Bilingual Figurative Language Processing

Figurativeness Matters in the Second Language Processing of Collocations: Evidence From a Self‐Paced Reading Experiment

“…Although L2 proficiency plays a role, the significant figurativeness effect that we found indicates that a direct shift from literal computation to simultaneous activation is unlikely to happen for L2‐dominant learners, especially for those who learn their L2 in a foreign language learning environment (Cieślicka, 2017). As Figure 3 illustrates, the Figurativeness × Comparison interaction—the figurativeness effect—did not disappear until L2 proficiency reached 95 points out of 100, which is in line with the finding by Werkmann Horvat, Bolognesi, and Kohl (2021) that figurative language, even very conventional, has a special status in the L2 mental lexicon.…”

“…It follows that low‐proficiency L2 speakers might have less developed associative links between the components of figurative collocations due to limited L2 exposure or knowledge. This leaves them the computational route as the most available option, forcing low‐proficiency L2 speakers through the literal and indirect access of figurative language (Cieślicka, 2017; Clark & Lucy, 1975).…”

“…Thus, when they encounter an idiom like flog a dead horse in the sentence We've all moved on from that problem, so there's no use flogging a dead horse , nonnative speakers might first think of the literal meaning of each word in the idiom and interpret the phrase as meaning that a dead horse had been beaten, leading to a failure to understand the sentence. Therefore, the figurative computation happens only when the literal interpretation fails or is determined to be inappropriate (Cieślicka, 2017; Clark & Lucy, 1975). The literal‐first obligation observed in the L2 processing of ambiguous idioms has provided suggestive evidence that computational analysis is more of a default route for L2 speakers than direct retrieval when they are accessing figurative phrases like idioms.…”

“…Using a cross‐modal semantic priming paradigm, Werkmann Horvat, Bolognesi, and Kohl (2021) investigated L2 processing of conventional metaphorical expressions and found that figurative meanings of even very conventional metaphors could cause difficulty for advanced‐level L2 speakers. Much of the literature on L2 processing of figurative expressions has focused on idioms (Cieślicka, 2017; Werkmann Horvat, Bolognesi, & Lahiri, 2021). A recurring finding for idioms is that learners usually take longer to process the figurative meaning of idioms (either L2 idioms or translated L1 idioms) than they do for the literal meanings of idioms (Carrol & Conklin, 2014, 2017; Siyanova‐Chanturia, Conklin, & Schmitt, 2011).…”

Socio-cultural and individual factors in verbal irony use and understanding: What we know, what we don’t know, what we want to know

“…The study on Arabic and English bilinguals and English monolinguals by Peters et al (2016), described below, also has implications for the role of bilingualism in irony understanding and use, as less efficient irony comprehension might (due to a lower ability to use prosodic cues to aid interpretation) lead to less frequent irony use in L2 contexts. Although research on bilingualism and irony (in either L1 or L2) remains scarce (Cieślicka, 2017), tories," which suggests "the relevance of culture-specific influences" (406), in particular the given nation's socioeconomic status. Thus, including this variable in a cross-cultural study of irony use seems pertinent.…”