a bull (13/15 = 86.67%)

13 eat crow (13/21 = 61.90%)

X

X

18 a chip on your shoulder (15/21 = 71.43%) X

X

15 down to the wire (15/21 = 71.43%)

14 fly-by-night (14/21 = 66.67%)

X

3 upset the apple cart (15/21 = 71.43%)

1 scrape the bottom of the barrel (14/21 = 66.67%)

X

8 cover your bases (15/20 = 75.00%)

21 ducks in a row (16/21 = 76.19%)

19 dry run (16/21 = 76.19%) X

6 get out of dodge (17/21 = 80.95%) X

X

10 look a gift horse in the mouth (17/19 = 89.47%)

4 once in a blue moon (16/18 = 88.89%)

X X

5 bell the cat (18/21 = 85.71%)

X

X X

12 break the fourth wall (19/21 = 90.48%)

7 on pins and needles (18/18 = 100%)

X

2 be the cat’s whiskers (19/21 = 90.48%)

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

X

Semi-trans

17 money for old rope (20/21 = 95.24%)

Frequency

Transparency

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

Post-Test 1 – re-group

Non-trans

Table 3.20 Remembered idioms on post-test 1, presented in order of frequency – re-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Supportive

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Some support

Etymological notes

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

142

X X X

18 a chip on your shoulder (7/21 = 33.33%)

20 the jig is up (7/21 = 33.33%)

15 down to the wire (6/20 = 30.00%) X

X

11 put your foot in your mouth (7/21 = 33.33%)

16 dressed to the nines (2/17 = 11.76%)

X

8 cover your bases (7/21 = 33.33%)

X

X

1 scrape the bottom of the barrel (6/21 = 28.57%)

X

5 bell the cat (7/21 = 33.33%)

X

3 upset the apple cart (7/21 = 33.33%)

14 fly-by-night (8/21 = 38.10%)

X

13 eat crow (8/21 = 38.10%)

X X

X

10 look a gift horse in the mouth (10/21 = 47.62%)

7 on pins and needles (10/21 = 47.62%)

6 get out of dodge (10/21 = 47.62%)

X

9 show a red rag to a bull (10/18 = 55.56%)

X

19 dry run (11/21 = 52.38%) X

X

21 ducks in a row (11/21 = 52.38%)

X

2 be the cat’s whiskers (12/21 = 57.14%)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Very Frequent Not frequent frequent

Semi-trans Non-trans

X

Frequency

Transparency

12 break the fourth wall (14/21 = 66.67%)

4 once in a blue moon (14/21 = 66.67%)

17 money for old rope (15/21 = 71.43%)

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

Post-Test 1 – rpe-group

Table 3.21 Remembered idioms on post-test 1, presented in order of frequency – rpe-group

X

X

X

Figurative

Still picture

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Both Literal

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Supportive Some support

Etymological notes

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention 143

X

14 fly-by-night (3/21 = 14.29%)

X X

13 eat crow (2/21 = 9.52%)

18 a chip on your shoulder (2/21 = 9.52%) X X X X

5 bell the cat (1/21 = 4.76%)

6 get out of dodge (0/21 = 0%)

11 put your foot in your mouth (0/21 = 0%)

20 the jig is up (0/21 = 0%)

X

X

12 break the fourth wall (2/21 = 9.52%)

9 show a red rag to a bull (1/18 = 5.56%)

X

X

3 upset the apple cart (2/21 = 9.52%)

21 ducks in a row (2/20 = 10.00%) X

X

1 scrape the bottom of the barrel (4/21 = 19.05%)

19 dry run (3/21 = 14.29%)

X

16 dressed to the nines (4/19 = 21.05%)

X

17 money for old rope (5/21 = 23.81%) X

X

2 be the cat’s whiskers (5/21 = 23.81%)

7 on pins and needles (4/18 = 22.22%)

X

15 down to the wire (5/20 = 25.00%)

X X

X

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

Semi-trans

Non-trans

Frequency

Transparency

8 cover your bases (6/21 = 28.57%)

4 once in a blue moon (6/19 = 31.58%)

10 look a gift horse in the mouth (7/21 = 33.33%)

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

Post-Test 2 – rp-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

Table 3.22 Remembered idioms on post-test 2, presented in order of frequency – rp-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

X

X

X

Figurative

Still picture

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Both

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Literal

144 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

X

15 down to the wire (4/20 = 20.00%)

X

19 dry run (2/21 = 9.52%)

20 the jig is up (1/20 = 5.00%)

21 ducks in a row (1/21 = 4.76%)

X X

18 a chip on your shoulder (2/21 = 9.52%)

X

X

11 put your foot in your mouth (3/18 = 16.67%)

14 fly-by-night (2/21 = 9.52%)

X

13 eat crow (4/21 = 19.05%) X

X

3 upset the apple cart (5/21 = 23.81%) X

X

8 cover your bases (5/20 = 25.00%)

1 scrape the bottom of the barrel (4/21 = 19.05%)

X

X

5 bell the cat (6/21 = 28.57%)

9 show a red rag to a bull (6/15 = 40.00%)

2 be the cat’s whiskers (8/21 = 38.10%) X

X X

17 money for old rope (9/21 = 42.86%)

7 on pins and needles (8/18 = 44.44%)

X

X

16 dressed to the nines (10/19 = 52.63%)

6 get out of dodge (9/21 = 42.86%)

X

X

4 once in a blue moon (10/18 = 55.56%)

X

10 look a gift horse in the mouth (12/19 = 63.16%)

X

X

X

X

Very frequent

Semi-trans

Non-trans

Frequency

Transparency

12 break the fourth wall (13/21 = 61.90%)

Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

Post-Test 2 – re-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Frequent

Table 3.23 Remembered idioms on post-test 2, presented in order of frequency – re-group

X

X

X

X

X

X

Not frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

supportive

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Some support

Etymological notes

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention 145

X

X

8 cover your bases (2/21 = 9.52%)

X

1 scrape the bottom of the barrel (1/21 = 4.76%)

20 the jig is up (0/21 = 0%)

X X

19 dry run (2/21 = 9.52%)

21 ducks in a row (2/21 = 9.52%)

X X

18 a chip on your shoulder (2/21 = 9.52%)

14 fly-by-night (2/21 = 9.52%)

X X

X

2 be the cat’s whiskers (2/21 = 9.52%)

6 get out of dodge (2/21 = 9.52%)

X

15 down to the wire (2/20 = 10.00%)

5 bell the cat (2/21 = 9.52%)

X X

13 eat crow (3/21 = 14.29%)

X

11 put your foot in your mouth (3/21 = 14.29%)

X

3 upset the apple cart (3/21 = 14.29%)

X

X

12 break the fourth wall (5/21 = 23.81%)

16 dressed to the nines (5/17 = 29.41%) X

X

7 on pins and needles (7/21 = 33.33%)

17 money for old rope (7/21 = 33.33%)

X

X

9 show a red rag to a bull (7/18 = 38.89%)

10 look a gift horse in the mouth (9/21 = 42.86%)

4 once in a blue moon (10/21 = 47.62%)

X

X

X

X

very frequency

semi-trans non-trans

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

frequent not frequent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

figurative both literal

Still picture

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

supportive

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

some support

Etymological notes

Post-Test 2 – rpe-group Frequency

Table 3.24 Remembered idioms on post-test 2, presented in order of frequency – rpe-group

Transparency

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Order of presentation/Idiom (correct answers)

146

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention

• • • • • • • • •

147

Because of the picture with the man and the clock. (idiom: down to the wire) From the explanation. If you bell the cat you help the other mice from danger. (idiom: bell the cat) I remember from the explanation. Nine is the highest number, therefore it means very good. (idiom: dressed to the nines) Firemen that practised did it without water. (idiom: dry run) When people gave horses away to people, they looked at the teeth to see the value of it. (idiom: look a gift horse in the mouth) Dodge City, Kansas, was a dangerous city. (idiom: get out of dodge) At horse races, when there were no cameras, they used a wire. (idiom: down to the wire) From when we talked about sailors being able to sell old and used rope. (idiom: money for old rope) Because of the politician that said stupid things. (idiom: put your foot in your mouth)

the students were also able to form a great many individual retrieval paths, as exemplified by: cp-group: • • • • • •

I remember when Anna answered. (idiom: on pins and needles) (The student is here referring to one of her classmates.) I heard this one on a TV show (idiom: ducks in a row) I think of dentists looking for something wrong with your teeth. (idiom: look a gift horse in the mouth) Because it was funny! (also look a gift horse in the mouth) I think of thieves often operating during the night. (idiom: fly-by-night) Because I thought it meant to be lazy. (idiom: a chip on your shoulder)

ce-group: • • • •

It was the fi rst thing you brought up and I gave the wrong answer. (idiom: scrape the bottom of the barrel) Because of a movie, the title of which includes the expression. (It is unclear to which idiom the student is referring.) I remember it mostly because it sounds beautiful, I think. (idiom: once in a blue moon) From a TV show I watch (also once in a blue moon)

As pointed out in connection with Experiment 1, since the learners had not been informed about the upcoming post-tests, these comments can be regarded as examples of naturally formed retrieval paths.

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Again, this phenomenon can be compared to what was noticed in Boers et al. (2008) in which it did not seem to matter whether the learners’ hypotheses regarding the idioms’ origins were correct or not. Rather, it was the fact that the students had created mental memory pegs, right or wrong, that helped them remember the idioms tested (see the second subsection in 3.8). Interestingly enough, this occurred irrespective of the idioms’ degree of transparency. That is, in Boer’s study the students’ individually formed memory pegs did not only work for transparent idioms but for opaque ones too. With the possible exception of the rpe-group (see Table 3.24), the students in the present experiment display the same kind of behaviour, creating long-lasting individual memory pegs for compositional as well as non-compositional expressions (see Tables 3.22 and 3.23). As in Experiment 1, the above can be compared to the fact that very few comments were made by the students who had been presented with the idioms in short written contexts. In fact, there were even a few participants in the rw-group who testified to the fact that they had tried to create mental pictures of the written input in order to help them remember the idioms more easily: • • •

I created my own pictures. I kind of have a photographic memory. (general comment) Because I created a picture in my head. (idiom: show a red rag to a bull) I made up a picture in my head. (idiom: fly-by-night)

This was, as mentioned in the first subsection in 3.2, detected by Kraemer et al. (2009), whose informants categorized as ‘visualizers’ quite often converted verbal input into imagery. To sum up, based on the results it seems that perceptual and mental imagery can augment the number of (individual) memory pegs that can help learners create long-lasting retrieval routes more easily than is possible with written input, and this applies to transparent as well as nontransparent expressions. It is interesting to note that the last part of this conclusion seems truer for still pictures and etymological notes than for captioned audio-visual input, as presented in Experiment 1 (see Tables 3.8 (immediate post-test) and 3.9 (delayed post-test)). The three-modality input in the latter case, obviously being too much for some students to handle, as compared to the two-modality input in the former cases, may be the reason for this difference. 3.11 Conclusions Based on the Two Experiments and Pedagogical Implications

Building on Chapter 2, in which it was shown that context is the main facilitator in learners’ L1/L2 disambiguation process, the aim of the current chapter was to explore the effects of multimodal and visualization techniques

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149

on the comprehension as well as retention of L2 idioms. In the first of two experiments, captioned audio-visual input was provided; in the second (a) still pictures, (b) etymological notes and (c) still pictures + etymological notes were offered. In both cases, the treatment groups were compared to control groups supplied with short written contexts only. The results show that to indiscriminately use movie clips, illustrations or historical explanations does not aid comprehension more than short written contexts. That is, providing multimodal input while focusing on meaning in accordance with the Dual Coding Theory and the Levels of Processing Theory does not necessarily lead to better understanding. Instead, the two experiments clearly show that it is not until certain criteria specific to each technique are present that the treatment types here tested have the potential to surpass written context. When it comes to captioned audio-visual input, the students generally achieved better results when the clues were global in character and dealt with the theme of the clip. The transient nature of this type of input, making it difficult to catch local clues pertaining to details, was believed to be the main reason for this result. For low-achievers, the unique prosodic features of idiomatic expressions were also considered to be a contributing factor. Furthermore, it could be shown that idioms occurring towards the end of extended scenes also enhanced the comprehension process. Such clips ensured that that the learners had ample time to take in all the available clues. When it comes to still pictures, etymological notes and a combination of the two, the students’ comprehension was enhanced when the illustrations were figurative in character, or at least contained some figurative elements, and when the links between the idiom’s literal sense and its present-day meaning were as supportive as possible. Moreover, provided with still pictures + etymological elaboration, it became even more crucial that the pictures were of an idiomatic nature, thus agreeing with the story told by the etymological information. This is contrary to what is seen in many (children’s) books where, quite often, no heed has been paid to input of conflicting character. When the students were tested on retention, the results showed that the criteria important to the comprehension process were weakened somewhat. This was partly considered to be due to the fact that clues have a natural tendency to fade away, and partly due to the treatment, in which not all students had the chance/an equal chance to form viable retrieval paths. Nevertheless, the results achieved by the treatment groups, with the exception of the cpe-group in the second experiment, indicate the great potential of captioned audio-visual input, still pictures and etymological elaboration for long-term retention, all showing smaller losses of knowledge, when the two post-tests were compared, than the control groups. Put differently, in short, these techniques are better at aiding students in  creating long-lasting memory pegs, be it individually formed or

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treatment-based, than short written contexts. Moreover, all treatment types were able to do so for not only semi-transparent expressions, but opaque ones too, especially for those idioms part of the second experiment. It should here perhaps be mentioned that, as captioned audio-visual input, in contrast to still pictures and etymological notes, requires that learners have reached a certain threshold level of proficiency for both spoken and written language, teachers need, before introducing these techniques into the L2 classroom, to determine what level of mastery his/ her students have attained. This is a crucial step since low-achievers may experience long-lasting aversion to language learning if too heavy a burden is put on their shoulders too soon. This assessment should not only be based on students’ general language proficiency, but also on their cognitive ability of understanding figurative language per se, since, as shown in Chapter 2 (Section 2.4), there is often a correlation between what is known in a first language and what can be accomplished in a second. For high-achievers, advanced enough to deal with captioned audio-visual input, Confessions of an idiom (https://vimeo.com/63083013), a clip that links together a number of different expressions into a neat short story, may be used to engage students in an initial stage. Idiomland (https:// idiomland.tumblr.com/), a website that comprises clips from a number of different movies etc, may also be of interest to teachers. The one problem with this site is that the clips are short, not providing much context, so it should perhaps mainly be used as a source to fi nd the original uses of the various expressions. As for still pictures and etymological notes, the children’s books used in Experiment 2 (the last subsection in 3.9) in the present chapter are recommended, but, in accordance with what has been said above, teachers need to be highly selective. Finally, the results of the two experiments also show that instructors need to start thinking about dividing learners into groups based on their preferred style of learning, instead of forcing them to acquire knowledge through the teacher’s style, which naturally only offers advantages to those learners whose way of acquiring knowledge matches that of the teacher. Such thinking would thus cater to the needs of both ‘verbalizers’ and ‘visualizer’, and would not limit students to always having to see things from the teacher’s perspective. This would of course not only be pertinent to the teaching of figurative language, but to language teaching on a more general level. As a matter of fact, as multi-media is gaining ground in a wide variety of areas these days, it could be beneficial to students in many more classrooms than just the language classroom (Mayer, 2014). Notes (1) Originally 28 items were tested. However, as the meanings of five of these were given in the L1 subtitling, these idioms were removed before the analysis of the results

Do Multimodal and Visualization Techniques Enhance Comprehension and Retention

(2) (3) (4)

(5)

(6)

151

began. Having had these test items interspersed among the others may of course have affected the results to some extent. The idiom occurs twice at the end of the clip. This idiom too occurs twice at the end of the clip. In the scene used for the audio-visual test, the word red is replaced by beige, indicating the lack of irresponsible behaviour characteristic of the idiom paint the town red. In connection with the pre-scene information, the students were informed that the standard form of the idiom includes the colour red, but that they should be listening for the expression paint the town beige. The fact that some of these learners had already taken part in another experiment the same term may of course have affected these students’ results. On the one hand, their earlier participation may have made them more attuned to idioms, facilitating comprehension and retention this time around. On the other hand, taking part in a second experiment may have taken its toll on some of the students’ eagerness to put effort into the tests. Twenty-four expressions were tested originally. However, as three of these idioms also were included in Experiment 1, and some of the students participating in the present experiment also took part in that experiment, these items were excluded before the analysis of the results began. Having had these test items interspersed among the others may of course have affected the results to some extent.

4 Persisting Ignorance and (Partial) Misinterpretations of L2 Idioms After Treatment

4.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter, the effects of multimodal and visualization techniques on learners’ comprehension and retention of canonically used idioms were investigated. While these treatment types aided in the disambiguation and retrieval processes in a great many cases, quite a few idiom meanings remained (partially) unsolved and/or were (partially) forgotten. Based on the research literature, it is clear that ignorance and misinterpretations of idiomatic expressions abound. In Nippold and Martin (1989), for instance, investigating native speakers’ comprehension of English idioms, high failure rates (which included ‘no answer’) were discovered for all four age groups tested. The 14-, 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds produced between 46% and 33% incorrect answers for 10 decontextualized expressions, and between 35% and 28% incorrect answers for 10 contextualized idioms. Similarly, in Trulsson (2007), investigating Swedish speakers’ idiom knowledge in their mother tongue, the younger informants (aged 13–16) received a failure rate as high as 43% (excluding ‘no answer’). Even at an advanced level, learners experience problems in their first language. In Karlsson (2013a), university students’ knowledge of idiomatic expressions in a first (Swedish) and second (English) language was contrasted. Even though the informants were offered contextual support, incorrect answers were supplied in 9.57% of the cases (excluding ‘no answer’) in their mother tongue. This can be compared to Trulsson (2007), whose older informants (above the age of 50, and mostly between 50 and 65) answered incorrectly in 10% of the cases (also excluding ‘no answer’). Other studies, such as Fusté-Herrmann (2008), testing Latino bilinguals’ idiom comprehension, support these fi ndings. Common in a learner’s fi rst language, ignorance and misinterpretations are, as indicated in Chapters 2 and 3, unsurprisingly even more 152

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prolific in a student’s L2. In the Karlsson study referred to above, for instance, the same students provided incorrect answers in 37.35% of the cases in their second language. This unfailing stream of incorrectly interpreted idioms fi nds support in quite a few other L2 idiom studies. In Abdelmajid Alkarazoun (2015), focusing on Jordanian undergraduate students’ errors with English idioms, an inaccuracy rate of 59.3% was calculated. Still other examples are Irujo (1986) and Ali (2001) who tested Venezuelan and Iraqi learners’ idiom comprehension in English respectively, both of which found an abundance of misinterpretations. Nevertheless, while a great many studies testify to this cornucopia of non-answers and misinterpretations, very few investigations explore them further. For this reason, the learners’ answers in Chapter 3 will be revisited, but the focus will now be on the tokens for which no points were awarded. That is, the present chapter will deal with the tokens for which the disambiguation and/or retrieval processes were unsuccessful or somehow went awry. 4.2 The L1/L2 Mental Lexicon and the L1/L2 Lexical Interlanguage

In this section, as complete an account as possible will be given of the mental lexicon and the lexical interlanguage. The focus will be on figurative language, but as such research is scanty or missing in many areas, discussions concerning individual words will also be included. The reader is here made aware that while the former is a theoretical approach, although largely based on various types of testing, to how items of vocabulary are stored in a learner’s mind, where both compositional and connectionist models exist, the latter describes the processes involved in moving from zero to full competence of a language. (It here also needs to be pointed out that while research on learners’ interlanguage is most typically associated with the development of grammar, some of the concepts here used also appear relevant to the development of vocabulary knowledge, and will therefore be incorporated in the text that follows.) Regarded as highly dynamic systems, fluctuating as information is gained and/or lost, a cross-section of a learner’s interlanguage at a certain point in time can still theoretically be perceived to correspond to a partially attained mental lexicon of the language in question, and vice versa. Therefore, in what follows, as research on the lexical interlanguage and the mental lexicon together offer a very clear picture of the processing and storage of vocabulary items, ideas from both will be integrated into one text. Individual learner characteristics pertinent to the development of both systems will also be discussed, as will empirically based investigations. To most people, to know a word means to know its meaning. However, from a compositional perspective, gaining lexical knowledge involves acquiring command of a number of other subcomponents too, such as the

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word’s pronunciation, spelling, morphology, constraints on grammar and syntax, register and frequency, as well as its idiomatic patterns (Nation, 1990, 2001; Richards, 1976). In any learner’s lexical development, it is especially the latter subcomponent that seems troublesome to master, lagging behind even at very advanced levels (Schmitt, 2010a). The Global Elaboration Hypothesis (Levorato & Cacciari, 1995), for instance, puts forth that L1 learners do not begin to gain an understanding of the very concept of idiomaticity until around the age of eight or nine, and the results achieved in the second chapter of the present book suggest that L2 learners’ grasp of the same concept may appear at an even later stage (see Chapter 2, the subsection on age and 2.4). It is therefore not so strange if this subcomponent causes much concern. From a connectionist perspective, these subcomponents are instead divided into two main collaborating networks, one of which mainly deals with phonological and orthographic aspects; the other of which primarily deals with semantic aspects (Viberg, 2000). These fi ndings are mainly based on psycholinguistic research on slips-of-the-tongue, in which, for instance, porcupine may erroneously be produced instead of concubine on the one hand, and crossword instead of jigsaw on the other hand (Aitchison, 1987). This division is also interesting from a learner perspective. Association tests have shown that while young L1 learners and lowachievers in a second language rely more heavily on sound-relations, adult L1 learners and advanced learners in a second language focus to a greater extent on meaning-relations (Cohen & Aphek, 1981; Henning, 1973; Meara, 1978; Piper & Leicester, 1980; Singleton, 1999; Söderman, 1993; Wolter, 2001). Thus, if faced with the stimulus word land, the learners in the former category would be more inclined to produce the word hand, whereas the latter ones would be more likely to give a response like finger. From a general point of view, this means that whereas advanced L1/L2 learners are more prone to confuse words with similar meanings, less advanced L1/L2 learners are more likely to mix up words that sound and look alike (Laufer, 1997a, 1997b). (See also Karlsson, 2012, 2013b.) Research on the lexical interlanguage of L1 beginners and L2 low-achievers also shows that meanings of words that are known are likely to be overextended, at least in the initial stages. ‘Overextension’ involves a situation in which learners, due to the fact that their lexicon is comparatively limited, interpret the meaning of a word to include all referents in an either already established category (e.g. calling all quadrupeds dogs), or in an inferred category based on a perceptual similarity such as shape (e.g. calling all round objects balls). ‘Underextension’, which roughly is the opposite of overextension, also exists, although less frequently so. This phenomenon occurs when a learner uses a word in a much too restricted way (e.g. using the word flower for roses only) (Clark & Clark, 1977). Both the form network and the semantic network are organized into even smaller subsystems. Within the form network, words with the same

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initial syllable seem to be stored together (Aitchison, 1987). The last syllable also appears to have some, but lesser, significance, while the middle of words has been shown to bear little or no relevance on storage. This phenomenon, in which the middle part of words appear obscure, is in Aitchison (1987) likened to a person sitting in a fi lled bathtub with his head and feet showing, but where the rest of the body is blurred. It is therefore referred to as the bathtub effect. This was fi rst detected by Brown and McNeill (1966) who, based on tip-of-the-tongue experiments, found that learners, when prompted, would sometimes erroneously use a word like anecdote when they meant antidote, the first and last part being the same. A similar observation was made in Vasiljevic (2014), focusing on idiomatic expressions. Presented with the two idioms bring someone to heel and jump through the hoops, one student produced the erroneous form *bring to the hoops, heel and hoops both being four-letter verbs starting with an h. Vasiljevic concludes that such expressions should not be taught together as it is likely to cause interference. (Idiom blends and interference will be discussed further in the paragraphs to come.) (See also Karlsson, 2013b.) Within the semantic network, there are a number of different subsystems, such as the meanings of polysemous words and word families of stems and their derivative forms (e.g. Crossley et al. (2010) on the former type; Nagy et  al. (1989) on the latter type). (See also Karlsson, 2012.) Further examples are antonymy (e.g. strong ↔ weak), hyponymy (e.g. animal → mammal → dog → King Charles Cavalier Spaniel), meronymy (e.g. foot → toe) and synonymy (e.g. blown away, gobsmacked, surprised, taken aback, etc.). The strongest connections though appear to exist in co-ordination (e.g. salt ↔ pepper ↔ mustard) and collocation (e.g. salt ↔ water), as most semantically induced slips-of-the-tongue seem to fall into these two categories (e.g. *Noshville for Nashville + Knoxville (Tennessee towns) as an example of the former type (Aitchison, 1987) and *a huge eater instead of a big eater as an example of the latter type (Martin, 1984)). Interestingly enough, these kinds of confusions have also been noticed to occur with idiomatic expressions. Research on idiom blends has mainly sprung from there originally existing a clear dichotomy between on the one hand compositional models of idiom processing, i.e. approaches that consider idiomatic expressions to be arbitrary strings of words whose figurative meanings are not directly linked to the literal meanings of the constituent words, and on the other hand non-compositional models, i.e. approaches that instead suggest that the meanings of idioms’ individual words contribute to idioms’ figurative meaning. Examples of the former type are the Idiom List Hypothesis (Bobrow & Bell, 1973) which proposes a separate idiom lexicon, the Lexical Representation Hypothesis (Swinney & Cutler, 1979) which suggests that idioms are stored in the same way as long words, and the Direct Access Model (Gibbs, 1980, 1985) which, in contrast to the previous two

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approaches, contends that literal meaning can be bypassed. Examples of the latter type are the Idiom Decomposition Hypothesis (Gibbs & Nayak, 1989; Gibbs, Nayak and Cutting, 1989) which suggests there is a difference in processing between transparent and non-transparent expressions, the Configuration Model (Cacciari & Tabossi, 1988) which believes that each word is represented only once and that this representation is linked to literal as well as figurative meanings, and the Phrase-Induced Polysemy Model (Glucksberg 1993, 2001) which proposes that contextual clues eventually render idiom constituent words polysemous, fi nally encompassing not only literal interpretations, but figurative meanings too. To learn more about these hypotheses/models, the reader is referred to each respective author. The reader is also referred to Cieślicka (2008) who gives comprehensive accounts of all these approaches, and more. To investigate if the truth of idiom processing may instead lie somewhere in between compositional and non-compositional theories, since while some idioms have been noted to be more transparent than others, they are at the same time also used as conventionalized wholes, Cutting and Bock (1997) performed a series of experiments that would induce idiom blends. In the fi rst experiment, they tested pairs of idioms that either had the same meaning (kick the bucket; meet one’s maker) or different meanings (shoot the breeze; raise the roof) as well as pairs that had the same syntactic form (chew the fat; raise the roof) or different syntactic forms (chew the fat; nip and tuck). The assumption here was that if idioms are stored as wholes, their syntactic structure and meaning would not have any effect on the blends that occurred. If, on the other hand, multiword units are not stored as wholes they would undergo analysis, and consequently more blends would occur. When considering the results, it was observed that similarity in syntactic structure as well as meaning triggered a great many more idiom blends than those cases in which idioms of different syntactic structure and meaning were tested. The results further showed that in 93% of the cases words belonging to the same grammatical category, and especially content words, were mixed up, suggesting that production is sensitive to the internal syntactical properties of an idiom. In the second experiment, the aim was to investigate whether literal meanings become activated during production. Both idioms with identical syntactic structures, but varying as to their figurative meanings (same or different) and literal meanings (again same or different), as well as literal strings of words with the same meanings (grab your lip; hold your tongue) and different meanings (sign your name; hold your tongue) were included. The hypothesis put forth here was that if individual words of phrases are subjected to literal analysis, pairs of phrases with similar literal and figurative meanings would cause more blends to occur than those with different meanings. This was also what the results showed. Also, in the majority of cases content words were involved and the grammatical class constraint was obeyed. In the third experiment, finally, sentence pairs with

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decomposable phrases (hold your tongue; button your lip) as well as nondecomposable phrases (shoot the breeze; chew the fat) were tested. Here it was assumed that if nondecomposable idioms form more unanalyzable wholes, then such sentence pairs would cause fewer blends to occur than decomposable idioms. The results showed that both types were equally likely to induce blends, prompting Cutting and Bock (1997) to assume that constituent words are lexically represented in both types of idioms. Based on some of these findings, the conclusion was drawn that idioms are not only stored as multi-word sequences, but that their literal meanings too appear to be activated during production, and the Hybrid Model of Idiom Production was proposed (Cutting & Bock, 1997). More recently, this hybrid approach has been developed further into what is referred to as the Superlemma Theory (Sprenger et al., 2006), but, while interesting, it is not relevant to the present section, and will therefore not be discussed further here. Suffice it to say, with the exception of the results achieved in Cutting and Bock’s third experiment, testing in accordance with Superlemma Theory, using priming and reaction time as its yardstick, has confi rmed the results of Cutting and Bock (1997) discussed above. Within a connectionist framework, association tests focusing specifically on different semantic relations have also yielded interesting results. For example, whereas more advanced L1/L2 learners would most likely favour a paradigmatic response, such as animal for the prompt word dog, L1/L2 beginners tend to resort to collocational links, supplying, for instance, butter as a response to the stimulus word bread. Furthermore, native speakers and high-achieving L2 learners are also more inclined to offer prototypical responses (e.g. ice, hot, freezing and blue for the stimulus word cold) than infrequent responses (e.g. shoulder, hankie and dreary for the prompt word cold) as compared to non-native speakers and low proficiency L2 learners (Albrechtsen et al., 2008). Lastly, advanced L2 learners are also more likely to produce more low-frequent responses than L2 low-achievers (e.g. Namei, 2002, 2004). Most importantly, though, for all learners, irrespective of which meaning subsystem, it seems that if one item is foregrounded, the other items in the same semantic web are often automatically triggered too. (See also Karlsson, 2013b.) Interestingly enough, basing teaching materials and lessons on these semantic subsystems, which is very often the case (e.g. Watcyn-Jones, 1999), does not seem to be especially fruitful. (The one exception appears to be collocations.) Rather, research has shown that items that are strongly associated with each other, for example shirt, jacket and sweater, are considerably more difficult to learn at the same time than words that are completely unrelated (Baddeley & Hitch, 1977; Higa, 1965; Tinkham, 1993, 1997; Waring, 1997a). The reason for this, as hinted at in the last part of the previous paragraph, is that such words, existing within the same semantic subsystem, appear to be in a mental tug-of-war, constantly competing with one another. This means that when you want to retrieve one,

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as they have been learned together and are consequently linked to each other, you will automatically think of them all, a process which of course causes an additional strain on memory. A great deal of research attests to the fact that this type of lexical interference exists in learning situations. In Erten and Tekin (2008) on L1 and Finkbeiner and Nicol (2003) on L2, for example, learning effects on related versus unrelated sets of vocabulary were investigated. Both studies show negative results with the former type. Similar fi ndings have been seen in research on false memory (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995), which is thought to occur because of interference between semantic memory (which contains knowledge of meaning) (Balota & Coane, 2008) and episodic memory (which deals with memorization and retrieval) (Szpunar & McDermott, 2008; Tulving, 1972). In such experiments, informants are asked to memorize lists of related words (e.g. bed, rest, tired and dream) that have a common denominator (here sleep). When asked about the memorized items, the subjects seem to think that the common denominator also was among the words on the original list. What is even more detrimental is that such false memories appear to persist (Gallo, 2010). It is therefore of great interest to the present study that the same phenomenon has been observed with idiomatic expressions (Coane et al., 2014). Learning words that in a natural way may be connected to each other in the form of short stories (e.g. frog, green, hop, pond, slippery, croak) has instead been suggested as a more helpful way of learning new vocabulary (Tinkham, 1997). Since no such research has focused on multi-word sequences, it is unclear to what extent this approach would work with such items of vocabulary. However, as idiomatic expressions tell short stories themselves, stories that justify their bottom meanings (Pinnavaia, 2002), grouping together idioms with yet another story may be too demanding a task and thus cause more harm than offer support to memory. Learning a second language naturally complicates matters even further, as this involves mapping a new form network onto the already established L1 semantic network. In cases where the semantic ‘luggage’ of a specific L2 word tallies completely with that of a word in a learner’s first language, the result is usually positive transfer, and largely occurs subconsciously. In fact, even in cases where agreement is not complete, learners very often resort to semantic approximations. Learners may also make use of facilitators, the most obvious one for individual words being contextual support of different kinds. For idiomatic expressions, other such facilitators are, as discussed at length in Chapter 2, transparency and, to some extent, frequency. (See, for instance, Cacciari & Levorato (1998), Garcia Moreno (2011) Gibbs (1987, 1991), Levorato & Cacciari (1999), Nippold & Rudzinski (1993) and Nippold & Taylor (1995, 2002) on transparency, and Nippold & Taylor (1995, 2002) and Piasecka (2006) on frequency.) If, on the other hand, no semantic L1-L2 similarity exists and other types of support are not available or not sufficient, interference (also referred to as

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negative transfer) may occur. A learner who says *He is the proprietor of a Saint Bernard, for example, has made an incorrect choice between the near synonyms proprietor and owner (Martin, 1984), for which no distinction is made in, for instance, Swedish. In such cases, the L2 semantic information needs to be re-packaged, creating new lexical ‘boundaries’ before it is mapped onto the L1, and reshaping of the mental lexicon can take place (Henriksen, 1999; Jiang, 2004; Karlsson, 2012; Nation, 2001; Schmitt, 2000). For idiomatic expressions, interference may, in worst case scenarios, result in avoidance (elaborated on in the second to last paragraph in the present subsection) or literal interpretations, complete as well as partial ones. In a study on Finnish university students’ comprehension of English idioms (Mäntylä, 2012), for example, the fi rst word was, in the more infrequent expressions, approached literally, while the rest of the multi-word sequence was given a figurative interpretation. Based on what has been written above, the sorting out of the lexical meaning of a word may seem like a comparatively swift process. However, empirical studies taking a compositional stance have shown that this is not the case. Rather, gaining knowledge of a word usually occurs in slow, incremental steps, and this applies to lexical meaning too (Schmitt, 2000; 2010a). This was first detected in a ground-breaking study performed by Nagy et al. in 1985, in which they tested eighth-grade American students on their L1. In the first of two experiments, the informants were presented with a number of contextualized words and asked to give their exact meanings. In the second experiment, each test item, themselves belonging to different levels of difficulty, was instead provided with three defi nitions of varying degrees of specificity. Two distractors that varied in relatedness to the target item were also added. Both experiments showed that, as a group, the students progressed from no knowledge of a word, to rudimentary knowledge, to partial knowledge, before fi nally gaining complete mastery. Other studies, specifically focusing on L2s, confi rm the slow, incremental process involved in mastering individual word meaning. In Paribakht and Wesche (1993), for instance, a Vocabulary Knowledge Scale incorporating five levels of knowledge was implemented. Level I, the lowest degree, was to be indicated if the word had not been seen before. Level II was to be chosen if the word had been encountered, but its meaning was still unknown. Level III was to be picked if the word’s meaning was thought to be known, in which case its meaning was requested to be provided. Level IV was to be selected if the word’s meaning was known, and, if so, its meaning was again requested to be supplied. Level V, fi nally, was to be indicated if the word could be used in a sentence, in which case an example was asked for. From the above, it is thus clear that knowing a word is usually not an ‘either/or’ situation (Meara, 1999), but requires a lot of time. In fact, as the reader will learn below, in many cases full attainment will never be achieved. See also Drum and Konopak (1987), Herman et al. (1987), Nagy et al. (1985) on L1, and Coady (1993), Dupuy

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and Krashen (1993), Frantzen (2010), Huckin and Bloch (1993), Huckin and Coady (1999), and Parry (1993) on L2, all of which confi rm that acquisition of word meaning occurs in small steps. Within a connectionist framework, a growing knowledge of vocabulary meaning as described above would not only involve an increase in the number of links between items but also a strengthening of already existing links, the L2 network generally being quantitatively and qualitatively weaker than the L1 network (Albrechtsen et al., 2008). What is of special interest to the present study is that the gradual process seen to be involved in the development of lexical meaning also appears to be present in the acquisition of figurative language. In Littlemore et al. (2011), building on Littlemore (2001), the aim was to investigate the comprehension of metaphors as used in four taped university lectures (two on linguistics, one on economics and one on media). The informants were 46 foreign students enrolled in a pre-undergraduate programme in arts and social sciences at a British university, i.e. they were students whose qualifications did not give direct entry to any of the degree programmes in the UK. In the initial stage, the testees were simply asked to list words or word sequences they thought difficult to understand. This helped the researchers determine how many of these were metaphors and if the problems the students experienced were due to the items being metaphorically used. Some of these problematic items were then selected by the researchers for further scrutiny, and the students asked to explain their meanings in writing (either in English or in their mother tongue). The last aim of the study was to find out to what degree the students were aware of their misinterpretations. The results of the investigation show that 42.4% of all the items identified as problematic by the participants were metaphorical in character. Additionally, of all the items identified as difficult and made up of familiar words (which constituted 15.2%), 41.0% were metaphorical. It was also found that the students had only alerted the researchers’ attention to 4.2% of the cases that actually caused problems, underlining the problematic nature of metaphoric language per se. The errors made by the students when explaining the meanings of the metaphors fell into eight categories, which, in descending order of frequency, are: • • •

Underspecified (19.9%) – the intended metaphorical part is explained, but is too broad (e.g. explosion was interpreted to mean its usage has increased a lot, which does not include the sense of suddenness). Neglected (16.1%) – the intended metaphorical part is left unexplained (e.g. basic gene pool was explained to mean the fundamental or crucial gene pool, thus avoiding the metaphoric use of gene pool). Unmotivated (12.4%) – the intended metaphorical part is explained, but, based on the context given, incorrect (e.g. have worked on you since … was explained to mean interrupted your life).

