Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Mantyla, Katja

Titel

Idioms and language users: The effect of the characteristics of idioms on their recognition and interpretation by native and non -native speakers of English

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2004

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This study investigates the recognition and interpretation of English idioms by native and non-native speakers. The main aims were to find how different characteristics of idioms affect their interpretation, how unanimous (native) language users are about meanings of idioms, and finally, how well second language learners recognise English idioms. Although the significance of vocabulary and of lexical phrases, or language ‘chunks’ in language learning has been acknowledged, idioms have yet been neglected. The characteristics of idioms have been discussed as have been processing and storing them in the memory. Studies on idioms have, however, concentrated on native speakers. Yet, idioms are frequently used in everyday language, particularly in the media. Therefore, some knowledge and awareness of idioms is important to non-native learners especially at a more advanced level. This study defines an idiom as a figurative multi-word expression whose meaning is different from the sum of the literal meanings of its constituents. The respondents in the study were 36 British university students, and 144 Finnish university students of English. The material was gathered through a multiple-choice questionnaire comprising 65 idioms, and a background questionnaire on the language contacts of the respondents. The results suggest that English idioms are fairly difficult for Finnish students. The easiest were the idioms that had an identical equivalent in Finnish, e.g. give the green light—näyttää vihreää valoa. The tendency to seek assistance in the mother tongue also led to erroneous interpretations. Finnish students erred at false friends, such as the last straw—viimeinen oljenkorsi , and at idioms that shared a word with a Finnish idiom, such as keep your head down—työntää päänsä pensaaseen . The students tended to pick the one shared word and interpret the Finnish idiom containing that word as an equivalent. Thus, they failed to recognise idioms as wholes, and to compare the images that the literal meanings of idioms in the two languages create. The responses by native speakers showed that the meanings of idioms are a complex issue. Even though meanings are often taken for granted, and also expressed as such by dictionaries, the results showed that native speakers frequently disagreed on idiom meanings.