A double-edged sword: Metaphor and metonymy through pictures for learning idioms (original) (raw)
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The Effect of Conceptual Metaphors on Learning Idioms by L2 Learners
International Journal of English Linguistics, 2012
This study examined the effect of conceptual metaphors on learning idioms by L2 learners. Seventy juniors participated in this study. They were grouped into two: Group 1 as the experimental group and Group 2 as the control group. Group 1 (n = 40) learned the idioms by conceptual metaphors and Group 2 (n = 30) by traditional methods. The participants were given a pretest in order to check the comprehension and production of idioms, metaphors, and conceptual metaphors. After the pretest, the idioms were instructed to both groups. The first group received conceptual metaphor instruction and the second group the traditional methods. The idiom instruction lasted for one semester. Then, the posttest was given to the participants. Result showed that conceptual metaphors had a significant effect on learning idioms by the L2 participants (Group 1). Results also pointed to the fact that the effect of conceptual metaphors on learning idioms was more than that of traditional methods. Group 2 could learn idioms, but failed to draw the meaning of idioms because their metaphorical awareness had not developed.
Conceptual metaphoric meaning clues in two L2 idiom presentation methods
2008
Cognitive linguists have been exploring how giving learners information about the motivation of L2 idioms can facilitate comprehension and retention. Results overall are encouraging, but the relative effectiveness of different proposals has not yet been examined. In this chapter I report a small-scale experiment that was set up to compare the relative effectiveness of two CL-inspired idiom presentation methods. In both conditions learners were presented with idioms that were grouped under conceptual metaphors (CMs). In one condition the meaning of each idiom was given, while in the other condition the learners were encouraged to use CM clues to guess the meaning before it was explained. Post-test results suggest that the addition of a guessing task is likely to enhance the effectiveness of presenting idioms in CM groups. The participants were relatively unsuccessful at guessing the meaning of the idioms correctly, though, and this indicates that a fair amount of guidance and feedbac...
Teaching Idioms with Conceptual Metaphors and Visual Representations
The Internet TEFL Journal, 57, 2005
The cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words” has been used in connection with everything from directions to the baseball stadium to the anatomy of a flea, but we do not readily think of it in connection with idiom instruction. The teaching of idioms in the EFL classroom is at the same time of great interest to the student, difficult for them to grasp, and problematic to teach for the instructor, as is figurative language in general. The instructor often introduces the idiom by defining it, using it in a few sentences, asking students for questions, and then sending them home with instructions to memorize it for a test. Idiom textbooks often have idioms arranged in lessons or units according to words they contain, e.g., body parts, clothing, colors, plants, sports, weather (e.g., Root & Blanchard, 1999), or even according to the literal meaning of idiomatic expressions (e.g., Collis, 1987). A more methodologically sound approach to teaching figurative expressions such as idioms seems necessary. This study suggests the use of the cognitive linguistic constructs of conceptual metaphor and image schema as part of such an approach. Rather than thinking of metaphor as an extraordinary form of discourse characteristic of literary language, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have shown that metaphor is a fundamental property of everyday language and a powerful cognitive tool for the conceptualization of abstract categories. Image schemas, as discussed in Lakoff (1987), Lakoff and Turner (1989), and Johnson (1987), are characterized as recurring basic abstract conceptual structures that occur in our conceptualizations of the world and play a fundamental role in cognitive semantic processes. These cognitive linguistic concepts, though formulated for a theoretical explanation of linguistic processes rather that practical ELT application, are being adapted in this study to ascertain their efficacy for the teaching of idioms.
The Effect of Learner-generated Illustrations on the Immediate And Delayed Recall of English Idioms
Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 2014
The present study investigated the effect of learner generated illustrations on the immediate and delayed idiom recall of Iranian EFL (English as a foreign language) learners. To accomplish this end, 40 female students participated in this study. A placement test (Quick Placement Test, Version 2) was administered to the participants to ascertain that they were all at intermediate level of proficiency. Since the design of the study was quasi experimental, they were randomly assigned to control (N: 20) and experimental (N: 20) groups. A pretest of idioms was given to the participants to ensure that they were homogeneous in terms of their knowledge of idioms. Both groups were provided with the clarification of idioms through definitions and examples. However the experimental group was required to draw their own mental image of the idioms on a paper. At the end of the treatment, students took an immediate posttest of idioms. After an interval of 2 weeks, a similar posttest was given to ...
A Conceptual Metaphor-based Approach to Facilitate English Idiom Comprehension
Koya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
The study explores the pedagogical feasibility of Conceptual Metaphor-based Approach to teaching idioms to Kurdish university-level EFL students to find out to what extent the approach enhances idiom comprehension, and whether it is better than traditionally practiced approaches accordingly. Additionally, the aim of this study is to check the L1 transfer and interference role in comprehension of idioms by the participants, and how idiom grouping under corresponding Conceptual Metaphors helps students in figuring out L1 equivalents. The quantitative data were based on and collected from testing 73 participants who were divided into an experimental and a control group. Results showed that the experimental group participants outscored the control group participants, and the difference was statistically significant. Though, the traditional group had better posttest scores in comparison to their pretest. Findings also reveal that clustering idioms around corresponding Conceptual Metaphor...