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• •

•

• •

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Stay in source (11.3%) – the intended metaphorical part is explained, but the explanation stays (too close) to the metaphor given (e.g. I should confess was explained to mean I want to say something that may be a secret). Overspecified (11.0%) – the intended metaphorical part is explained, but is too narrow (e.g. social network was interpreted to mean social conversations, which is just one part of a social network). Wrong/commonplace (8.0%) – the intended metaphorical part is explained by a standard, but is, in the context given, incorrect (e.g. some point over the next week was explained to mean some interesting subject over next week, i.e. it is incorrect as a temporal interpretation was intended). Wrong/non-commonplace (6.5%) – the intended metaphorical part is explained by a non-standard use, but is, in the context given, incorrect (e.g. stem from X was explained to mean seem clearly different from X, the standard use being originate from). Wrong grammar (5.4%) – the lexico-grammatical make-up of the intended metaphorical part is misunderstood (e.g. foolproof was thought to mean stupid evidence). Mistargeted (4.1%) – the metaphor is thought to be part of a different aspect than the intended one (e.g. the community is kept at a particular uniform level was explained to mean common way of speaking, i.e. uniform is connected to a way of speaking instead of the social environment).

It can here be seen that the highest percentage was found with underspecified interpretations, i.e. understanding metaphoric language is thus clearly also not an ‘either/or’ situation. Instead, similar to what has been noticed in studies on individual words, partial understanding appears to be the rule rather than the exception (Wolter, 2009). It is also interesting to note that the opposite, i.e. overspecificity, is less common. Here a parallel can be drawn with underextension/overextension, where a similar relation in frequency exists. The conclusion to be drawn based on what has been said above, irrespective of whether a learner is concerned with individual words or metaphoric language, is that gaining complete mastery is an arduous process. In fact, recent research shows that attaining full knowledge of the meaning of a word and retaining its meaning in memory generally takes between 10–12 encounters (Coady, 1997; Nation, 2001; Paribakht & Wesche, 1997; Sharwood Smith, 1993). This can be compared to the chance of learning a new word after just one exposure, which has been estimated to between only 5–10% (Paribakht & Wesche, 1997). Moreover, in order for new features to be added on, it is essential that encounters occur in different types of context (Morgan & Rinvolucri, 2004) and, preferably, to enhance memorization further, at a deep mental level

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(Baddeley, 1999). This can be achieved by involving some cognitive effort on the part of the learner during disambiguation, for example by forming collocations as compared to simple identification (Hunt & Beglar, 2002; Paribakht & Wesche, 1997). Research has also shown that repeated exposure is 3–4 times more important for beginners than for comparatively advanced learners (Zahar et al., 2001), and that repeated learning over a longer period of time is more beneficial than concentrated learning (Baddeley, 1999). Partial knowledge of words and expressions does not of course always lead to complete mastery. In cases where information needed to solidify semantic meaning is missing, either due to there not being repeated exposure or supplied exposure is not sufficient, learners may instead fi nd themselves in a situation where the knowledge they possess of a certain linguistic item at a specific point in time fossilizes (Lightbown & Spada, 2006; Pinter, 2006; Wolter, 2009). Fossilization may be either permanent, due to, for example, a learner moving from one country to another, or temporary. In the latter case, as the term ‘fossilization’ itself entails permanency, a more appropriate term would perhaps be ‘backsliding’, as suggested by Selinker (1972). This is, however, not to be confused with a situation in which the processing of other linguistic elements temporarily has taken precedence due to restructuring in a learner’s mental lexicon. To describe such a situation, and distinguish it from where there is a total lack of deep-level processing, the term ‘stabilizing’ has instead been suggested (Long, 2003). Moreover, not only may learners fossilize in their lexical development, but when new pieces of information are gained, other pieces may be lost, i.e. learners may experience attrition (also referred to as regression) (Al-Akloby, 2001; Al-Hazemi, 2000). Attrition is a fairly recent topic of investigation, especially when concerned with lexical loss. In fact, it did not start to attract attention until about three decades ago (Bardovi-Harlig & Stringer, 2010; Flores, 2010). This in itself is noteworthy, as research has shown that a learner’s lexicon is more prone to attrition than a learner’s other linguistic subsystems, such as grammar, syntax and even phonology (Al-Hazemi, 2000; Anderson, 1982; Bardovi-Harlig & Stringer, 2013; De Bot & Weltens, 1995). The main reason for this is of course the fact that while other linguistic subsystems are generalizable to a large extent, the lexicon is not (Weltens & Grendel, 1993). In this respect, it is interesting to note that some research indicates that idiomatic expressions may be especially prone to decline (Bahrick, 1984). Furthermore, just like fossilization/backsliding, lexical attrition may be temporary (Weltens & Grendel, 1993) or permanent. Most importantly, lexical attrition, similar to lexical acquisition, seems to occur in small, incremental steps, rather than in an all-or-nothing fashion. This also appears to be the case with idiomatic expressions (Schmitt & McCarthy, 1997). Research has also shown that the most recently acquired

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vocabulary items are the most vulnerable ones, and therefore also most prone to attrition (Cohen, 1986). One promising way suggested to minimize lexical loss is recycling. This refers to meaningful repetition, during which the meanings of previously learned vocabulary items are solidified by adding information from different types of spoken and written contexts (Benhima, 2015). The effects of quite a few different factors relating to lexical loss have been under scrutiny. Examples are age (Berman & Olshtain, 1983; Cohen, 1989; Flores, 2010; Tomiyama, 2000), degree of proficiency (Alharthi, 2012, 2014a; Bahrick, 1984), motivation and attitude (Gardner et  al., 1987), and vocabulary learning strategies (Alharthi, 2014b). Other factors, more related to the word itself, have also been investigated. Examples here are the ease or non-ease with which a word can be pronounced, its spelling, grammatical class, morphology, syntactic pattern, collocations, polysemy, word length, frequency, and degrees of concreteness, abstractness and imageability (Laufer, 1997a, 1997b; Milton, 2009; Nation, 1982; Schmitt, 2010b). Long words, particularly if of a low frequency, and specialized vocabulary, both categories to which idioms can be argued to belong, have been noticed to be especially prone to attrition (Alharthi, 2015; Milton, 2009; Schmitt, 2010b). All these factors may very well make learners refrain from using certain words, avoidance thus contributing to lexical attrition. From an L2 perspective, avoidance was first discussed by Schachter in 1974, and has since then traditionally been ascribed to differences between a learner’s first and second language. This is also the case with idiomatic expressions. In Laufer (2000), for instance, studying Hebrew-speaking students’ comprehension of English idioms, four types of expressions of different degrees of L1-L2 similarity were under scrutiny. One category involved English idioms for which there were exact literal and semantic Hebrew counterparts. A second category contained idioms for which there were partial translation equivalents. A third category was made up of those idioms for which there were semantic counterparts, but where no literal translations were possible. A final category incorporated idioms that had no counterparts, either literally or semantically. Results of the investigation showed that idioms as a category were not avoided, but that L2 proficiency played an important role in whether the idioms were avoided or not. Furthermore, it was fi rst and foremost those idioms that had partial translation equivalents (Category 2) that the testees tried to avoid, but it also occurred with those idioms for which there were no counterparts (Category 4). As for the latter of these two types, Laufer even suggested learners may experience a feeling of ‘unreasonable idiomaticity’, comparing it to the term ‘unreasonable polysemy’, introduced by Levenston (1979), which refers to students’ resistance to accept cases of L2 polysemy for which there are no counterparts in their mother tongue. The highest scores, on the other hand, were especially seen with those expressions that had

164

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

exact equivalents (Category 1), but also with those for which there were semantic counterparts only (Category 3). Based on these results, Laufer came to the conclusion that degree of L1-L2 similarity is indeed a determining factor in whether L2 idiom avoidance occurs or not. Although not focusing on avoidance per se, other studies have produced similar results (e.g. Abdullah & Jackson (1998) on Syrian learners, Cieślicka (2006b) on Polish learners, Irujo (1986) on Venezuelan learners, Mäntylä (2012) on Finnish learners, Panou (2014) on Greek learners, and Yoshikawa (2008) on Japanese learners, all six studies dealing with idioms in English as a second language). Moreover, being the second most common error category (16.1%) in the Littlemore et al. study discussed earlier in this subsection, avoidance seems to be a common strategy for any L2 learner dealing with metaphoric language. (For more on avoidance, the reader is, for instance, referred to Sjöholm (1995, 1998), focusing on the avoidance of English phrasal verbs by Swedish and Finnish learners, and Dagut and Laufer (1985) and Laufer and Eliasson (1993), focusing on the avoidance of the same type of multi-word sequences, but testing Hebrew learners.) On the other side of the coin, there are of course those learners who by nature, despite the risk of losing face, are ‘risk-takers’ and therefore would be likely to take a guess irrespective of whether there is an L1/L2 similarity or not. The philosophy of such learners hence seems to be ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’. As putting cognitive effort into a task often involves deep-learning as compared to short-term learning (Hunt & Beglar, 2002; Paribakht & Wesche, 1997; Simensen, 1998), this may not be such a bad philosophy after all, even in situations where failure is the initial result. Once the correct meaning of an idiomatic expression has been obtained, it may simply be remembered more easily because of the very fact that time was taken to think of a meaning which in face of the information given was, to that particular student at that particular point in time, a plausible one. As pointed out and discussed in Chapter 3 (the second subsection in 3.8 and in connection with the results of the two experiments), this is also what was observed in Boers et al. (2008), in which it appeared irrelevant whether the informants’ hypotheses concerning idioms’ origin were correct or not, it was the fact that they had put effort into doing so that aided them in their retention process. Some of the comments made by the students’ participating in the two experiments in Chapter 3 (subsections 3.6 and 3.10) also bear witness to the accurateness of such a claim. Creating a classroom atmosphere where such a characteristic can be developed therefore appears to be of the utmost importance (Oxford, 1992). It may in fact be especially important when discussing figurative language in the L2 classroom, as research has shown that language learners who are reluctant to deal with ambiguous language, of which idiomatic expressions are one example, are less inclined to make guesses as to meaning (Beebe, 1983). (For more on risk-taking behaviour in linguistics, go to Brown (2000), Burgucu et al. (2010) and Oxford (1992)).

Persisting Ignorance and (Partial) Misinterpretations of L2 Idioms After Treatment

165

For more in-depth investigations of the concepts of interlanguage and fossilization, though almost exclusively discussed in connection with grammar, the reader is referred to Han and Tarone (2014) and Han and Odlin (2006) respectively. 4.3 The Present Study Research questions addressed

In the present investigation, two main research questions are addressed: (1) To what extent do comparatively advanced learners display ignorance of and/or (partially) misinterpret L2 idioms after treatment? (2) Can different types of (partial) misinterpretations be discerned, and, if so, what are these types and what developmental patterns do they display? The informants, test items and design

The students included in the present investigation are the same as those tested in Experiment 1 and 2 in Chapter 3, i.e. at the time when the material was collected they were all studying to become elementary and middle school teachers within the Swedish educational system. However, whereas Chapter 3 mainly focuses on the answers that were correct, the present investigation will, as stated in the introduction, deal with those situations in which the students, for various reasons, offered no answer or came to (partially) incorrect conclusions about the meanings tested. A total number of 177 subjects participated in the present study. Fiftyseven of these (Cohort 1) were tested on one set of idioms (Set 1) within the framework of the first experiment. The rest – 120 students (Cohort 2) – were tested on another set of idioms (Set 2) within the second experiment. Of these 177 students, 36 took part in both experiments. As pointed out in Chapter 3, it was also ascertained that the mother tongue of all the informants was Swedish and that none of them used English or any other language as their fi rst language. Furthermore, the reader is reminded that while the main aim of the fi rst experiment was to investigate the effects of captioned audio-visual contexts versus short written contexts, the main focus of the second experiment was to compare the effects of the use of (a) still pictures, (b) etymological notes and (c) a combination of the two with written input only. In both experiments, comprehension as well as retention (short- and long-term) was explored. Also, prior to treatment and testing, to determine which of the test items were already known, all participants took a decontextualized test. Lastly, in all treatment groups, irrespective of test type (pretest, comprehension test, retention test), the participants were, if

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Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

uncertain of an idiom’s meaning, encouraged to guess rather than not answer at all. For more detailed descriptions of the designs of the two experiments, the reader is referred to Chapter 3, the last subsection in 3.5 for the first experiment and the last subsection in 3.9 for the second experiment. The two main student cohorts were thus subdivided as seen in Table 4.1. (As pointed out before, the reason why the number of informants differs between the subgroups is that the learners were tested different terms and so the present author was limited to the students available during those specific times.) The two sets of idioms tested are presented in Table 4.2. As their degree of transparency and frequency will bear relevance on some of the discussions in the result section, this information is also incorporated. For a more detailed description of the two sets of test items and the categorization on which the test items’ degrees of transparency and frequency were based, the reader is again advised to go to Chapter 3, the third subsection in 3.5 for Set 1 and the third subsection 3.9 for Set 2. As can be seen, Sets 1 and 2 include 23 and 21 test items respectively. However, the number of test items were originally 28 and 24. In Experiment 1, as pointed out in Chapter 3, five expressions were removed before analysis as their meanings were found to be given in the L1 subtitling. These are wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve, let the cat out of the bag, like water off a duck’s back, it’s not my cup of tea and nip something in the bud, the last two being categorized as opaque and the rest Table 4.1 The two main student cohorts and the subgroups in the present study N

Gender F

Cohort 1

Cohort 2

Age M

Range

Mean

SD

Total Cohort 1

57

48

9

20–46

24.74

6.14

Comprehension/Written context (CW)

10

7

3

20–38

23.00

5.62

Comprehension/Audio-visual context (CA)

11

8

3

20–29

23.45

2.88

Retention/Written context (RW)

17

16

1

20–42

26.06

7.34

Retention/Audio-visual context (RA)

19

17

2

20–46

25.21

6.65

120

106

14

20–46

24.17

4.81

18

16

2

20–33

24.17

3.42

Total Cohort 2 Comprehension/Written context (cw) Comprehension/Still pictures (cp)

13

13

0

20–31

22.31

3.04

Comprehension/Etymological notes (ce)

19

17

2

20–36

24.53

4.54

C/Still pictures + Etymological notes (cpe)

11

11

0

21–29

24.00

2.72

Retention/Written context (rw)

10

6

4

20–24

21.90

1.45

Retention/Still pictures (rp)

11

8

3

20–30

23.82

3.40

Retention/Etymological notes (re)

22

19

3

20–46

24.91

6.24

R/Still pictures + Etymological notes (rpe)

16

16

0

20–42

26.25

7.54

177

154

23

20–46

24.35

5.27

Total Cohort 1 + Cohort 2

X X X

cut to the chase

tilt at windmills

X

beat around the bush

X

knock sb’s socks off

X

pick sb’s brain

as the crow flies

X

X

do sth with bells on

throw sb a bone

X

mum’s the word

bark up the wrong tree

X X

have a bone to pick with sb

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

freq

very freq

semi-trans

opaque

Frequency

Transparency

hear sth through the grapevine

Test items – SET 1

X

X

X

not freq

break the fourth wall

put your foot in your mouth

look a gift horse in the mouth

show a red rag to a bull

cover your bases

on pins and needles

get out of dodge

bell the cat

once in a blue moon

upset the apple cart

be the cat’s whiskers

scrape the bottom of the barrel

Test items – SET 2

X

X

X

X

semi-trans

Transparency

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

opaque

X

very freq

X

X

X

not freq

(Continued)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

freq

Frequency

Table 4.2 The two sets of test items used in the present study, including information about their degree of transparency and frequency

Persisting Ignorance and (Partial) Misinterpretations of L2 Idioms After Treatment 167

X

X

X

paint the town red

tie the knot

be the worse for wear

like two peas in a pod X

spill the beans

X

X X

I’ll have no truck with sb/sth

bite the dust

X

beyond the pale

X

X

give tit for tat

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

freq

very freq

semi-trans

opaque

Frequency

Transparency

dot one’s ‘i’s and cross one’s ‘t’s

call shotgun

Test items – SET 1

Table 4.2 (Continued)

X

X

not freq

ducks in a row

the jig is up

dry run

a chip on your shoulder

money for old rope

dressed to the nines

down to the wire

fly-by-night

eat crow

Test items – SET 2

X

X

X

semi-trans

Transparency

X

X

X

X

X

X

opaque

X

X

very freq

X

X

X

X

freq

Frequency

X

X

X

not freq

168 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Persisting Ignorance and (Partial) Misinterpretations of L2 Idioms After Treatment

169

considered to be semi-transparent. In Experiment 2, also pointed out in Chapter 3, three expressions were excluded. These are paint the town red, keep mum and as the crow flies, all three categorized as nontransparent. The reason for excluding these was that these idioms were also part of the fi rst experiment and, if included again, were thought to be likely to distort the results in unwanted ways. These eight test items are listed here, as some of them play an important role in the results seen in the present investigation. Prior to treatment and testing, all of the students were also presented with some Swedish examples so as to familiarize them with the concept of idiomaticity. As the reader will become aware, these idiomatic expressions also bear some relevance on some of the results in the present chapter. The answers for which no points were awarded

When the material presented above was analyzed, six main categories of answers for which no points were given emerged. These are ‘no answer’, ‘incorrect answer’, ‘underspecified answer’, i.e. cases when only partial meanings were provided, ‘overspecified answer’, i.e. cases when more meaning was ascribed to an idiom than what is part of its defi nition, ‘literal answer’ and ‘test-induced answer’. It is hence these categories that the following section, results and discussion, will focus on. 4.4 Results and Discussion

The following tables present the results of the current study. Table 4.3 gives a total overview of all the tests, while Tables 4.4–4.7 focus on the different test types. Here Table 4.4 presents the results on the pretest, Table 4.5 the results on the comprehension test, and Tables 4.6 and 4.7 the results on the immediate and delayed post-test respectively. In all cases, a hierarchical overview is offered, the top-most part providing results of Sets 1 and 2 together, followed by the total results for each idiom set. Finally, the tables also supply the results for each treatment group within each of the two sets of idioms tested. Table 4.3 Distribution of the answers for which no points were awarded – all tests (pretest, comprehension test, post-test 1 and 2 All tests (Pretest, Comprehension test, Post-test 1 and 2) Total – tokens for Answers for which no points were given which no points could be awarded No answer Incorrect Underspecified Overspecified Literal

Test-induced

69.42% (=6754/9729)

0.43% (=29/6754)

65.12% (=4398/6754)

24.64% (=1664/6754)

8.42% (=569/6754)

0.89% (=60/6754)

0.27% (=18/6754)

85.58% (=374/437)

RA

78.34% (=293/374)

80.76% (=298/369)

17.91% (=67/374)

17.89% (=66/369)

3.74% (=14/374)

1.36% (=5/369)

3.23% (=7/217)

0%

0%

0.92% (=2/217)

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

94.37% (=369/391)

12.44% (=27/217)

0%

RW

83.41% (=181/217)

0.48% (=1/209)

85.77% (=217/253)

2.39% (=5/209)

CA

12.92% (=27/209)

0%

84.21% (=176/209)

90.87% (=209/230)

OverLiteral Testspecified induced

CW

Underspecified 0%

Incorrect

all 4 89.17% 81.10% 15.10% 2.65% 0.26% 0% groups (=1169/1311) (=948/1169) (=187/1169) (=14/1169) (=3/1169)

No answer

No answer

Incorrect

Underspecified

OverLiteral specified

0.14% (=5/3581)

Literal

Answers for which no points were given

0.25% (=9/3581)

Overspecified

Testinduced

0.03% (=2/3581)

Test-induced

96.54% (=223/231) 97.62% (=205/210) 94.81% (=219/231) 95.24% (=440/462) 97.62% (=328/336)

rw rp re rpe

94.99% (=379/399)

94.51% (=258/273)

95.33% (=360/378)

cpe

ce

cp

cw

82.32% (=270/328)

82.73% (=364/440)

83.10% (=182/219)

84.88% (=174/205)

93.72% (=209/223)

76.25% (=289/379)

82.95% (=214/258)

76.67% (=276/360)

13.72% (=45/328)

13.64% (=60/440)

15.07% (=33/219)

12.68% (=26/205)

5.83% (=13/223)

19.26% (=73/379)

14.34% (=37/258)

18.89% (=68/360)

3.05% (=10/328)

2.73% (=12/440)

1.83% (=4/219)

1.95% (=4/205)

0.45% (=1/223)

3.43% (=13/379)

2.71% (=7/258)

4.44% (=16/360)

0.61% (=2/328)

0.45% (=2/440)

0%

0.49% (=1/205)

0%

0.26% (=1/379)

0%

0%

0%

0.45% (=2/440)

0%

0%

0%

0.79% (=3/379)

0%

0%

0.30% (=1/328)

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

all 8 95.71% 82.01% 14.72% 2.78% 0.25% 0.21% 0.0004% groups (=2412/2520) (=1978/2412) (=355/2412) (=67/2412) (=6/2412) (=5/2412) (=1/2412)

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

Answers for which no points were given

2.26% (=81/3581)

Underspecified

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

15.14% (=542/3581)

Incorrect

Pretest – SET 2

81.71% (=2926/3581)

Pretest – SET 1

No answer

93.47% (=3581/3831)

Answers for which no points were given

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

Pretest – SET 1 + SET 2

Table 4.4 Distribution of the answers for which no points were awarded – the pretest. (SET 1: CW = comprehension/written context, CA = comprehension/captioned audio-visual context, RW = retention/written context, RA = retention/captioned audio-visual context; SET 2: cw = comprehension/written context, cp = comprehension/still picture, ce = comprehension/etymological note, cpe = comprehension/still picture and etymological note, rw = retention/written context, rp = retention/still picture, re = retention/still picture, rpe = retention/still picture and etymological note)

170 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

30.04% (=412/1247)

40.5018% (=113/279)

57.76% (=279/483)

59.57% (=137/230)

56.13% (=142/253)

all groups

CW

CA

36.62% (=52/142)

44.53% (=61/137)

No answer

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

51.41% (=73/142)

32.85% (=45/137)

42.2939% (=118/279)

Incorrect

11.27% (=16/142)

21.90% (=30/137)

16.4875% (=46/279)

Underspecified

Answers for which no points were given

Comprehension test – SET 1

No answer

70.69% (=1247/1764)

0.70% (=1/142)

0.73% (=1/137)

0.7168% (=2/279)

Overspecified

49.16% (=613/1247)

Incorrect

Answers for which no points were given

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

Comprehension test – SET 1 + SET 2

0%

0%

0%

Literal

0%

0%

0%

Testinduced

86.08% (=235/273) 79.45% (=317/399) 80.52% (=186/231)

ce cpe

60.85% (=230/378)

75.57% (=968/1281)

cp

cw

all groups

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

1.12% (=14/1247)

Overspecified

24.19% (=45/186)

21.77% (=69/317)

41.28% (=97/235)

38.26% (=88/230)

30.89% (=299/968)

No answer

53.23% (=99/186)

57.10% (=181/317)

49.36% (=116/235)

43.04% (=99/230)

51.14% (=495/968)

Incorrect

19.35% (=36/186)

19.24% (=61/317)

8.51% (=20/235)

17.82% (=41/230)

16.32% (=158/968)

Underspecified

2.15% (=4/186)

1.26% (=4/317)

0.85% (=2/235)

0.87% (=2/230)

1.24% (=12/968)

Overspecified

0.16% (=2/1247)

Literal

Answers for which no points were given

Comprehension test – SET 2

16.36% (=204/1247)

Underspecified

0.54% (=1/186)

0.32% (=1/317)

0%

0%

0.21% (=2/968)

Literal

0.54% (=1/186)

0.32% (=1/317)

0%

0%

0.21% (=2/968)

Testinduced

0.16% (=2/1247)

Test-induced

Table 4.5 Distribution of the answers for which no points were awarded – the comprehension test. (SET 1: CW = comprehension/written context, CA = comprehension/captioned audio-visual context, RW = retention/written context, RA = retention/captioned audio-visual context; SET 2: cw = comprehension/written context, cp = comprehension/still picture, ce = comprehension/etymological note, cpe = comprehension/ still picture and etymological note, rw = retention/written context, rp = retention/still picture, re = retention/still picture, rpe = retention/still picture and etymological note)

Persisting Ignorance and (Partial) Misinterpretations of L2 Idioms After Treatment 171

62.55% (=152/243)

29.35% (=243/828)

31.46% (=123/391)

27.46% (=120/437)

all groups

RW

RA

60.83% (=73/120)

64.23% (=79/123)

No answer

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

25.83% (=31/120)

22.76% (=28/123)

24.28% (=59/243)

Incorrect

7.50% (=9/120)

12.20% (=15/123)

9.88% (=24/243)

Underspecified

Answers for which no points were given

53.46% (=332/621)

30.04% (=621/2067)

Post-test 1 – SET 1

No answer

2.50% (=3/120)

0%

1.23% (=3/243)

Overspecified

20.77% (=129/621)

Incorrect

Answers for which no points were given

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

Post-test 1 – SET 1 + SET 2

0%

0%

0%

Literal

3.33% (=4/120)

0.81% (=1/123)

1.23% (=5/243)

Testinduced

28.57% (=66/231) 25.97% (=120/462) 41.37% (=139/336)

re rpe

25.24% (=53/210)

30.51% (=378/1239)

rp

rw

all groups

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

Post-test 1 – SET 2

21.58% (=134/621)

Underspecified

50.36% (=70/139)

35.00% (=42/120)

45.45% (=30/66)

71.70% (=38/53)

47.62% (=180/378)

No answer

14.39% (=20/139)

20.83% (=25/120)

27.27% (=18/66)

13.21% (=7/53)

18.52% (=70/378)

Incorrect

30.22% (=42/139)

38.33% (=46/120)

24.24% (=16/66)

11.32% (=6/53)

29.10% (=110/378)

Underspecified

3.60% (=5/139)

0.83% (=1/120)

3.03% (=2/66)

1.89% (=1/53)

2.38% (=9/378)

Overspecified

0.81% (=5/621)

Literal

Answers for which no points were given

1.93% (=12/621)

Overspecified

0%

4.17% (=5/120)

0%

0%

1.32% (=5/378)

Literal

1.44% (=2/139)

0.83% (=1/120)

0%

1.89% (=1/53)

1.06% (=4/378)

Testinduced

1.45% (=9/621)

Test-induced

Table 4.6 Distribution of the answers for which no points were awarded – post-test 1. (SET 1: CW = comprehension/written context, CA =  comprehension/captioned audio-visual context, RW = retention/written context, RA = retention/captioned audio-visual context; SET 2: cw = comprehension/written context, cp = comprehension/still picture, ce = comprehension/etymological note, cpe = comprehension/still picture and etymological note, rw = retention/written context, rp = retention/still picture, re = retention/still picture, rpe = retention/still picture and etymological note)

172 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

60.83% (=264/434)

52.42% (=434/828)

57.54% (=225 =391)

47.83% (=209/437)

all groups

RW

RA

61.24% (=128/209)

60.44% (=136/225)

No answer

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

27.75% (=58/209)

28.89% (=65/225)

28.34% (=123/434)

Incorrect

6.70% (=14/209)

11.1% (=22/225)

8.29% (=36/434)

Underspecified

Answers for which no points were given

55.79% (=728/1305)

63.14% (=1305/2067)

Post-test 1 – SET 1

No answer

1.91% (=4/209)

0%

0.92% (=4/434)

Overspecified

0.48% (=1/209)

0.44% (=1/225)

0.46% (=2/434)

Literal

29.12% (=380/1305)

Incorrect

Answers for which no points were given

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

Post-test 1 – SET 1 + SET 2

1.91% (=4/209)

0.44% (=1/225)

1.15% (=5/434)

Testinduced

67.10% (=155/231) 68.40% (=316/462) 74.40% (=250/336)

re rpe

71.43% (=150/210)

70.30% (=871/1239)

rp

rw

all groups

Total – tokens for which no points could be awarded

Post-test 1 – SET 2

11.49% (=150/1305)

Underspecified

48.80% (=122/250)

46.52% (=147/316)

63.23% (=98/155)

64.67% (=97/150)

53.27% (=464/871)

No answer

34.80% (=87/250)

31.01% (=98/316)

25.16% (=39/155)

22.00% (=33/150)

29.51% (=257/871)

Incorrect

12.00% (=30/250)

17.09% (=54/316)

8.39% (=13/155)

11.33% (=17/150)

13.09% (=114/871)

Underspecified

1.60% (=4/250)

2.85% (=9/316)

3.23% (=5/155)

2.00% (=3/150)

2.41% (=21/871)

Overspecified

0.46% (=6/1305)

Literal

Answers for which no points were given

1.92% (=25/1305)

Overspecified

0%

1.27% (=4/316)

0%

0%

0.50% (=4/871)

Literal

2.80% (=7/250)

1.27% (=4/316)

0%

0%

1.26% (=11/871)

Testinduced

1.23% (=16/1305)

Testinduced

Table 4.7 Distribution of the answers for which no points were awarded – post-test 2. (SET 1: CW = comprehension/written context, CA = comprehension/captioned audio-visual context, RW = retention/written context, RA = retention/captioned audio-visual context; SET 2: cw = comprehension/written context, cp = comprehension/still picture, ce = comprehension/etymological note, cpe = comprehension/still picture and etymological note, rw = retention/written context, rp = retention/still picture, re = retention/still picture, rpe = retention/still picture and etymological note)

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Despite the fact that the students, if unsure, were encouraged to guess the idioms’ meanings, the most frequent category in the material as a whole (see Table 4.3) is ‘no answer’ (65.12%). This result tallies well with what was seen in the Littlemore et al. study (2011), discussed at length in Section 4.2, in which ‘neglected metaphor’ constituted the second most frequent category (16.1%) of the nine considered. Interestingly enough it also indicates that multi-word units are even higher up the scale of idiomatic mastery than metaphoric language. Unsurprisingly, the percentage is highest on the pretest (81.71%) (Table 4.4), but remains high on the two retention tests (post-test 1: 53.46% (Table 4.6); post-test 2: 55.79% (Table 4.7)), while it is only the second most frequent category on the comprehension test (30.04%), preceded by ‘incorrect answer’ (49.16%) (Table 4.5). These results clearly display the difficult nature of fi gurative language in general. Also, some students were more reluctant than others to provide suggestions. All occurring on the pre-test, 17 of the testees did not offer one single guess, seven of whom were later tested on short- and long-term retention. As investing cognitive effort into a task, irrespective of whether you are initially successful in solving the problem or not, appears to lead to better chances of transferring the information to long-term memory (Boers et al., 2008; Hunt & Beglar, 2002; Paribakht & Wesche, 1997; Simensen, 1998), the present author decided to do a mini-investigation of these students. This was also prompted by the fact that a few participants actually testified to having remembered the correct meaning of an item precisely because the meaning they had fi rst off ered was wrong. The results, however, were inconclusive, as, even though these students did relatively poorly, there were others that did worse. Research focusing specifi cally on this issue will most likely be able to achieve some important insights into the matter. Next, as research has shown that transparency and frequency function as facilitators when learners try to disambiguate idiom meaning (see Chapter 2, the subsections on transparency and frequency), these factors were considered in relation to the non-answers (see Table 4.8 for transparency and Table 4.9 for frequency). The impact of the former is clearly noticeable in that there are on average fewer ‘no answers’ for each semitransparent idiom than there are for each opaque one. The difference is, not surprisingly, most pronounced on the pretest (especially in Set 2), where an average of 57.1 ‘no answers’ per semi-transparent idiom were found as compared to 72.5 per opaque idiom, but transparency remains a facilitator throughout the testing: 5.8 ‘no answers’ per semi-transparent idiom versus 11.6 per opaque idiom on the comprehension test, 5.9 versus 8.6 on the immediate post-test, and 12.0 versus 19.4 on the delayed posttest. This is in line with Laufer (2000), presented in Section 4.2 (second paragraph from the last), in which a clear link between idiom avoidance and L1-L2 dissimilarity was detected. While readily translating those

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Table 4.8 Degree of transparency related to ‘no answer’, ‘incorrect answer’ and ‘underspecified answer’ No of ‘no answer’, ‘incorrect answer’ and ‘underspecified answer’ per opaque/semi-transparent idiom Answers for which no points were awarded

pretest

comprehension test

post-test 1

post-test 2

opaque

semitrans

opaque

semitrans

opaque

semitrans

opaque

No answer

72.5

57.1

11.6

5.8

8.6

5.9

19.4

12.0

Incorrect

11.1

14.2

15.2

11.9

2.7

3.3

8.9

8.2

1.4

3.4

4.6

4.8

2.8

3.5

2.4

4.9

Underspecified

semitrans

idioms that displayed both literal and semantic similarity, Laufer’s informants were especially reluctant to supply answers for only partially similar L1-L2 idioms, but also refrained from dealing with those that were neither literally nor semantically similar. As pointed out in the theoretical background section, the same result has also been noticed in quite a few other studies (e.g. Abdullah & Jackson (1998) (Syrian learners); Cieślicka (2006b) (Polish learners); Irujo (1986) (Venezuelan learners); Mäntylä (2012) (Finnish learners); Panou (2014) (Greek learners); Yoshikawa (2008) (Japanese learners)). Though working as a facilitator on the pre-test (especially so in Set 1) and on the comprehension test, where in both cases the idioms categorized as ‘very frequent’ on average received the lowest number of ‘no answers’ and those categorized as ‘not frequent’ on average received the highest number of ‘no answers’, frequency was not seen to have the same beneficial effects on the two post-tests (see Table 4.9). This is undoubtedly due in part to the various treatments the students received, factors other than the number of previous encounters here coming to the fore, but also with the individual memory pegs the students formed (see the last parts of Sections 3.6 and 3.10). The lesser effect of frequency than transparency also concurs with what was observed in Chapter 2, where especially in their L2, when contextual support was weak or missing completely, students resorted to decomposing, not commonality. Put simply, transparency is indeed a stronger facilitator than frequency. ‘Incorrect answer’ followed by ‘underspecified answer’ are the second and third most frequent categories in the material as a whole (24.64% and 8.42% respectively, Table 4.3). (Except for the immediate post-test, where ‘underspecified answers’ are slightly more common than ‘incorrect answers’, this order of frequency also holds true for each separate test type.) This again tallies quite well with the Littlemore et al. study (2011). Their categories ‘unmotivated metaphor’, ‘wrong/commonplace metaphor’ and ‘wrong/non-commonplace metaphor’, all of which included

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Table 4.9 Degree of frequency related to ‘no answer’, ‘incorrect answer’ and ‘underspecified answer’ No of ‘no answer’, ‘incorrect answer’ and ‘underspecified answer’ per very frequent/frequent/ not frequent idiom Answers for which no pretest comprehension test post-test 1 post-test 2 points were awarded very freq not very freq not very freq not very freq not freq freq freq freq freq freq freq freq No answer

57.8 65.3 76.5

10.9 9.8

6.0

9.2

18.0 13.8 21.5

Incorrect

15.4 11.9 10.6 13.0 13.1 16.5 3.4

2.7

3.1

10.7

3.6

1.4

1.8

Underspecified

1.7

2.7

1.5

8.3

3.6

9

5.2

4.3 3.6

7.2 10.2 4.8

1.8

different kinds of incorrect answers, together make up 26.9% of all their informants’ responses, while ‘underspecified metaphor’ forms the most frequent individual category (19.9%). Needless to say, a great many of the ‘incorrect answers’, as well as the ‘underspecified responses’, were, in the present study, of course prompted by the various types of treatment the students received. This will be explored further in connection with the test-induced errors that will be discussed last. Similar to ‘no answer’, ‘incorrect answer’ and ‘underspecified answer’ were also considered in relation to transparency and frequency (see Tables 4.8 and 4.9 again). The most interesting results were noticed with transparency when juxtaposed to ‘underspecified answer’, where quite consistently semi-transparent expressions received on average more partially correct answers than did opaque items. This is especially pronounced on the pretest, where each semi-transparent idiom on average received 3.4 ‘underspecified answers’ as compared to 1.4 for each opaque idiom, and on the two post-tests, where each semi-transparent idiom on average received 3.5 and 4.9 ‘underspecified answers’ as compared to 2.8 and 2.4 for each opaque idiom respectively. These results show clearly that it is easier for students to come up with partially correct meanings for idioms that are of a semi-transparent nature than for those that are completely non-transparent. Furthermore, transparency was also observed to play an important role in relation to ‘incorrect answers’ on the comprehension test (to a large extent prompted by Set 2), where each opaque item on average received 15.2 misinterpretations, while each semi-transparent item on average only received 11.9 such answers. Some effect was also noticed on the delayed post-test. Frequency, on the other hand, did not seem to have any obvious facilitating effects in this respect. As pointed out above, this tallies with the results in Chapter 2, where, after context, compositionality is the stronger facilitator. To sum up, based on what has been said above, while the semitransparent idioms on average received few ‘no answers’, some ‘incorrect answers’ and quite a few tokens (but relatively few types) of

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‘underspecified answers’, the opaque idioms on average received quite a few ‘no answers’, some ‘incorrect answers’ (with a wide spread of unrelated meanings) and few ‘underspecified answers’. The reader is, however, cautioned not interpret this to mean that this is a description that holds true for each expression, as there were a great many individual differences between the test items. The fact that native speakers are able to offer similar yet incorrect meanings of creative variants (Cacciari & Glucksberg, 1991) lends support to non-native speakers being able to do so for at least semi-transparent expressions. See Chapter 5, the fi rst subsection in 5.2, where this is discussed further. If the three categories discussed so far – ‘no answer’, ‘incorrect answer’ and ‘underspecified answer’ – are considered from a retention point of view, two main developmental patterns can clearly be discerned among the unsuccessful participants. In one scenario, these students are initially ignorant of an idiom’s meaning, not offering any answer or an incorrect answer on the pretest, then gain, through treatment, full or partial knowledge, as shown on the immediate post-test, just to revert back to an ignorant state on the delayed post-test. That is, attrition/backsliding(?) is here present. In the other scenario, the fi rst two steps mimic those just described, while on the delayed post-test the students are able to offer an underspecified meaning of the idiom. That is, their knowledge will be only partial, and may fossilize as such, or even, eventually, be completely lost. It is obvious that for many tokens, the limited number of encounters offered by the set-ups of the experiments during a relatively concentrated period of time, as well as the lack of different types of context, prevented the students from transferring idiom meaning from short- to long-term memory. Nevertheless, if the idioms are encountered again in the future, the acquisition process may perhaps gain new momentum. Additionally, a handful of participants displayed a third developmental pattern in which they offered an incorrect guess on the pretest, acquired (partially) accurate meaning during treatment and then, on the delayed post-test, reverted back to the misinterpretation they offered on the pretest. Again, it appears that if recycling is not part of the learning process, it may even leave students with a partially false perception of an idiom’s meaning, which of course is quite serious. Only further research can help determine to what extent this is the case. Moreover, it would be interesting to explore how these developmental patterns relate to high- versus low-achievers. The three remaining categories – ‘overspecified answer’, ‘literal answer’ and ‘test-induced answer’ – include very few tokens. Nevertheless, some interesting results were detected with all three and they will therefore, in order of frequency, be discussed in what follows. ‘Overspecified answers’ only constitute 0.89% of all the responses for which no points could be given (Table 4.3). While these types of errors made up a larger part (11.0%) in the Littlemore et al. study (2011), the relation between overspecified and underspecified interpretations is the

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same in the two investigations, the latter being considerably more common than the former. Put differently, giving too much information appears less of a problem than giving too little information in connection with figurative language. Also, as in the Littlemore et  al. study (2011), the ratio between overspecified and underspecified interpretations replicates the difference in number between overextension and underextension usually seen with L1/L2 beginners/low-performers in a second language. Furthermore, as no particular trend among the offenders could be discerned, it appears that overspecifications are produced by low- as well as high-achievers. This is somewhat contradictory to what was observed in the study presented in Chapter 2, where it was found that the higher the educational level, the more answers contained details not part of the idiom’s meaning. However, as proficiency level is not equal to educational level, it may very well be that both low- and high-achievers contributed to the overspecified answers in Chapter 2. Moreover, most of the ‘overspecified answers’ were provided by different individuals. However, when more than one such answer was seen with one and the same informant, they were more often than not tokens that persisted throughout the testing, which is a clear sign of fossilization taking place. Also, some of the overspecifications seem, unsurprisingly, to have been induced by the treatment the students received. One example is ‘act like you are having fun even if you are not’ offered as the meaning of do something with bells on, where in the audio-visual input reluctance was present. In connection with this, it is interesting to note that most of the overspecifications were made on the delayed post-test (Table 4.7), time obviously blurring the informants’ memory of just how much of the input provided is part of the idiom’s defi nition. In other cases, the overspecification was in the form of an overextension, as exemplified by ‘to see the fault in something’, ‘you are not very pleased with something’ and ‘try to fi nd something bad in everything’ (for look a gift horse in the mouth), all of which obviously do not only encompass presents. In still other cases, there was no obvious link with the treatment, as in ‘you give your present to another person because you do not like it’, again for look a gift horse in the mouth. ‘Literal interpretations’ incorporate even fewer tokens than ‘overspecified interpretations’, making up only 0.27% of the material as a whole (Table 4.3). In Littlemore et al. (2011), the category ‘wrong grammar’ includes, but is not limited to, literal interpretations, and is the second smallest category (5.4%). Hence, once again, their results seem to agree with the results of the present study. It also appears to correspond with what was found in Chapter 2, where, although slightly more frequent percentage-wise, probably due to the younger informants involved, it was still the least prolific error category. In contrast to the ‘overspecified responses’, the ‘literal answers’ were limited to a fewer number of learners (one student even contributing with

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seven of the 18 tokens!) who, in addition, almost exclusively were lowachievers. This again tallies with what was noticed in the study discussed in Chapter 2. Moreover, while the errors made were mostly types, a few students persisted with their literal interpretation of specific idioms throughout the testing. Finally, although not included in the present category, but in the ‘incorrect answer’ category as they were not fully literal, a frequent pattern was to interpret the first word literally, and then give the rest of the idiom a more figurative reading. In many cases, but not all, these answers correspond to existing Swedish idioms. Examples are bite the dust for which quite a few of the students wrote bita i det sura äpplet (=bite in the sour apple, meaning ‘bite the bullet’), tie the knot for which many offered knyta ihop säcken (=tie the sack, meaning ‘to end/finish something’), and, as a fi nal example, paint the town red for which some students supplied måla fan på väggen (=paint the devil on the wall, meaning ‘assume the worst’). As discussed in Section 4.2, the same phenomenon was noticed in Mäntylä (2012), and it further tallies with research on idiom blends (Cutting & Bock, 1997), in which an expression’s literal make-up has been shown to be active during production. These results thus indicate that L1 and L2 idioms with the same initial word are (temporarily?) stored together in a learner’s mental lexicon during a (transitional?) phase in which the mapping of similarities and differences between such expressions takes place, and that during such a phase learners, especially lowachievers, do not take the time to retrace their steps, but too swiftly assume L1-L2 congruency. The similarity in L1-L2 syntactic structure and the fact that the prompt word belongs to the same grammatical category as the corresponding L2 word may also have contributed to the triggering of these errors. This interpretation is also in line with the results of Cutting and Bock (1997) where expressions of similar syntactic frames and words belonging to the same word class were more likely to cause blends than those of different structures and categories. It here needs to be added that, in a few cases, idioms of dissimilar syntactic frames were also affected, as is evidenced by money for old rope for which kasta pengarna i sjön (=throw the money in the lake, meaning ‘money down the drain’) was given. Here the L1-L2 presence of the key word money most likely enhanced the triggering of the error. Contrary to what was shown in Mäntylä’s study, however, these errors were not primarily made with infrequent expressions, but occurred with frequent and very frequent expressions too. Forming the least frequent category in the material as a whole (0.43%) (Table 4.3), test-induced misinterpretations, also found in Szczepaniak and Lew (2011), are still informative to consider insomuch as they are able to reveal even more about how idiomatic expressions are processed and stored in a learner’s mental lexicon. It here needs to be mentioned that included in this category are only the errors that unequivocally could be

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categorized as being test-related. There may very well have been others that simply were too subtle or too irregular to be discovered by the present author. Firstly, it is interesting to note that the majority of the test-induced errors were made on the two retention tests, especially on the delayed post-test. It thus seems that it is during the process of transferring meaning from short- to long-term memory, i.e. when links between units of meaning are worked out, that test-related interference is most likely to occur. This may have been caused by the fact that the number and the types of encounters were too few for the meanings of these expressions to solidify. It is also interesting to note that, similar to the literal errors, the majority of these misinterpretations were made by students considered to be low-achievers. When analyzed, three types of test-induced errors could be discerned clearly. The most frequent type involved expressions that contained the same key word. The majority of these were concerned with the word cat. In Set 2, there were two such idioms: be the cat’s whiskers and bell the cat; in Set 1, there was one such idiom: let the cat out of the bag. Three of the students transferred the meaning of bell the cat to be the cat’s whiskers. Another three students offered the meaning of let the cat out of the bag for be the cat’s whiskers, while another two supplied that same meaning for bell the cat. In addition to the key word being the same, there also appears to exist some semantic logic behind these misinterpretations, which mainly seems to be based on the treatment the students received. In the case where the meaning of be the cat’s whiskers (=be the best) was replaced by the meaning of bell the cat (=do something very dangerous to help others), it is of course not too farfetched to assume that while on the prowl, using its whiskers, a cat may sometimes fi nd itself in a dangerous situation. Also, a cat’s whiskers may help it reveal things about its surroundings (the meaning of let the cat out of the bag (=reveal a secret) erroneously offered for be the cat’s whiskers), and putting a bell on a cat may help reveal where it is (the meaning of let the cat out of the bag erroneously given for bell the cat). In a similar fashion, one student offered ‘come happy to a party’, which was the contextual meaning of do something with bells on in the captioned audio-visual material, for bell the cat, both thus containing the key word bell. Here the semantic link, if any, is more diff use. Note, however, that a difference in word class (here noun and verb) does not seem to matter. Although in minority, the presence of such an error thus partly contradicts the results of studies on idiom blends, in which errors primarily seem to involve items belonging to the same grammatical category (Cutting & Bock, 1997). Based on these examples, the conclusion can be drawn that idiomatic expressions containing the same L1 key word are most likely (temporarily?) stored together. This means that when faced with one such expression, all of them are triggered, which may in turn occasionally create a

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semantic tug-of-war, resulting in negative transfer of meaning. These fi ndings also concur with research on idiom blends (Cutting & Bock, 1997). Here sentence pairs containing idioms of similar meaning were shown to cause more mix-ups than those containing idioms of different meanings, which, according to Cutting and Bock, in turn suggests that the individual words of which idioms are made up are in fact analyzed during processing, and would then explain why idioms involving the same key word are confused in the way as described above. This further indicates that instructors should refrain from discussing such expressions in the same lesson or even in consecutive ones. Figure 4.1 offers a graphic illustration of this type of test-induced error. It should be mentioned that, although there were idioms that contained other animals, there were no mix-ups between different animals, at least not what the present author was able to detect. In Set 1, although there were two expressions that contained the word bone – have a bone to pick with someone and throw someone a bone – no mix-ups were noticed. However, two students assigned the meaning of pick someone’s brain to the former of these two, both key words (bone and brain) starting with the letter b. In the phonological/orthographic subsystem, in line with the bathtub effect discovered by Brown and McNeill (1966) (see Section 4.2), words beginning with the same sound/ spelling have been shown to be stored together. This may here thus be a plausible reason for the negative transfer of meaning. As discussed in Section 4.2, this was also observed in Vasiljevic (2014). be the cat’s whiskers

be the cat’s whiskers

*do sth very dangerous to help others

be the best

sometimes a semantic connection

cat

do sth very dangerous to help others bell the cat

?

bell the cat

Figure 4.1 Picture depicting transfer of meaning from one idiom to another due to the fact that the two idioms involved have the same key word

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Another subtype of test-induced error seems to have been prompted by a link between the (peripheral) meanings of the two idioms involved, and is in Johansson (2008) referred to as a ‘conceptual confusion’. The connection was again most typically caused by the specific treatment the student in question had received. Two of the errors belonging to this category originated from one of the Swedish idioms, namely ta tjuren vid hornen (=take the bull by the horns). The central meaning of this idiom was in one case assigned to bell the cat (=do something very dangerous to help others) and in another case to get out of dodge (=leave a dangerous place). In both cases, the two students had received information that focused on ‘a resoluteness to act’ which may be linked peripherally to the meaning of the Swedish idiom. Another example of the same phenomenon can again be seen with get out of dodge, for which another student gave the meaning ‘run away at night, sneak, hide’, transferred from flyby-night. In the form of etymological input, this student learned that people who are fly-by-night are ‘people who are trying to get away with something, such as paying their rent, and are therefore likely to leave town in the middle of the night’. The common peripheral meaning between get out of dodge and fly-by-night is hence something like ‘escape from unpleasant business’. Still another example is ‘give someone a compliment, but not mean it’ (as the correct meaning of throw someone a bone) given for tit for tat. In the audio-visual material this student was offered, one of the main characters is, after a prolonged verbal tug-of-war in the form of tits and tats, fi nally forced to let his colleague have his own desk. The common peripheral meaning of these two idioms is thus something along the lines of ‘allowing/doing something, but not willingly so’. As a fi nal example of an error belonging to this subtype, ‘reveal the truth’ (as the correct meaning of let the cat out of the bag) offered for cut to the chase can be mentioned. In the audio-visual scene where cut to the chase was used, one of the main characters is, via his lawyer, negotiating with the others to become the sole owner of a ring they all found together. The common peripheral meaning of the two idioms is thus approximately ‘giving information to be able to fi nish something’. One reason for the presence of this subtype may be due to the greater inability of L2 learners/ less advanced learners to focus on prototypical aspects of vocabulary items as compared to L1 learners/more advanced learners (see the theoretical section). Once again, in accordance with what was said above, this tallies with research on idiom blends (Cutting & Bock, 1997), where idioms with similar meaning are more likely to cause mix-ups than idioms of dissimilar meaning. It can also be linked to research on false memory, in which a common denominator (e.g. sleep) (here the meaning shared by the two idioms), not on the original list of items asked to be memorized (e.g. bed, rest, tired, dream) (here the two meanings of the idioms), may still be remembered as such. Figure 4.2 offers a graphic illustration of this subtype of test-induced error.

Persisting Ignorance and (Partial) Misinterpretations of L2 Idioms After Treatment

fly-by-night

183

get out of dodge

‘escape from unpleasant business’

*run away at night, sneak, hide

Figure 4.2 Picture depicting transfer of central meaning from one idiom to another due to there being a link in peripheral meaning between the two idioms involved

The third subtype was seen with items for which students combined their knowledge of the world with a literal reading, and offered a likely, yet incorrect, interpretation. For instance, ‘that someone dies/died’ and ‘when you die’ (as the correct meaning of bite the dust) were supplied as the meanings of tie the knot and knock someone’s socks off respectively. In neither case is it too farfetched to assume that the idioms could possibly involve the death of someone. Another example is ‘do something dangerous’ (as the correct meaning of bell the cat) which was provided for the idiom to look a gift horse in the mouth, the act of which may of course involve an element of danger. Furthermore, another two test-induced errors, not entirely falling into any of the three categories above, are simply too intriguing not to be mentioned. The informants here either interpreted the peripheral part of the treatment or the peripheral part of the meaning of another idiom to be the key element of the meaning of the sought-for item. One of these students offered ‘you do something without any water’ for the idiom a dry run. This learner was provided with etymological support, in which she was told that ‘when firefighters in the 1800s practiced their procedures, they didn’t actually use water, and these practice sessions were known as dry runs’. She was also offered a picture illustrating a man running in the desert while sweating. Focusing on the wrong element of the input supplied, lack of water, she transferred it to the idiom and overextended its meaning to incorporate all activities that are done without any water. In the other case, the student focused on the key word water in the idiom like water off a duck’s back, made a connection with water in the etymological input for a dry run (see above) and transferred it when offering the meaning ‘don’t care, it runs off ’ for a dry run.

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All these test-induced errors are examples of the convoluted ways in which a learner’s brain works when trying to make sense of previously encountered expressions not yet consolidated in long-term memory. More specifically, they show that mix-ups may occur within the form network, within the semantic network, and even within a combination of both. They further show that expressions of different degrees of commonality as well as compositionality are affected, though in the latter category the majority appear to be of the opaque type. Confusion, occurring to a large extent irrespective of degree of transparency, thus partly agrees with Cutting and Block’s (1997) fi nding that compositional as well as noncompositional expressions may induce idiom blends. 4.5 Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

Prompted by the dearth of detailed and systematic investigations focusing specifically on non-answers and (partial) misinterpretations of L2 idioms, the students’ replies in Chapter 3 were here revisited, focusing on the tokens for which the learners, despite treatment, were unable to provide correct answers. The results of the study confirm the rocky road involved in disambiguating and remembering the meanings of idioms in a second language. Not only were the vast majority of the test items previously unfamiliar to the students, but despite multimodal and visualization treatments, the majority of them remained unknown or were incorrectly understood. That is, in the material as a whole, both before and after treatment, ‘no answer’ and ‘incorrect answer’ most typically constituted the two most frequent categories. This, if anything, is clear evidence of the difficult nature of figurative language per se. Yet another comparatively large proportion of the expressions, the third most frequent category in the material as a whole and most typically so also in each separate test type, was interpreted or remembered only partially correct. This imprecision reconfirms the inherently difficult nature of figurative language, as do the less commonly produced overspecified answers, constituting the fourth most common category. What is even more problematic with these partially correct answers is that in many cases they seemed to fossilize as such, a state that eventually may lead to complete attrition. Furthermore, the results observed with ‘no answer’, ‘incorrect answer’ and ‘underspecified answer’ could clearly be related to the idioms’ degree of transparency, while the same dependent relation was not seen with the idioms’ frequency. It was concluded that while the semi-transparent expressions on average received few ‘no answers’, some ‘incorrect answers’ and quite a few tokens (but relatively few types) of ‘underspecified answers’, the opaque expressions on average received quite a few ‘no answers’, some ‘incorrect answers’ (with a wide spread of unrelated meanings) and few ‘underspecified answers’. This tallies with the result in

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Chapter 2 where it was observed that, when contextual support is weak or appears weak, transparency has strong facilitating effects, especially so in a second language. The most interesting results though were found with the idioms for which the disambiguation or retrieval process had somehow gone awry, thus offering insights into how idiomatic expressions are stored in a learner’s mental lexicon. These mix-ups involved both L1-L2 expressions as well as two L2 expressions, the latter of which very often being induced by the various treatments the students received. In the L1-L2 mix-ups, learners appeared to fi rst consider a sequence from a constituent level, giving one word, most typically the initial one, a literal interpretation, but then switching, based on a decision made too swiftly regarding L1-L2 similarity, to a top-level approach. This hence resulted in erroneous answers such as bita i det sura äpplet (=bite in the sour apple, meaning ‘bite the bullet’) as the meaning of bite the dust. Many of these also seemed to have been triggered by a similarity in L1-L2 syntactic structure. As for the L2-L2 mix-ups, three main subtypes were detected, all of which were semantic confusions. One subtype occurred with idioms that contained the same key word (e.g. bell the cat offered as the meaning of be the cat’s whiskers), the majority of which also appeared to be based on some semantic logic. Another subtype occurred with idioms whose defi nitions shared some common semantic denominator, in many cases very peripheral ones (e.g. ‘run away at night, sneak, hide’ as the correct meaning of fly-by-night offered for get out of dodge, the two idioms sharing the meaning ‘escape from unpleasant business’). In the third subtype, students were observed to combine their knowledge of the world with a literal reading (e.g. ‘do something dangerous’, as the meaning of bell the cat, provided for the idiom to look a gifthorse in the mouth). There were also some individually formed mix-ups that did not display any clear patterns, some of which the present author most certainly failed to discover. These semantic tugs-of-war thus indicate that, in accordance with research on idiom blends (Cutting & Bock, 1997), such expressions are stored together, either in the form network, the semantic network, or both. From a teacher perspective, while the L1-L2 type and the type involving the same key word are (comparatively) easy to predict, and can hence be avoided by not focusing on such idioms during the same teaching session, or even in consecutive ones, the others are, it seems, unavoidable. In the light of the fact that the majority of these mix-ups appeared to have been produced by low-achievers, and involved both semi-transparent and opaque idioms (the latter type being more prolific than the former) as well as idioms of varying degrees of frequency, it seems even more important that teachers pay close attention to the selection process. In order to help L2 learners progress along these rocky roads, the idioms need to be recycled, providing ample opportunities to encounter the multi-word units in focus over extended periods of time. If they are

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not recycled, it is very likely that the retrieval routes formed will remain indistinct trails (partial knowledge fossilized as such), or eventually fade away completely (attrition), instead of forming the much-desired cognitive highways that, hopefully, may become automatized. Considering the slow, incremental process involved in vocabulary acquisition in general, the only question is to what extent the L2 teaching syllabus will allow recycling with idiomatic expressions to occur, as there are many more pressing areas to which teachers need dedicate time and attention.

5 L2 Comprehension of Creative Idiom Variants

5.1 Introduction

Hitherto, the present book has focused on learners’ comprehension and retention of canonically used idioms. Before moving on to production, we will turn to non-canonical uses, which can best be defi ned by describing the life cycle of an idiomatic expression, most commonly thought to encompass only three stages. The first stage involves its birth, usually described as a spur-of-the-moment creation invented by someone who felt the need for a more colourful way of expressing his/her thoughts (Hockett, 1958; Johnson-Laird, 1993). Moving from a jargon within a limited community (Hockett, 1958), the second stage then involves its conventionalized use in a society (Fernando, 1996; Langlotz, 2006), recognized and known by quite a few L1 speakers. The third stage, fi nally, involves an idiom’s disuse. This is caused by the fact that an expression eventually loses its former glory and ability to surprise (Cacciari & Tabossi, 1993; Hobbs, 1979). For some idioms, though, their life cycle also involves a fourth stage. Contrary to the proverbial horse, it appears that some idiomatic expressions can be flogged into life with the linguistic whip, creating reinventions of what were thought to be dead metaphors (Szczepaniak, 2006). Put differently, as if idioms’ double layer of semanticity is not enough, multiword sequences may comparatively often, opposite to what many people seem to think, be subjected to change. Moreover, to what extent idiomatic expressions are subjected to various degrees of permutations may vary a great deal. The results of some changes can be likened to mere dents in an aluminium can, recently purchased and thus still largely intact. Others can instead be compared to a can discarded and processed to the point beyond recognition, looking more like scrap metal that could have been just about anything. The present chapter will deal with L2 interpretations of these twisted relatives, a largely unexplored area within SLA. Since these variant forms may not even be fi rst cousins of the standard form, but as distant as a second or a third, there is reason to believe they may indeed cause a great deal of concern to learners of a second language, especially in the light of 187

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the fact that comprehension of canonically used expressions, as shown in the previous chapter, proved to be no mean task. Also, as suggested by the Global Elaboration Hypothesis (see Chapter 2, the subsection on age), while native speakers probably start to come to grips with such variants around the age of 15 (Levorato & Cacciari, 1995), L2 learners may, irrespective of age, find such permutated forms difficult to grasp (Szczepaniak, 2006). 5.2 Theoretical Background and Previous Research

The present section is divided into two parts. In the fi rst part, socalled systemic and creative permutations will be defi ned and compared. In the second part, variants belonging to the latter type are discussed in relation to their degree of creativity by being categorized along a creativity continuum. Systemic versus creative manipulations

Idiomatic permutations can essentially be divided into two main categories: systemic manipulations and creative manipulations (Gläser, 1998). The former type can in turn be lexical or syntactical in character (Moon, 1996). Lexical variation, which only affects individual words in the idioms, may involve verbs, as in throw/toss in the towel, upset/overturn the applecart and show/declare/reveal your true colours. It may also involve nouns, as in a skeleton in the closet/cupboard, throw in the towel/ sponge and run rings/circles round someone. Here it sometimes also incorporates variation in number, as in test the water/waters, as well as gender, as in the man/woman in the street. Adjectives may also be affected, as exemplified by a bad/rotten apple, a level/even playing fi eld and as easy/simple as falling off a log. Furthermore, particles and conjunctions may also be changed. Examples of the former type are a bolt from/out of the blue, by/in leaps and bounds and out of/from thin air; examples of the latter type are like/as if there’s no tomorrow, when/if push comes to shove and when/while the cat’s away the mice will play. Addition (e.g. pass the hat (around) and turn (over) in one’s grave) and reversal (e.g. day and night versus night and day and on and off versus off and on) are also examples of lexical variation. Yet another type is truncation, also referred to as ellipsis, as exemplified by birds of a feather instead of its full form birds of a feather flock together and don’t count one’s chickens for don’t count one’s chickens before they are hatched. While it is usually the first part that is retained in such variation, other parts, depending on what one wants to emphasize, may also be singled out. In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, for example, the phrase silver lining, referring to the proverb every cloud has a silver lining was used, while in an episode of Midsomer Murders, the remark every cloud, clipping the same adage in

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a more normal way, was spoken. The presence of this particular type of lexical variation is regarded to be evidence of ‘the fluency and confidence of the language-user’ (Fernando, 1996: 51), and it is often used in headlines to catch the reader’s attention (Vrbinc & Vrbinc, 2011). Some expressions may even be reduced to the proverbial X, as in the proverbial cat or dog, where any idiom involving the nouns cat or dog may be the referent intended. Finally, lexical variations also exist between British and American English, as shown in flog a dead horse (BrE) versus beat a dead horse (AmE), fall through the net (BrE) versus fall through the cracks (AmE), and too big for one’s boots (BrE) versus too big for one’s britches/ breeches (AmE) (Liu, 2008; Moon, 1997, 1998). As mentioned above, systemic variation does not only affect vocabulary but syntax too. Examples of such variation can be seen in, for instance, steer clear of something versus steer someone clear of something, cross one’s fingers versus keep one’s fingers crossed, X ties the knot with Y versus X and Y tie the knot, bloody someone’s nose versus give someone a bloody nose, etc. (Moon, 1998). Interestingly enough, it has been shown that such syntactically different forms of one and the same idiom all have unique functions in discourse (Langlotz, 2006). For a much more detailed description of the various types of syntactical variation, the reader is referred to Moon (1998). In addition, there are also ‘idiom frames’, exemplified by down the chute – down the drain – down the toilet and, further along the variation continuum, ‘idiom schemas’, as illustrated by scare the life out of someone – scare the shit out of someone – scare someone shitless – scare the pants off someone – frighten the life out of someone – be frightened out of one’s mind – be scared out of one’s wits, the variants of which have a single metaphor in common (Moon 1998). Systemic variations, as described above, are very common in every-day language. In the 18-million-word Oxford Hector Pilot Corpus, for example, Moon (1998) found that 40% of the forms considered involved some kind of lexical and/or syntactical variation, and that another 14% involved two or more such variations. It is therefore interesting to note that research has shown that non-native speakers, irrespective of age, learn syntactically frozen expressions much more quickly than those that are not, systemic variation thus constituting a clear hindrance in the development of figurative language for L2 learners (Gibbs, 1987). (For an even more detailed overview of systemic variation as a whole, go to Moon, 1998.) Furthermore, the extent to which these kinds of lexical and syntactical variations may occur have to do with the degree to which an idiom can be decomposed.1 That is, it has to do with the degree to which semantic relations exist between the individual constituents of the idiom and the meaning of the expression as a whole. For example, while for the idiom pop the question, pop and the question have clear semantic relations with suddenly ask and marriage proposal respectively, there are no such clear

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relations for the idiom kick the bucket, as none of the individual constituents can be connected with the idiom’s meaning die (Cacciari & Glucksberg, 1991; Glucksberg 1993, 2001). Thus, generally speaking, decomposable multi-word sequences are syntactically (Gibbs & Nayak, 1989) and lexically (Gibbs et al., 1989) more flexible than less decomposable sequences. Along these lines, it is, for instance, possible to say the law was laid down by John instead of John laid down the law, lay down the law being a highly decomposable expression, but unacceptable to say *the bucket was kicked by John instead of John kicked the bucket, kick the bucket being of a non-transparent nature. In a similar fashion, whereas it is possible to replace break with burst in the expression break the ice, replacing bucket with boot in the expression kick the bucket makes the phrase lose its idiomatic meaning entirely (Cacciari & Glucksberg, 1991). In short, the more decomposable an expression is, the more lexically and syntactically flexible it is (Glucksberg, 2001; Szczepaniak, 2006). The present investigation, however, will not focus on systemic variations, but on the type that may be referred to as a creative manipulation, a resurrected metaphor (Szczepaniak, 2006) or an exploitation (Moon, 1998) of the idiom’s canonical form. The main difference between systemic and creative manipulations is that while the former type stays within the restrictions of the established lexical and syntactical systems, i.e. these variations are most commonly listed as alternative forms in dictionaries (Fernando, 1996), the latter type does not adhere to such limitations (Cacciari & Glucksberg, 1991; Fernando, 1996), though cohesion and coherence still have to remain intact. That is, creative manipulations change the meaning of an idiom’s canonical form, sometimes drastically so, but while canonical forms can be understood in decontextualized situations, creative variants can only be interpreted in relation to specific contexts that have been created intentionally. For an L2 learner whose lexicon is normally not as well developed as that of a native speaker, disambiguation of such permutations may hence seem an unsurmountable task. Indeed, the very limited number of studies that exists confirms that permutations that break lexical and syntactical rules in unforeseen ways are, for non-native speakers, usually considerably more difficult to grasp than systemic ones. In Yi (2014), Chinese EFL students were tested on four variant types, one of which involved permutations that caused no rulebreaking changes, while the rest of them did. As expected, the informants understood the variations belonging to the former category considerably better than the ones that broke rules in seemingly erratic ways. The investigation was further able to show that comprehension of idiom variants correlated with proficiency level. This is not so strange, however, as previous research has also displayed such correlations between L2 learner proficiency and knowledge of canonically used multi-word sequences (Al-kadi, 2015; Cummins, 1979, 1991). See also the results of the study discussed in Chapter 2 where the same conclusion was drawn.

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What complicates this matter even further is that, contrary to what is seen with systemic variations, creative ones do not appear to be limited to decomposable idioms. That is, non-compositional expressions, already quite inaccessible to non-native speakers, may also be subjected to such permutations (Cacciari & Glucksberg, 1991). This occurs when both the meaning of the idiom as a whole as well as one of the constituents accept the same type of semantic change. This is the reason why it would be acceptable to say he silently kicked the bucket, since both kick and die can be modified by silently, but unacceptable to say he sharply kicked the bucket, as only kick, not die, may be modified using the adverbial sharply (Wasow et al., 1983). Still another complicating matter for L2 learners has to do with contextual issues. The main reason for the existence of creative manipulations is typically to convey messages with a twist, whilst at the same time wanting to achieve different comical effects (Gläser, 1986; Naciscione, 2001; Omazić, 2008). This means that these distorted idioms often occupy key positions, such as titles, headlines, introductory sentences and concluding remarks (Herrera & White, 2010; Littlemore et al., 2011; Moon, 1998; Pollio et al., 1977; Szczepaniak, 2006; SimpsonVlach & Ellis 2010; White, 2011). It follows from this that, whereas creative manipulations, though not always easy to crack immediately (White, 2011), are mainly used as text comprehension facilitators for L1 learners, they may instead constitute stumbling blocks for L2 learners, as creative manipulations are quite often as difficult to spot as they are important contextual clues (Finn, 1977–1978; Prodromou, 2003; Szczepaniak, 2006). Put simply, this is a truly linguistic catch 22 moment (White, 2011). ‘Deceptive transparency’ (Laufer, 1997a, 1997b; Moon, 1998), occurring in situations when an L2 learner remains unaware of the presence of idiomatic fragments in a text and instead regards them as individual words, is probably also a reason why creative manipulations may not be interpreted correctly by non-native speakers. On the other hand, once understood, these highly distorted variants may, due to the more arduous process of disambiguation, be better remembered than those expressions encountered in their canonical or systemic forms only (Szczepaniak, 2006). Nevertheless, despite the complexity involved, distortions are recognized and understood considerably well by native speakers. In Cacciari and Glucksberg (1991), for instance, it was shown that native-speaking college students of English, when tested on creative variants, were, in relation to familiarity with the idiom’s canonical form and context appropriateness, quite successful in comprehending the intended message. Cacciari and Glucksberg also point out that even in those cases when idiom familiarity was comparatively low, the informants were able to supply sensible, although sometimes incorrect, interpretations. For the creative manipulation seen in: He was the sort of person who always

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bit off much less than he could chew, for instance, nine related interpretations were obtained. These are: He did less than he could; Roger never pushed himself; He did not challenge himself; He always did less than his potential best; He took the easiest way out; He always took the easiest way out, although capable of more; He was a person who always did less than he was capable of; He never took on challenges; and He does less than he could, just to be safe. How can this be? Key points (Cacciari & Tabossi, 1988), kernels (Norrick, 1985) and points of uniqueness (Flores d’Arcais, 1993), like beans in spill the beans, at which a string of words is recognized as an idiomatic expression, as well as points of recognition (spill in spill the beans), may be part of the explanation. These, in combination with contextual clues, seem to prompt L1 readers/speakers to try for a non-literal interpretation, even when there is no obvious sign of an idiomatic expression. For obvious reasons, the use of such pivots is much more limited to an L2 learner, whose lexicon is not as well developed. What has been said above points to creative manipulations being a no mean task for any L2 learner, irrespective of proficiency level. In fact, nonnative speakers appear to be at a disadvantage even in situations when they do show command of creative variant forms, as evidenced by the following account: A few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to a long-lost [native-speaker] friend who humorously replied ‘your name does indeed ring a bell’. I replied that I was glad I could still ring bells in his quarters and when I saw him the following week he said he was surprised I didn’t know the meaning of ring a bell’. I may be overgeneralizing a bit, but it seems to me that nonnative speakers, even if they have reached a very advanced level, are still considered incapable of playing with the language; if they attempt to do so, they will be regarded with suspicion and, consequently, they will fail to communicate their meaning. Native speakers on the other hand appear to be considered by defi nition incapable of making mistakes – therefore, creative deviations on their part will usually be commented on favourably and they humour will be appreciated much more easily. – Greek nonnative speaker. (Prodromou, 2003: 46)

Other investigations even show that non-native speakers can produce creative variants that are unique to the L2 interlanguage (Pitzl, 2012, 2016; Prodromou, 2007; Seidlhofer, 2004). A continuum of creativity

In Szczepaniak (2006), a continuum of creativity based on the semantic distance from an idiom’s canonical meaning is presented. This distance, according to Szczepaniak (2006: 38), is achieved by there being ‘a gradual increase in literal bias’ through a ‘growing distance between the usual, conventional and context-modulated meaning’.

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The least creative kind (Type I), which typically includes transformations such as truncation (e.g. A bird in the hand, I thought, and accepted his offer.) and allusion (e.g. Why chase the two birds when one is up for grabs?), does not involve any change in the original meaning of the idiom. As the reader can see, there is not total agreement when it comes to the distinction between systemic variations and these marginally creative variants. Whereas Moon (1998) regards truncation to belong to the former type (see previous subsection), Szczepaniak (2006) considers such permutations to be part of the creativity continuum, although of the lowest level. In Type II, despite the fact that it is still possible to replace the manipulated version with the canonical form, the idiom’s meaning has been altered to fit the situation in a more precise way. This is normally done through substitution (e.g. A competent minister in the hand is worth many generals in the bush and He has three left feet.), insertion (e.g. A bird in the hand is worth two in the economic bush and When drugs are involved, it’s time to speak your parental mind.) or addition (e.g. So priceless a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.). Variants belonging to this type appear especially common (Vrbinc & Vrbinc, 2011). Here some confusion regarding terminology may also occur, since Moon (1998) uses the term ‘addition’ to refer to systemic variation as in pass the hat (around) and turn (over) in one’s grave, exemplified in the previous subsection. In Type III, the expression’s idiomatic meaning can no longer be clearly discerned, thus its canonical form may no longer be used instead of the manipulated form. As an example, Szczepaniak (2006) offers an extract from Times where a sheep in lamb’s clothing was used instead of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This was done when discussing why the cells of the cloned sheep Dolly showed signs of being older than they really were, which, according to the article, may have been due to the fact that Dolly’s mother, when cloned, was six years old. In Type IV, the idiomatic as well as the literal meaning of the phrase is prompted by the context provided. Szczepaniak (2006) exemplifies this type with call a spade a spade from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Here Cecily states: This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manner. When I see a spade I call it a spade, and Gwendolyn replies: I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different. Another example of this type is offered in Cacciari and Glucksberg (1991) where a man says to another man: Did the old man kick the bucket last night? whereupon the other one answers: Nah, he barely nudged it! Yet another example was heard by the present author while watching the TV series DCI Banks. Here the inspector’s only comment when fi nding some money wrapped in a plastic bag in the suspect’s freezer is frozen assets. A fi nal example was heard while watching the TV series Death in Paradise. Whereas the

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murderer believes that the police do not have a case against him, the detective tells him that that is not so. With the help of a camera they had actually been able to spot a body buried in concrete under the house in which the murderer lives. ‘In short’, the detective comments, ‘we have concrete proof’. The next step on the creativity ladder, Type V, occurs when only the literal meaning of the expression is activated. Szczepaniak (2006) offers toot your horn, used as the title to an article on railroading simulators, as an example of this type. Lastly, Type VI, the most manipulated variant of all, occurs when neither the idiomatic nor the literal meaning of the phrase can be discerned. Plastic makes perfick, a play on practice makes perfect, used as a title of an article on plastic surgery, exemplifies this type (Szczepaniak, 2006). (All the examples above, with the exceptions of frozen assets and concrete proof, are taken from Cacciari and Gucksberg (1991), Szczepaniak (2006) and Veisbergs (1997).) To sum up, whereas context does not affect idiom meaning in permutations belonging to Type I, it plays a major role in manipulations of Types II, III and IV, even though the idioms still retain some of their original meaning. In Types V and VI, on the other hand, the phrase’s idiomatic meaning is totally obfuscated. Szczepaniak (2006) therefore predicts these two types will be completely incomprehensible to nonnative learners. The variants higher up on Szczepaniak’s creativity continuum can be linked to research on what is referred to as conceptual blending/integration (Fauconnier & Turner, 1994, 2002) double-grounding (Brône & Coulson, 2010; Brône & Feyaerts, 2005; Feyaerts & Brône, 2002) or topictriggered metaphor (Koller, 2004; Semino, 2008), in which vocabulary from the semantic field of the topic in question normally used is constructed to function figuratively. White (2011) offers examples within the field of aviation where lexis like turbulence and prepare for landing are given figurative interpretations in headlines like air alliance runs into turbulence and British airways and Iberia prepare for landing. Finally, to derive the meaning of a creative variant, L2 learners are thought to go through six steps (cf. Glucksberg, 2001: 77; Omazić, 2008: 73; Vrbinc & Vrbinc, 2011: 76): (1) recognition of the idiom as a permutation of a conventional idiom; (2) retrieval of the meaning of the original idiom; (3) identification of the constituent meanings of both the original idiom and the creative variant; (4) comparison of the constituent meanings of the two idiom forms; (5) identification of the relations between those meanings; (6) on the basis of these relations, inference of the relation between the meanings of the original idiom and the creative variant.

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In accordance with Szczepaniak’s continuum (2006), it is clear that the more creative effort has been put into forming the manipulated variant, the more difficult the disambiguation process becomes. 5.3 The Present Study Research question addressed

In the present investigation, one main research question is addressed: To what extent do comparatively advanced students understand different degrees of creative permutations in a second language? The informants

A total of 13 students participated in the present study, all of whom come from level 6 (age: 17) which is a compulsory part of upper secondary school in the Swedish education system. The reason for choosing this age group, in addition to availability, is that, according to the Global Elaboration Hypothesis (Levorato & Cacciari, 1995) (see also Chapter 2, the subsection on age), the ability to disambiguate non-canonical forms is, at this age, thought to be comparatively well developed in a fi rst language. It is therefore of great interest to fi nd out to what extent this ability may have been transferred to a second language. Table 5.1 offers details about the informant group. For all the participants, it was also ascertained that their mother tongue was Swedish and that none of them used English or any other language as their fi rst language. All 13 subjects come from the same municipal school as those participating in the study in Chapter 2 (see Section 2.3), hosting about 1200 students taking part in 14 different study programmes. Similar to the school as a whole, the informants included in the present study constitute, according to their teacher, a miscellaneous group, incorporating high-, average- and low-performing students. However, as the group includes a few learners who study the humanities programme, whose main focus is languages, as well as a few other learners who were characterized as stellar students by their teacher, the group as a whole should probably be expected to perform above average on any given task in the English language. Table 5.1 The student group in the present study Student group

Level 6, upper secondary school

Age

17

N

13

Gender F

M

11

2

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The test items

A test containing 20 creative variants was put together. These were all items that the present author had encountered while reading and watching TV, fiction as well as non-fiction. To a large extent, the test items may in fact be regarded as illustrating normal usage, as only six of them were taken from books on linguistic matters, and even some of these were originally taken from authentic text. Table 5.2 presents all the test items, including their canonical forms, manipulated forms, contexts as well as expected interpretations. Most importantly, their degree of creativity based on Szczepaniak’s continuum (2006), as described in the second subsection in 5.2, is indicated. 16 of the manipulated expressions belong to Type II, 10 of which include substitution, five addition and one insertion. Two of these 16 expressions, one substitution (test item 19) and one addition (test item 7), also required cultural knowledge for their disambiguation. Another three permutations are of Type IV, in which the phrase’s idiomatic as well as literal meaning is activated. One is of Type VI, where neither interpretation is prompted. None of the test items are of Type I, III or V. To investigate if the transparency and frequency of the idioms’ canonical forms played any part in the learners’ attempt to disambiguate the creative variants, these factors were also considered. For more detailed descriptions of the two categorization processes, the reader is referred to Chapter 2, Section 2.3. As depicted in Table 5.3, 10 tokens were nontransparent, 9 semi-transparent and 1 fully transparent; 7 very frequent, 12 frequent, none not frequent, and for one item, the frequency could not be ascertained.

The design

Prior to testing, in order to ascertain that the students understood what they were going to be tested on, the concept of idiomaticity was explained by comparing the literal and figurative interpretation of bury the hatchet. Then, the students were presented with a manipulated version in a contextualized form. The two rivals buried the olympic hatchet, found on the internet, was offered. A discussion about its use and possible meaning ensued, during which one of the students came up with a plausible answer. The participants were then told that it was on these kinds of distorted forms they would be tested. Next, all the participants were provided with a worksheet containing the 20 manipulated expressions (in bold) in their respective contexts. During treatment, with a short hiatus between each test item, the contexts were read aloud to the students. In order to make sure that they were not hindered by not knowing the idiom’s canonical form and meaning, this information, based on Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary (2002), was

Type of manipulation according to Szczepaniak (2006)

Type II (substitution)

Type II (substitution)

Type II (substitution)

Type II (addition)

Type II (substitution)

Test item (no.)

1

2

3

4A

5B

wear your heart on your sleeve

wear your heart on your sleeve

it’s raining cats and dogs

paint the town red

hear something through the grapevine

Canonical form

Two police officers (Lena and Frank), who both are considered to be very tough by their colleagues, are discussing the fact that they both think the other one has done things that are against the law. However, Lena thinks that this time Frank has gone too far and she threatens to tell on him. Frank, in turn, says that he will then reveal everything bad Lena has ever done, and Frank adds: ‘You strut around town like you’re some hot piece of shit wearing your bad reputation on your sleeve. Wasn’t that what Jeffrey was always warning you about? Too many people with knives in their backs.’ (taken from the novel Broken by Karin Slaughter (2011)).

A woman describing herself: − I wear my heart on my arm, my shoulder and lips. (taken from the reality show Real Housewives of New York)

It’s raining kittens and puppies. (taken from Littlemore & Low, 2006).

From The Big Bang Theory: After an evening out with Penny (Leonard’s girlfriend), Leonard comes home as early as 8.30. Howard: − Did you and Penny decide to go out and paint the town beige?

(The scene is taken from The Big bang Theory which is an American comedy about four science guys, who all are a bit different from normal people, and their next-door neighbour Penny.) Bernadette (Howard’s girlfriend) has told their friends a secret, but she has not told Howard about this. She is afraid that he is angry with her, but Howard says that he is not. He is just disappointed that he had to hear about it through the nerdvine.

Manipulated form and context offered the students

(Continued)

She is a very tough police officer who isn’t very concerned with following the law and she is not afraid of showing it.

She is extremely open with her feelings.

It’s only drizzling.

Their night out was boring.

Howard heard it from his friends, who are considered to be nerds.

Expected interpretation

Table 5.2 The test items in the present study, categorized according to Szczepaniak’s creativity continuum (2006), including their canonical and manipulated forms as well as the context given and expected interpretations

L2 Comprehension of Creative Idiom Variants 197

Type of manipulation according to Szczepaniak (2006)

Type II (addition + tense marking)

Type II (addition based on cultural knowledge)

Type IV (idiomatic and literal meaning activated)

Type II (two substitutions)

Test item (no.)

6

7

8A

9B

Table 5.2 (Continued)

knock somebody’s socks off

This alludes to the fact that priests wear collars, and as blow is stronger than knock, it means that Doug wanted to put off confession until he had something that would really surprise the priest, i.e. something that would be worth his while coming to confession for.

Satisfied by having succeeded in ruining Stuart’s reading experience, as Stuart ruined his, Sheldon ironically wishes Stuart good luck enjoying a comic book he already knows is really good.

In one scene in The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon goes to the comic book store and there Stuart – the owner of the store – shows Sheldon a comic book that he says is extremely good. Sheldon gets angry because he thinks that Stuart has spoiled it for him. To get back at Stuart, Sheldon goes and gets another comic book and asks Stuart if he has read it. When Stuart says no, Sheldon says: – Well, I have and it will knock your socks off. Good luck getting them back on. In an episode of The King of Queens (an American situation comedy), Doug, who is a Catholic, decides to go to confession. Instead of stating clearly how long ago it was since he made his last confession, Doug mumbles so the priest cannot hear him. The priest therefore asks him to repeat what he said. Doug answers: 14 years. The priest exclaims: 14 years! Doug then says: I thought I would wait until I had something that would blow your collar off.

This alludes to the Irish flag. Being envious of the girl, as she is Irish, thus means being green, white and orange.

Stunning Miss Ireland wraps our national flag around her – hoping to make her Miss World rivals green, white and orange with envy! (taken from Philip (1996)).

green with envy

knock somebody’s socks off

Ann has let everything go on for too long so that her imaginary lesbian lover has become a liability instead of being something positive in her life. That is why she decides that Jill has to ‘die’.

Expected interpretation

One of the main characters (a police woman named Ann) in the novel Martin Misunderstood by Karin Slaughter (2008) has created an imaginary lesbian lover (Jill) who has breast cancer. However, after a while Ann comes to realize that she has taken everything a bit too far. All her colleagues and friends, for example, think that Jill actually exists and constantly ask how Jill is doing. ‘It was then she knew that Jill had to die. Too much water had passed under the bridge.’

Manipulated form and context offered the students

it’s water under the bridge

Canonical form

198 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Type II (substitution)

Type II (addition)

Type VI (neither idiomatic nor literal meaning activated)

Type II (substitution)

Type IV (idiomatic and literal meaning activated)

10

11A

12B

13C

14

let the cat out of the bag

In the movie Anatomy of a Murder, a man is on trial for killing the person who raped his wife. For some reason the prosecutor does not want the witness to talk about the raped woman. However, at one point during the trial the prosecutor is forced to ask his witness a question that concerns the raped woman. When the man’s defence attorney wants to do the same, the prosecutor objects strongly. The defence attorney then says: The cat is out of the bag. It’s fair game for me to chase it.

(Continued)

As the prosecutor opened up the topic, even though he tried his utmost to avoid it, the defence lawyer now thinks that he too should be allowed to ask the witness questions about the raped woman.

If the woman stopped arguing/fighting with everyone, she would feel a lot better.

In his TV show dealing with different psychological problems people have, Dr Phil talks to a woman who is very angry and tells her that she ought to get a chip off her shoulder.

have a chip on one’s shoulder

The other person was extremely angry and was causing a disturbance.

On the internet a person writes that she once heard someone say he couldn’t think for the noise of chips falling from the other person’s shoulders.

have a chip on one’s shoulder

Again two interpretations are possible: 1) he is extremely angry 2) he is angry about the past as well as the present

Two interpretations are possible: 1) it is the ninth year in a row he tries to meet women like this 2) he has been trying this over and over again As for the latter interpretation, it is, however, unclear, why nine specifically would be used.

In the movie A Beautiful Mind, Russell Crowe plays a character who has had a privileged childhood but who later in life encounters a great many problems. In one scene, he therefore says that he has a chip on both his shoulders.

In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Raj comments on the fact that Stuart, the owner of a comic book store, is putting together a Halloween party. Stuart replies by saying that it is his yearly attempt to meet women and adds ninth time is the charm.

have a chip on one’s shoulder

third time is the charm

L2 Comprehension of Creative Idiom Variants 199

Type of manipulation according to Szczepaniak (2006)

Type II (substitution)

Type II (addition)

Type II (substitution)

Test item (no.)

15

16

17

Table 5.2 (Continued)

there are no flies on him/ her

sit on the fence

get a word in edgeways

Canonical form

There is not a single fly on me. (said by a colleague of the present author).

I’ve been sitting on the fence so long my bottom is beginning to hurt (taken from Littlemore & Low, 2006).

In an episode of the American sitcom Mike and Molly, Mike is intimidated when Molly makes sexual advances and he therefore hastily tells her that he needs to go home. The next day, when Mike tells his friends about what happened, they respond by saying they think that he now might have lost Molly. Mike, accompanied by his friends, decides to go and talk to Molly about the situation. In order to build up his courage, he and his friends have a few drinks on the way. Surprised by the fact that the door is opened by Molly’s mother, Mike rather meekly tells her that he would like to speak with Molly. Molly’s mother on the other hand, after having said that Molly does not want to speak with him, slams the door in Mike’s face whereupon one of Mike’s friends says that alcohol didn’t get a word in edgeways.

Manipulated form and context offered the students

I am not at all stupid; I am very intelligent.

The person has remained indecisive for a very long time (possibly to the point that it is causing him/her problems of some sort).

Not even alcohol gave him the courage to say what he wanted to say about something he would not normally feel comfortable discussing.

Expected interpretation

200 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Type II (insertion)

Type II (substitution based on cultural knowledge)

Type IV (idiomatic and literal meaning activated)

18

19

20

kill the goose that lays the golden egg

spill the beans

leave no stone unturned

The company had made a fortune on bonds and then suddenly found themselves seriously short of money. Before declaring bankruptcy, the firm’s assets were distributed among the senior executives in the form of substantial cash bonuses. As a direct result of this, the company’s cash reserve disappeared. However, the company’s senior executives were not content with collecting one golden egg after another. Instead they seemed to insist on eating the goose. (taken (and somewhat altered) from Glucksberg, 1993).

His old friend and partner in crime had talked to the police in return for personal immunity. Scared by this, Salvatore employed two hit men to kill him before he could spill the pasta (taken (and somewhat altered) from Langlotz, 2006).

He left no legal stone unturned. (taken from Everaert, Van Der Linden, Schenk & Schreuder, 1995).

The senior executives were not satisfied getting the money in ‘instalments’, but instead tried to get everything at once, possibly by trying to take over the company.

The word pasta (in addition to Salvatore) alludes to Italy. The men involved are thus Italian, which may mean that the hit is executed by the Italian mafia.

He has used every legal means available to him.

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Table 5.3 The test items, including information about their degree of transparency and frequency Test item Manipulated (no.) form

Canonical form

Canonical form

Transparency

Frequency

Trans Semi-trans Non-tran Very Freq Freq 1

hear about it through the nerdvine

hear something through the grapevine

X

X

2

paint the town beige

paint the town red

3

it’s raining kittens and puppies

it’s raining cats and dogs

4A

I wear my heart on my arm, my shoulder and lips

wear your heart on your sleeve

X

X

5B

wearing your bad reputation on your sleeve

wear your heart on your sleeve

X

X

6

too much water had passed under the bridge

it’s water under the bridge

7

green, white and orange with envy

green with envy X

8A

…it will knock your socks off, good luck getting them back on

knock somebody’s socks off

X

X

9B

blow your collar off knock somebody’s socks off

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

10

ninth time is the charm

third time is the charm

X

11A

he has a chip on both shoulders

have a chip on one’s shoulder

X

X

12B

he couldn’t think for the noise of chips falling from the other person’s shoulders

have a chip on one’s shoulder

X

X

13C

she ought to get a chip off her shoulder

have a chip on one’s shoulder

X

X

14

the cat is out of the let the cat out bag, it’s fair game of the bag for me to chase it

X

?

?

X

L2 Comprehension of Creative Idiom Variants

203

Table 5.3 (Continued) Test item Manipulated form (no.)

Canonical form

Canonical form

Transparency

Frequency

Trans Semi-trans Non-tran Very Freq Freq 15

alcohol didn’t get a get a word in word in edgeways edgeways

X

16

I’ve been sitting on the fence so long my bottom is beginning to hurt

X

17

there is not a single there are no fly on me flies on him/her

18

he left no legal stone unturned

leave no stone unturned

19

…before he could spill the pasta

spill the beans

20

…not content with collecting one egg after another, instead they seemed to insist on eating the goose

kill the goose that lays the golden egg

sit on the fence

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

offered first. That is, the fi rst two steps of the disambiguation process, as described in the second subsection in 5.2, were bypassed. This was also thought to help guide them away from a literal interpretation. No additional information, such as the meaning of other words, was given. In each case, the students were encouraged to elaborate on their answers as much as possible. Responses in English, Swedish or a combination of the two were all accepted. In addition, the students were requested to give information about their degree of certainty in relation to their interpretation. This was done either by indicating that they were sure of the idiom’s meaning, that they thought they knew it, or that they had been unable to figure it out. What has been explained above is summarized in the following example with the idiom wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve: If you wear your heart on your sleeve, it means that you are a person who is very open about your feelings.

Could you then explain the use/meaning of the following in bold: Two police officers (Lena and Frank), who both are considered to be very tough by their colleagues, are discussing the fact that they both think the other one has done things that are against the law. However, Lena thinks

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that this time Frank has gone too far and she threatens to tell on him. Frank, in turn, says that he will then reveal everything bad Lena has ever done, and Frank adds: ‘You strut around town like you’re some hot piece of shit wearing your bad reputation on your sleeve. Wasn’t that what Jeffrey was always warning you about? Too many people with knives in their backs.’  I am sure it means that: __________________________________ ______________________________________________________  I think it means that: ____________________________________

___________________________________________________  I cannot figure out what it means. _________________________ ______________________________________________________

After the completion of the test, the students were given some extra minutes to go through their answers. The worksheets were then collected. The whole procedure took about 80 minutes. Finally, each correct answer was awarded one point. Half a point was given in those cases where a student showed awareness of the idiom’s manipulated meaning, but was unable to fully explain it. For test item 9B (blow your collar off ), which required a two-part answer (see Table 5.2), half a point was given for each. Lastly, for the two test items for which two interpretations were possible (idioms 10 and 11), a full point for either answer was awarded. No student offered both. This renders a total of 20 points. 5.4 Results and Discussion

Table 5.4 presents the students’ results on the 20 creative variants on which they were tested. Considering the fact that the informants in the present study were provided with the idioms’ canonical forms and meanings (see Section 5.3), and as a group was expected to perform above average (see Section 5.3), a correctness rate of 49.04% must be regarded as comparatively low. This indicates that the claim made by the Global Elaboration Hypothesis (see Chapter 2, the subsection on age), that 17-year-olds should possess a relatively well-developed ability to disambiguate idiomatic distortions in their first language (Levorato & Cacciari, 1995), does not, unsurprisingly, quite hold true in a second language. This achievement can be compared to the Table 5.4 The students’ results Student group

N

Idioms understood

Mean

SD

Standardized scores

Upper secondary school, level 6 (age: 17)

13

49.04% (=127,5/260)

9.81

5.15

Highest: 1.69 Lowest: −1.32

L2 Comprehension of Creative Idiom Variants

205

results in Chapter 2, where the informant group consisting of 17-year-olds were able to disambiguate 29.89% of the L2 idioms, presented in their canonical form. The reader is here reminded that this group was described as low-achieving by their teachers, outperformed by the 15-year-olds (35.93%) as well as the 16-year-olds (30.72%). In addition, as tested on comprehension, no idiom meanings were supplied. However, as indicated by the standard deviation (see Table 5.4), the 13 informants’ results differ substantially. While the most advanced student displays nativelike mastery, achieving as many as 18.5 points out of 20, the lowest-scoring student only received three points (see Table 5.5 below). As discussed in Chapters 2 (Section 2.4) and 4 (Section 4.4), there are learners in their teens who do not even seem to have fully grasped the concept of idiomaticity, producing literal answers, especially in their L2 but also in their L1, when asked to supply figurative ones. It is therefore not so strange if students receive (very) low scores on a test focusing on the most extreme version of idiom distortion in a second language. This problematic nature of creative variants is also in line with what was seen in Yi (2014), in which creative permutations posed greater problems to the L2 informants, native speakers of Chinese learning English as a second language, than systemic ones (see the first subsection in 5.2). The informants’ teacher was also asked to predict what grade each student would most likely receive for English as a whole at the end of the academic year. These grades are also shown in Table 5.5, A being the highest and F the lowest, in the latter case of which the student would have to retake (parts of) the course. Table 5.5 The students’ individual results and the grades the students will most likely receive for English as a whole in level 6 Informant

No of points (total: 20)

Grade for English as a whole

Student 5

18.5

A

Student 1

15.5

B

Student 13

15.5

A

Student 4

14

C

Student 3

12.5

B

Student 6

12.5

C

Student 8

9

C

Student 10

6

E

Student 12

6

D

Student 7

5

D

Student 9

5

E

Student 11

5

C

Student 2

3

F

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It is quite clear that the students’ ability to disambiguate creative variants correlates with their general proficiency, high-scoring students generally receiving As or Bs, low-scoring students Ds, Es and Fs, and average students generally receiving Cs. This too tallies with Yi (2014), where links between the informants’ level of proficiency and their achievements on the idiom variant test were observed (see again the first subsection in 5.2). Table 5.6, fi nally, displays the results for each of the creative variants tested, starting with the one for which most of the students offered the correct answer. The informants’ self-evaluation of their knowledge of the idioms is also included. S here indicates that the students were sure about the answer they had provided; T that they thought they knew the answer; NF that they had not been able to figure out the idiom’s meaning. For example, for ninth time is the charm (test item 10), five of the students indicated that they were sure of the variant’s meaning, one of whom was incorrect (in parenthesis). Another eight students indicated that they thought they knew its meaning, two of whom were incorrect (also in parenthesis). As the remaining six of these eight students constitute the majority of the test group, this square is highlighted in grey. (When two or more idioms received the exact same score, the item for which the students showed the greatest accuracy in their self-evaluation, as described above, is placed first.) Information about the degree of transparency and frequency of the idioms’ canonical forms is also incorporated. It is here interesting to note that no items categorized as ‘not frequent’ are included in the test, indicating that idioms of (relatively) high commonality may be more accepting of various degrees of creative permutations than less frequent items. As the reader will learn in Chapter 6 (the first subsection in 6.2), this was also the conclusion drawn in Reagan (1987). As there is no even distribution among the creativity types, no statistical confi rmation can be obtained for the scores. Nevertheless, the results show that the three variants belonging to Type IV received lower scores than most of the permutations belonging to Type II, test items 20, 14 and 8A ending up at the lower end of the result ladder (5.5p, 5p and 2p respectively). The difficulty experienced with these test items is reconfi rmed for all three in the students’ self-evaluation, for test items 20 and 14 none of the students indicating that they were absolutely sure of their meaning, and for test item 8A four students believing that they were sure of its meaning but only one being correct. Moreover, for test item 20, the highest number of students (four) admitted defeat in disambiguating the variant. Additionally, test item 12B, the most distorted variant of all (belonging to Type VI), though not completely incomprehensible as predicted by Szczepaniak (see the second subsection in 5.2), received the lowest number of correct answers (1.5p). Based on the above, it thus seems that the creativity continuum proposed by Szczepaniak predicts degrees of difficulty quite well. Put differently, bypassing steps 1 and 2 in the disambiguation process (see the

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207

second subsection in 5.2), the results still show that the further away a creative variant is from its canonical form, as predicted by Szczepaniak’s creativity continuum, the more difficult it is to identify the constituent meanings (step 3) and compare them (step 4), hence rendering it impossible to identify the relations between those meanings (step 5) and infer the meaning of the creative variant (step 6). Furthermore, of those variants belonging to Type II, substitution appears to be the easiest category to handle, the six top-most variants being of this kind. One of these (the only one), it’s raining kittens and puppies, was in fact understood by all 13 informants. This result may, however, be attributed to the fact that this variant was in majority. Another reason may be that two of the five permutations that involved addition also incorporated other complexities: inclusion of tense with test item 6 and cultural knowledge with test item 7. As a matter of fact, cultural knowledge generally appears to be a stumbling block, since test item 19 (… before he could spill the pasta), involving substitution, also received comparatively few answers. This agrees with research on source domains. As discussed in Chapter 2 (the subsection on transparency), for example, it was shown that French-speaking learners of English achieved lower scores on idioms involving maritime references than on idioms including food references. The reason for this difference was thought to be connected to the fact that the former type is not as common in French as the latter type (Boers & Demecheleer, 2001). Additionally, the students also experienced problems with test item 9B (blow your collar off ). Involving two substitutions, rendering the links between the canonical form and the creative variant even more diff use, obviously creates an additional level of complexity. Finally, Table 5.6 also shows that the degree of compositionality and commonality of the variants’ canonical counterparts played little or no part in whether the creative variants were disambiguated successfully or not, not even for the least manipulated expressions, items of high/low transparency and frequency scattered evenly among high- and low-scoring items. We now briefly turn to explore the incorrect answers. These range from being mere replications of the canonical meaning as given on the test: •

I am not easily fooled, but I am quick to understand a situation. (for there is not a single fly on me)

to those that gave too little information to be awarded even half a point, as well as those containing more information than what was really part of the intended meaning. The former is illustrated by: • •

That they are extremely jealous. (for green, white and orange with envy) Extremely hard to say something in this conversation. (for alcohol didn’t get a word in edgeways)

Type II (substitution)

Type II (substitution)

Type II (substitution)

13C

2

17

20

Type IV

…not content with collecting one egg after another, instead they seemed to insist on eating the goose (5.5)

too much water had passed under the bridge (6)

Type II (addition + tense)

6

he left no legal stone unturned (7)

Type II (insertion)

he has a chip on both shoulders (8)

Type II (addition)

18

wearing your bad reputation on your sleeve (8)

there is not a single fly on me (8)

paint the town beige (9.5)

she ought to get a chip off her shoulder (9.5)

ninth time is the charm (10)

it’s raining kittens and puppies (13)

Manipulated idiom, starting with the one that received most correct answers (points)

11A

Type II (substitution)

Type II (substitution)

10

5B

Type II (substitution)

Type of manipulation

3

Test item (no.)

8 (2)

6

T

5 (1)

4

2

6

2 4

8 (2.5)

2

1

NF

11 (5)

8 (5)

6 (2)

10 (4)

6 (4)

4 (0.5) 8 (2)

3 (0.5) 10 (3)

5 (1)

7

S

1

1

1

1

trans

X

X

X

X

X

semi-trans

transparency

No Canonical form info

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

?

non-trans very freq

frequency

X

X

X

X

X

?

X

freq

Table 5.6 Results for each of the creative variants tested, starting with the highest-scoring item. (CK = Cultural knowledge, S = sure the meaning offered is correct, T = think the meaning offered is correct, NF = has not been able to figure out the meaning)

208 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Type II (addition)

Type IV

Type VI

8A

12B

Type II (substitution + CK) …before he could spill the pasta (4)

4A

19

he couldn’t think for the noise of chips falling from the other person’s shoulders (1.5)

…it will knock your socks off, good luck getting them back on (2)

I wear my heart on my arm, my shoulder and lips (3.5)

I’ve been sitting on the fence so long my bottom is beginning to hurt (5)

Type II (addition)

16

2 (2)

4 (3)

2 (2)

2 (1)

4 (1)

9 (7.5)

8 (7)

8 (4.5)

9 (6)

8 (6)

10 (5)

4 (1.5) 7 (4)

the cat is out of the bag, it’s fair game for me to chase it (5)

green, white and orange with envy (5.5)

Type IV

9 (5.5)

9 (4.5)

10 (5.5)

Type II (addition + CK)

14

7

1 (1)

3 (2)

4 (2)

alcohol didn’t get a word in edgeways (5.5)

hear about it through the nerdvine (5.5)

Type II (two substitutions) blow your collar off (5.5)

Type II (substitution)

15

9B

Type II (substitution)

1

1

1

2

1

1

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

L2 Comprehension of Creative Idiom Variants 209

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Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

and the latter by: •

You should never give up. Just continue trying and one day you will succeed. (for ninth time is the charm, translated into English by the present author)

There were of course also those interpretations whose meanings were simply incorrect. Interestingly enough, many, but far from all, offered the opposite meaning of the intended one, as seen in the fi rst example below: • • • • •

This person is not open with her feelings (very much on her own and doesn’t open up). (for I wear my heart on my arm, my shoulder and lips, translated into English by the present author) The alcohol did that Molly’s mother didn’t want him to speak with Molly. The alcohol was in the way. (for alcohol didn’t get a word in edgeways) The mother is drunk. (also for alcohol didn’t get a word in edgeways, translated into English by the present author) He did not leave any legal information about himself. (for he left no legal stone unturned) He has not left any traces behind. (also for he left no legal stone unturned)

Nevertheless, similarly to what was noticed in Cacciari and Glucksberg (1991) (see the fi rst subsection in 5.2), quite a few of the incorrect interpretations offered for a specific permutation very often seemed related to each other. For hear something through the nerdvine, for instance, the following answers, not awarded any points, were given. • • • • • • •

Hear the truth from someone else, and not from the one who has done it. He is disappointed because he had to hear it from someone else. That he had to hear it from someone else, probably in this sentence Howard’s girlfriend’s friends. That he hears it from another person. That he hears it from someone else. That he wanted to hear it from Bernadette and not from someone else. He did not want to hear it from others than her, which makes him angry.

Not only native speakers, but L2 learners too thus seem to have some inherent sense of the intended meaning of some of the less distorted variant forms. (The same phenomenon was observed in Chapter 4 for canonically used expressions (see Section 4.4).) There were also a few answers that, although erroneous, were quite ingenious, as exemplified by: •

That if someone is sad, her arms are there to hug them, her shoulders are there to cry on, and her lips are there to say comforting words. (for I wear my heart on my arm, my shoulder and lips, translated into English by the present author)

L2 Comprehension of Creative Idiom Variants

211

Lastly, it is interesting to note that, in contrast to what was seen with canonically used expressions in previous chapters, no literal interpretations were offered for these creative variants, not even for the least distorted expressions. The major reason for this is most likely the fact that the participants were offered the figurative meanings of the canonical counterparts, hence distorting potential links between the constituents of the non-manipulated version and the constituents of a non-idiomatic interpretation, making the students abandon compositionality completely. 5.5 Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

While, as shown in the previous chapter, canonical forms may be troublesome enough for L2 learners, there are, as discussed in the present chapter, even tougher nuts to crack: manipulated forms that have mangled canonical uses into more or less unrecognizable remnants of their former selves. In the present study, a group of 17-year-olds were subjected to a comprehension test incorporating 20 such distorted expressions. These were ranked along a creativity continuum, ranging from those forms that displayed affinities with their canonical counterparts to those that showed almost none. Based on the creative variants’ canonical forms and meanings, the students were only able to infer the meanings of the distorted forms in 49.04% of the cases. Had the students not been supplied with such information, it is of course more than likely that a great many more of these tokens would have been left completely unexplained or (partially) misinterpreted. The results also show that, in accordance with Szczepaniak’s creativity continuum (2006), the degree to which an idiom is successfully disambiguated indeed appears to stand in relation to the extent to which it has been distorted. Put simply, the more creative an item is, the more difficult it seems to be to figure out its meaning. There were, however, great individual differences, a few learners displaying (close to) nativelike command, while others were only able to disambiguate the simplest of the simplest. As noted in some of the previous chapters too, these differences could be related to the learners’ proficiency levels. Additional information needed for the disambiguation process, such as cultural knowledge, also created walls that, although not insurmountable to all students, were generally more difficult to climb over. It would of course be interesting to explore if the results achieved in the present investigation would also hold true for statistically confi rmable groups and variant types. It would also be interesting to fi nd out what various age levels would be able to achieve, and compare this to what native speakers could accomplish. Additionally, as these creative variants, once noticed, certainly stand out, L2 retention, after disambiguation, would be yet another interesting area to explore. In fact, this being one of

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the first few attempts at investigating L2 learners’ comprehension of creative variants, it is clear that many questions are left unanswered within the scope of the current study. One conclusion that clearly can be drawn, however, is that in a real-life situation, when for example reading a newspaper, many of these manipulated forms would most likely slip under the L2 radar. Considering the time available to teachers, it may be that the limit has been reached for what can be achieved in the L2 classroom, and that these kinds of nuts will have to remain uncracked. This appears especially to be the case with low-achievers, some of whom, as evidenced in some of the previous chapters, even seem uncertain of the very concept of idiomaticity. On the other hand, bearing in mind that we live in a world where many students aim for international careers, idiomatic distortions being, for example, extremely common in the worlds of finance (Parizoska & Rajh, 2017) and advertising (Lundmark, 2005; White, 2011), it may be that we cannot ignore these uses completely. Building on the fact that many L2 learners appear to offer similar responses, although sometimes incorrect ones, one approach would be to start by presenting learners with systemic forms, then move on to simpler creative variants, and only thereafter, using for instance headlines in newspapers, attempt to disambiguate forms that bear little similarity to their canonical counterparts. This would make students aware of there being such variants and a red light would hopefully start to flash when encountering words in contexts that do not make any sense. Note (1) In this paragraph, the term ‘compositionality’ is used in its strictest sense, not being entirely equal to transparency. For a more thorough discussion on the matter, the reader is also referred to Footnote 1 in Chapter 1.

