Idioms have long been regarded as problematic for L2 learners due to the arbitrariness of their meanings and forms. Traditional methods of teaching idioms focus on rote learning and memorization. Recent developments in cognitive linguistics research have considered idioms as analyzable expressions which are motivated by conceptual metaphors and whose meanings can derive from associations between source and target concepts. Believed to be imageable and comprehensive, idioms should be learned through the process of raising L2 learners' awareness of conceptual metaphors behind these expressions. Nevertheless, these methods fail to notice culture entailments embedded in conceptual metaphors. Especially for FL learners who share neither common cultural background nor living environment with the target language users, difficulties resulting from transferability between L1 and L2 idioms owing to cultural similarities and differences may be serious. To bridge the gap between idioms and conceptual metaphors caused by cross-cultural differences, this study suggests a teaching method by incorporating the idea of metaphoric mappings. A case study was conducted in an EFL writing class to investigate the effect of the methods. Essays written by the students before and after the instruction were analyzed. Results showed that the students increased frequencies of using not only common idiomatic expressions but also creative analogies comprising vivid images based on the conceptual metaphors taught. Additionally, they used L2 expressions whose conceptual metaphors also existed in L1 more often then expressions whose conceptual metaphors were exclusive in L2. Such findings affirm the importance of culture and provide valuable insight to EFL teachers in adopting cognitive-oriented method to teach English idioms.

EFL learners may face different degrees of difficulty in transferring figurative expressions between L1 and L2 due to cultural similarities and differences embedded in languages. This study explores the influence of universality and specificity of culture on EFL learners' comprehension of metaphor and metonymy. Twenty eight Taiwanese EFL learners were asked to translate 12 English sentences into Chinese. Findings indicate that the participants performed the best when English and Chinese shared the same conceptual metaphors, and performed the worst when conceptual metaphors were distinct. The findings both support and qualify the interlanguage continuum of L2 acquisition. Suggestions to integrate conceptual metaphors and metonymies so as to effectively raise EFL learners' awareness of abstract concepts are made for future empirical research.Keywords: English as foreign language, universality and specificity of culture, metaphor and metonymy, interlanguage, comprehension.

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This paper proposes that a family of four related constructions is needed to provide a more complete account for the syntactic and semantic generalizations and idiosyncrasies of the bun 1 causative constructions in Hakka by examining the features of CAUSER, CAUSEE, and EFFECT. The traditional claim of semantic entailment as a crucial feature of causation is argued to be too restrictive; pragmatic strengthening is argued to capture the dominant distribution of cause-act functions. In addition, in contrast to what is expected by the prototypical iconic sequencing of the participants in a causal chain, the sequence of a causing event and a resulting event from authentic data is shown to reveal a ground-figure asymmetry. The highlighting of the resulting event for information management is done by linguistic strategies such as topicalization or left-dislocation of CAUSEE and suppression of CAUSER. Such linguistic arrangements are speculated to prepare causative bun 1 for undergoing further grammaticalization into the passive function.

Most studies about figurative language learning focus on metaphor rather than metonymy; however, the interactions of metonymy and metaphor are so intricate that the boundary forms not a dichotomy but a continuum. Such a continuum and its influences on figurative language learning have not been studied in depth. The present study investigates EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners' responses to different metonymic and metaphoric expressions. Twenty-eight Taiwanese EFL learners participated in the study, which asked them to rate 40 sentences based on their certainty of figurative language use. The results show that EFL learners were capable of distinguishing between sentences with and without figurative expressions, and were more certain in judging metaphoric expressions than metonymic ones. Moreover, they found it easier to recognise expressions of the emotion anger than those of other topics. Their performances indicate that EFL learners are able to use their shared experiences to identify figurative language uses. This study suggests that it may be beneficial to integrate ideas of conceptual metonymy and metaphor to raise learners' awareness of abstract but universal concepts involved in figurative expressions.