The effect of imageability on efl leaners’ comprehension of english idioms

In contrast to the traditional treatment of idioms conceptualizing idioms as arbitrary “frozen” expressions Keysar and Bly, 1995, p.90 whose meaning cannot be deduced from their constitu

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

HO CHI MINH UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature

THE EFFECT OF IMAGEABILITY ON EFL LEANERS’

COMPREHENSION OF ENGLISH IDIOMS

A annual paper submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature

By Nguyễn Hoàng Trâm Anh

Supervised by Phó Phương Dung, PHD

HOCHIMINH CITY, APRIL 2014

CONTENTS

1 Introduction: 1

2 Definitions of idioms: 3

3 Idioms and learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL): 4

3.1 The importance of learning idioms: 4

3.1.1 Native speaker’s use of idioms: 4

3.1.2 Effective communication: 4

3.1.3 Subtle meanings and intentions: 4

3.1.4 Conciseness: 5

3.2 Difficulties in teaching and learning idioms: 5

3.2.1 Non-literalness/Arbitrariness: 5

3.2.2 Limited exposure to idioms: 5

3.2.3 Incorrect use: 5

3.2.4 Lack of appropriate materials: 5

3.2.5 Lack of learning methods: 6

3.2.6 Unawareness of the importance of idioms: 6

3.3 Transparency of idioms: 6

3.4 Imageability of idioms: 6

3.4.1 Conceptual metaphors: 7

3.4.2 Semantics of idiom’s elements: 8

3.4.3 Long-term retention: 8

3.5 Conceptual framework: A new strategy for enhancing comprehension and long-term retention: 9

4 Methodology: 9

4.1 Research questions: 10

4.2 Research instrument: 10

4.3 Research design: 10

4.3.1 Selection of idioms: 10

4.3.2 Selection of participants: 12

4.3.3 Data collection procedure: 12

4.3.4 Data analysis procedure: 13

4.4 Pilot experiment: 14

5 Conclusion: 18

Appendices 19

References 23

1

1 Introduction:

It cannot be denied that learning idioms are difficult and often overlooked; notwithstanding, idioms have already become such a significant component of English that they become one of the most important indicators of learner’s communicative competence For that reason, the ability to understand idioms is essentially required from English learners, especially those who are at higher level of studying

Although there are a variety of methods employing different aspects and features

of idioms in this field of promoting idiom learning, some share a common make-up: the exploitation of the “guessability” of idioms In contrast to the traditional treatment of idioms conceptualizing idioms as arbitrary “frozen” expressions (Keysar and Bly, 1995, p.90) whose meaning cannot be deduced from their constituents, recent studies on acquisition of idioms have raised a new perception basically proposing that the link between an idiomatic expression and its meaning is no arbitrary and that the meanings of idioms can actually be inferred by looking at the component words

The fact that the comprehension of idioms somewhat depends on the non-arbitrary connection between the literal meaning of constituent parts and the global figurative meaning has to do with the notion of transparency – another salient attribute of idioms beside non-literalness According to Keysar and Bly (1995), there are two main sources contributing to the transparency of idioms One is the conceptual metaphors underlying idioms and the other is the semantics of the idioms’ elements, both of which betoken that, more or less, there is some degree of relevance between the superficial parts of the idiomatic string and its intrinsic meaning Both of them shed some lights on another more interesting feature of idioms and the focus of this research as well: imageablity of idioms Therefore, maybe it would be sensible not to distinguish but regard conceptual metaphors and literal word meaning as systematic mechanisms cooperating with each other to generate the overall meaning an idiom The two existent strategies should be combined

and upscaled into a more effective strategy exploiting the imagery of idioms In fact, there are some researches that have examined the imageablity of idioms Their results suggest that the imagery of the words may increase the transparency of idioms as it is

“found to be good predictor(s) of learning” (Steinel, Hulstijn & Steinel, 2007, p.454)

However, there are few studies that really pay attention to the application of imagery in idiom instruction, let alone using it as hints for For that reason, from the viewpoint of enhancing idiom comprehension and retention, there is clearly a need to conduct a study that makes efforts in experimenting the strategy of using imageability as useful clues in working out the meanings of idioms

Objectives of the study:

This research attempts to provide both teachers and learners with a strategy to reduce the burden of teaching and learning idioms Adopting a cognitive approach regarding idioms as being motivated by the images stemming from the underlying conceptual metaphors and the semantics of the idiom’s elements, this paper sets its goal

on the establishment of a new strategy employing idioms’ imagery as an optimal way to retrieve their meanings If the following theoretical discussion and experimental case study confirm the effectiveness of the method in making sense of incongruous idioms, it will become a remedy for the comprehension problems Hopefully, with this method, learners will be able to improve their idiomatic competence and no longer find idioms

“hard nuts to crack” but actually “a piece of cake”

3

Significance of the study:

Idioms are remarkable obstacles; therefore, a useful tool should be provided with

as view to minimizing the failure of idiom comprehension and instruction That is what this research offers: a new strategy employing imageability of idioms as hints to identify their meanings Since not many international and local studies take imageabilty as their main focus and put it in teaching/learning application as hints for inferring idioms’ meanings, this specify study would be a practical contribution not only to the field of enhancing of learners’ comprehension of idioms in particular and their figurative competence in general but also to the notion of imageability

2 Definitions of idioms:

What is an idiom? There are many answers for this question

Homby (1995) defines an idiom as “a phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit” (as cited in Nguyen, 2010, p.15) Sharing the same point of view, Carter (1987, p.58) states that an idiom is “a restricted collocation which cannot be normally understood from the literal meaning of the words which make it up” Similarly, Seidl and Mordie (1970, p.20) define “an idiom is a number of words which, taken together, mean something different from the individual words of the idiom when they stand alone” This definition will be used as the operational definition in this paper

As can be seen from the above definitions, there are different ways to define an idiom In general, most of the linguists share the same point that an idiom is a fixed expression whose meaning cannot be worked out by looking at the meaning of its individual words In other words, an idiom has a non-compositional and non-literal meaning, which means its meaning cannot be deduced from those of its constituents; instead, the meaning can only be inferred as a whole unit For example: A mother says:

“My son is always full of beans He just wouldn’t stop running around.” Of course, the mother does not mean that her son is always bringing a lot of beans with him In fact, she

is conveying the idea that her son is so active and energetic that he does not want to stay still but run around all the time

3 Idioms and learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL):

3.1 The importance of learning idioms:

3.1.1 Native speaker’s use of idioms:

To sound native-like is a demand of every language learner One of the keys to achieving this level is the ability to use and understand idiomatic expressions such as idioms The reason is that idioms are very usually used by native speakers They use these expressions so frequently in everyday situations that they even may not be aware of their figurative nature (Zyzik, 2009) EFL learners, with a view to sounding more natural and less foreign, should turn themselves into being familiar with idioms

3.1.2 Effective communication:

Although native speakers use idioms very frequently in both spoken and written English, English learners, as a matter of fact, understand very little, if any, about what are being implied in the idioms used; in addition, they also often use idioms incongruous with the situation This, as a result, leads to several unexpected miscommunications between native and foreign speakers Hence, it can be seen that the capability of understanding correctly the meaning of idioms used counts a great deal in communicating effectively with English native speakers

3.1.3 Subtle meanings and intentions:

Having non-literal meanings, idioms are often preferred by native speakers whose purpose of using them is to convey subtle meanings or intentions that literal words cannot precisely express (Brenner, 2003) By learning idioms and how to use them appropriately, learners will be able to bring subtlety into their language and hence better describe their intentions

5

3.1.4 Conciseness:

Another reason why idioms are often used in preference to literal expressions is that idioms express things more concisely since they are composed of fewer words but says more (Brenner, 2003) They convey the meaning more succinctly and accurately than a long literal explanation, allowing speakers to avoid prolixity

3.2 Difficulties in teaching and learning idioms:

3.2.1 Non-literalness/Arbitrariness:

That the meaning expected to be understood is significantly different from what the words should literally mean, McPartland (1981) believes, is the main reason why idioms are remarkable obstacles that those who want to obtain a good understanding of idioms have to encounter

3.2.2 Limited exposure to idioms:

Ijuro (1986) also attributes the difficulty of idioms to learners’ limited exposure to them On the one hand, native speakers tend to use concrete, simple, everyday vocabulary when they address an EFL speaker, which means idioms are often omitted On the other hand, idioms are frequently used in movies and television However, movies and television do not provide learners with interactive situations which enable learners to clarify the meaning and receive feedback on use When watching movies and television, learners’ exposure to idioms occurs mainly in non-interactive situations “where there is

no opportunity for negotiation of meaning” (p.237)

3.2.3 Incorrect use:

Since idioms vary in formality from slangs and colloquialisms to those which can

be used in more formal situations, learners, even though they do know the meanings of a certain idiom, still probably cannot apply it in appropriate situations

3.2.4 Lack of appropriate materials:

Ijuro (1986) also claims that many language materials either ignore idioms entirely

or relegate to the “other expressions” section of vocabulary lists, without providing exercises for learning Rodriguez and Moreno (2009) agree with Ijuro that materials tend

to present idiomatic expressions in isolation as if they are “an oddity, as a quirk of language” (p.241) For such reasons, learners have the inclination to skip the section of idioms and tend to focus only on the main content of the material

3.2.5 Lack of learning methods:

Rodriguez and Moreno (2009) believes that learners are not provided with necessary and effective tools to learn idiomatic expressions, which leads to the fact that learners “come to think of English idioms as though they were the anomalous creations of

a whimsical people.”(p.241)

3.2.6 Unawareness of the importance of idioms:

Essential as idioms are, the majority of EFL learners are not aware enough or totally unaware of the importance of such vocabulary items Since learners attach little importance to the learning of idioms and do not recognize idioms as the tool to achieving more advanced level of English, they do not spend as much time to learn and practice their ability to use idioms as to study other aspects and skills of English like grammar, pronunciation, listening, writing, etc

3.3 Transparency of idioms:

Fernando (1996, p.38) defines idioms as “conventionalized multi-word expressions often, but not always, non-literal” Her definition suggests that not all idioms are wholly figurative and that the literal meanings of the individual words making up an idiom can be seen as constituents conferring its idiomatic meaning

3.4 Imageability of idioms:

Admittedly, motivation plays a crucial role in determining the transparency of idioms An idiom is motivated in the way that the connection between its global

is logical that in order to acquire better comprehension of an unfamiliar idiom, the process of analyzing the components of idioms based on conceptual metaphors and semantic features and the process of forming a mental image should take place concomitantly Beside the main function of providing effective inferential route to decode the figurative sense of an idiom, the application of imagery also considered as effective mnemonic strategy for long-term retention

3.4.1 Conceptual metaphors:

3.4.1.1 Idioms are metaphorical in nature:

Thanks to their metaphorical conceptual system, people seem to possess a certain degree of metaphoric (or figurative) competence, which is the ability to produce and understand abstract concepts in terms of more concrete ones Hence, as one of the main components of figurative language system, idioms tend to be treated as metaphorical constructions having underlying conceptual metaphors conferring their meanings

3.4.1.2 Cultural differences:

Since people of different cultures have different sensorimotor interaction and perception about the surrounding physical world in which they are living in, the way they produce and comprehend a metaphoric theme in an imageable idiom thereupon varies among them For that reason, it is especially difficult for language learners to understand what is actually being implied by a certain image grounded on a cultural experience that

is not familiar to them In the event when the imageable hints contain conventional images that cannot trigger any implication for meaning retrieval due to cross-cultural

difference, other explanation should be provided to support learners during their process

of using the imageable hints to infer relevant interpretation

3.4.2 Semantics of idiom’s elements:

3.4.2.1 Meanings of constituent words:

In concurrence with conceptual metaphors, the meanings of the component words also help construct the figurative meanings of idioms In that sense, idioms are partially composed of the literal meanings of their constituents

3.4.2.2 Inference process:

When a hearer encounters an unfamiliar idiom, he/she can determine its interpretation by drawing relevant assumptions from the internal semantics of elements This means, the literal meanings of the constituent words denoting some kind of concepts can help the hearer to arrive at a number of related assumptions by means of which he/she can infer the overall idiomatic meaning These assumptions are grounded on the hearer’s general knowledge and experience from interaction with the world

3.4.3 Long-term retention:

3.4.3.1 Effect of imageability on long-term retention:

Since one of the major contributors to the degree of motivation of an idiom is its imageability, the images conjured by the idiom can also be of great use when it comes to recalling what the idiom means after a long period of time The higher degree of imageability an idiom possesses, the more likely it is for the meaning of that idiom to be retained in the learners’ memory The imagistic approach seems to be on the same wavelength with this, suggesting that mental imagery can have fruitful effect on the comprehension and retention of figurative senses

3.4.3.2 Mnemonic techniques:

It is evident that learning by mental images is a beneficial memory aid for term retention In order to ensure that the imageable hints increase the chances that the

long-9

idiomatic meanings can be saved in the minds of learners, they should be elevated in terms of vividness By doing this, learners will be able associate idioms with impressive images conducive to the figurative senses of the idioms.That is why a mnemonic device

is needed to enhance their capability to remember and hence successfully recall what a given idiom should mean Due to idioms’ non-literalness and learners’ limited exposure

to them, which make learning idioms an exceptionally difficult task, this method is considered effective as it encodes pieces of information into vivid, colorful, astounding, evocative pictures (or motion pictures) in one’s memory This, as a result, may be entailed by learners’ ability to easily trigger the related information about the idioms The more vivid the pictures are the easier and quicker it is to recall the stored information

3.5 Conceptual framework: A new strategy for enhancing comprehension and term retention:

4 Methodology:

4.1 Research questions:

The study is guided by the following question:

- Will learners’ performance on inferring the meanings of idioms with enclosed imageable hints be better than performance on inferring the meanings of those idioms without enclosed imageable hints?

4.2 Research instrument:

As this is a research to gain in-depth information, the method of case study will be employed to investigate into the effect of imageability on how participants infer idiomatic meanings of idioms With the purpose to examine the extent to which the strategy of using mental images to identify the figurative senses of idioms is effective to EFL learners, an experiment will be conducted in which the participants have to try to guess the meanings of selected idioms based on the imageable hints available After the experiment, the participants will be also interviewed in order to justify the real effect of the new strategy on their performance

4.3 Research design:

4.3.1 Selection of idioms:

The idioms used in the experiment will be taken from the research of Boers and Demecheleer (1999) In order to guarantee that the idioms to be tested in their study were comparable in terms of transparency, Boers and Demecheleer asked “blind judges” who were native speakers of English and also experienced EFL teachers to rate the degree of difficulty of the idioms on a scale from 1 (very easy, transparent) to 5 (very difficult, opaque) They only kept those that were rated 2 or 3 (intermediately transparent) for the experiment, meaning that the idioms that were perceived as highly transparent or as highly opaque were not chosen As a result, the researchers reached final selection of idioms as follows:

1 Pass the hat around

11

2 Talk through one’s hat

3 Keep something under one’s hat

4 Hang up one’s hat

5 Sail through something

6 Take something on board

7 Laugh up one’s sleeve

8 Have something up one’s sleeve

9 Hang on someone’s sleeve

10 Wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve

11 Have egg on one’s face

12 Cry over spilt milk

It should be also emphasized that based on the principles to select idioms to put into test constructed by Steinel et al (2007, p.460), there are 3 criteria that the idioms must meet The first one is that the constituent words of the idioms must be familiar to the participants so that the unknown meanings of individual words will not affect the degree of transparency and hamper the comparability of the idioms In this criterion, the idioms selected above are acceptable since all of their constituent words were believed to

be familiar to advanced learners of EFL However, to avoid the worst scenario that some

of the words cannot be understood, participants of this study will be asked to read through all of the idioms and say aloud any unfamiliar constituent word Explanation for those words will be provided The second criterion requires the idioms not have one-to-one literal equivalents in Vietnamese This should not be a problem as there exist no idioms in Vietnamese that denote similar meanings and simultaneously have exactly the same constituent words as those in English The last criterion is that the idioms have to be unfamiliar to the participants so that the participants’ prior knowledge cannot affect the result of the experiment which is originally designed to test the performance of the participants on unknown idioms However, in their research, Boers and Demecheleer (1999) did not leave out the familiar idioms after their experiment was actually carried