6 Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

6.1 Introduction

In this fi nal study, we will leave learners’ comprehension and retention behind, and instead focus on their production. Generally speaking, productive/active vocabulary knowledge has been less thoroughly investigated than receptive/passive vocabulary knowledge, and especially so in connection with idiomatic expressions. Yet, the distinction is an important one, as illustrated in, for instance, Karlsson (2012). Here a group of university students were tested on their knowledge of 100 randomly picked English words, all of which are usually taught at upper secondary school level within the Swedish educational system. The test consisted of two parts. In the fi rst part (50 items), the students were asked to translate the meanings of the words as presented in short written contexts. In the other part, having been provided with defi nitions and contexts, they were instead requested to supply the correct words themselves. Although offered the first letter in 28 cases on the second part of the test, so as to avoid misunderstandings, the learners here only achieved an average score of 15.3 as compared to 24.6 on the fi rst part. A great number of other studies also attest to the existence of such a distinction (e.g. Burns, 1951; Eyckmans et al., 2007; Erigna, 1974; Griffi n & Harley, 1996; Schneider et al., 2002; Stoddard, 1929; Waring, 1997b). Based on a number of investigations, Milton (2009) concludes that, irrespective of language, an L2 learner’s productive vocabulary knowledge usually constitutes between 50% and 80% of his/her receptive vocabulary knowledge. (The phenomenon is of course not unique to learners of a second language. Although generally less pronounced, the same distribution can be seen in a learner’s first language.) It seems that this difference in knowledge is connected to word frequency, in that more commonly used words are more likely to be known both receptively and productively than less commonly used words, which are more likely to be known receptively only (Waring, 1997b). The frequency effect can also be seen among the productively known words. 213

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That is, items that appear early in a learner’s written and spoken language are usually also of a highly frequent nature (Eyckmans et  al., 2007; Waring, 1997b). Furthermore, although there appears to exist a general consensus that receptive knowledge precedes productive knowledge, there is disagreement as to how the former extends to the latter. Some researchers, approaching the issue from a compositional point of view, believe that the situation can best be likened to a continuum, along which productive mastery is fi nally achieved as the result of learners gaining increasingly more information about each lexical item (e.g. Faerch et  al., 1984; Melka Teichroew, 1982; Palmberg, 1987; Tréville, 1988). Other researchers perceive there to be a qualitative difference between the two types. From a connectionist perspective, this dichotomy can be measured in terms of associative links. The more such links, the more likely it is that the learner possesses productive mastery of the item in question (Meara, 1997). (To learn more about compositional and connectionist approaches, the reader is referred to Chapter 4, Section 4.2.) As the L2 lexicon generally has fewer links, as well as more links that may be incorrect, the transference between the two types of knowledge here thus automatically becomes more difficult. Nevertheless, the results of some studies show that these two types of knowledge work in tandem, and not only receptive knowledge boosting productive knowledge but vice versa too (e.g. Griffi n & Harley, 1996; Schneider et al., 2002; Waring, 1997b). Unsurprisingly, due to their double layer of semanticity, the situation becomes even more complex when the items to be mastered are figurative in character. This is of course especially the case in a second language. In fact, many linguists consider attainment of on-target use of L2 multi-word sequences to be one of the last steps, if not the last step, to achieve nativelike mastery. There are a number of reasons why this is thought to be the case. Firstly, productive knowledge of idiomatic language can only emerge if mastery of a sizeable number of individual words has been achieved (Pignot-Shahov, 2012). Milton (2009) proposes such a sizeable number to be around 3000. Secondly, as idiomatic expressions are relatively uncommon in some registers, they are also less likely than single-word items to become part of a learner’s active vocabulary. Put differently, as idioms enter a learner’s sight vocabulary comparatively late, it is considerably less likely that they become part of a learner’s productive knowledge than individual words (Szczepaniak, 2006). Thirdly, as productive vocabulary knowledge is more susceptible to attrition than vocabulary mastered receptively (Tomiyama, 1999), it follows from the previous point that idiomatic expressions especially appear to be in danger of being forgotten. Thus, although the gap between receptive and productive knowledge of idiomatic expressions may perhaps decrease over time, as is the case with individual words, L2 learners hardly ever seem to approach nativelike levels in the latter case (Milton, 2009). Consequently, while comprehension and

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retention of idiomatic expressions are no mean tasks, as proven in the previous chapters, the spotlight in this very last study will be on what must be considered one of the most difficult areas to master in a second language: idiom use in free composition writing. 6.2 Theoretical Background and Previous Research

The present section is divided into two main parts. The fi rst part discusses factors that may play important roles in the production of L1/ L2 idioms. The second part presents a study on L2/L3 idiom use. As it is concerned with productive mastery in running text, the only comprehensive investigation found with such a focus, it is especially relevant to the present chapter. The reader is here also advised to reread Section 4.2 in Chapter 4 (the L1/L2 mental lexicon and the L1/L2 lexical interlanguage), especially the parts discussing the bathtub effect and results of association tests, as these bear relevance on some of the result section in the current chapter. Factors that may influence production of idioms in a second language

While a great many studies have investigated idiom comprehension in a second language, relatively few have focused on idiom use, at least in running text (McGavigan, 2009; Panou, 2014). As a result, it is still largely unknown whether the same linguistic system or two entirely different systems in a learner’s mental lexicon deal with these two types of knowledge. In Hyun et al. (2014), by incorporating factors that are known to facilitate L1 idiom comprehension as well as factors less explored and/or thought to promote L1 idiom use, this (theoretically induced?) dichotomy was addressed. Within the former category, degrees of transparency, frequency and familiarity were considered; within the latter category, semantic neighbourhood density, grammatical structure and degrees of syntactic fi xedness were explored, all of which were related to age. Of the factors considered to assist idiom comprehension, disregarding context, transparency is probably the most thoroughly investigated aspect of all (see also Chapter 2, the subsection on transparency). The results of the majority of such studies indicate that high degrees of compositionality generally promote good chances of disambiguating idiom meaning, and this applies in a fi rst as well as a second language. See Cacciari and Levorato (1998), Garcia Moreno (2011), Gibbs (1987, 1991), Levorato and  Cacciari (1999), Nippold and Rudzinski (1993) and Nippold and Taylor (1995, 2002) on L1 and Boers (2000), Elkiliç (2008) and Karlsson (2013a) on L2. (To receive a more thorough analysis of the effects of transparency, the reader is referred to Chapter 2, the subsection on transparency.) In the Hyun et al. set-up (2014), four monolingual native speakers

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of American English were asked to determine the degree of transparency of the 40 items tested. This step was preceded by a general discussion on idiom transparency among the raters. As discussed in Chapter 2 (the subsection on frequency) as well as in the introduction to the present chapter, frequency is also a well-established facilitator, especially in connection with learners’ knowledge of individual words (Milton, 2009). Again this holds true for both a fi rst and second language (e.g. Nation, 2001; Strömqvist, 2009). Moreover, although the facilitating effects of the frequency of multi-word sequences have not been investigated to the same extent as those of individual words, research indicates that high degrees of frequency may exert positive influences on figurative language too (Alexander, 1987; Carter, 1987; Carter & McCarthy, 1988; McGavigan, 2009; Simpson & Mendis, 2003). (For a more in-depth discussion on the effects of idiom frequency, the reader is referred to Chapter 2, the subsection on frequency.) In Hyun et al. investigation, both idiom frequency and individual word frequency were considered. Whereas the inclusion of the former is self-explanatory, the logic behind the second is based on the assumption that learners do not only access an idiomatic expression as a whole, but simultaneously the individual words of which it is made up. Research on idiom blends, as discussed thoroughly in Chapter 4 (Section 4.2), indicates that this may indeed be the case during idiom production, as the results of such investigations have primarily yielded errors that involve idioms with similar meanings, idioms with the same type of syntactic frame, as well as idioms whose individual words belong to the same grammatical category, especially content words (Cutting & Bock, 1997). The reader is reminded that some of the testinduced errors observed in Chapter 4 of the present study (towards the end of Section 4.4) also point to the existence of such a dual-storage system. To obtain idiom frequency, Hyun et al. conducted corpus-based searches for all possible forms of each expression. The frequencies of the idioms’ content words on the other hand incorporated the words’ base forms only, based on which an average was calculated. Closely related to frequency is the concept of ‘familiarity’. As explained in Chapter 2 (the subsection on frequency, Footnote 2), while the former term refers to an objective opinion based on statistical analyses, the latter term is a subjective one, concerned with a learner’s personal experience with a specific linguistic item. As pointed out in Footnote 2, the two concepts are, however, not disconnected, as the more frequent an item is, the more familiar the item tends to be (Abel, 2003). Familiarity too appears to be a reliable predictor of whether an individual word is understood or not, a statement which again holds true for a first (Strömqvist, 2009) as well as a second language (Milton, 2009). Less investigated, familiarity also seems to be a good predictor of whether idiomatic expressions are understood or not (Gibbs, 1987, 1991; Hung & Nippold, 2014; Libben & Titone, 2008; Nippold & Taylor, 2002; Piasecka, 2006;

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Schweigert & Moates, 1988; Titone & Connine, 1994). In Hyun et al. (2014), two informant groups, one including testees between 18 and 30 years of age and one including testees between 60 and 78 years of age, all of whom were native speakers of American English, were asked to determine the degree of familiarity of the 40 test items mentioned above. A more negative effect of L2 familiarity is that research has also shown that well-known items are particularly prone to over-use (Ellis, 2009). That is, such items are preferred to the exclusion of other items to an unnatural degree if compared with native speakers. As they appear to be especially prolific in the earlier stages of acquisition, they have been referred to as ‘linguistic teddy bears’ (Hasselgren, 1994). They may, however, also occur with more advanced learners. Whether ‘idiomatic teddy bears’ exist is an issue that has still not been fully resolved, but the answer appears to be in the affirmative. Granger (1998), for instance, found that, while there is generally a lack of prefabs in L2 learner language, certain items, exemplified by as far as X is concerned and the fact that, are overused. See also Paquot (2008) for similar results. When the informants’ results in relation to the factors discussed hitherto, as seen on a sentence completion task, were analyzed, Hyun et al. (2014) observed that neither transparency nor the frequencies of the idioms and content words had any impact on either of the two test groups’ idiom production. There was, on the other hand, a statistically confirmed link between familiarity and idiom use for the younger participants, albeit a comparatively weak one. According to these results, it seems that factors especially connected with idiom comprehension cannot alone explain the success or non-success with which learners are able to produce idiomatic expressions, at least not in a fi rst language. Connected to familiarity is another factor, claimed by Hyun et al. (2014) to be completely uninvestigated in connection with idiom production, namely ‘semantic neighbourhood density’. The term refers to the number of idioms that share or have very similar meanings. These are seen to fall along a continuum where some have no (near) synonyms, whereas others have to compete with a large number of other expressions for the same or similar semantic space. As an example of the former type, Hyun et al. (2014) offer it’s raining cats and dogs, and of the latter type blow stack, which means (approximately) the same as, for example, fly off the handle and blow one’s lid. In their experiment, the semantic neighbourhood density of a specific expression was made up by the answers offered by the informants and accepted as (near) synonyms by two native speakers of American English. The results showed that semantic neighbourhood density had a negative effect on the older learners, i.e. the more synonyms a specific idiom had, the poorer their performance. Based on research indicating that grammatical categories may vary in their degree of difficulty to master (Barresi et al., 2000; Bloom et al., 1993; David, 2008; Gentner, 1982; Nicholas et al., 1985), Hyun et al. (2014) also

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regarded syntactic structure as a possible candidate for affecting idiom production. Their test items were categorized into five types: verb phrase idioms (e.g. kick the bucket), noun phrase idioms (e.g. a skeleton in one’s closet), adjective phrase idioms (e.g. sick as a dog), prepositional phrase idioms (e.g. on the wrong foot) and those that were made up of a full sentence (e.g. it’s raining cats and dogs). The results showed that the older subjects did much better with expressions made up of full sentences than those that had a verb or noun phrase structure. For the younger informants, the same positive results with sentence-structured idioms were only true in relation to verb-phrase idioms. Based on these results, it seems grammatical category does play a role in L1 idiom production. Finally, not only do idiomatic expressions vary as to syntactic structure, but they may also vary in their degree of fi xedness. As described in Chapter 5 (the first subsection in 5.2), it is only semantically transparent expressions that may be subjected to such permutations, at least as long as these permutations are to stay within the restrictions of the established syntactical system (Fernando, 1996). However, as transparency is not a static phenomenon, but varies with, for example, age, level of proficiency (Mäntylä, 2012), and cultural awareness (Boers & Demecheleer, 2001), it is not written in stone which idioms are susceptible to syntactic variation and which are not. Rather, it forms a continuum along which the more decomposable an idiom is, the more syntactically flexible it is (Szczepaniak, 2006). Nevertheless, in order to approach degrees of syntactic frozenness in a systematic way, Fraser (1970) addressed, within a transformational framework, this phenomenon in relation to L1 idiom production. This was done along a seven-level hierarchy, ranging from completely frozen sequences (Level 0) to completely unrestricted sequences (Level 7), to the latter of which, according to Fraser (1970), no idiomatic expressions belong. A total number of 131 items were, on an intuitive basis, considered. Most importantly, Fraser (1970) suggested that an idiomatic sequence that accepts a variation at, for example, Level 5, would automatically accept variations placed on any of the five lower levels. That is, each level of syntactic variation is considered to be dependent on the permission of the syntactic variations on all the lower levels, and only the lower levels. This is exemplified with the help of the four expressions blow off some steam, put on some weight, make up one’s mind and lay down the law. Accordingly, lay down the law accepts the action nominalization transformation (His laying down of the law didn’t impress anyone), a Level 5 transformation, and can thus also be passivized (The law was laid down by her father before she was even twelve), a Level 4 transformation. Consequently, it therefore also allows particle movement (Her father laid the law down when she came in at 4 a.m), a transformation type thought to belong to Level 3, etc. Make up one’s mind, on the other hand, does not accept the action nominalization transformation (*Your making up of your mind on that issue surprised us), but can be passivized (Your mind

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can be made up by no one but you) and consequently also permits particle movement (No one can make your mind up for you), etc. Put on some weight can be subjected to particle movement only and therefore only permits other transformations categorized as belonging to Level 3, as well as those adhering to Levels 2, 1 and 0. Blow off some steam fi nally is, of the four expressions discussed here, the least susceptible one to syntactic change, as it, according to Fraser, does not even accept particle movement. This is summarized in Table 6.1. In Reagan (1987), incorporating L1 American university undergraduates as his informants, the validity of Fraser’s continuum of fi xedness was tested. It was found that in 86% of the cases, even though Fraser based his hierarchy on intuition, the predictions of the continuum were accurate. Other researchers (e.g. Chafe, 1968; Michiels, 1977; Newmeyer, 1972, 1974) have refuted parts of Fraser’s hierarchy levels, primarily based on the transformation turning active sentences into passives. In Hyun et al. (2014), using examples from Fraser’s hierarchy levels, the same four monolingual native speakers of American English that rated degrees of decomposability as discussed above also judged the test items’ syntactic flexibility. When the informants’ answers of this part of the study were analyzed, they showed a comparatively weak, but negative correlation with idiom production for the older subjects. That is, the more fi xed the expressions were, the higher were these participants’ production Table 6.1 Examples of Fraser’s hierarchy of transformation levels of syntactic flexibility blow off some steam Particle movement (Level 3):

*He blew some steam off after he got home.

Passive clause (Level 4):

*Some steam was blown off at the party.

Action nominalization (Level 5):

*Your blowing off of some steam surprised us.

put on some weight Particle movement (Level 3):

John has put some weight on.

Passive clause (Level 4):

*Some weight has been put on by John.

Action nominalization (Level 5):

*The putting on of some weight by Henry caused great alarm.

make up one’s mind Particle movement (Level 3):

No one can make your mind up for you.

Passive clause (Level 4):

Your mind can be made up by no one but you.

Action nominalization (Level 5):

*Your making up of your own mind on that issue surprised us.

lay down the law Particle movement (Level 3):

Her father laid the law down when she came in at 4 a.m.

Passive clause (Level 4):

Your mind can be made up by no one but you.

Action nominalization (Level 5):

His laying down of the law didn’t impress anyone.

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scores. The younger informants on the other hand seemed unaffected by the idioms’ degree of fi xedness. Furthermore, results achieved in Reagan (1987), when studying factors thought to determine idiomatic fi xedness, point to an important link to familiarity. Investigating ‘meaning closeness’, i.e. how close an idiom’s literal interpretation is to its idiomatic meaning, ‘explicability’, i.e. to what extent an idiom’s lexical make-up helps explain its etymological origin, and ‘familiarity’, Reagan discovered that these factors had a combined, and statistically confirmed, positive effect on syntactic flexibility. Moreover, when the three factors were considered individually, familiarity was observed to have the strongest positive influence, well known idiomatic expressions thus being more accepting of syntactic transformations than less known items. Also, as familiarity largely relies on frequency (see above), this may mean, Reagan (1987) speculates, that it is the degree of commonality of an idiom that ultimately determines to what extent an expression can be subjected to syntactic change. Based on Fraser’s hierarchy of frozenness, Cutler (1982), using The Oxford English Dictionary, also found a link between the year of an idiom’s fi rst recorded use and its degree of syntactic flexibility. Here older idioms displayed less such flexibility than more recently created expressions. It may be that older idioms, being closer to the point in their life circle where they start to lose their ability to surprise, are less used and therefore also less likely to be subjected to syntactic change. Cutler’s fi nding, together with his own results, prompted Reagan (1987) to draw the conclusion that degree of syntactic flexibility seems to be more accurately predicted by properties of idiomatic use (age and familiarity) than by properties of idiomatic meaning (meaning closeness and explicability). It may, at this point, be appropriate to remind the reader that the studies referred to above deal exclusively with idiom production in a fi rst language. This may of course mean that the same factors might yield very different results when applied to an L2 situation. A study on L2/L3 idiom use in composition writing

Most investigations that deal with idiom use in a second language do so primarily in the form of production completion tasks (McGavigan, 2009; Panou, 2014). In fact, only one study was found that in depth explores the mastery of L2/L3 idiomatic expressions in running text. In Eek (2012), Norwegian lower secondary school students of English as a foreign language were in focus. Adopting a comparatively generous defi nition of the concept of idiom, including phrasal/prepositional verbs (e.g. pick on, catch up, check in), prefabricated patterns (e.g. kind of, in the case of, in my opinion), as well as more traditional expressions (e.g. a piece of cake, cut to the chase, once in a blue moon), two main research questions were addressed. Firstly, the study aimed to investigate to what

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extent students incorporate idiomatic expressions in their essay writing. Secondly, it also aimed to explore to what degree focused idiom teaching would increase learners’ use of figurative language, tokens as well as types. The hypothesis was put forth that these students, although starting to learn English already at the age of six, would produce few tokens, and even fewer types, in their pre-treatment compositions. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that the existing instances would be slightly off-target as well as context-incongruent, but that with the help of techniques ranging from context-based (see, for example, Ellis, 1994; Kennedy, 2008; Kirsner, 1994; Nagy, 1997) to form-focused (see Spada & Lightbown, 2008) as well as exercises ranging from consciousness-raising (see Willis & Willis, 1996) to rote memorization (see, for instance, Dahlin  & Watkins, 2000; Wray & Fitzpatrick, 2008), the learners’ productive knowledge could be enhanced considerably. In line with their educational level – 8th, 9th and 10th grade (13, 14 and 15 years old respectively) – the students were divided into three treatment groups. According to Eek, the students in the 8th grade worked very well together, off ering each other encouragement when needed. Also, they hardly ever resorted to speaking Norwegian in class, but quite consistently used English. All in all, this group came across as being highly motivated to acquire new knowledge. A few of the students in this class had even chosen to specialize in English, adding two extra hours in their syllabus to English studies. The one negative aspect in this group was that the learners originally came from five different schools, hence having experienced a wide span of diff erent teaching methods of varying quality. This, Eek claims, may have contributed to the fact that they generally only scored low to average on their national test in English. The students in the 9th grade, on the other hand, were not only less supportive of each other, but even tended to ridicule each other if mistakes were made, the consequence being that some of the students in this group were reluctant to speak English in class. Even so, most students in this group possessed a good comprehension of spoken English. Furthermore, in comparison to the 8th graders, these students displayed a wider proficiency span, which may have been caused by the fact that they had to change English teachers four times during the 8th grade. On the whole, this student group seemed less motivated to learn than the students belonging to the lowest level, who constituted the most positive group. Eek’s description of the 10th graders is less exhaustive, but it is stated that the proficiency level of the students making up this group was not very advanced. In fact, although a year older than the 9th graders, the 10th graders seemed less accomplished in the areas of grammar and vocabulary. Additionally, at times, they did not seem very motivated to learn. Nevertheless, they did appear to enjoy working with idiomatic expressions.

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For all students, participation was voluntary and promises were made that their results would not affect their grades, and that the texts produced were to remain anonymous. Based on this, all of the students agreed to take part. The initial aim was to carry out the experiment in the same manner with all three student groups. However, this could not be achieved. While all participants were asked to write a composition before any structured teaching took place as well as a post-treatment essay, the rest of the set-up varied among the cohorts. One such factor was the type of essay they were to produce. Due to curriculum requirements, they did not only write on different topics, but while the other learners were able to choose between a fictional and a factual text, most of whom chose a fictional one, this was not the case with the 10th graders’ post-treatment essay, which had to be factual. Another such factor was the time the students had at their disposal. While the students in the 8th and 9th grade were given ample time to compose both their texts, the teachers in the 10th grade could only spare one single hour for their students’ post-treatment essay. This means that while the number of words, and consequently the number of pages (which varied between 1 and 5), generally increased between the 8th and 9th grade, this was not true for the 10th graders. Based on these differences, it is clear that the students in the highest educational level were at a disadvantage. During the five months that passed between the two test opportunities, the students were subjected to idiom-focused teaching, incorporating implicit as well as explicit methods (see, for instance, Meara et al., 1997; Nagy, 1997; Schmitt, 2000). Most of this work was done towards the end of term, i.e. comparatively close to the second test opportunity. Also, while all three groups had two lessons of English a week (two times 60 minutes), only part of this time was spent on figurative language, as the curriculum requirements in other areas also had to be met during these few hours. Furthermore, as figurative language per se had not been taught in any of the three classes prior to the experiment, even though it is a compulsory part of the syllabus according to the curricula for all three grades, the study started by introducing the concept of idiomaticity. It was also decided that, in order to cater to different styles of learning, a variety of different types of awareness-raising techniques and teaching methods should be implemented. Thus the students were provided with a number of different tools, such as a work sheet which was made up of fill-in tasks, running texts and translation exercises. On a more general level, during this five-month period, the teachers continually encouraged their students to listen out and look for idioms in all the material presented to them, not only in the idiom-focused material. They also prompted their students to use idiomatic expressions whenever possible. Moreover, in the two lowest grades, each participant was supplied with a booklet filled with common expressions. This booklet was used in a number of different activities,

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such as discussing different degrees of idiom knowledge (receptive versus productive), idiom equivalence between languages (see, for example, Irujo (1986)), and the effects of contextualizing (see, for instance, Ellis (1994), Kennedy (2008), Kirsner (1994), Nagy (1997)). These activities thus illustrated the idioms’ meaning as well as usage, making recycling a prominent feature of Eek’s set-up (see Benhima (2015) for more on recycling). During the post-treatment text writing, reference tools, such as dictionaries, notes of different kinds as well as the idiom booklet, were not only allowed, but encouraged to be used. The results of the experiment show that there was not only an increase in the tokens of idiomatic use – compare 146 instances on the compositions collected before teaching to a total of 246 tokens after teaching – but an increase in the types of expressions used. Furthermore, as many as 163 instances did not occur at all in the essays written before the idiomfocused teaching, 41 of which could be found in the teaching material. Moreover, while 60 of the 246 tokens in the students’ post-teaching compositions were found in the work material, only one idiom of the 146 tokens seen in the pre-teaching texts could be found there. Based on these results, Eek drew the conclusion that focused idiom-teaching generally has great beneficial effects on L2 learners’ productive capacity. Eek admits, though, that some of the students were overusing certain phrases, but adds that this is a common feature of the lexical interlanguage (see also Ellis, 2009). Differences were, however, as predicted, noticed among the three educational levels. Prior to teaching, the 23 student texts in the 8th grade only displayed a total number of 13 correct idiomatic uses. Most of these were phrasal/prepositional verbs, as seen in: At nine o’clock Camilla found something, but she could not figure out what. (Eek, 2014: 86)

Also, as many as 13 learners used no idiomatic expressions at all in their pre-treatment essays, seven including only one and no single student using more than two expressions. After teaching, this number increased to 80 correct instances. In fact, only three students, all of whom were considered to be low-achievers, used none. Additionally, although phrasal/prepositional verbs were still in majority, ‘longer’ expression could now also be seen. Two such examples, neither student having used any expressions in their pre-treatment compositions, are: I’m tired of this now, we need to give her a taste of her own medicine! (Eek, 2014: 88) Then they remembered the old man at the market. Great minds think alike, said Traydimer. Four hours before the fight, Garen and Traydimer were at the market again. They were starting to run out of steam. But fi nally they found the old man and asked him… (Eek, 2014: 89)

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Being a year older, the 24 learners in the 9th grade produced a total number of 92 correct uses already on the pre-teaching composition, only three students not using one single correct idiomatic expression and four students using only one. Nevertheless, despite the increase in number between grades, the vast majority of these were still phrasal and prepositional verbs. Ninety-two correct uses can then be compared to the 148 tokens counted in the 23 texts included after treatment, showing a considerable increase in number and also sophistication. The latter is evidenced by the following examples: Still, there is some bullying, but Rome wasn’t built in one day, and the teachers were prepared that it would take some time to please everybody. (Eek, 2014: 93) Bill looked high up in the air; a really thick dark grey smoke flew high up in the big blue sky. This is a race against the clock, thought Bill. (Eek, 2014: 93)

Both these sentences were produced by students who, on the pre-treatment test, displayed very basic idiomatic knowledge. However, even though the 9th graders as a group used more idioms on both test opportunities than the students in the 8th grade, level of proficiency seemed to correlate with the ability to produce idioms. That is, high-performers, irrespective of educational level and test opportunity, generally produced more tokens and types as well as more sophisticated idioms than low-performers. In each educational level, one of the more advanced learners even produced a creative variant on the posttest, exemplified by it was raining pigs instead of it is raining cats and dogs (found among the 8th grade text material). (It is interesting to note that the creative variant of this idiom, tested in Chapter 5 – it’s raining kittens and puppies – is the only one that all the testees could disambiguate correctly.) Furthermore, similar errors were seen in both student groups. Many of these involved the idiom’s meaning, as in: I started searching deeper. I searched a bit in the photo albums. Checked if I could fi nd any other family members. They had only pictures of a child. I thought a bit, and said to myself, -This is just a drop in the bucket. (Eek, 2014: 82)

which was produced by a 9th grade student. Here the intended meaning, according to Eek, was ‘this is just the beginning, this is barely scratching the surface’. Another meaning-related error, produced by an 8th grader, was I’m as high as a kite, because I have grown so much since my thirteenth birthday. (Eek, 2014: 82)

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in which the student confused the phrase’s literal meaning with its idiomatic meaning. Still other idioms were completely misunderstood, as seen in the following example, where the context was that of some teenage girls going out to eat before a school dance: Everybody had on beautiful clothes. Now they were going to wine and dine. (Eek, 2014: 82) (student in the 8th grade)

There were others errors that, according to Eek, were also context-related, but had more to do with the idiom’s form than its meaning. In the following example, the student obviously knew the idiom’s canonical form, but ran into problems when trying to modify it to fit the context: He always wished he had a little brother but I came too late. I think I got him to drive up on the wall, because I cried, no yelled, for seven months, mum told me, and I believe it! (Eek, 2014: 26) (8th grade student)

Another common error type made by students in these two educational levels involved key word substitution, as illustrated in: They often use just words, or their eyes. If eyes could kill, I’d probably be dead now. (Eek, 2014: 82) (9th grade student)

where looks instead of eyes should have been used. The students also seemed to experience some problems with prepositions, e.g. using dragged in this instead of dragged into this. Quantification and tense, on the other hand, appeared to cause less problems, or at least no more than with nonidiomatic language. However, as very few of the uses involved such grammatical changes, to which adverbial and adjectival modifications can be added, Eek is unable to draw any major conclusions in this area. Summing up, Eek states that in the light of the fact that gaining vocabulary is a slow, incremental process (see Nagy et  al., 1985; Paribakht & Wesche, 1993; Schmitt, 2000; Schmitt, 2010a), the increased use of figurative language, despite the presence of errors such as the ones exemplified above, must be interpreted as a positive development. This conclusion is strengthened even further when the fact that many of the learners did not use any idiomatic language at all on the fi rst test opportunity is considered. In the 10th grade, fi nally, there was no increase in idiom use, but a clear decrease. Here 52 correct uses in the 16 texts that made up the first set can be compared to 18 correct uses in the 17 texts that made up the second set. Additionally, while three students used no idioms in their pretreatment texts, six displayed the same pattern on the post-test. Eek ascribes this decrease partly to the disadvantageous circumstances in which these students had to compose their second text, and partly to their comparatively low level of proficiency. All in all, Eek’s study shows that age, proficiency level, motivation as well as genre and time constraints are crucial factors in determining the

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Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

degree of success with which an L2/L3 learner will be able to produce idiomatic expressions in running text. There were of course positive exceptions to this more general description, as exemplified by the following sentence produced by an 8th grade student categorized as a low-achiever: I have many heroes like John Fogerty and Mark Crilley, but me real hero is my big brother Karl-Arne. He is a good friend, a good brother, and last but not least a good worker. He will never run out of steam, except when he is feeling under the weather. (Eek, 2014: 104)

One obvious drawback of the study, pointed out by Eek herself, is of course the difference in treatment between the three informant groups. Also, as the students were allowed to bring reference material when writing their essays, it is difficult to determine to what degree productive knowledge had actually been acquired, i.e. automatized, and retained in memory. Had the students been forced to do without such support, it is quite likely that a different picture would have emerged. Lastly, the fact that most of the idiom-focused teaching occurred quite close to the second test opportunity could also have affected the results in a more positive way than if there had been a longer period of time between treatment and posttreatment testing. Again, the question to what extent productive mastery had actually been transferred to long-term memory is left unanswered. 6.3 The Present Study Research questions addressed

In the present investigation, three main research questions are addressed: (1) To what extent are comparatively advanced students able to transfer receptive knowledge of L2 idioms into productive mastery in free composition writing? (2) What errors, if any, do comparatively advanced students make when using L2 idioms in free composition writing? (3) To what extent do (a) transparency, (b) frequency (idiom frequency as well as content word frequency), (c) familiarity, (d) syntactic structure and (e) fi xedness affect comparatively advanced students’ use of L2 idioms in free composition writing? The informants

The students tested in the present investigation are the same as those tested on idiom comprehension in Experiment 1 and 2 in Chapter 3, making up a total number of 81 learners.1 Twenty-one of these 81 participants (Cohort 1 = CW + CA) were tested on one set of idioms (Set 1)

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

227

Table 6.2 The students in the present study Student group

N

Gender F

Age M

Range

Mean

SD

Comprehension/Written context (CW)

10

7

3

20–38

23.00

5.62

Comprehension/Audio-visual context (CA)

11

8

3

20–29

23.45

2.88

Comprehension/Written context (cw)

17

15

2

20–33

24.41

3.36

Comprehension/Still pictures (cp)

13

13

0

20–31

22.31

3.04

Comprehension/Etymological notes (ce)

19

17

2

20–36

24.53

4.54

C/Still pictures + Etymological notes (cpe)

11

11

0

21–29

24.00

2.72

All groups

81

71

10

20–36

23.74

3.80

within the framework of the fi rst experiment; the rest, 60 participants (Cohort 2 = cw + cp + ce + cpe), were tested on another set of idioms (Set 2) within the second experiment. The reader is reminded that while the main aim of the first experiment was to explore the effects of captioned audio-visual contexts versus short written contexts, the main focus of the second experiment was to compare the effects of (a) still pictures, (b) etymological notes and (c) still pictures + etymological notes with the effects of short written contexts. The informant groups are thus distributed as illustrated in Table 6.2. For a more detailed description of these student groups, the reader is referred to Chapter 3, the second subsection in 3.5 (Experiment 1) and the second subsection in 3.9 (Experiment 2). As explained in Chapter 3, the reason why the number of informants differs between the subgroups is that the learners were tested different terms and the present author was hence limited to the students available during those specific times. The test items

All of the test items – Set 1 consisting of 23 idioms and Set 2 consisting of 24 idioms – were considered from the same perspectives. Firstly, the expressions’ degrees of transparency, frequency and familiarity, all of which have been noted to have positive effects on idiom comprehension (see the first subsection in 6.2), were determined. In Set 1, 13 of the 23 test items were categorized as opaque, ten as semi-transparent and none fully transparent; in Set 2, 16 of the 24 test items were categorized as opaque, eight as semi-transparent and again none fully transparent. For a more detailed description of the categorization process and examples thereof, the reader is referred to Chapter 2, Section 2.3. As for commonality, six of the 23 test items in Set 1 were categorized as very frequently used, 12 frequently used and five not frequently used,

228

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

whereas three of the 24 test items in Set 2 were categorized as very frequently used, 14 frequently used and the rest, seven idioms, not frequently used. For a more detailed description of this categorization process, the reader is again referred to Chapter 2, Section 2.3. As research has shown that learners do not only try to access idioms as a whole (see the fi rst subsection in 6.2), but also the individual words of which they are made up, average frequency of each expression’s content words was also calculated. Similar to what was done in Hyun et al. (2014) (see again the fi rst subsection in 6.2), using The British National Corpus, the frequency of the base form of each content word was searched for and divided by the number of content words of the idiom at hand. The existence of polysemous word meanings could here not be taken into consideration. The effects of this omittance are unclear. The students’ familiarity with the test items was determined with the help of their results on the decontextualized pretest (see Chapter 3, the first subsection in 3.6 for Set 1; the first subsection in 3.10 for Set 2), where those expressions being known by none of the informants were judged to be unfamiliar. The idioms most learners already knew in Set 1 were, in order of frequency, cut to the chase, which 10 of the 21 testees offered a correct meaning for, knock somebody’s socks off, of which nine informants had previous knowledge, and have a bone to pick with somebody and call shotgun, both of which were known by six students each. In Set 2, on pins and needles was by far the most well-known test item, 25 of the 60 learners offering the correct meaning on the pretest. This idiom was followed by dressed to the nines and once in a blue moon, 12 and 10 correct answers on the pretest respectively. In the vast majority of cases, though, familiarity was low or non-existent. As all the students, prior to their composition writing, received treatment and were then tested on their comprehension, after which the learners were given the idioms’ correct meanings, familiarity after this process was also considered. For each idiom, this was done by subtracting the number of known tokens on the pretest from the number of familiar tokens on the comprehension test. In Set 1, after treatment, the most wellknown expressions, in order of frequency, were beyond the pale (14 tokens), as the crow flies (12 tokens), tit for tat (11 tokens) and hear something through the grapevine and spill the beans (10 correct answers each). In Set 2, the most well-known expressions, again in order of frequency, were keep mum (45 tokens), dressed to the nines (32 tokens) and a dry run (25 tokens). In addition to the aspects known to enhance idiom comprehension discussed above, factors believed to affect idiom production specifically (see again the first subsection in 6.2) – syntactic structure and degree of fi xedness – were also taken into account. As for the former, the test items fell into six different categories: idioms made up of verb phrases, noun

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

229

phrases, prepositional phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases and those that constituted full sentences. In Set 1, there are 16 VP idioms, two NP idioms, two PP idioms, two sentence idioms, only one AP idiom and no AdvP idiom. In Set 2, there are 13 VP idioms, five NP idioms, two PP idioms, two sentence idioms, one AP idiom and one AdvP idiom. In all cases, the idioms’ syntactic structure was based on the form given in Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary (2002) and/or The Oxford English Dictionary (online). As previous research indicates that transparency, frequency and familiarity may help decide an idiom’s degree of frozenness, these factors were regarded when determining the test items’ syntactic flexibility (see the fi rst subsection in 6.2). Thus if a test items was categorized as semi-transparent, very frequent/frequent, as well as being familiar by at least one of the students, it was considered to be susceptible to syntactic change; if, on the other hand, an idiom was categorized as opaque, not frequently used, or unfamiliar to all of the learners, the expression was seen as impervious to syntactic change. Year of fi rst recorded use was also considered, but regarded to be of secondary importance, as, to the present author’s knowledge, only one study (Cutler, 1982) has been able to show a link to syntactic flexibility (see again the fi rst subsection in 6.2). Thus if the transparency, frequency and familiarity criteria were fulfi lled, but the year of fi rst recorded use was comparatively early (before the 1800s), the idiom was seen as being only relatively susceptible to syntactic change. (In the majority of cases, The Oxford English Dictionary (http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.bib. hh.se/) provided the year of fi rst recorded use. For four of the idioms, though, this information had to be sought elsewhere. Footnotes belonging to Tables 6.3 and 6.4 offer details about this.) Accordingly, in Set 1, 15 of the expressions were categorized as quite fi xed, while 16 in Set 2 were classifi ed as such. In both sets, four idioms were fl exible and another four only relatively flexible. Semantic neighbourhood density, which was considered in Hyun et al. (2014) (see the fi rst subsection in 6.2) by considering all the alternatives provided by the testees, could, due to the set-up of the present study in which the informants were obliged to pick expressions from a fi xed list, not be incorporated. Aware of the fact that the number of (near) synonyms may still have affected the success with which the students in the present study were able to use the test items correctly, the present author searched for idiom thesauri that could provide such information. Unfortunately, no thesaurus that could do so in a comprehensive way was found. What has been discussed above is included in Tables 6.3 (Set 1) and 6.4 (Set 2). In both cases, the idioms are given in the order of which they were presented to the students. (In a few cases, there is a discrepancy between the form offered on the pretest and the form provided by the

semitransparent

semitransparent

opaque

semitransparent

semitransparent

opaque

bark up the wrong tree

throw sb a bone

as the crow flies

pick sb’s brain

beat around the bush

knock sb’s socks off

frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

not frequent

frequent

not frequent not frequent

opaque

frequent

opaque

opaque

have a bone to pick with sb

very frequent

with bells on/(do sth with bells on)

opaque

hear sth through the grapevine

degree of frequency

mum’s the word

degree of transparency

TEST ITEMS – SET 1 form in dictionary/ (form on pretest)

508

1,381

4,311

1,109

2,176

6,337

1,645

13,132

67,491

5,066

(average) frequency of content word(s)

9

3

4

1

1

2

–

–

6

3

familiarity (total no. of known tokens on pre-test)

7 (=16-9)

7 (=11-3)

2 (=6-4)

12 (=13-1)

1 (=2-1)

3 (=5-2)

4 (=4-0)

7 (=7-0)

5 (=11-6)

10 (=13-3)

familiarity (total no. of understood tokens on comprehension test – pretest)

VP

VP

VP

sentence

VP

VP

PP

sentence

VP

VP

syntactic structure

1836

circa1440

1681

not flexible

relatively flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

not flexible

18754 1803

flexible

not flexible 1832

not flexible 19043

not flexible

not flexible

degree of fixedness

1540

1850

after 1845 ante 18672

year of first recorded use

Table 6.3 Overview of factors thought to affect idiom production – Set 1. (VP = verb phrase, NP = noun phrase, PP = prepositional phrase, AP = adjective phrase)

230 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

frequent very frequent

opaque

semitransparent

semitransparent

opaque

semitransparent

semitransparent

bite the dust

like two peas in a pod

the worse for wear/(be the worse for wear5)

paint the town red6

tie the knot

very frequent

frequent

frequent

very frequent

very frequent

very frequent

not frequent

spill the beans

semitransparent

tit for tat/(give tit for tat)

frequent

opaque

semitransparent

dot one’s ‘i’s and cross one’s ‘t’s

not frequent

frequent

opaque

opaque

call shotgun

have no truck with sb/sth/ (I’ll have no truck with sb/ sth)

opaque

tilt at windmills

frequent

beyond the pale

opaque

cut to the chase

602

9,956

3,632

50,423

1,430

314

137,717

29

92

314

3,801

110

2,455

1

1

–

4

2

3

–

–

–

1

6

–

10

6 (=7-1)

3 (=4-1)

8 (=8-0)

6 (=10-4)

7 (=9-2)

10 (=13-3)

6 (=6-0)

14 (=14-0)

11 (=11-0)

6 (=7-1)

6 (=12-6)

1 (=1-0)

4 (=14-10)

VP

VP

AP

NP

VP

VP

VP

PP

NP

VP

VP

VP

VP

1544

1882

1782

1746

1955

1919

1866

1720

1556

1849

1940

1645

1979

relatively flexible

flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing 231

degree of transparency

semitransparent

semitransparent

opaque

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

TEST ITEMS – SET 2 (form in dictionary/form on pretest)

scrape the bottom of the barrel

paint the town red

the cat’s whiskers/ (be the cat’s whiskers)

upset the apple cart

once in a blue moon

bell the cat

get out of dodge

on pins and needles

cover your bases

frequent

frequent

not frequent

not frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

degree of frequency

6,368

1,032

71,350

1,888

13,749

1,322

1,932

9,956

2,132

(average) frequency of content word(s)

1

1

25

–

10

–

–

1

2

familiarity (total no. of known tokens on pre-test)

14 (=15-1)

13 (=38-25)

23 (=24-1)

11 (=11-0)

17 (=27-10)

7 (=7-0)

2 (=2-0)

4 (=5-1)

2 (=4-2)

familiarity (total no. of understood tokens on comprehension test – pretest)

VP

PP

VP

VP

AdvP

VP

NP

VP

VP

syntactic structure

1941

1710

1965

1762

1547

1750?

