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

Abstract

This study reports on a self-paced reading experiment exploring whether the figurativeness of collocations affects L2 processing of collocations. The participants were 40 English native speakers and 44 Chinese-speaking English foreign language learners (including doctoral, postgraduate, and undergraduate students). To ensure that the effect emerged from the figurativeness of collocations rather than other item-related confounds, this study added a literal-literal comparison (e.g., choose a career vs. choose a house) as a control to the experimental figurative-literal comparison (e.g., build a career vs. build a house). Results showed that L2 speakers processed figurative collocations more slowly than literal collocation controls but native speakers did not. Importantly, this processing cost for figurative collocations in L2 speakers varied by L2 proficiency but not phrase familiarity. We discuss the results in terms of the dualroute model of formulaic and novel language processing and also incorporate them into the literal salience model of bilingual figurative processing.We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers, Associate Editor Theres Grüter, and Editor Emma Marsden for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. We also thank Dr. Politzer-Ahles for his valuable suggestions and Prof. Shiyu Wu for sharing his skills in R in data analysis.

The processing advantage of multiword sequences: A meta-analysis

“…Despite these theoretical accounts, the absence of processing advantages of idioms in L2 speakers might result from other sources as well. For instance, Shi et al (2022) found that more proficient L2 speakers showed less delay when processing figurative collocations than less proficient L2 speakers did. They proposed that L2 speakers may shift from the computation approach to the direct retrieval approach once they become proficient enough in the target language.…”

Language Transfer in Chinese EFL Learners’ Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge of Delexical and Lexical Verb+Noun Collocations

“…For instance, Choi (2019) found that Korean EFL learners make quite a few collocational errors with delexical verbs, and Abdullah et al (2021) revealed that semantic deviations are more likely to occur with lexical verbs than with nouns to Malay ESL learners when it comes to the construction of verb+noun collocations in writing. In addition, Lexical verb+noun collocation, such as figurative collocations, pose a great challenge to Chinese EFL learenrs in a self-paced reading experiment (Shi et al, 2023). In the Chinese context, investigation on EFL learner use of verbs has often fallen under the error analysis tradition (e.g., Jiang, 2023;Yang, 2022;Xu & Zhou, 2022;Ye, 2019).…”

“…Another possible reason is that some lexical verbs in COLLEX5, for instance, clench, lodge, and shed are low-frequency words, the words, and their meanings may not be familiar to the study participants. This makes collocations even more challenging as figurative collocations are processed more slowly than literal collocations (Shi, Peng & Li, 2023). The patterns of incorrect answers can be analyzed based on RHM.…”

Are schematic diagrams valid visual representations of concepts? Evidence from mental imagery in online processing of English prepositions

“…Understanding figurative language involves cognitive effort in activating conceptual mapping between target and source domains (Lai & Curran, 2013), posing a greater challenge for L2 learners who lack sensitivity and familiarity with the metaphors in the target language (Horvat et al, 2021;Littlemore et al, 2011). It implies that L2 learners may compute the meaning of word components to reach an integral phrasal comprehension, contrasting with NSs who tend to process it as a whole with minimal computation during the phrasal processing (Shi et al, 2023).…”