The comprehension of idioms: The effects of familiarity, literalness, and usage

Abstract

The relationships among the familiarity of an idiom's figurative meaning, the likelihood of its literal meaning (literalness), and its usage were explored. Previous research has been inconsistent in supporting any one model of idiom comprehension, although certain factors have been found to affect reading times of sentences containing idioms. Consistent with this research, familiarity was found to have a significant effect on reading times for sentences containing idioms. A significant new finding is that literalness affects reading times. Additionally, it was found that familiarity and literalness exert interactive effects, suggesting a common underlying mechanism. The results are interpreted as supporting a model of idiom comprehension in which a single phrase processor simultaneously computes figurative and literal meanings of idioms.

Why are idioms recognized fast?

“…Also, familiarity can explain the greater ease with which people typically process literal idiomatic expressions in their figurative rather than literal interpretation (Popiel & McRae, 1988;Schweigert, 1986). Finally, it is well known that familiarity modulates the processing time of idioms, since highly familiar idioms are processed faster than are less familiar ones (Cronk & Schweigert, 1992;Schraw, Trathen, Reynolds, & Lapan, 1988;Schweigert & Moates, 1988). However, whether low familiarity idioms still exhibit the idiom superiority effect has not yet been clarified, and further research is necessary to assess whether the prediction following from the present hypothesisthat the effect should disappear or be very reduced as familiarity decreases-actually holds.…”

“…One way to capture this distinction is to note that the two types of expressionsidioms and controls-differ in terms of familiarity, a variable well known to influence the processing of both individual words and idioms (Connine, Mullennix, Shernoff, & Yelen, 1990;Gernsbacher, 1984;Schweigert, 1986). Obviously, not all idioms are equally familiar; some are more familiar than others, and there is evidence that more familiar idioms are processed faster than less familiar ones are (Cronk, Lima, & Schweigert, 1993;Cronk & Schweigert, 1992). Unfortunately, in the early studies that established the idiom superiority effect, familiarity of the idiomatic strings is not always available (Gibbs, 1980; clichés should all be equally faster than matched control expressions.…”

The Effect of Three Techniques for Teaching English Idioms to Iranian TEFL Undergraduates

“…Over a period of three weeks, the performance of the picture group on learning the form of decomposable idioms is significantly better than the performance of the translation group (mean difference. 16) There was a statistically significant difference at the p< .05 level in the scores for the three groups: F(2, 657) = 8.852, p = .000.Also, a one-way ANOVA between groups analysis of variance was conducted to explore the impact of the instruction types on learning the form of decomposable idioms, as measured by the second posttest. There was a statistically significant difference at the p< .05 level in the scores for the three groups: F (2, 657) = 9.336, p = .000.…”

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.…”