1923

1882

1942

year of first recorded use

not flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

flexible

degree of fixedness

Table 6.4 Overview of factors thought to affect idiom production – Set 2. (VP = verb phrase, NP = noun phrase, PP = prepositional phrase, AP = adjective phrase)

232 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

opaque

opaque

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

opaque

opaque

opaque

semitransparent

eat crow

fly-by-night

down to the wire

as the crow flies

dressed to the nines

money for old rope

a chip on your shoulder

dry run

the jig is up

get your ducks in a row/ (ducks in a row)

opaque

look a gift horse in the mouth

break the fourth wall

opaque

keep mum

put your foot in your mouth

semitransparent

a red rag to a bull/ (show a red rag to a bull)

frequent

not frequent

not frequent

very frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

very frequent

not frequent

frequent

not frequent

very frequent

frequent

not frequent

frequent

24,224

89,390

4,945

3,008

29,829

278

1,109

40,692

18,068

2,606

6,973

11,369

10,020

13,300

4,361

2

1

1

2

–

–

–

–

1

12

–

–

–

–

5

23 (=24-1)

9 (=9-0)

25 (=25-0)

0 (=0-0)

11 (=11-0)

32 (=44-12)

22 (=22-0)

19 (=21-2)

9 (=10-1)

10 (10-0)

3 (=4-1)

1 (=1-0)

1 (=1-0)

45 (=47-2)

20 (=25-5)

VP

sentence

NP

NP

NP

AP

sentence

PP

VP

VP

VP

VP

VP

VP

NP

not flexible flexible

1800

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

18898

1941

1830

1936

1787

1803

1950

1796

1877

1967

1879

1546

1532

18737

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing 233

234

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

dictionaries used to determine syntactic structure. In such cases, both forms are shown in the tables.) It should be mentioned that due to a construction error, paint the town red, keep mum and as the crow flies were only on the list of selectable items for two of the subgroups (cw and cp). Yet, one student used as the crow flies in the ce-group, one student used paint the town red in the cpe-group, and still another student used keep mum in the cpe-group. The design

Firstly, as mentioned above, prior to writing their composition, the participants were, based on four different types of treatment, subjected to a comprehension test. For more detailed descriptions of the treatment and the results, the reader is again referred to Chapter 3 (Sections 3.5–3.6 for Cohort 1 and Sections 3.9–3.10 for Cohort 2). Next, between three and four weeks after the students had been tested on their comprehension, hence agreeing with Schmitt’s (2010b) suggestion that a minimum of three weeks is necessary to be able to show durable learning, the learners were asked to compose a fictional essay incorporating ten of the idioms that had been in focus in each cohort respectively. While this was done in connection with a grammar exam for subgroups CW, CA, ce and cpe, this could not be arranged for subgroups cw and cp, who instead wrote their essays at home. This affected the set-up in a number of ways. As no reference material was allowed during testing, the former subgroups were explicitly asked to study and memorize the meanings of the idioms. Although asked of the latter subgroups too, it is less likely that this occurred as they knew they would have access to all kinds of reference tools. For the former subgroups, the set-up also meant that they had a time constraint to adhere to, the entire grammar exam taking four hours, of which they were allowed to dispose their time as they pleased. Based on previous experience, the same type of grammar exam usually takes approximately three hours to work through, so it is fair to assume that these students on average had around one hour to dedicate to the writing of the essay. To limit the time spent on the composition, these students were asked to keep the number of words to between 280 and 320. The students who wrote their essay at home were given no such constraint, which generally resulted in longer texts (546 words on average as compared to 300). The effort put into writing a composition in addition to doing a grammar exam also needs to be taken into account, as that must have put an extra strain on those participants. Most importantly, while the students who wrote their essay at home were clear about the task at hand, the learners who wrote their composition in a monitored environment knew that they were going to be tested on the idioms, but not that it would be in essay form.

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

235

The students’ erroneous uses

During the analysis of the students’ compositions, the incorrect uses of the test items were seen to fall into five main categories: • • •

• •

‘errors with context/meaning’, dealing with the idioms’ meaning per se as well as the relation between meaning and context (Category A) ‘errors with the idioms’ lexical set-up and form’, including content words as well as function words (Category B) ‘syntactical errors induced by the idioms’, i.e. erroneous uses where a syntactic rule that cannot be broken for a specific idiom was ignored, including base forms when the context required a conjugated form (Category C) ‘errors not directly induced by the idioms but still part of the idioms’ make-up’ (Category D) ‘multiple errors’, involving two or more of the error types in A, B, C and/or D (Category E)

Obvious spelling errors were ignored. Examples of each error type will be offered in the section that follows.

6.4 Results and Discussion

Table 6.5 presents the students’ results on the composition task, incorporating information about correct and incorrect uses, as well as the distribution of erroneous uses according to the five categories listed in the previous subsection. When all the test items are considered (Set 1 + Set 2), it can be seen that as many as 671 out of the 882 tokens (76.08%) were actually used correctly. This indicates clearly that receptive knowledge of the idioms was successfully transferred into productive mastery in the majority of cases. The same can also be seen if the two sets are regarded separately (79.55% correct uses for Set 1; 74.92% correct uses for Set 2, the difference in result reconfi rming, as noted in Chapter 3 (the fi rst subsection in 3.10), that the idioms belonging to Set 2 were, for some reason, more troublesome than those belonging to Set 1). Considering the inherent difficulty in achieving productive mastery of vocabulary, especially, as discussed in Section 6.1, of idiomatic expressions, this must be considered quite an achievement. There were, however, great individual differences. These will be discussed in more detail at the end of this result section. Furthermore, within Set 1, it is the CA-group that performed the best – 83.76% correct uses as compared to 74.76% for the CW-group – the difference being statistically confi rmed at a significance level of 10%. It appears that authentic material in the form of captioned movie clips, i.e. a dual representation (Paivio, 1971, 1975, 1986, 1991; Clark & Paivio,

236

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Table 6.5 The results of the students’ correct and incorrect use of the test items Student group

Total Correct no. of uses idiom used

Incorrect uses (B) errors with lexical set-up and form

(C) syntactical errors induced by the idioms

(E) (D) errors not directly multiple induced by errors the idioms but part of the idioms’ make-up

79.55% 22.22% (=175/220) (=10/45)

22.22% (=10/45)

20.00% (=9/45)

24.44% (=11/45)

11.11% (=5/45)

CW 103 (10 students)

74.76% (=77/103)

19.23% (=5/26)

19.23% (=5/26)

26.92% (=7/26)

15.38% (=4/26)

19.23% (=5/26)

CA 117 (11 students)

83.76% (=98/117)

26.32% (=5/19)

26.32% (=5/19)

10.53% (=2/19)

36.84% (=7/19)

0%

Total SET 2

74.92% 19.28% (=496/662) (=32/166)

19.88% (=33/166)

19.28% (=32/166)

28.31% (=47/166)

13.25% (=22/166)

cw 195 (17 students)

79.49% 12.50% (=155/195) (=5/40)

17.50% (=7/40)

22.50% (=9/40)

35.00% (=14/40)

12.50% (=5/40)

cp 143 (13 students)

77.62% 37.50% (=111/143) (=12/32)

18.75% (=6/32)

15.62% (=5/32)

18.75% (=6/32)

6.25% (=2/32)

ce 207 (19 students)

71.50% 11.86% (=148/207) (=7/59)

23.73% (=14/59)

16.95% (=10/59)

28.81% (=17/59)

18.64% (=11/59)

cpe 117 (11 students)

70.09% (=82/117)

17.14% (=6/35)

20.00% (=7/35)

28.57% (=10/35)

11.43% (=4/35)

Total SET 1 + SET 2

76.08% 19.91% (=671/882) (=42/211)

20.38% (=43/211)

19.43% (=41/211)

27.49% (=58/211)

12.80% (=27/211)

Total SET 1

220

662

882

(A) errors with meaning/ context

22.86% (=8/35)

1991) (see Chapter 3, the fi rst subsection in 3.2), gave these students a better understanding of how the idioms should be used syntactically to conform to the surrounding text than did the short, written contexts offered to the students in the CW-group. The fact that the students in the CA-group instead produced a higher percentage of errors falling into Category D (errors not directly induced by the idioms) as compared to the other categories lends support to such an interpretation. On the other hand, it may also simply mean that the subjects making up the CA-group put more work into preparing for the exam. This is, however, a less likely explanation as, even though they knew they would be tested on the idioms, they did not know that it would be in essay form. The fact that the CW-group produced fewer errors percentage-wise in Categories A (meaning- and context-related errors) and B (errors with lexical set-up and form) than the CA-group also speaks against such an explanation. It should here be pointed out that the number of errors made within each category is low, which means that these specific conclusions cannot be confirmed statistically.

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

237

Within Set 2, it is the students belonging to the cw- and cp-group that produced most of the correct uses. The most likely reason for this is of course that these participants could not only spend as much time as they wanted to on the task at hand but also had access to all kinds of reference material, the students belonging to the ce- and cpe-group not having the same advantages. This interpretation is substantiated when the two setups are compared (Table 6.6). The difference is also statistically confirmed at a significance level of 5%. To what extent these correctly used tokens will be retained in memory and reused accurately outside a school setting is of course very difficult to predict. However, as the idioms were recycled numerous times during an extended period of time (pretest, treatment, comprehension test, classroom discussion of meanings, preparation for exam, composition writing, and, the last step, the handing back of their compositions), it seems fair to assume that a great many of these tokens and how to use them will have been cemented in the students’ long-term memory. In fact, this may also be the case with a few of the items that were not used correctly, since, along the same lines as discussed in Chapter 4 (Section 4.4), offering an incorrect meaning initially may be the very reason why a student is later prompted to remember its correct meaning. Only more research will be able to determine whether this applies to production too. It may not, of course, since, as evidenced by  the many diff erent types of errors made, on-target production of Table 6.6 A comparison between the two informant groups who wrote their composition at home and those two who wrote it in a test-situation Student group

Total no. of idiom used

Correct uses

338

324

Incorrect uses (A) errors with meaning/ context

(B) errors with lexical set-up and form

(C) syntactical errors induced by the idioms

(D) errors not directly induced by the idioms but part of the idioms’ make-up

(E) multiple errors

78.70% (=266/338)

23.61% (=17/72)

18.06% (=13/72)

19.44% (=14/72)

27.78% (=20/72)

9.72% (=7/72)

70.99% (=230/324)

15.96% (=15/94)

21.28% (=20/94)

18.09% (=17/94)

28.72% (=27/94)

15.96% (=15/94)

composition written at home cw + cp

composition written in a test situation ce + cpe

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Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

idiomatic expressions involves so many more aspects to master than do comprehension and retention. Next, if erroneous uses are considered (see again Table 6.5), those belonging to Category D, i.e. errors not directly induced by the idioms but still part of their lexical make-up, form the most frequent error type. This is the case both in the material as a whole (27.49% errors), statistically confirmed at a significance level of 10%, and, though not statistically confi rmed, when the two batteries of test items are regarded separately (24.44% for Set 1; 28.31% for Set 2). This category almost exclusively incorporates errors with verb form and tense, as exemplified below. (In order to give the reader an accurate picture of the students’ writing skills, other errors, in all of the examples that follow, remain.) While such errors were observed in Eek’s study (2014) too, they were not very prolific. The major reason for this discrepancy is that very few of the uses in Eek’s investigation involved such grammatical changes to begin with. • • • • • • • •

When Molly talked to Daniel about it he first beated around the bush and tried to not talk about it. (instead of beat) It was Mrs Ohlson who told me that and she always spill the beans. (instead of spills) Sometimes he put his foot in his mouth by saying thing that are unproperate for the group of people he is talking in front of. (instead of puts) Nevertheless Mary had decided that everyone have problems and that Sarah’s rudeness when she’s drunk is not worth upset the apple cart for. (instead of upsetting) When the party started the actor did break the fourth wall. (instead of broke) It was like show a red rag to a bull… (instead of showing) -Come on, it is time we get out of dodge. (instead of got) Molly heard through the grapevine that Daniel wanted to break up. (where had heard was needed to fit the context of the paragraph)

From a grammatical point of view, this is of course discouraging. In fact, results indicate that, when students are required to focus on figurative language, more grammatical errors are made with idiomatic parts of a text than with unidiomatic parts. That is, figurative language appears to take its toll on students’ grammatical knowledge, as seen in: It was then that I discovered that both my mobile phone and wallet were stolen. My best friend bell the cat. She went up and talked to the uninvited guests. They became angry because she accused them of theft and they started fighting.

Here the verbs, regular as well as irregular, not connected with the idioms have been conjugated correctly, while the verb part of the idiom has been left in its base form, not made to conform to the rest of the text. One of

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

239

the participants even added the comment ‘I hope it’s okay to change the tense of the idiomatic expressions’, which underlines the uncertainty most likely felt by many of the students about how to deal with figurative language from a grammatical point of view. This phenomenon was not observed in Eek’s study (2014). However, as mentioned above, since the multi-word sequences there used involved few such grammatical changes, differences between figurative and non-figurative language in this respect would have been difficult to spot. Of course, this issue has to be addressed in the L2 classroom. Presenting students with sentences like the one above may here be a good point of departure, showing that (parts of) idioms have to abide by grammatical rules just like non-figurative language. Furthermore, such example sentences may get the ball rolling, whereby not only a more elaborate level of idiomatic awareness will trigger an increase in grammatical knowledge but hopefully the reverse will happen too. (The example sentence is here merely included to illustrate a point. As described in the last subsection in 6.3, idioms used in their base form, when the context required a conjugated form, were categorized as belonging to Category C.) Errors belonging to Categories A (meaning- and context-related errors), B (errors with lexical set-up and form) and C (syntactical errors induced by the idioms) are very evenly distributed in the material. This is substantiated by the fact that no statistical confi rmation of differences could here be obtained. Moreover, this holds true for the material as a whole as well as for the two sets separately. Category A is made up of errors ranging from those where the meaning of the idiom was completely misunderstood, as in: •

After a long talk about the baby I came up with an idea: I really want to shop! I need to buy a dress! -You really pick my brain! They talked a lot and dance but after a while Tom happened to farting and it started to smell very much. The player grimaced and Tom felt like he’s put his foot in his mouth. The player started to laugh about it and Tom get happy again. –

•

to those displaying varying degrees of discord between the idiom’s meaning and the context provided, as in: •

•

We continued talking about Mrs Ohlson and her big mouth. We decided to give tit for that. We had to do it knock her socks of. But we decided to before we did any thing we had to go out and paint the tower red and celebrate that she and her boyfriend bougth a house. So, when will you tie the knot with your girlfriend? I’m thinking about It, I really want to do something with bells on. make her happy. I’m thinking about dinner or a great movie would set the tone pretty well…

240

• • •

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

My sister is a very special person and she is always dressed to the nines. This is precisely why I have to get up early to have enough time to clean the house and myself so she can keep mum about it. George came up with a plan, he knew that it would upset the applecart. He also knew that it would be dangerous but it would be like scraping the bottom of the barrel. Frank was always very calm and decent when they were younger. Nowadays he never seemed to get out of Dodge.

Errors belonging to these subtypes may have occurred because the idioms’ meanings were (partially) misunderstood on the comprehension test, and then transferred as such to the essay writing task. (To read more about the learners’ (partial) misinterpretations, the reader is referred to Chapter 4, Section 4.4.) In the latter subtype, it also appears that the students are sometimes experiencing a conflict between wanting to convey a specific thought and being forced to use certain idioms. In the ‘form’ category (Category B), errors with both content words and function words occurred. In the former case, the correct content words were quite frequently replaced by other sound-related content words, many of which make semantic sense (see, for instance, beans, tower, that and w(h)isperer in the example sentences below). As discussed in Chapter 4 (Section 4.2), this is, as shown by association tests, typical of less advanced L2 learners, who base many of their choices on sound rather than meaning (Cohen & Aphek, 1981; Henning, 1973; Meara, 1978; Piper & Leicester, 1980; Singleton, 1999; Söderman, 1993; Wolter, 2001). In some cases, this result is contrary to what is suggested by the bathtub effect (Aitchson, 1987; Brown & McNeill, 1966), according to which it is most typically only the first and last part of a word that is mixed up. See, for instance, beans which is used instead of peas, where the vowel sound in the middle appears important. The fact that both are legumes, and hence stored within the same semantic subsystem, here probably also played a part. •

• • • •

What she heard was that one of the good-looking twin brothers in the neighbourhood had biten the dust. Which of them she could not tell, she don’t know them and they are like two beans in a pod, or were I should say. But we decided to before we did any thing we had to go out and paint the tower red and celebrate that she and her boyfriend bougth a house. We continued talking about Mrs Ohlson and her big mouth. We decided to give tit for that. Since Hannah didn’t really appreciate Sandra’s exposure, she told her best friend that if she wanted to be the cat’s wisperer, she wouldn’t do that again. On the schoolyard waited our friends and family and everyone was very happy when they saw us. I told the police man who helped me out that he was the cat’s whickers and then I went home.

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

•

241

I also have a little cousin which we use to call the little devil. On my birthdayparties none of my siblings dear to talk or even look at him. He really has a ship on his shoulder. I hope he will be more gentle when he grows up…

In other cases, the correct content word was replaced by a non-existent word. Nevertheless, these too quite frequently seemed to be based on sound similarities: • •

One day I herard something through the gapvine, that was that my sister should tie the knot. I was so happy fore her. -I heard something through the grabvine yesterday. Really? What gossip did my girlfriend tell you? That you’ve bought a new car last week and I just wanted to tell you. I call shotgun! – –

It is interesting to note that, although a few of these errors occurred with semi-transparent expressions, the vast majority were made with opaque ones. Errors with function words include, for example, omission (here of to): • •

Anna was talking and talking. Cut the chase I said feeling this was beyond the pale, she did not even know them. But I decided to have a go at it and worked on it down the wire. addition (here of the):

• •

He realized it was down to the wire and that he and the family needed to get out of the Dodge,… Because I was the one who came up with the suggestion that someone should talk to the boss, it was of course me who had to eat the crow.

and the use of possessive pronoun/defi nite article when none or the opposite should have been used: • •

-Why are you allways on your pins and needles? The little boy was a good boy, he doesn’t do bad things and never create trouble. He has the ducks in a row.

The ‘form’ category also includes errors with number, as in: •

But he has make me proud, we can hang-out and spend time together. We can go shopping and he even like to dress to the nine sometimes.

While errors with contents words primarily appear to be made by less advanced L2 learners, errors with function words also seem to be made by high-performing L2 students. In fact, even native speakers appear to make such errors. An example of this was heard by the present author while

242

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

watching a reality show, where one of the participants, a native speaker of English, incorrectly inserted the preposition at in pick my brain, saying in a hesitant voice, so as to show her uncertainty of the correct form, *pick at my brain. Also, who has not occasionally hesitated in the choice between, for example, the defi nite article and a possessive pronoun, as in take the bull by the/its(?) horns? Thus, while sometimes odd-sounding, errors with function words are not only less likely to cause miscommunication but also less likely to be obtrusive to L1 speakers. Meaning/context errors and errors with lexical set-up and form were also observed in the Eek study (2014). Thus, based on the fact that the present investigation deals with older learners than Eek does, it seems that, irrespective of age, some form errors remain, and are quite likely linked to proficiency level. Only more research can help determine whether this is an accurate conclusion. Examples of syntactical errors made by the students, i.e. errors occurring because a rule pertaining to a specific idiom was broken (Category C), are: • • • • •

•

Mary was at the church waiting for Frank. Frank hadn’t seen hers dress so Mary knowed that he would knock his socks off when he saw her. (where confusion as to agency has occurred) The father had been shown a red rag to a bull. (where the idiom is incorrectly used in a passive construction) This weekend was meant to be paint the town red. When Britta went to school the teacher was cover your bases… She heard how he persude the man to buy the last shirt. He was really once in a blue moon, she thought to herself. (where paint the town red, cover your bases and once in a blue moon are all incorrectly used in complement position) They had invited the cat’s whiskers actor in town and he did a dry run before all the guests showed up. (where the idiom is incorrectly used as a premodifier)

As mentioned above, this category also includes cases of idioms used in their base form where the context demanded a conjugated form, as illustrated by the sentence: •

I realized that i really had to dot one’s ‘i’s and cross one’s ‘t’s to make him understand.

The category ‘multiple errors’ (Category E), fi nally, to which the fewest errors belong (again true for the material as a whole as well as for the two subsets separately), consists of incorrect uses that involve two or more of the error types discussed above. This is exemplified in: •

They were not allowed to go out, since their father thought it was dangerous but the mum tought it was okay, and as you know mum’s the world and she promised to be quite. (meaning/context + form)

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

•

• •

243

The game was over and we won the game against the other team. We all were so happy and it was the best day for me in a long time. My friend comes towards me and asks if it was fun and of course I fought it was fun. But I have to say that at the beginning I thought we should kill someone. He just laughed at me and I put my feet in my mouth. (meaning/context + form) In the stor we fi ned some very qute teddybears they were spill the beans. (meaning/context + syntax (the idiom incorrectly used as a complement)) At the Hospital the doctor looked at Anna nose and diagnosed that i was broken. The doctor told Anna that he had to crack the nose back into the corret position. Are you ready? Asked the docter. Yes, I’m cover my bases! Anna said and tried to smile behind all the blood. (meaning/context + grammar) But he also get’s to here that he has to stop put his foot in the mouth. Maybe you understand that he talks a lot and sometimes he says to much. (grammar + form) The same day as the big party Hanna and Mary had cover your bases  and where finish with everything. (syntax (half-fixed) + grammar) – –

• •

As in the Eek study (2012), there were also a few learners who dared to experiment with the idioms and did so quite successfully, as in the following examples where modifying adverbials have been incorporated: • • •

United’s striker and Captain Wayne Rooney created many chances and repeatedly upset the apple cart in Manchester City’s defence. When he talkes he really breaks the fourth wall. He talks to us as if we were his audience in a big theatre. -Wow, you have really covered your bases.

and in the following examples where the expression has been used in an uncommon syntactical position: • •

-Alright Tom. This is a once in a blue moon –oppertunity. Come on. Lets steal the car and drive away from this rotten world! The Manchester-derby is only played twice a year and therefore we wanted to take the chance to see this once in a blue moon event live.

Once in a blue moon is here used in an attributive position similar to what can be done with once in a lifetime. Next, factors thought to influence idiom comprehension and production, as discussed in the fi rst subsection in 6.2, will be explored in relation to the learners’ idiom use. Table 6.7 offers an overview of Set 1 (CW + CA). The idioms are here given in order of frequency, starting with the item that most of the students chose to include in their

not frequent not frequent frequent frequent

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

semitransparent

semitransparent

semitransparent

cut to the chase (18)

paint the town red (16)

call shotgun (15)

mum’s the word (14)

bark up the wrong tree (11)

knock sb’s socks off (11)

like two peas in a pod (11)

tie the knot (11)

beat around the bush (10)

frequent

very frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

very frequent

opaque

hear sth through the grapevine (19)

degree of frequency

degree of transparency

TEST ITEMS – SET 1 (CW + CA) (21 students)

1,381

602

50,423

508

6,337

13,132

3,801

9,956

2,455

5,066

(average) frequency of content word(s)

3

1

4

9

2

–

6

1

10

3

familiarity (total no. of known tokens on pretest)

7 (=11-3)

6 (=7-1)

6 (=10-4)

7 (=16-9)

3 (=5-2)

7 (=7-0)

6 (=12-6)

3 (=4-1)

4 (=14-10)

10 (=13-3)

familiarity after testing (total no. of understood tokens on comprehension test – pretest)

VP

VP

NP

VP

VP

sentence

VP

VP

VP

VP

syntactic structure

circa1440

1544

1746

1836

1832

1540

1940

1882

1979

after 1845 ante 1867

year of first recorded use

Table 6.7 Set 1 (CW + CA): the idioms in order of no. of uses (correct and incorrect), starting with the most frequently used idiom

relatively flexible

relatively flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

degree of fixedness

244 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

semitransparent

semitransparent

throw sb a bone (3)

pick sb’s brain (3)

very frequent

opaque

semitransparent

bite the dust (6)

semitransparent

frequent

opaque

the worse for wear (5)

frequent

opaque

tilt at windmills (6)

have no truck with sb/sth (6)

dot one’s ‘i’s and cross one’s ‘t’s (4)

very frequent

opaque

beyond the pale (7)

frequent

frequent

not frequent

frequent

very frequent

frequent

opaque

opaque

have a bone to pick with sb (8)

not frequent

not frequent

very frequent

as the crow flies (8)

opaque

semitransparent

with bells on (9)

tit for tat (9)

opaque

spill the beans (10)

4,311

2,176

314

3,632

1,430

137,717

110

29

1,109

67,491

92

1,645

314

4

1

1

–

2

–

–

–

1

6

–

–

3

2 (=6-4)

1 (=2-1)

6 (=7-1)

8 (=8-0)

7 (=9-2)

6 (=6-0)

1 (=1-0)

14 (=14-0)

12 (=13-1)

5 (=11-6)

11 (=11-0)

4 (=4-0)

10 (=13-3)

VP

VP

VP

AP

VP

VP

VP

PP

sentence

VP

NP

PP

VP

1681

1875

1849

1782

1955

1866

1645

1720

1803

1850

1556

1904

1919

relatively flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing 245

246

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

composition. Both correct and incorrect uses are here taken into consideration. No unambiguous picture emerges of which aspect(s) may have affected the students’ choices. Although many of the more commonly used items are non-transparent, (very) frequent, and display a VP structure and inflexibility, it is difficult to determine the validity of this, as the vast majority of the idioms were of these types. At this point, familiarity, as indicated on the pretest, looks like the most likely candidate to be able to explain why certain idioms were selected to be made part of the students’ essays while others were not. That is, while the majority of the previously most well-known expressions appear to have been used by a great many of the learners (e.g. cut to the chase, call shotgun and knock somebody’s socks off ), the majority of the previously largely unknown expressions seem to have been rejected by a great many of the learners (e.g. be the worse for wear, dot one’s ‘i’s and cross one’s ‘t’s and throw somebody a bone). In addition, the high number of tokens of two of the idioms may have been induced by specific circumstances surrounding these expressions. The high number of occurrences of hear sth through the grapevine (19, the highest number of uses) may have to do with the fact that this was the very first item introduced to the learners (see Table 6.4), at which point their attention must have been at its peak. This is especially the case with the CA-group where the captioned audio-visual input they received was a completely new way of approaching vocabulary. The high number of occurrences of paint the town red (16, the third highest number of uses) may be explained by the fact that this idiom was offered in a manipulated form to the CA-group (see Chapter 3, Footnote 4), so that even though it was presented second to last (see Table 6.4), it stood out as compared to the other test items. Somewhat surprisingly, the students’ familiarity with the idioms after testing does not seem to have mattered to any great extent, items disambiguated correctly by many of the students on the preceding comprehension test scattered among frequently as well as infrequently used expressions in the compositions. The reason for this may be that the items understood well on the comprehension test had not been recycled enough times for them to be fi rmly established in long-term memory, at least not as compared to the items already known on the pretest. The lack of recycling, especially of a productive kind, may also mean that, while the meanings of some of the idioms were remembered, the students felt it too much of a venture to actually use them themselves. That is, at this point in time receptive knowledge did not extend to productive mastery for all of the tokens. (See Benhima (2015) for more on recycling.) Investigating the results of the two informant groups (CW and CA) separately did not add anything to what has already been said above. In order to try to obtain a clearer picture of the situation, only the students’ correct uses will now instead be considered. Table 6.8 gives an

not frequent

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

bark up the wrong tree (8 (11))

knock sb’s socks off (8 (11))

like two peas in a pod (9 (11))

opaque

semitransparent

beat around the bush (9 (10))

spill the beans (8 (10))

semitransparent

tie the knot (11 (11))

have a bone to pick with sb (8 (8))

opaque

semitransparent

mum’s the word (12 (14))

opaque

opaque

call shotgun (13 (15))

hear sth through the grapevine (13 (19))

semitransparent

paint the town red (14 (16))

frequent

frequent

very frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

very frequent

not frequent

very frequent

frequent frequent

opaque

cut to the chase (17 (18))

degree of frequency

degree of transparency

TEST ITEMS – SET 1 (CW + CA) (21 students) (correct uses/total no. of uses)

508

6337

314

67,491

50,423

1381

602

13,132

5066

3801

9956

2455

(average) frequency of content word(s)

–

9

2

3

6

4

3

1

3

6

1

10

familiarity (total no. of known tokens on pretest)

7 (=16-9)

3 (=5-2)

10 (=13-3)

5 (=11-6)

6 (=10-4)

7 (=11-3)

6 (=7-1)

7 (=7-0)

10 (=13-3)

6 (=12-6)

3 (=4-1)

4 (=14-10)

familiarity after testing (total no. of understood tokens on comprehension test – pretest)

VP

VP

VP

VP

NP

VP

VP

sentence

VP

VP

VP

VP

syntactic structure

1836

1832

1919

1850

1746

circa1440

1544

1540

after 1845 ante 1867

1940

1882

1979

year of first recorded use

Table 6.8 Set 1 (CW + CA): the idioms in order of no. of correct uses, starting with the idiom that received most correct uses

(Continued)

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

relatively flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

degree of fixedness

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing 247

semitransparent

semitransparent

tit for tat (5 (9))

dot one’s ‘i’s and cross one’s ‘t’s (0 (4))

opaque

with bells on (5 (9))

semitransparent

opaque

beyond the pale (5 (7))

throw sb a bone (1 (3))

opaque

the worse for wear (5 (5))

opaque

opaque

as the crow flies (6 (8))

semitransparent

semitransparent

bite the dust (6 (6))

pick sb’s brain (2 (3))

opaque

have no truck with sb/sth (6 (6))

tilt at windmills (3 (6))

degree of transparency

TEST ITEMS – SET 1 (CW + CA) (21 students) (correct uses/total no. of uses)

Table 6.8 (Continued)

frequent

not frequent

frequent

frequent

not frequent

not frequent

very frequent

very frequent

frequent

frequent

very frequent

degree of frequency

314

2176

4311

110

92

1645

29

3632

1,09

1430

137,717

(average) frequency of content word(s)

–

–

–

–

–

–

1

1

4

1

2

familiarity (total no. of known tokens on pretest)

6 (=7-1)

1 (=2-1)

2 (=6-4)

1 (=1-0)

11 (=11-0)

4 (=4-0)

14 (=14-0)

8 (=8-0)

12 (=13-1)

7 (=9-2)

6 (=6-0)

familiarity after testing (total no. of understood tokens on comprehension test – pretest)

VP

VP

VP

VP

NP

PP

PP

AP

sentence

VP

VP

syntactic structure

1849

1875

1681

1645

1556

1904

1720

1782

1803

1955

1866

year of first recorded use

flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

degree of fixedness

248 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

249

overview of this result. As in the previous table, the idioms are presented in order of frequency, starting with the item that most of the students used accurately in their composition. Similar to what was seen when both correct and incorrect uses were considered (Table 6.7), no unambiguous picture emerges when only accurate uses are taken into account. Again, neither degrees of transparency and frequency nor syntactic structure and flexibility seem to be determining factors of whether a student chose to incorporate an idiom or not. Instead, previous knowledge, as based on the pretest, once again appears to be the most likely explanation why, when learners are asked to compose a running text, certain idioms are picked from a preselected list while others are not. This partly agrees with Hyun et al. (2014) who identified a link between idiom production and familiarity with their younger informants, but no such connection between idiom production and transparency or frequency (see the fi rst subsection in 6.2). Since this interpretation is strengthened somewhat as compared to what was seen in Table 6.7, the hypothesis that previously established knowledge is an important aspect for receptive knowledge to be transferred to accurate productive knowledge is therefore here tentatively put forth. The reader is here reminded that whereas only 21 students were tested on Set 1, as many as 60 students were tested on Set 2. Therefore, what has not been revealed while investigating the results of Cohort 1 might be revealed when exploring the results of Cohort 2. In Table 6.9, both correct and incorrect uses are considered. As before, the idioms are presented in order of frequency, again starting with the item that most of the students chose to include in their essay. When regarding this larger material, familiarity, as seen on the students’ results on the pretest, now crystalizes as a very important factor on which the students based their selection of items to be included in their compositions. On pins and needles, dressed to the nines and once in a blue moon are here not only the three most well-known expressions, but also among those items that were picked by the vast majority of the testees. Moreover, this picture was largely maintained when the subgroups were considered separately. Familiarity cannot, however, explain all the most commonly used expressions. This is especially the case with the cat’s whiskers and upset the apple cart, neither of which the informants knew before treatment, but which were both still extensively used in the learners’ essays. One explanation may be that, as the students were asked to use ten idioms, they were of course forced to use at least some expressions they did not previously know. However, this does not really fully explain why so many learners selected the cat’s whiskers and upset the apple cart, and a few more idioms, specifically. It may be that the meanings of these expressions were especially easy to incorporate in the texts the students chose to compose, or that these idioms, for some inexplicable

degree of transparency

semitransparent

opaque

semitransparent

semitransparent

opaque

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

TEST ITEMS – SET 2 (cw + cp + ce + cpe) (60 students)

on pins and needles (59)

the cat’s whiskers (51)

dressed to the nines (50)

once in a blue moon (47)

upset the apple cart (45)

cover your bases (38)

a red rag to a bull (34)

a chip on your shoulder (33)

paint the town red (29)

get out of dodge (29)

not frequent

frequent

very frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

degree of frequency

71,350

9956

3008

4361

6368

1322

13,749

278

1932

1032

(average) frequency of content word(s)

1

1

–

5

1

–

10

12

–

25

familiarity (total no. of known tokens on pretest)

23 (=24-1)

4 (=5-1)

0 (=0-0)

20 (=25-5)

14 (=15-1)

7 (=7-0)

17 (=27-10)

32 (=44-12)

2 (=2-0)

13 (=38-25)

familiarity after testing (total no. of understood tokens on comprehension test – pretest)

VP

VP

NP

NP

VP

VP

AdvP

AP

NP

PP

syntactic structure

1965

1882

1830

1873

1941

1750?