Metaphor in Idiom Comprehension
Journal of Memory and Language, 1997
Psycholinguistic research has shown that people's tacit knowledge of conceptual metaphors, such as ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER, partly motivates how they make sense of idiomatic phrases like blow your stack and flip your lid. But do people quickly access conceptual metaphors each time an idiom is encountered in discourse? The present studies used a priming method to examine the role of conceptual metaphors in immediate idiom comprehension. Experiment 1 showed that people access conceptual metaphors when understanding idioms, but significantly less so when processing literal paraphrases of idioms. Experiment 2 demonstrated that people access the appropriate conceptual metaphors, such as ANGER IS HEAT, when processing some idioms, such as blow your stack, but not when they read idioms, such as jump down your throat, which have similar figurative meanings that are motivated by different conceptual metaphors (e.g., ANGER IS ANIMAL BEHAVIOR). The findings from these studies provide important evidence on the constraining role that common patterns of metaphoric thought have in figurative language understanding.
Interpreting metaphors and idioms: Some effects of context on comprehension
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1978
Two experiments are described in which reaction times for understanding target sentences or phrases in terms of a preceding context Were measured. In Experiment 1, the target sentences followed either short or long contexts which induced either literal interpretations or metaphorical ones. Results indicated that only in the short context condition did subjects take significantly longer to understand metaphorical than literal targets. This interaction is explained in terms of the availability of appropriate schemata for interpreting the target. In Experiment 2, targets were phrases that could be given either an idiomatic or a literal interpretation. It was found that the comprehension of phrases receiving an idiomatic interpretation took no longer than the comprehension of those same phrases when given a literal interpretation, and there was some evidence that idiomatic interpretations were consistently faster. It is argued that both experiments can be accounted for in terms of contextually generated expectations. The processes required for the comprehension of figurative and literal uses of language seem to be essentially similar.
The fact that language plays the most important role among human beings is of no question. The impact of conceptual metaphors are more significant when it comes to second and foreign language contexts where the target language is being learned with the hope of being used for successful communication. In the present study, a group of 60 Iranian intermediate EFL learners were selected and their performance on metaphors was analyzed after the treatment sessions which were based on two ways of teaching metaphors, namely explicit instruction and input enhancement. A pretest, post-test experimental design was conducted to investigate the effect of explicit teaching of conceptual metaphors and linguistic enhancement of linguistic metaphors and see their effect on comprehension and retention of idioms in two intermediate English classes in the EFL context of Kermanshah, Iran. The results of statistical analysis, independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test, showed that the conceptual way of teaching had a statistical significant priority over that of input enhancement in both the post-test and the delayed posttest.
Cognitive Processing of English Idioms and Implications for Language Teaching
Journal of Science, HCMC University of Education, 2015
Traditionally, idioms in English are treated as a composite expression from which meaning cannot be predicted from individual components. From the cognitive viewpoint, this paper revisits the mental processes in human brain when dealing with idioms and discusses the conceptual metaphor theory as an alternative to the traditional view of English idioms. From examples of English idioms analyzed, the paper proves that idiom meaning in English is activated by conceptual metaphor rather than being abstract.
Conceptual metaphors are not automatically accessed during idiom comprehension
Memory & Cognition, 1993
Do conceptual analogies motivate idiom use and comprehension in discourse? For example, a story in which a person is described as fuming would be analogically consistent with an idiom such as blew her top, but inconsistent with an idiom such as bite his head off. Earlier work by Nayak and Gibbs (1990) had suggested that people use such analogical information during idiom comprehension, We replicated their findings in an idiom choice task, suggesting that people can indeed make use of such knowledge. However, when reading times were used to assess idiom comprehensibility, no effects of analogical consistency were found, We conclude that conceptual analogies play little, if any, role in idiom comprehension unless people have the time (and motivation) to make considered judgments. 711 Idioms are typically described as frozen phrases whose meanings are stipulated directly in a mental lexicon. Thus, the meaning of a phrase such as to kick the bucket would be represented in an idiom or phrasal lexicon simply as "to die" (Bobrow & Bell, 1973; Swinney & Cutler, 1979), Many idioms, however, are more complex and dynamic. Consider, for example, idioms such as carrying coals to Newcastle or locking the bam door after the horses have been stolen. Such idioms may well have meanings stipulated in a phrasal lexicon, but they are also recognized as alluding to prototypical instances of the concepts that they refer to (Glucksberg, in press). Thus, these idioms are fully compositional in that they are both semantically and syntactically productive. One can, for example, say, in reference to the savings and loan scandal of this decade, "they never did lock the barn door until after the barn was stolen." Such novel and productive twists on idioms are understood easily by anyone familiar with the original idioms (Glucksberg, 1991; McGlone, Glucksberg, & Cacciari, in press). Another class of idiomatic expressions may also require fairly complex representational assumptions. Expressions for many abstract concepts seem to cluster in terms of underlying conceptual analogies. Thus, we speak of time in spatial terms, of relationships with others as journeys, of successand failure as directionsof movement (Kovecses, 1986; Traugott, 1975, 1985), Many such abstract concepts can be conceptualized in systematically different ways. Anger, for example, can be conceptualized in any one of several specific ways (Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff &