Linguistic factors in children's understanding of idioms

Abstract

This study examined the effect of two linguistic factors on children's understanding of idioms. Kindergarten, first, third and fourth graders listened to idiomatic expressions either alone or at the end of short story contexts. Their task was to explain verbally the intended meanings of these idioms and then to choose the correct idiomatic interpretations of these phrases. The results showed that in the presence of supporting context younger children (kindergarten and first graders) understood idioms that were syntactically frozen (e.g. turn back the clock) better than they did idioms which can be seen in a variety of syntactic forms (e.g. lay down the law). Older children (third and fourth graders) comprehended both kinds of idiom equally well. Moreover, with context, children at all grade levels were better at explaining the figurative meanings of idioms whose literal and idiomatic interpretations were closely related (e.g. hold your tongues) than they were at explaining idioms whose literal and figurative meanings were not closely related (e.g. beat around the bush). Without context there were few significant differences noted in children's understanding of the different kinds of idiom. The significance of these findings for developmental models of idiom comprehension is discussed.

To Get Hold of the Wrong End of the Stick: Reasons for Poor Idiom Understanding in Children With Reading Comprehension Difficulties

“…However, the groups performed comparably on transparent idioms and did not differ on the measure of semantic analysis. These findings support other research on idioms that emphasises the importance of comprehending language in context (e.g., Gibbs, 1987;Levorato & Cacciari, 1995;Nippold & Martin, 1989). Further, our findings indicate that children with specific reading comprehension difficulties have a difficulty with the use of context to derive appropriate meanings of idioms, that is not fully accounted for by weak semantic processing abilities.…”

“…As a result, the skills used to process and understand language in context are thought to be important for the development of idiom understanding (Levorato & Cacciari, 1995). Populations who experience difficulties processing language in context often have poor idiom understanding (Norbury, 2004) and the presence of a supportive context boosts younger and older children's comprehension of idioms (Gibbs, 1987;Nippold & Martin, 1989).…”

That’s the way the cookie bounces: Syntactic and semantic components of experimentally elicited idiom blendsß

“…The naming times were slightly faster for decomposable idiom pairs (791 msec) than for nondecomposable pairs (804) Error analyses. To ensure that the null result could not be attributed to norming disparities, we compared ratings for overlapping items in the published literature (Gibbs, 1987;Gibbs, Nayak, Bolton, & Keppel, 1989;Gibbs, Nayak, & Cutting, 1989). Of the items in the present experiment, there were six used by Gibbs and his colleagues.…”

Kavram Karikatürlerinin Mobil Öğrenme Ortamında Ulaştırılmasının Ortaöğretimde İngilizce Deyim Öğrenmeye Etkisi

“…Eğitimde Whatsapp kullanımı, öğrencilerin öğrenilen konularla ilgili yapılan konuşma ve tartışmalara aktif katılımını teşvik ederek öğrencilerin öğrenme performansını arttırmaya imkân sağlar (Zayed, 2016). Çeşitli araştırmalarda Whatsapp'ın; işbirlikli öğrenme deneyimlerine katkı sağlamak (Bansal ve Joshi, 2014), tekrar ve alıştırma yapmak (Ashiyan ve Salehi, 2016) İngilizce'de Deyim Öğretimi: Bir dili tam olarak anlayabilmek için standart kullanımı dışında istisnai kullanımı da anlaşılmalıdır (Cronk ve Schweigert, 1992;Gibbs, 1987). Dile özgü deyimsel ifadeler de istisnai kullanımlardan biridir.…”

“…In order to fully understand a language, one has to understand both its literal and figurative use (Cronk & Schweigert, 1992;Gibbs, 1987). Language-specific idiomatic expressions exemplify figurative use of language.…”