1547

1787

1923

1710

year of first recorded use

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

degree of fixedness

Table 6.9 Set 2 (cw + cp + ce + cpe): the idioms in order of no. of uses (correct and incorrect), starting with the most frequently used idiom

250 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

not frequent

opaque

opaque

look a gift horse in the mouth (8)

break the fourth wall (5)

not frequent

opaque

semitransparent

the jig is up (15)

fly-by-night (12)

frequent

opaque

as the crow flies (15)

very frequent

not frequent

frequent

not frequent

frequent

opaque

opaque

down to the wire (20)

not frequent

eat crow (18)

opaque

opaque

dry run (21)

bell the cat (20)

very frequent

opaque

put your foot in your mouth (21)

6973

10,020

18,068

89,390

1,109

2606

40,692

1888

4945

11,369

24,224

frequent

semitransparent

get your ducks in a row (22)

29,829 13,300

frequent

2132

not frequent

opaque

opaque

money for old rope (24)

frequent

keep mum (22)

semitransparent

scrape the bottom of the barrel (24)

1

–

1

–

–

–

2

–

–

–

1

2

–

2

3 (=4-1)

1 (=1-0)

9 (=10-1)

9 (=9-0)

22 (=22-0)

10 (10-0)

19 (=21-2)

11 (=11-0)

25 (=25-0)

1 (=1-0)

23 (=24-1)

45 (=47-2)

11 (=11-0)

2 (=4-2)

VP

VP

VP

sentence

sentence

VP

PP

VP

NP

VP

VP

VP

NP

VP

1967

1546

1796

1800

1803

1877

1950

1762

1941

1879

1889

1532

1936

1942

not flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing 251

252

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

reason, are particularly appealing to L2 learners. Research aimed at investigating learner preferences in this respect may help reveal what lies behind these results. With a larger material, idiom frequency now more clearly also reveals itself to be a determining factor in the students’ selection process, the nine top expressions all being of a (very) frequent nature. As familiarity can be argued to be based on frequency (see the fi rst subsection in 6.2), the emergence of this factor as a possible facilitator should perhaps not be so surprising. This, however, contradicts the results of the Hyun et al.’s study (2014) in which, as pointed out above, the idioms’ frequency could not be correlated to the participants’ idiom production. Based not only on degrees on familiarity and frequency but also on degree of compositionality, which here too now emerges as a somewhat strong facilitator, syntactic flexibility can now also be seen to play a part in the students’ selection process. Considering that the idioms judged to be (relatively) flexible were in minority (eight out of 24), the fact that five of the nine top-most items are of this type must be deemed significant. This also disagrees with what was observed in Hyun et al. (2014) in which the older informants’ idiom production was correlated negatively to flexibility, and where the younger informants’ idiom production was completely unaffected by degree of syntactic frozenness. Syntactic structure, which in Hyun et al. (2014) proved important, does not seem to have any impact in the present study, the most commonly used items being of varying forms. At this point, conclusions can be drawn that there is a clear link between students’ L2 idiom use and familiarity, as well as, to some extent, frequency and transparency, i.e. there is a connection between idiom use and factors already noticed to enhance idiom comprehension. Consequently, as fi xedness in the present study is partly based on familiarity, frequency and transparency, there is also a link, albeit perhaps a weaker one, between students’ L2 idiom use and flexibility. The presence of this link is perhaps not so strange, considering the fact that, as a low degree of fi xedness renders figurative language ‘less idiomatic’, flexible expressions per defi nition constitute less of a problem to L2 learners. The most likely reason for the differences in result between the present study and the Hyun et al. investigation (2014) is that while the latter study focuses on L1 learners, the present study explores idiom production in a second language. Put simply, based on the above, it is quite clear that a range of somewhat different factors are pertinent to L2 idiom use as compared to L1 idiom use. It should here also be pointed out that some differences may perhaps be attributed to task type, in that Hyun et al. (2014) made use of sentence completion tasks, while the current investigation focuses on free essay writing. The effect of this difference is probably not too significant, since the students in the current study were also limited to a certain set of expressions.

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253

To investigate all of the above even further, only the correct uses in Set 2 will now be considered. In Table 6.10, the idioms are again presented in order of frequency, here starting with the item that most of the students used accurately in their essays. In a likely interplay with frequency and transparency, it can here be seen that the positive effect of familiarity is strengthened further among the most commonly used idioms, the three top-most items displaying (relatively) high degrees of all three factors. The impact of flexibility, on the other hand, appears somewhat weakened. So far, this supports the interpretation that familiarity, in connection with frequency and transparency, plays the main role in whether an item is correctly used or not, while flexibility plays a less important role. However, the reader is reminded that, in the present study, degree of fi xedness is not only based on familiarity, frequency and transparency, but also on year of fi rst recorded use. As only a weak connection between fi xedness and this factor appears to exist, the dearth of studies proving the opposite supporting such a conclusion (see the first subsection in 6.2), it may be argued that year of first recorded use is not relevant to the degree to which an idiom may be syntactically changed, in which case the three top-most items in Table 6.10 would be categorized as flexible. This would thus render flexibility an even more important factor than what was believed, as discussed above. To sum up, it seems that, in what must be considered a new and challenging situation, L2 learners prefer to make use of the idiomatic teddy bears they have at their disposal (see Granger (1998) and Paquot (2008)) which at the same time display a comparatively high degree of commonality, compositionality as well as (semi-)flexibility, and, only after having exhausted those security blankets, they select other items that can help them convey their intended message. This in turn may mean that it is these idioms that largely decide what the story will be about. The fact that some students, almost exclusively low-achievers, feel the need to make up short stories within the larger story to be able to perform the task set before them indicates precisely this. So, do students, in a situation where they are limited to a certain set of idioms, choose what items to use first and then make up the story (as indicated by the important role played by familiarity), or do they make up the story first and only thereafter make the idioms fit (as indicated by the presence of errors belonging to the meaning/context category), or, perhaps, is the answer a combination of the two? Only more research can help reveal the truth of the matter, but the present author is of the opinion that the truth may lie somewhere in between, the idiomatic teddy bears to some extent forming the frame of the story, and the rest of them used as fillers. Lastly, the students’ individual results in relation to their level of proficiency and age were also looked into. The former is here based on their grade on a proficiency-oriented module which they took as part of their English studies. It was a 7.5-credit course, corresponding to five weeks of fulltime studying, though spread over an entire term (20 weeks). As some

frequent not frequent

opaque

opaque

opaque

get out of dodge (23 (29))

a chip on your shoulder (22 (33))

very frequent

frequent

frequent

frequent

money for old rope (23 (24))

opaque

the cat’s whiskers (35 (51))

frequent

opaque

semitransparent

once in a blue moon (43 (47))

frequent

semitransparent

semitransparent

dressed to the nines (45 (50))

frequent

paint the town red (26 (29))

semitransparent

on pins and needles (48 (59))

degree of frequency

upset the apple cart (34 (45))

degree of transparency

TEST ITEMS – SET 2 (cw + cp + ce + cpe) (60 students) (correct uses/ total no. of uses)

3008

71,350

29,829

9956

1322

1932

13,749

278

1032

(average) frequency of content word(s)

–

1

–

1

–

–

10

12

25

familiarity (total no. of known tokens on pretest)

0 (=0-0)

23 (=24-1)

11 (=11-0)

4 (=5-1)

7 (=7-0)

2 (=2-0)

17 (=27-10)

32 (=44-12)

13 (=38-25)

familiarity after testing (total no. of understood tokens on comprehension test – pretest)

NP

VP

NP

VP

VP

NP

AdvP

AP

PP

syntactic structure

1830

1965

1936

1882

1750?

1923

1547

1787

1710

year of first recorded use

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

relatively flexible

relatively flexible

relatively flexible

degree of fixedness

Table 6.10 Set 2 (cw + cp + ce + cpe): the idioms in order of no. of correct uses, starting with the idiom that received most correct uses

254 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

not frequent

opaque

semitransparent

keep mum (19 (22))

a red rag to a bull (19 (34))

opaque

semitransparent

opaque

break the fourth wall (4 (5))

fly-by-night (4 (12))

look a gift horse in the mouth (3 (8))

opaque

bell the cat (12 (20))

opaque

semitransparent

get your ducks in a row (13 (22))

opaque

opaque

put your foot in your mouth (12 (21))

frequent

opaque

as the crow flies (14 (15))

down to the wire (13 (20))

the jig is up (11 (15))

frequent

semitransparent

scrape the bottom of the barrel (15 (24))

not frequent

eat crow (16 (18))

frequent

not frequent

not frequent

not frequent

very frequent

not frequent

frequent

very frequent

frequent

opaque

opaque

dry run (18 (21))

frequent

frequent

opaque

cover your bases (22 (38))

10,020

18,068

6973

89,390

11,369

1888

24,224

40,692

1109

2132

2606

4945

4361

13,300

6368

–

1

1

–

–

–

1

2

–

2

–

–

5

2

1

1 (=1-0)

9 (=10-1)

3 (=4-1)

9 (=9-0)

1 (=1-0)

11 (=11-0)

23 (=24-1)

19 (=21-2)

22 (=22-0)

2 (=4-2)

10 (10-0)

25 (=25-0)

20 (=25-5)

45 (=47-2)

14 (=15-1)

VP

VP

VP

sentence

VP

VP

VP

PP

sentence

VP

VP

NP

NP

VP

VP

1546

1796

1967

1800

1879

1762

1889

1950

1803

1942

1877

1941

1873

1532

1941

not flexible

relatively flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

flexible

not flexible

not flexible

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing 255

256 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

learners took resits to complete the course, the grades fi nally given were either ‘pass’ (G) or ‘pass with distinction’ (VG). As in Eek’s study (2012), the results indicate that, for learners in both cohorts, there is indeed a link between proficiency level and accurateness in idiom production, especially when the learners who produced the lowest number of correct expressions are considered. On the other hand, no obvious link between age and correctness could be observed. To some extent this again tallies with Eek’s result, as proficiency there crystalized as a stronger contender than age, younger but more proficient learners generally doing better than older but less proficient learners. Thus, while the following text (which remains exactly in the form in which it was handed in by the student, but for the test items in bold) is a typical example of an essay produced by a low proficiency student: Yesterday I went on pins and needles all afternoon, I was nervous about todays exam, thats for shure. I took the kids outside to play i the garden, to make shure I get out of dodge, because beeing into the house I like an trap to me, always fi nd something other to do. We lay out some plankets and the children took my books to the biggest blanket, I think they thought it was fun, because I’m not the person that usually put my self in one spot and lay there, It’s once in a blue moon thats happens. We had also prepered a picnicbasket, with cookies, sandwiches, water, etc. making sure that I didn’t have to get into the house for thoose things i a while, to cover my (your) bases. The girls started to give me gifts, like cookies they made in the sanddraw and flowers that They have been picking, I started sneezing a bit and look a gift horse in the mouth and tryed in a nice way ask them to try some other games. They ran in to the house to get some clothes, that we use as costume. Some neckless and other nice things came out and they dressed to the nines. Then the phone rang, I had forgot that some of the kids old toys, that we had put out on the internet were supose to be picked up and they called for direction to our home. But it went well and it’s easy money for old rope that the children can buy something else of instead. I kept on reading of English grammar when I saw that the children got a little restless and the boys pushed the big girl and gave a chip on her (your) shoulder and they started a little fight. I went talking to them and relise that it was time for an break to us all and I scrape the

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257

bottom of the barrel to fi nd something for us all to do. Sense it was pretty hot I put on some water that sprangled like a fountain in the grass and we jumped and ran into it. We had alot of fun with much laughing until it was time to start the grill to make supper. When it was time for bed the two biggest of my children sad to me, mum you are great, no you are the cat’s whiskers. Like you could guess it was with an big smile that I could continue in my grammar book after they had gone to sleep.

the following text is instead an example of a composition produced by a high-achiever (again given in its original form, with the test items in bold): -‘Come on, hurry up or we’re going to be late!’ David shouted from downstairs. -‘I’m going as fast as I can, please stop bugging me! It takes time to dress to the nines!’ I put a strand of hair behind my ear and put on the nicest pair of earrings I own. I took a fi nal look in the mirror, put the hair right and smiled, satisfied with my reflection. Then I walked downstairs, carefully, not to trip on the long dress in the stares. David was standing at the end of the staircase, starring at his wristwatch and stamped impatiently with his right foot. When he heard my steps he looked up and opened his mouth to say something, but was struck dumb by the sight of me. -‘Be careful not to drool, darling.’ I said with a smile. -‘You look beautiful, Hayley!’ He said when he fi nally came back to earth, and gave me a helping hand. -‘Thank you, David. I kind of feel like Cinderella in this beautiful dress!’ I said and turned around to show him the dress. He laughed and eyed me from top to toe, with an approving expression on his face. -‘You’re so beautiful, you make me nervous.’ He said. -‘You’ve been on pins and needles all day, David.’ I laughed and hooked his arm. ‘Let’s go paint the town red now’ A limousine was waiting for us outside and David let go of my arm to open the door for me. As the gentleman he is, he bowed and helped me to get into the car without ruining my outfit. -‘You’re such a gentleman today’ I said with a laugh. He winked and leaned towards me.

258 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

-‘That’s our secret, darling. You better keep mum.’ He gave me a mischievous smile, kissed me on the forehead and closed the door. He got in on his side and opened the door between the driver and us. -‘Let’s go Tommy. Drive as the crow flies, old friend.’ The driver smiled and put his sunglasses on. -‘I’m always at your service, Mr. Gray. The champagne is on ice and we’re ready to go.’ -‘Excellent.’ -‘You sure have covered all your bases this time, David. Everything is perfect!’ -‘Only the best for my love.’ He said and gave me a soft kiss on the mouth. ‘How often do you get engaged to the love of your life, anyways?’ -‘Once in a blue moon or so.’ I said and giggled like a little girl. He always had that effect on me. We arrived at the restaurant after about an hour’s ride and I was amazed by all the luxury of the place. A man in a fancy suit welcomed us by opening the car door and shows us in to the entrance. All the way to the restaurant, a red carpet was rolled out and I felt like a celebrity where I went, linked arms with my fi ancé. We were shown to our table were our families were waiting. My mom had a big smile on her face and ran up to give us both a hug. -‘My lovely daughter, you look so beautiful, Hayley!’ She said with tears in her eyes and kissed my cheek. ‘I have to warn you both though; Lenore truly has a chip on her shoulder today.’ She whispered the last sentence to us both and I could see how David’s mood sank and how it flashed with anger in his eyes. Lenore is David’s mother and she did not like our engagement at all. She wants her son to marry someone from the upper class and do not think that I’m god enough for her son, as a woman in the middleclass. -‘Then this will be a lovely dinner’, I said and sighed. We walked towards the table and I tried my hardest to give Lenore my most friendly smile. -‘Hello Leno…’ -‘You’re late! Again!’ She said and pointed a fi nger at me. ‘And what is that you’re wearing?! It looks like you’re wearing a bed sheet!’ -‘Mother!’ Yelled David. ‘That’s my fi ancé you’re talking to!’ Lenore snorted and turned her attention to the menu instead. David took my hand and looked into my eyes. -‘It’s okey, David. I’ll have to get used to it sometime, don’t I?’ -‘No, you should not have to deal with that, I will take care of her, I promise!’ He said and kisses my

Productive Mastery of L2 Idioms in Free Composition Writing

259

hand. We sat down at the table and it became completely quiet around the table. It felt awkward to sit there when Lenore gave me looks of disgust, and my stomach began to hurt. -‘So’, David said with a happy voice. ‘We have some great news.’ Everyone looked at him, my parents with love, and his mother with hate in their eyes. He stood up. -‘David, maybe we shouldn’t…’ I whispered but he interrupted me. -‘yes, we should’ He said with a smile. ‘Do not let her ruin this for us, I’m begging you.’ -‘Okey.’ -‘You all know that me and Hayley are very much in love.’ He started and looked me in the eyes. ‘And we are planning to be together forever, so…’ David took my hand and made me stand up next to him. He put his hand on my stomach. ‘We’re starting a family. Hayley is pregnant.’ Lenore stood up so quickly that her chair fell backwards. She was red in the face and breathed loudly. She pointed her fi nger at us and shook her head. -‘No.’ She said with a loud voice that made the rest of the diners to stare at her. That word made my heart break into a thousand pieces. David’s father told his wife to sit down and behave, but she refused to listen to him. -‘You really shouldn’t have upset the apple cart, son’ he said and looked sincerely sad. ‘I’m sorry.’ -‘Perhaps you should get out of dodge, darling’My mother said and I could hear that she was very angry with Lenore. ‘You deserve a romantic evening and you won’t get it here.’ I opened my mouth to tell her that I’d love to stay and be with the family, even thought that would be a lie, when David stood up and took my hand. -‘Yes, mrs. Hewitt, that’s an excellent idea. Come with me my love,’ I hooked his arm and prepared to leave. ‘Thank you, you’re the cat’s whiskers, my dear motherin-law.’ We walked out and realized that Tommy and the limousine was gone. -‘What are we going to do now, David?’ I said and felt very disappointed about the evening. ‘Maybe we should just get back inside..’ -‘No, we are going to have the best night of our lifes’ David said and gave me a big, white smile. ‘Like your mother said – you deserve it, Hayley!’ -‘Okej, but..’ -‘No ‘buts’ darling. I’m going to make you happy, and we will get the romantic night you wanted. Even though the jig is up, I’m sure we will have a good time together’.

260

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

From a figurative point of view, the main difference between these two compositions seems to be that whereas the degree of (lexical) sophistication in the latter accords well with the required presence of idiomaticity, there is no such harmony in the former, not only in terms of lexical features, but also regarding grammar and spelling. In the former case, this thus results in what Richards (1996) refers to as ‘idiomatosis’, i.e. a disproportionate and inappropriate use of idiomatic expressions. 6.5 Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications

Having been exposed to a pretest, received treatment and then been subjected to a comprehension test, the students in the present investigation were asked to compose a fictional essay, incorporating 10 of the 23 (Cohort 1)/24 (Cohort 2) idiomatic expressions in focus. Out of the 882 tokens selected by the participants to be included in their essays, as many as 671 were used in accordance with L1 standards. This must be regarded as quite an accomplishment, since L2 figurative language, and especially productive knowledge of such, is by many linguists considered one of the last frontiers to be conquered before achieving nativelike mastery. The 211 errors made were mainly produced by low proficiency students, thus tallying with the Eek study (2012), and, not so surprisingly, more so by the learners who wrote their compositions in a test-like situation than those who were allowed to sit at home, the latter students having clear instructions on test type, reference tools and time on their side. Moreover, the errors were seen to fall into five main categories, of which the most common type, Category D (27.49%), was made up of grammatical errors, mostly verb form and tense, which were not directly induced by the idiomatic expressions, but still part of their lexical make-up. Since there was some evidence that these kinds of errors were even more likely to occur in connection with idiomatic use, it may mean that when the spotlight is on multi-word sequences, other aspects, such as grammar, are temporarily neglected, figurative language forcing a learner to focus more on meaning than form. As indicated by some of the errors as well as by a comment made by one of the informants, it may also mean that some learners believe all multi-word sequences to be completely fi xed. This misconception seems, unfortunately, to be reinforced by many instructors who often offer this as part of the defi nition of an idiomatic expression. Presenting learners with gap-fi ll sentences, asking them to make the idioms’ verb form and tense conform to the surrounding text, may be a good point of departure for eradicating such errors. In connection with this suggestion, it was also argued that such an approach may trigger an upward spiral where not only a deeper understanding of how idiomatic expressions should be dealt with from a grammatical point of view would induce an increase in such knowledge, but that the effect could be reciprocal.

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Semantic misunderstandings, sometimes in relation to context (Category A), errors concerned with form (Category B), and ignorance of syntactical rules pertaining to specific expressions (Category C) were evenly distributed in the material, each constituting around 20%. These results point to the importance of making contextualization and recycling part of language classes whose aim is to focus on L2 learner production of figurative language. Captioned audio-visual input, still pictures and etymological elaboration, implemented in accordance with the Dual Coding Theory and the Levels of Processing Theory as discussed in Chapter 3 (the two subsections in 3.2), are examples of such treatment types, especially if the specific requirements of each treatment type observed to enhance comprehension are adhered to (Chapter 3, subsections 3.6 and 3.10). Written context, as shown in Chapter 2, may also be beneficial, particularly to those students who are ‘verbalizers’. However, for low proficiency learners especially, these treatment types are obviously not enough to transfer receptive knowledge to productive knowledge. Slot-fi lling exercises with supportive contexts where students are not only asked to choose among different items but also among different (syntactical) forms of one and the same item may instead be a fi rst step towards helping less advanced learners eradicate these types of errors. Also, for errors belonging to Category B, where mistakes with content words as well as function words were made, key word techniques (e.g. Avila & Sadoski, 1996; Levin, 1985, 1993; Levin et al., 1992; Rodriguez & Sadoski, 2000; Sadoski & Paivio, 2013; Shapiro & Waters, 2005; Williams & Konopak, 1988; Wyra et al., 2007) and rote memorization (Nation, 2001) may be effective remedies, perhaps especially for content words which were often replaced by phonologically similar words. Lastly, in composing their essays, the L2 learners preferred to make use of the idiomatic teddy bears (Granger, 1998; Hasselgren, 1994; Paquot, 2008) they had at their disposal which at the same time displayed comparatively high degrees of commonality, compositionality as well as (semi-)flexibility. That is, the students fi rst selected the frequent, semitransparent and flexible expressions that were already known to them, and only after having exhausted these options resorted to less familiar items of varying degrees of commonality, compositionality and fi xedness, while ignoring their syntactic structure. These results, when compared to the results of Hyun et al.’s investigation of native speakers (2014), show that L2 idiom use is partly dependent on other factors than L1 idiom use. As lexical security blankets are a natural phenomenon of non-native language (Hasselgren, 1994), establishing many more such comforters thus seems crucial. The only way this can be achieved is of course through recycling by letting students encounter expressions in a variety of different settings, the time available to teachers being the only limit to what extent this can be done. Also, as degree of familiarity is often based on frequency, the items selected to become idiomatic security blankets should perhaps

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be based on commonality, thus also enhancing the chances for non-native learners to replicate native-speaker use. By creating such a base of idiomatic teddy bears, even low-achievers may see the light at the end of the tunnel, and fi nd the courage to embark upon the idiomatic journey writing a fictional essay may entail. At the same time, teachers and students must here be given a word of warning against overuse, as texts displaying this phenomenon may come across as unnatural and strained as texts that are completely void of multi-word sequences may seem unnatural and flat. Notes (1) One student dropped out before the writing of the composition took place. (2) The fi rst part of the information was retrieved from World Wide Words (http://www. worldwidewords.org/), while the second part was found in The Oxford English Dictionary (http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.bib.hh.se/). (3) Information about fi rst use was taken from The Phrase Finder (http://www.phrases. org.uk/). (4) This year of fi rst recorded use was found in Wikipedia (https://www.wikipedia.org/). (5) As worse is an irregular form and its connection with bad therefore not very strong, the frequency of worse not bad was searched for. (6) As pointed out in Chapter 3 (Footnote 4), this idiom was presented to the testees in a manipulated form, using the colour beige instead of red. The students were, however, informed that red is part of the idiom’s standard form. (7) This information was taken from The Phrase Finder (http://www.phrases.org.uk/). (8) This year of fi rst recorded use was found in World Wide Words (http://www.worldwide words.org/).

7 Summing Up and Directions for Future Research

The aim of this book was to investigate various aspects of comparatively advanced learners’ comprehension, retention and production of idiomatic expressions in a fi rst (Swedish) and second (English) language, conventional uses as well as creative variant forms. As a point of departure, the book began by focusing on learners’ comprehension, comparing their L1 and L2 levels of mastery. Here students from six educational levels (ages: 13–18) within the Swedish school system were tested. In addition to age, the effects of three other well-known facilitators – context, transparency and frequency – were also investigated by subjecting the participants to two parallel tests, each incorporating 27 canonically used idioms. The test items were not only provided with contextual support of varying degrees, but also displayed different levels of compositionality and commonality. Hence, the simultaneous effects of the facilitators could be explored. The proficiency levels of the groups, as depicted by their teachers, were also considered. From a quantitative perspective, it is clear that great progress is made in the understanding of figurative language during learners’ teens. What is especially encouraging is that a giant leap forward was not only taken in the learners’ mother tongue, where a difference of 31 percentage points was noted between the 13-year-olds and the 18-year-olds’ performance, but was also clearly taken in their second language, where, although starting at a lower level in all grades, the same difference was 29 percentage points. However, while the majority of the students contributed to this momentum in their L1, as evidenced by the fact that there here was a steady although slow increase from one educational level to the next, this was not the case in the students’ L2, as shown by the lack of such a unidirectional development. The more irregular pattern noticed here was ascribed to two main phenomena: low L2 proficiency and poor L1 idiom comprehension, both thus constituting major obstacles to disambiguation success in a second language. This means that each student’s level of L2 proficiency as well as L1 idiom knowledge must be ascertained before any 263

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work can be done on idiomatic language in the L2 classroom. If not, these shortcomings may put students off any further endeavours in terms of figurative language. Thus, in order to get a clearer picture of how instructors can approach these aspects, research is called for in both areas. As for L2 proficiency, it is important to find out more about whether there are specific (sub)components that are more relevant to the understanding of idiomatic expressions than others. It is clear that reading comprehension is indeed one main component, since, in competition with transparency and frequency, context emerged as the main facilitator. This result was enhanced even further, as, while the effect of contextual support was especially strong in the learners’ mother tongue, it was also the number one facilitator in their second language. The reason for the important role played by context in comparison to transparency was attributed to the fact that a learner’s ability to make inferences based on contextual clues is generally thought to develop before their ability to perform semantic analysis. Therefore, what comes natural to learners in an L1, may have to become the focus of explicit teaching in order to be transferred to learners’ L2 to match what can be achieved in their mother tongue, especially for low-achievers. As for the impact of the understanding of idiomatic expressions in a fi rst language, considering today’s multicultural classrooms, it would be interesting to fi nd out if this is equally strong irrespective of L1-L2 distance. For instance, would a Swede with a solid L1 idiom knowledge learning Chinese do better on an L2 idiom test than a Swede with a poor L1 idiom knowledge learning Norwegian? The existence of source domains and the fact that learners often experience problems with those that are not present, or are only present to a minor degree in their fi rst language as compared to their second language, may imply that a good command of L1 idiomatic expressions is less relevant when learning a language that is not so closely related to one’s mother tongue. On the other hand, the existence of universal metaphors and the fact that learners often resort to such metaphors when other approaches fail speak for L1s generally playing an important role in whether L2 figurative language is successfully disambiguated or not. It would also be interesting to explore the value of L1 idiom mastery in the light of the fact that the results of the present study showed that when contextual support was very weak, transparency instead emerged as the main facilitator, and that this was especially the case in the learners’ L2 where the skill to analyze semantically has been shown to develop in tandem with lexical inferencing, hence making learners more inclined to consider decomposition in a second than a fi rst language. So, along the same lines as above, does this mean that a Swede with a solid L1 idiom knowledge trying to decompose Chinese idioms would outperform a Swede with a poor L1 idiom knowledge trying to decompose Norwegian idioms? Another issue worth investigating is whether L2 proficiency and L1 idiom knowledge work interdependently of each other or not. This could

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not be looked into in the present study, as descriptions of L2 proficiency were only offered at class level. Based on the facilitating effect of written context observed in the learners’ disambiguation processes in Chapter 2, the third chapter investigated the value of contextual support even further by exploring the effects of multimodal and visualization techniques on L2 learners’ (university students) comprehension as well as retention. While in the first of two experiments, the impact of captioned audio-visual input was in focus, the second experiment aimed to study the effects of (a) still pictures, (b) etymological notes as well as (c) a combination of the two, all approaches being contrasted with short written contexts. Retention was here investigated in relation to the hypotheses put forth by the Dual Coding Theory and the Levels of Processing Theory, which together suggest that an extra retrieval route in the form of a more well-ingrained memory is created if semantic input is displayed in more than one modality, hence increasing a learner’s chances of remembering the item in question. The results of the comprehension tests showed that presenting learners with captioned audio-visual input, still pictures, historical explanations, or a combination of the latter two generally does not enhance learning any more than short written contexts. However, when certain criteria were fulfi lled, all treatment types gained the potential of surpassing written input. The fi rst experiment showed that this desirable result was obtained when the clues offered were global in character rather than local, when the idioms were thematic rather than pertaining to details, and when the idiom occurred towards the end of an extended scene, thus forcing the students to take in all the available clues. The transient nature of a spoken text as compared to a written one was thought to explain these results. The dearth of studies relating to all these variables – the quality of the clue and the idiom, the timing of the idiom and the length of scenes – calls for further research. This is perhaps especially the case with the quality of the clue, as the two studies found focusing on this variable displayed contradictory results. Compare Cai and Lee (2010), in which it was shown that global clues promote the comprehension of idiomatic expressions better than local clues in spoken texts, with Van Zeeland (2014), in which, similar to what is seen in written text, the complete opposite conclusion was drawn. The results of the present study though are strongly indicative of there being differences between spoken and written input in this respect. As pointed out in Chapter 3, there may here also still be variables that have not been (fully) explored which will prove critical to successful implementation of captioned audio-visual input. Two of these factors are phonetic/prosodic features and body language, which, although briefly discussed in the present study, were not explored in any detail. The results of the second experiment showed that the learners’ comprehension was enhanced when the pictures were of an idiomatic kind, or

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at least had some figurative elements in them, and when, unsurprisingly, the historical information was of a highly supportive nature. In the group where a combination of an illustration and etymological information was supplied, it was further observed that the presence of an idiomatic element became even more crucial, since, if not, the two pieces of information were in conflict with each other. Whereas the beneficial value of etymological notes has been shown in a great many studies, none, at least to the present author’s knowledge, have shown that figurative renderings are more helpful than literal ones. Results obtained here are of course important to the construction of teaching materials, since up to the time of writing (children’s) books that include illustrations do not seem to prefer one type to the other. When the effects of the treatment types on retention were considered, the great potential of captioned audio-visual input, still pictures and etymological notes became even more obvious, all inducing many more longlasting retrieval routes, treatment-based as well as individually formed, than did the short, written context in the control groups. That is, in accordance with the Dual Coding Theory and the Levels of Processing Theory, the indication on the immediate post-test of a positive outcome when compared to the results of the comprehension test was confi rmed on the delayed post-test. Moreover, this did not only concern semi-transparent expressions but opaque ones too. The main issue that requires further investigation here is whether the positive trend displayed on the delayed post-test can be maintained. Studies incorporating post-tests that are administered several months after treatment are thus needed. Another pressing issue is that, based on these multimodal and visualization techniques, there is no teaching material for EFL students ready to be used by instructors, at least not to the present author’s knowledge. Admittedly, there is a wealth of online resources and (children’s) books that deal with idiomatic expressions, but certainly not in any systematic way, and definitely not in accordance with the current fi ndings. The results of the two experiments also indicated that there may be reason to consider dividing learners into ‘visualizers’ and ‘verbalizers’, as some students do very well when presented with multimodal material and imagery while others are affected negatively when faced with such input. Based on learner preferences, it would be interesting to test the validity of this in connection with the techniques here implemented. While it is clear that the treatment types explored in Chapter 3 aided in the disambiguation and retention processes for a high proportion of the expressions tested, a great many idioms remained uninterpreted or misunderstood. For this reason, as well as the fact that there simply are no other studies investigating such tokens in structured ways, the students’ answers in Chapter 3 were revisited in the fourth chapter, focusing on the tokens for which the processes were unsuccessful or had somehow gone awry.

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Here the three most frequent error types were ‘no answer’, ‘incorrect answer’ and ‘underspecified answer’, all three of which could be related to compositionality. In the two former cases, there was an overrepresentation of opaque idioms, while in the latter case there was an underrepresentation of the same type. Put differently, the opaque items on average received many ‘no answers’, some ‘incorrect answers’ (with a wide spread of unrelated meanings) and few ‘underspecified answers’, whereas the expressions of a semi-transparent nature in contrast on average received few ‘no answers’, some ‘incorrect answers’ and quite a few tokens (but relatively few types) of ‘underspecified answers’. All in all, this confi rms the difficult nature of figurative language per se as well as the facilitating effects of transparency when contextual support is weak or non-existing, despite treatment. Moreover, from a retention perspective, two main developmental patterns could be clearly discerned. In both cases, the fi rst two steps were identical: (1) ignorance of the idiom’s meaning (shown by offering no answer or an incorrect answer), and (2) through treatment, a display of partial or full knowledge. In the fi rst of the two developmental patterns, the students then reverted back to the ignorant state in which they started, i.e. there was here clear evidence of attrition. In the other pattern, the students were able to offer a partially correct meaning only, which was thought to be likely to fossilize as such, or possibly be completely lost. Both patterns do not only reconfirm the inherently problematic nature of figurative language, but also clearly display the frailty involved in newly acquired vocabulary of an idiomatic kind. Additionally, some of the incorrect answers showed signs of semantic tugs-of war, which supplied interesting insights into the L2 mental lexicon regarding (temporary?) storage. L1-L2 confusions as well as L2-L2 confusions were detected, many of which were triggered by the treatment the learners received, produced by low-performers, and mostly agreed with previous research on idiom blends. In the former case, learners were thought to initially approach a sequence in a word-for-word manner, during which an L1-L2 similarity was detected, usually regarding the fi rst word, then, too swiftly, an L1-L2 idiomatic congruency was assumed, which resulted in a mix-up. Accordingly, some students offered the Swedish idiom måla fan på väggen (= paint the devil on the wall, meaning ‘assume the worst’) for the English expression paint the town red. It was also concluded that many of the errors belonging to this type appeared to have been induced by there being a L1-L2 similarity in syntactic structure. In the latter case, three subtypes of semantic confusion were discovered. One subtype was observed with L2 idioms involving the same key word (e.g. the meaning of be the cat’s whiskers erroneously offered as the meaning of bell the cat), the majority of which also seemed to be based on some semantic logic. In another subtype, the learners were triggered by there being some (peripheral) similarity in meaning (e.g. ‘run away at night,

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sneak, hide’ as the meaning of fly-by-night erroneously provided for get out of dodge, the two expressions sharing the meaning ‘escape from unpleasant business’). In the last subtype, learners appeared to combine their knowledge of the world with a literal reading (e.g. ‘do something dangerous’ as the meaning of bell the cat erroneously transferred to look a gifthorse in the mouth). As pointed out in Chapter 4, it is quite likely that the present author missed some of the more convoluted mix-ups, and so more research is needed to explore if additional patterns of confusions can be detected, which would provide teachers with important information about what idioms can and cannot be taught together in one and the same session. Though canonically used idioms indeed cause a great many misinterpretations, as shown in Chapter 4, this is generally inconsequential compared to the challenges L2 learners are faced with when encountering manipulated expressions. The fi fth chapter dealt with L2 learners’ comprehension of such variant forms of a creative nature. More precisely, a group of 17-year olds were tested on the meaning of 20 manipulated idiomatic expressions, all of which were ranked as to difficulty according to a creativity continuum. Along this continuum, Type I was thought to be the least manipulated/creative kind and Type VI the most manipulated/ creative kind, and, thus, also the most difficult one to disambiguate. Despite the fact that the learners were supplied with the idioms’ canonical form and meaning, only around 49% of the creatively manipulated tokens were disambiguated correctly. This shows clearly the complex nature of these variant forms per se. There was, however, some evidence that the levels of difficulty predicted by the implemented creativity continuum were accurate, i.e. not all the manipulations appeared equally difficult to the L2 learners, but rather the more manipulated they were the more difficult they were to comprehend. It was also observed that when additional information was needed during the disambiguation process, such as cultural knowledge, or if two manipulations were involved with the same token, this created stumbling blocks that made the students falter even more than when faced with a creative variant where no such information was required or a single manipulation only had distorted the idiom’s canonical form. Even so, there were major individual differences. While some learners were only able to disambiguate (a few of) the least creative tokens, others displayed almost native-like competence. Based on the teacher’s prediction of what grades the students would most likely receive at the end of the academic year, it could be shown that those students who were most successful at figuring out the meanings of these noncanonically used forms, especially those belonging to Types IV and VI, were in fact primarily high-performers. Once again, proficiency can be seen to play an important role in the disambiguation process. As this is an almost completely unexplored field within SLA, still being in its infancy, the study generated a number of questions to which

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future research could be dedicated. Firstly, based on availability, it was in the current study not possible to include creative variants of all the types seen on Szczepaniak’s creativity continuum. To explore the accurateness of the predictions of this continuum in more depth, manipulated forms of all types must be incorporated. Secondly, as major individual differences were noticed, it would be of interest to establish what native speakers could accomplish, using such results as yardsticks. L1-L2 comparisons would perhaps also help determine which learners possess sufficient figurative competence to be presented with the more/ most distorted creative variant types and for which learners the least manipulated forms, or even only systemic forms, would be considered enough of a challenge. L2 retention of these creative variants would also be interesting to explore, as these mangled forms, once pointed out, are quite conspicuous. In the last chapter of the book, L2 learners’ production of idiomatic expressions in running text was investigated. Similar to L2 comprehension of creative variants, this is an almost completely neglected area of research. Here the participants involved in the two experiments discussed in Chapter 3 were asked to compose a fictional essay, incorporating ten of the idioms for which they had received treatment. The results showed that 671 out of 882 tokens (i.e. about 76%) were used in accordance with L1 standards. Considering that on-target use of idiomatic expressions in running text is probably one of the most difficult areas to master in a second language, this must be regarded as quite a feat. The 211 errors made were mostly produced by low-performers, irrespective of age, as well as by those learners who were forced to compose their essay in a test-like situation. Moreover, the errors fell into five main categories. The most prolific type was made up of errors that were not directly induced by the idioms themselves, but still part of the idioms’ lexical make-up (Category D, 27.49%). Most typically, the incorrect uses included here displayed errors with verb form and tense. In connection with this fi nding, it was also observed that while the use of forms and tenses part of sequences of non-figurative language was often correct, the same level of accurateness was not observed with sequences of idiomatic language. Two reasons were given for this discrepancy. On the one hand, it may be that the learners’ intense focus on the task set before them, getting multi-word units to fit neatly into a story, made them lapse in their attention to grammar. On the other hand, it may be, as evidenced by a comment made by one of the participants, that students generally consider idiomatic expressions to be completely fi xed. A combination of these two explanations is of course also possible. Gap-fi lling exercises in which verbs part of multi-word units are asked to be made to conform to the surrounding context were suggested as a possible solution to such incongruency. It was further suggested that such exercises would possibly be able to trigger an upward spiral in which not only a better understanding

270 Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

of figurative language would induce an increase in grammatical knowledge, but vice versa too. Research undertaken to investigate whether focused teaching would indeed trigger such a reciprocal relation would therefore be of great interest. There was a very even distribution among semantic errors (Category A), errors with lexical set-up and form (Category B), and syntactical errors induced by the idioms (Category C), each incorporating 19–20% of the errors. Category A ranged from those uses where the idioms’ meanings had been completely misunderstood to those that displayed some sort of discord between the meaning of the idiom and how it was used in the context. In Category B, errors with content words as well as function words were noticed. In the former case, many of the correct content words were replaced by other sound-related content words, both existing words as well as nonsense words, which association tests aimed at describing the structure of learners’ mental lexicon show is a typical characteristic of low-performers. In Category C, no particular trend could be observed, i.e. all sorts of syntactical errors were made with the idioms as the students tried to make them part of their stories. It would be interesting to investigate if gap-fi lling exercises, not only asking students to choose from different idiomatic expressions (Category A), but also among different forms of one and the same idiom (Categories B and C), could here too help eradicate the many errors made, especially in the case of low-performers. Lastly, when the idioms were regarded individually, it was observed that the students preferred to make use of expressions that were already well-known to them, particularly those that were semi-transparent, frequent and (semi-)flexible. That is, in a situation as taxing as composing a fictional essay in which a specific number of idiomatic expressions from a pregenerated list are required to be included, L2 learners generally prefer to make use of idiomatic teddy bears of relatively high compositionality, commonality and flexibility, and only after having exhausted most of these possibilities they choose other less familiar expressions of varying degrees of transparency, frequency and fi xedness. In connection with these clearly noticeable idiomatic teddy bears, it was suggested that it may be these lexical security blankets that actually decide what a student’s story will be about and that the other items chosen thereafter are mere fillers. Asking students to write think-aloud protocols during the selection process would be one way of fi nding out if this is really the case. It may of course also be the treatment the students received that was responsible for this great reliance on idiomatic teddy bears, as it was not geared towards production but primarily aimed at enhancing comprehension and retention. That is, it is one thing to disambiguate an expression and memorize it, and a totally different thing to use it in a running text, in which its meaning, form and syntactic characteristics all have to be taken into consideration and made to conform. It would therefore

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be interesting to find out if production-based treatment, for instance in the form of sentence-completion tasks, would give students the courage they need to let go of (some of) these idiomatic teddy bears (altogether), and consequently be less compelled, if that is indeed the case, to make up a story around these particular items.

References

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Vasiljevic, Z. (2015) Teaching and learning idioms in L2: From theory to practice. MEXTESOL Journal 39 (4), 1–24. Veisbergs, A. (1997) The contextual use of idioms, wordplay, and translation. In D. Delabastita (ed.) Traductio. Essays on Punning and Translation (pp. 155–176). Manchester: St. Jerome. Viberg, Å. (2000) Svenskt ordnät – lexikon på dator som modell för ordförrådet i hjärnan hos infödda talare och andraspråkstalare. In H. Åhl (ed.) Svenskan i tiden: verklighet och visioner (pp. 287–395). Stockholm: HLS. Von Raffler-Engel, W. (1980) Kinesics and paralinguistic: A neglected factor in second language research and teaching. Canadian Modern Language Review 36 (2), 225–237. Vosniadou, S. (1987) Children and metaphor. Child Development 58, 870–885. Vosniadou, S. and Ortony, A. (1983) The emergence of literal-metaphor-anomalous distinction in young children. Child Development 54, 154–161. Vrbinc, A. and Vrbinc, M. (2011) Creative use of idioms in satirical magazines. Jezikoslovije 12 (1), 75–91. Wagner, J. (2005) A study of Swedish students’ mastery of English words and idioms. Halmstad University: Unpublished undergraduate study. Ward, J. and Lepeintre, S. (1996) The creative connection in movies and TV: What ‘Degrassi High’ teaches teachers. The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning, 92–97. Waring, R. (1997a) The negative effects of learning words in semantic sets: A replication. System 25 (2), 261–274. Waring, R. (1997b) A study of receptive and productive vocabulary learning from word cards. Studies in Foreign Languages and Literature (Notre Dame Seishin University) 21 (1), 94–114. Wasow, T., Sag, I. and Nunberg, G. (1983) Idioms: An interim report. In S. Hattori and K. Inoue, (eds) Proceedings of the XIIIth international congress of linguistics, Tokyo. Watcyn-Jones, P. (1999) (3rd ed.) Test your Vocabulary. Book 1. Lund Kursverksamhetens Förlag. Weber, A and Scharenborg, O. (2012) Models of spoken word recognition. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 3, 387–401. Weltens, B. and Grendel, M. (1993) Attrition of vocabulary knowledge. In R. Schreuder and B. Weltens (eds) The Bilingual Lexicon (pp. 135–156). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Wesche, M. and Paribakht, T.S. (2010) Lexical Inferencing in a First and Second Language: Cross-linguistic Dimensions. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. White, M. (2011) Cracking the code of press headlines: From difficulty to opportunity for the foreign language learner. International Journal of English Studies 11 (1), 95–116. Williams, M.L. and Konopak, B.C. (1988) Sixth graders’ use of mnemonic imagery in recalling content material. In J.E. Readence and R.S. Baldwin (eds) Dialogues in Literacy Research, 125–131. Chicago, IL: National Reading Conference. Willis, J. and Willis, D. (1996) Consciousness-raising activities. In J. Willis and D. Willis (eds) Challenge and Change in Language Teaching. MacMillan Education Australia. Winner, E. (1988) The Point of Words: Children’s Understanding Of metaphor and Irony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wolter, B. (2001) Comparing the L1 and L2 mental lexicon: A depth of individual word knowledge model. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 23, 41–69. Wolter, B. (2009) Meaning-last vocabulary acquisition and collocational productivity. In T. Fitzpatrick and A. Barfield (eds) Lexical Processing in Second Language Learners (pp. 128–140). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Woottipong, K. (2014) effect of using video materials in the teaching of listening skills for university students. International Journal of Linguistics 6 (4), 200–212.

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Author Index

Abdelmajid Alkarazoun (2015), 153 Abdullah and Jackson (1998), 19, 164, 175 Abel (2003), 10, 16, 17, 20, 39, 66, 216 Abkarian et al. (1992), 7 Ackerman (1982), 7 Adkins (1968), 14 Afram (2016), 15, 118, 138 Aitchison (1987), 154, 155 Akbulut (2007), 74 Al-Akloby (2001), 162 Albrechtsen et al. (2008), 13, 15, 30, 157, 160 Alderson (2005), 77 Alexander (1987), 20, 216 Alharthi (2012), 163 Alharthi (2014a), 163 Alharthi (2014b), 163 Alharthi (2015), 163 Al-Hazemi (2000), 162 Ali (2001), 153 Al-Kadi (2015), 11, 31, 190 Alm-Arvius (1998), 12 Anderson (1982), 162 Arikan and Ulaş Taraf (2010), 74 Asschier (2014), 75, 92, 93, 94 Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), 71 Atrchian Shalmani (2015), 113 Avila and Sadoski (1996), 71, 261 Baayen (1992), 66 Baayen (1993), 66 Baayen et al. (1997), 66 Baddeley (1986), 81 Baddeley (1992), 81 Baddeley (1999), 162 Baddeley et al. (1977), 157 Bagheri and Fazel (2010), 1, 2, 20, 112, 138 Bagheri and Ghoorchaei (2014), 79, 80 Bahns and Eldaw (1993), 1

Bahrick (1984), 162, 163 Baker (2011), 115, 130 Baleghizadeh and Bagheri (2012), 2, 112, 138 Balota and Coane (2008), 158 Baltova (1994), 83 Baltova (1999), 79, 81, Barani et al. (2010), 74 Bardovi-Harlig and Stringer (2010), 162 Bardovi-Harlig and Stringer (2013), 2, 162 Barresi et al. (2010), 217 Beebe (1983), 164 Begg (1972), 71 Bell (2009), 2 Bengeleil and Paribakht (2004), 77, 79 Benhima (2015), 163, 223, 246 Bensoussan and Laufer (1984), 12, 77 Bergstrand (2017), 109, 136 Berman Olshtain (1983), 163 Bialystok (2002), 12 Bloom et al. (1993), 217 Bobrow and Bell (1973), 155 Boers (2000), 2, 16, 71, 107, 108, 215 Boers (2001), 108, 109 Boers and Demecheleer (2001), 18, 207, 218 Boers et al. (2004), 18, 19, 108, 110, 136 Boers et al. (2006), 114, 131, 139, Boers et al. (2007), 111 Boers et al. (2008), 105, 114, 115, 131, 138, 148, 164, 174 Boers et al. (2009), 114, 116, 130 Borrás and Lafayette (1994), 81, 106 Borrell (2000), 81 Brenner (2003), 2 British National Corpus, 228 Brown (2000), 164 Brown and McNeill (1966), 155, 181, 240 Brône and Coulson (2010), 194 Brône and Feyaerts (2005), 194

298

Author Index

Buck (2001), 78 Bull and Wittrock (1971), 113 Burgucu et al. (2010), 164 Burns (1951), 213 Cabrera and Matinez (2001), 83 Cacciari and Glucksberg (1991), 177, 190, 191, 193, 194, 210 Cacciari and Levorato (1989), 7, 8 Cacciari and Levorato (1998), 16, 158, 215 Cacciari and Tabossi (1988), 156, 192 Cacciari and Tabossi (1993), 1, 187 Cai and Lee (2010), 77, 78, 79, 87, 94, 97, 265 Cai and Wu (2007), 77 Cain et al. (2005), 12 Cain et al. (2009), 7, 17, 39 Cameron (2001), 73 Carnine et al. (1984), 12 Carter (1987), 20, 216 Carter and McCarthy (1988), 20, 216 Cassell et al. (1999), 83 Cermak and Craik (1979), 71 Chafe (1968), 219 Chandler and Sweller (1991), 81 Chang et al. (2011), 73, 79 Chihara et al. (1994), 12 Chih-cheng (2009), 74 Chun and Plass (1996), 74 Cieślicka (2004), 11, 31, 34 Cieślicka (2006a), 34 Cieślicka (2006b), 18, 164, 175 Cieślicka (2008), 156 Cignoni and Coffey (2000), 2 Clark and Clark (1977), 154 Clarke and Nation (1980), 12 Clark and Paivio (1991), 68, 69, 73, 235, 236 Clifford et al. (1995), 73 Coady (1993), 159 Coady (1997), 161 Coane et al. (2014), 158 Cohen (1986), 163 Cohen (1989), 163 Cohen and Aphek (1980), 15 Cohen and Aphek (1981), 154, 240 Common European Framework…, 1 Cooper (1998), 20, 73, 85 Cooper (1999), 2, 14 Cornejo et al. (2009), 83 Cowie and Mackin (1975), 2

299

Craik (1973), 71 Craik and Jacoby (1975), 71, 72 Craik and Lockhart (1972), 71 Craik and Tulving (1975), 15, 72 Crossley et al. (2010), 155 Csábi (2004), 107 Cummins (1979), 11, 31, 81, 190 Cummins (1991), 11, 31, 190 Cutler (1982), 220, 229 Cutting and Bock (1997), 156, 157, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185, 216 Cziko (1978), 81 D’Agostino et al. (1977), 72 Dahlin and Watkins (2000), 221 Dagut and Laufer (1985), 164 Danan (1995), 79 Danan (2004), 81, 106 Daneman and Green (1986), 12, 77 Danesi (1991), 1, 2 David (2008), 217 Davis and Bistodeau (1993), 81 De Bot and Weltens (1995), 162 Deese (1959), 158 De Linde and Kay (1999), 81 Dilley and Paivio (1968), 71 Dong (2004), 2 Douglas and Peel (1979), 7 Drum and Konopak (1987), 159 Dupuy and Krashen (1993), 159, 160 D’Ydewalle and Pavakanun (1996), 79 Dörnyei (2005), 71 Ebrahimi and Bazaee (2016), 79 Eek (2012), 220, 221, 223, 224, 225, 226, 238, 239, 242, 243, 256, 260 Ehrman et al. (2003), 71 Elkiliç (2008), 16, 215 Ellis (1994), 221, 223 Ellis (2009), 1, 217, 223 Engel (1996), 18 Erigna (1974), 213 Erten and Tekin (2008), 158 Etemad (2012), 79 Eyckmans et al. (2007), 213, 214 Ezell and Goldstein (1991), 21 Faerch et al. (1984), 214 Fauconnier and Turner (1994), 194 Fauconnier and Turner (2002), 194 Feldman and Narayanan (2004), 11

300

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Fernando (1996), 187, 189, 190, 218 Feyaerts and Brône (2002), 194 Field (1998), 78 Finkbeiner and Nicol (2003), 158 Finn (1977–1978), 191 Fisch et al. (2001), 73 Flores (2010), 162, 163 Flores d’Arcais (1993), 192 Fotovatnia and Khaki (2012), 1, 2, 117, 138 Frantzen (2010), 160 Fraser (1970), 218, 219, 220 Freyn and Gross (2017), 75, 98 Gallo (2010), 158 Gambrell (1982), 71 Gan (2014), 11 Garcia Moreno (2011), 2, 16, 158, 215 Gardner et al. (1987), 163 Garza (1991), 79, 81, 106 Gass (1997), 83 Gazzaniga (2000), 71 Gentner (1982), 217 Geva and Clifton (1994), 81 Ghanavati Nasab and Hesabi (2014), 2, 116, 130, 136 Ghasemboland and Nafissi (2012), 79 Ghorbani (2017), 115, 131, 139 Gibbs (1980), 2, 155 Gibbs (1985), 155 Gibbs (1987), 10, 16, 158, 189, 215, 216 Gibbs (1990), 10 Gibbs (1991), 8, 10, 16, 158, 215, 216 Gibbs (1993), 16 Gibbs et al. (2002), 83 Gibbs and Nayak (1989), 156, 190 Gibbs et al. (1989) 190 Gibbs, Nayak and Cutting (1989), 16, 156 Glucksberg (1993), 156, 190, 201 Glucksberg (2001), 18, 156, 190, 194 Gläser (1986), 191 Gläser (1998), 188 Goh (2000), 77 Goldin-Meadow (1999), 83 Goodwin (2000), 83 Granger (1998), 217, 253, 261 Grgurović and Hegelheimer (2007), 79 Griffin and Harley (1996), 213, 214 Guillory (1998), 79, 81, 106 Guo (2007), 113 Guo (2008), 113

Haastrup (1991a), 12, 77 Haastrup (1991b), 81 Hadar et al. (1998), 83 Hafner (1967), 12 Hallin and Van Lancker Sidtis (2015), 82 Halliwell (1992), 73 Han and Odlin (2006), 165 Han and Tarone (2014), 165 Hardison (1999), 83 Hargevik (1998), 20 Harji et al. (2010), 79 Hasselgren (1994), 217, 261 Haynes (1993), 77, 78 Henning (1973), 154, 240 Henriksen (1999), 159 Herman et al. (1987), 12, 159 Hernandez (2005), 83 Herrera and White (2010), 191 Higa (1965), 157 Hobbs (1979), 187 Hockett (1958), 187 Horst et al. (1998), 12, 77 Huckin and Bloch (1993), 77, 78, 160 Huckin and Coady (1999), 160 Hung and Nippold (2014), 216 Hunt and Beglar (2002), 162, 164, 174 Hyun et al. (2014), 215, 216, 217, 219, 228, 229, 249, 252, 261 Hyde and Jenkins (1973), 72 Irujo (1986), 2, 18, 153, 164, 175, 223 Ivarsson and Carroll (1998), 81 Jahanyfard (2015), 80 Jansson (2006), 25 Jelčić (2014), 8, 16, 17 Jenkins and Dixon (1983), 12 Jiang (2004), 159 Johansson (2008), 182 Johnson (1989), 10 Johnson (1991), 10 Johnson-Laird (1993), 187 Jones (2003), 79, 130 Jylha-Laide and Karreinen (1993), 83 Kainulainen (2006), 14 Karlsson (2012), 9, 10, 14, 18, 21, 39, 154, 155, 159, 213 Karlsson (2013a), 10, 11, 15, 17, 19, 24, 31, 65, 76, 110, 118, 152, 153, 215 Karlsson (2013b), 155, 157

Author Index

Karlsson (2014a), 12, 13 Karlsson (2014b), 21 Kecskes (2000), 10 Keil (1986), 8 Kellerman (1992), 83 Kellogg and Howe (1971), 113 Kendon (2000), 83 Kennedy (2008), 221, 223 Ketabi and Sadeghi (2013), 80 Khomeijani Farahani and Mohammadi Foomani (2015), 77 Kirsner (1994), 221, 223 Kobayashi (1977), 71 Kohn (2014), 84 Koller (2004), 194 Kraemer et al. (2009), 71, 148 Kövecses (2005), 10 Kövecses (2010), 1, 10 Kövecses and Szabó (1996), 10 Kurita (2012), 77 Lakoff (1987), 10 Lakoff and Johnson (1980), 2, 10 Langlotz (2006), 17, 187, 189, 201 Larzar et al. (1989), 73, 85 Laufer (1988), 12, 77 Laufer (1997a), 154, 163, 191 Laufer (1997b), 154, 163, 191 Laufer (2000), 163, 164, 174, 175 Laufer and Eliasson (1993), 164 Laufer and Sim (1985), 12, 77 Lazar (1996), 1, 2 Lennon (1998), 2 Levenston (1979), 163 Levin (1985), 71, 261 Levin (1993), 71, 261 Levin et al. (1992), 71, 261 Levorato and Cacciari (1992), 21 Levorato and Cacciari (1995), 7, 8, 154, 188, 195, 204 Levorato and Cacciari (1999), 8, 16, 158, 215 Levorato and Cacciari (2002), 8 Levorato et al. (2004), 7, 8 Lewis (2009), 1 Leys et al. (1983), 12 Li (1988), 15 Libben and Titone (2008), 17, 216 Lightbown and Spada (2006), 162, 221 Lin (2012), 82 Lindfield et al. (1999), 82

301

Lindstromberg and Boers (2008), 68 Liontas (2002), 14, 18 Liontas (2003), 14 Littlemore (2001), 160 Littlemore and Low (2006), 197, 200 Littlemore et al. (2011), 11, 160, 164, 174, 175, 177, 178, 191 Liu (2000), 73, 85 Liu (2008), 1, 2, 7, 11, 20, 31, 73, 85, 189 Liu and Nation (1985), 12, 77 Lockhart and Craik (1990), 72, 73 Lockhart et al. (1975), 72 Lodge and Leach (1975), 7, 21 Long (1996), 83, Long (2003), 162 Lund (1991), 78 Lundmark (2005), 212 Luthman (2002), 25 Luthman (2006), 25 Mahmoodi-Shahrebabaki (2014), 75, 98 Maltese et al. (2012), 82 Markham (1993), 79, 81, 106, Markham (2001), 79 Markman (1979), 7 Martin (1984), 155, 159 Massi and Merino (1996), 73 Matlock and Heredia (2002), 11, 31, 33, 34 Mayer (2009), 71 Mayer (2014), 150 McGavigan (2009), 20, 215, 216, 220 McGurk and MacDonald (1976), 83 McNeill (1992), 83 McNeill (2000), 83 McPherron and Randolph (2014), 68 Meara (1978), 154, 240 Meara (1997), 214 Meara (1999), 159 Meara et al. (1997), 222 Melka Teichroew (1982), 214 Michiels (1977), 219 Milton (2009), 20, 163, 213, 214, 216 Mitterer and McQueen (2009), 81, 106 Mohamadi Asl (2013), 1, 2, 15 Mondria and Wit de Boer (1991), 15 Moon (1996), 188, Moon (1997), 1, 2, 189, Moon (1998), 1, 2, 189, 190, 191, 193 Moon (2009), 1 Morgan and Rinvolucri (2004), 161

302

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Morrel-Samuels and Krauss (1992), 83 Mousavi Haghshenas and Hashemian (2016), 115, 131, 139 Mäntylä (2012), 1, 19, 22, 34, 159, 164, 175, 179, 218 Naciscione (2001), 191 Nagy (1997), 77, 221, 222, 223 Nagy et al. (1985), 159, 225 Nagy et al. (1987), 12 Nagy et al. (1989), 77, 155 Namei (2002), 157 Namei (2004), 157 Nassaji (2004), 13, 77 Nation (1982), 163 Nation (1990), 12, 154 Nation (2001), 12, 13, 15, 20, 77, 78, 154, 159, 161, 216, 261 Nation 2006), 20 Nelson et al. (1976), 73, 115, 131, 139 Nesbit and Adescope (2006), 71 Neuman and Koskinen (1992), 79, 81, 106 Newmeyer (1974), 219 Nicholas et al. (1985), 217 Nippold (1988), 8, 9 Nippold and Duthie (2003), 10 Nippold and Haq (1996), 20 Nippold and Martin (1989), 7, 9, 12, 13, 21, 30, 31, 33, 152 Nippold and Taylor (1995), 10, 16, 20, 158, 215 Nippold and Taylor (2002), 16, 20, 158, 215, 216 Nippold et al. (1996), 21 Nippold and Rudzinski (1993), 16, 17, 21, 158, 215 Noroozi and Salehi (2013), 1, 113, 138 Norrick (1985), 192 O’Malley et al. (1989), 78 O’Malley and Chamot (1990), 78 Omaziç (2004), 110 Omaziç (2008), 191, 194 Ortony et al. (1978), 12 Oxford (1990), 78 Oxford (1992), 164 Oxford and Ehrman (1995), 71 Paivio (1965), 71 Paivio (1971), 68, 235 Paivio (1972), 68

Paivio (1975), 68, 235 Paivio (1986), 68, 71, 235 Paivio (1991), 68, 235 Paivio and Clark (1986), 70 Paivio and Walsh (1993), 70 Panou (2014), 164, 175, 215, 220 Pasban et al. (2015), 80 Paquot (2008), 217, 253, 261 Paribakht (2005), 79 Paribakht and Wesche (1993), 159, 225 Paribakht and Wesche (1997), 161, 162, 164, 174 Parizoska and Rajh (2017), 212 Park (2004), 78 Parry (1993), 160 Pawley and Syder (1983), 2 Philip (1996), 198 Piaget (1923), 7, 8 Piasecka (2006), 21, 158, 216 Pignot-Shahov (2012), 214 Palmberg (1987), 214 Pica (1994), 83 Pinter (2006), 162 Pinnavaia (2002), 158 Piper and Leicester (1980), 154, 240 Pitzl (2012), 192 Pitzl (2016), 192 Plass et al. (1998), 71, 113 Plass and Jones (2005), 71 Pollio et al. (1977), 2, 20, 191 Pollio and Pickens (1980), 7 Pollio and Pollio (1974), 7 Pressley (1976), 71 Price (1983), 79 Prinz (1983), 7, 21 Prodromou (2003), 191, 192 Prodromou (2007), 1, 192 Pulvermüller (2003), 2 Raimes (1983), 113 Reagan (1987), 206, 219, 220 Riazi and Babaei (2008), 77 Richards (1976), 154 Richards (1983), 78 Richards (1996), 260 Richardson (1994), 71 Ringstad (2012a), 25 Ringstad (2012b), 25, 120, 124, 125, 126 Ringstad (2012c), 25 Ringstad (2012d), 25

Author Index

Riseborough (1981), 83 Rizkiani (2015), 79 Robinson (2003), 81 Rodriguez and Sadoski (2000), 71, 261 Roediger and McDermott (1995), 158 Roessingh and Cobb (n.d.), 20 Ross (1997), 78 Rost (1990), 78 Rubin (1990), 83 Rye (1985), 12 Sadeghi and Farzizadeh (2013), 113 Sadoski (1985), 68, 71 Sadoski (2005), 68 Sadoski and Paivio (2004), 70, Sadoski and Paivio (2013), 68, 69, 70, 71, 261 Saffarian et al. (2013), 74, 117, 138 Saragi et al. (1978), 12 Saunders and Solman (1984), 131 Schachter (1975), 163 Schmidt and Paris (1983), 8 Schmitt (2000), 159, 222, 225 Schmitt (2008), 20 Schmitt (2010a), 154, 159, 225 Schmitt (2010b), 90, 127, 163, 234 Schmitt and McCarthy (1997), 12, 162 Schneider et al. (2002), 213, 214 Schnotz (2002), 71 Schulman (1971), 72 Schweigert and Moares (1988), 217 Secord and Wiig (1993), 2 Secules et al. (1992), 73, 83 Seidlhofer (2004), 192 Selinker (1972), 162 Semino (2008), 194 Shapiro and Waters (2005), 71, 261 Sharwood Smith (1993), 161 Shefelbine (1990), 12, 77 Silvia (2008), 73 Simensen (1998), 164, 174 Simpson and Mendis (2003), 20, 216 Simpson-Vlach and Ellis (2010), 191 Singleton (1999), 154, 240 Sjöholm (1995), 164 Sjöholm (1998), 164 Skolverket (2011), 1 Skorge (2008), 115, 130 Slaughter (2008), 198 Slaughter (2011), 197 Smith et al. (1994), 113

303

Smith et al. (1987), 113 Spada and Lightbown (2008), 221 Sprenger et al. (2006), 157 Staehr (2009), 77 Stahl and Fairbanks (1986), 12, 77 Stanovich (1986), 81, 106 Stempleski (2000), 73 Sternberg (1987), 12, 77 Stoddard (1929), 213 Strömqvist (2009), 20, 216 Sueyoshi and Hardison (2005), 83 Swanepoel (1992), 110 Sweller (1999), 81 Sweller et al. (1998), 81, Sweller (2005), 71, 81 Swinney and Cutler (1979), 155 Sydorenko (2010), 79, 81 Szczepaniak (2006), 1, 2, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 206, 207, 211, 214, 218, 269 Szczepaniak and Lew (2011), 17, 115, 131, 179 Szpunar and McDermott (2008), 158 Söderman (1993), 154, 240 Tabatabaei and Gahroei (2011), 2, 74, 75, 98 Tabatabaei and Hajizadeh (2015), 113 Taylor (2005), 81 Terrell (1986), 113 Thapar (2007), 25, 120, 126 Tinkham (1993), 157 Tinkham (1997), 157, 158 Titone and Connine (1994), 10, 17, 20, 39, 217 Tomiyama (2000), 163, 214 Trabasso and Van den Brock (1985), 8 Tréville (1988), 214 Trulsson (2007), 9, 30, 152 Tulving (1972), 158 Underwood (1989), 113 University of Birmingham (2002), 24, 25, 66, 86, 87, 91, 196, 229 Urkedal York (2016), 79 Vanderplank (1988), 79, 81 Van Lancker (1975), 71 Van Lancker (1990), 71 Van Lancker Sidtis (2003), 82

304

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

Van Lancker and Canter (1981), 82 Van Lancker et al. (1981), 82 Van Lancker and Kempler (1987), 71 Van Zeeland (2014), 77, 78, 79, 97, 265 Vasiljevic (2012), 115, 130 Vasiljevic (2013), 115, 130 Vasiljevic (2014), 110, 155, 181 Vasiljevic (2015), 1, 5, 66 Veisbergs (1997), 194 Viberg (2000), 154 Von Raffler-Engel (1980), 83 Vosniadou (1987), 7 Vosniadou and Ortony (1983), 7 Vrbinc and Vrbinc (2011), 189, 193, 194 Wagner (2005), 10, 30 Ward and Lepeintre (1996), 73 Waring (1997a), 157 Waring (1997b), 213, 214 Wasow et al. (1983), 191 Watcyn-Jones (1999), 157 Weber and Scharenborg (2012), 78

Weltens and Grendel (1993), 162 Wesche and Paribakht (2010), 79 White (2011), 191, 194, 212 Williams and Konopak (1988), 71, 261 Willis and Willis (1996), 221 Winner (1988), 7, 8 Wolter (2001), 154, 240 Wolter (2009), 161, 162 Woottipong (2014), 79 Wray (2000), 2 Wray and Fitzpatrick (2008), 1, 221 Wyra et al. (2007), 71, 261 Yi (2014), 190, 205, 206 Yilmaz Atagul (2016), 81 Yoshida et al. (1998), 81, 106 Yule (1996), 12 Yoshikawa (2008), 164, 175 Zahar et al. (2001), 162 Zarei and Rahimi (2014), 113 Zhang (2009), 113

Subject Index

Acquisition via Exposure Hypothesis 21, 39 attrition 4, 162, 163, 177, 184, 186, 214, 267 audio-visual (context/input) 3, 68, 73, 74, 75, 76, 79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 105, 106, 148, 149, 150, 151, 165, 178, 180, 182, 227, 246, 261, 265 avoidance 4, 159, 163, 164, 174, backsliding 162, 177 bathtub effect 155, 181, 215, 240 commonality 3, 16, 39, 40, 66, 75, 128, 175, 184, 206, 207, 220, 227, 253, 261, 262, 263, 270 (contextual) clue 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 34, 39, 40, 65, 76, 77, 78, 79, 83, 87, 94, 95, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 111, 122, 131, 137, 139, 140, 149, 156, 191, 192, 264, 265 captioned subtitles 3, 68, 73, 74, 76, 79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 105, 106, 148, 149, 150, 165, 180, 227, 235, 246, 261, 265, 266 creative form/idiom/permutation/ variant/variation (see also distorted/manipulated (idiom/ variant) 3, 4, 177, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 224, 263, 268, 269 distorted form/idiom/variant (see also creative/manipulated idiom/ variant) 3, 191, 196, 206, 210, 211, 268, 269

Dual Coding Theory 3, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 79, 92, 98, 106, 109, 112, 130, 138, 149, 261, 265, 266 etymological elaboration/input/ information 3, 68, 70, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 165, 182, 183, 220, 227, 261, 265, 266 facilitator 3, 5, 6, 10, 21, 34, 65, 67, 94, 104, 148, 158, 174, 175, 176, 191, 216, 252, 263, 264 false memory 158, 182 familiarity 5, 16, 20, 21, 39, 66, 75, 97, 128, 191, 215, 216, 217, 220, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 248, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 261 (syntactic) fixedness (see also (syntactic) frozenness) 5, 215, 218, 219, 220, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 244, 245, 247, 248, 250, 252, 252, 253, 254, 255, 261, 270 fossilization 4, 162, 165, 178 Global Elaboration Hypothesis 7, 9, 10, 22, 28, 30, 31, 33, 40, 154, 188, 195, 204 grammatical/syntactic structure, the effect of 5, 156, 179, 215, 218, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 244, 245, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 255, 261, 267

305

306

Idiomatic Mastery in a First and Second Language

idiomatosis 260 idiomatic teddybear (also (idiomatic) security blanket/comforter) 217, 253, 261, 262, 270, 271 (idiom) blend 4, 155, 156, 157, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185, 216, 267 (idiom) variant 3, 4, 177, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 224, 263, 268, 269 incorrect answer/interpretation 4, 31, 32, 33, 76, 110, 152, 153, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 183, 184, 191, 207, 210, 212, 267 interference (also negative transfer) 68, 155, 158, 159, 180 Levels of Processing Theory 3, 68, 71, 72, 73, 78, 92, 99, 106, 115, 116, 129, 138, 149, 261, 265, 266 lexical/linguistic teddy bear (also lexical security blanket/comforter) 217, 261, 270 literal answer/interpretation 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 22, 24, 25, 31, 32, 33, 34, 65, 67, 82, 118, 119, 121, 122, 131, 156, 159, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 177, 178, 179, 180, 183, 185, 192, 205, 211, 220 manipulated form idiom/variant (see also creative/distorted form/ idiom/variant) 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 246, 262, 268, 269 Model of Dual Idiom Representation 10, 16, 17, 20, 30, 39, 66 negative transfer (see also interference) 159, 181 non-answer (also no answer) 4, 13, 31, 32, 33, 152, 153, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 184, 267 non-verbal 68, 69, 70, 73, 83, 93, 98, 99, 138

overextension 154, 161, 178 overspecified (answer/response) 161, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 177, 178, 184 partial knowledge/misinterpretation/ understanding 4, 152, 159, 161, 162, 165, 169, 176, 177, 184, 186, 211, 240, 267 phonetic feature 82, 83, 93, 265 picture superiority effect 115, 131, 139 prosodic feature 82, 83, 93, 148, 265 recycle/recycling 163, 177, 185, 186, 223, 237, 246, 261 (un)related answer 9, 13, 31, 32, 33, 192, 210 risktaking (also risktaker) 164 semantic neighbourhood density 215, 217, 229 still picture 3, 68, 106, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 146, 148, 149, 150, 165, 227, 261, 265, 266 systemic form/idiom/manipulation/ permutation/variant/variation 4, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 205, 212, 269 test-induced (error/misinterpretation) 4, 169, 170, 171, 172, 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184 tip-of-the-tongue experiment 155 underextension 154, 161, 178 underspecified (answer/response) 4, 160, 161, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 184, 267 verbalizer 71, 93, 98, 105, 131, 138, 139, 150, 261, 266 visualizer 71, 93, 98, 138, 139, 148, 150, 266