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Journal articles on the topic 'Figurativa idiom'
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1
Kędzierska, Hanna, Joanna Błaszczak, Dorota Klimek-Jankowska, Piotr Gulgowski, and Wojciech Witkowski. "Idioms in Context: Evidence from a Time Cloze-Response Study." Zeitschrift für Slawistik 65, no. 4 (October 30, 2020): 535–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/slaw-2020-0025.
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Summary This article reports on two timed cloze-response experiments which examine the impact of context on idiom recognition. Study 1 presented participants with the beginnings of Polish VP idioms without any prior context. Cloze probabilities and response times for idiom continuations were measured to establish the idiom recognition point (IRP) for each idiom. In Study 2, we used the same idioms in two kinds of contexts: (i) supporting a figurative meaning and (ii) supporting a literal meaning. Cloze probability and response times were measured at the IRP and one word before and after it. The figurative meaning of idioms was automatically activated at the IRP independently of the type of context. Additionally, the figurative context did not move the IRP to an earlier position, whereas in the literal context the responses were significantly slower at the IRP as compared to the figurative context condition. Such a finding indicates that, irrespective of the literal context, the comprehenders automatically activated the figurative meaning of an idiom at the IRP, but they had to discard it later. The literal meaning was computed from the literal meanings of idiom constituents stored in idiom lexical representation, which was computationally costly.
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Titone, Debra, and Maya Libben. "Time-dependent effects of decomposability, familiarity and literal plausibility on idiom meaning activation." Mental Lexicon 9, no. 3 (December 31, 2014): 473–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ml.9.3.05tit.
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We address a core question about idioms relevant to formulaic language generally: are the figurative meanings of idioms directly retrieved or compositionally built? An understanding of this question has been previously obscured by the fact that idioms vary in ways that can affect processing, and also because experimental tasks, which differ across studies, probe different kinds of comprehension processes. We thus investigate how linguistic differences among idioms in semantic decomposability, familiarity, and literal plausibility modulate figurative meaning activation using cross-modal semantic priming, which is ideal for tracking activation of a particular target meaning over time. Across two experiments, we obtained two key findings. First, a comparison of different prime-target delay conditions suggests that figurative meaning activation steadily accrues as the idiom unfolds to 1000 ms later. Second, different linguistic attributes of idioms modulate figurative activation at different time points: increased literal plausibility interferes with idiom priming prior to the offset of the phrase, increased familiarity facilitates idiom priming at phrase offset, and increased semantic decomposability (surprisingly) interferes with idiom priming 1000 ms following phrase offset. These results contradict strong decompositional models of idiom processing and rather suggest that multiple linguistic factors jointly constrain figurative meaning retrieval in a time-dependent fashion.
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Cacciari, Cristina. "Processing multiword idiomatic strings." Mental Lexicon 9, no. 2 (November 21, 2014): 267–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ml.9.2.05cac.
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Idioms are strings of words whose figurative meaning does not necessarily derive from that of the constituent parts. They belong to the vast and heterogeneous realm of multiword expressions, i.e. literal and non-literal word clusters whose representations are stored in semantic memory. This article provides an updated review of the psycholinguistic and electrophysiological literature on the processes underlying idiom comprehension with specific reference to the cues that lead to idiom recognition, to the syntactic and semantic behavior of idioms, to the relationships between literal compositionality and idiomatic meaning retrieval. Behavioral models of idiom comprehension are presented and discussed also with respect to the electrophysiological correlates of idiom and figurative language comprehension.
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Kyriacou, Marianna, Kathy Conklin, and Dominic Thompson. "Passivizability of Idioms: Has the Wrong Tree Been Barked Up?" Language and Speech 63, no. 2 (May 19, 2019): 404–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0023830919847691.
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A growing number of studies support the partial compositionality of idiomatic phrases, while idioms are thought to vary in their syntactic flexibility. Some idioms, like kick the bucket, have been classified as inflexible and incapable of being passivized without losing their figurative interpretation (i.e., the bucket was kicked ≠ died). Crucially, this has never been substantiated by empirical findings. In the current study, we used eye-tracking to examine whether the passive forms of (flexible and inflexible) idioms retain or lose their figurative meaning. Active and passivized idioms ( he kicked the bucket/the bucket was kicked) and incongruous active and passive control phrases (he kicked the apple/the apple was kicked) were inserted in sentences biasing the figurative meaning of the respective idiom ( die). Active idioms served as a baseline. We hypothesized that if passivized idioms retain their figurative meaning ( the bucket was kicked = died), they should be processed more efficiently than the control phrases, since their figurative meaning would be congruous in the context. If, on the other hand, passivized idioms lose their figurative interpretation ( the bucket was kicked = the pail was kicked), then their meaning should be just as incongruous as that of both control phrases, in which case we would expect no difference in their processing. Eye movement patterns demonstrated a processing advantage for passivized idioms (flexible and inflexible) over control phrases, thus indicating that their figurative meaning was not compromised. These findings challenge classifications of idiom flexibility and highlight the creative nature of language.
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Dobrovol’skij, Dmitrij, and Elisabeth Piirainen. "Conventional Figurative Language Theory and idiom motivation." Yearbook of Phraseology 9, no. 1 (November 1, 2018): 5–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/phras-2018-0003.
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AbstractThe central point of discussion is how idiom motivation is reflected in the Conventional Figurative Language Theory. Most lexical units are motivated to a certain extent, i.e. they point to their actual meaning via the meanings of their parts, either parts of their structure or of their conceptual basis. Several types of motivation can be distinguished in the field of phraseology. Apart from the quite small number of idioms where no comprehensible link can be found between the literal reading and the figurative meaning that would allow for a meaningful interpretation of a given expression, all other idioms have to be considered transparent or motivated. Idioms form a very heterogeneous domain in terms of motivation. There are levels of motivation and semantic predictability both from the perspective of a speaker and from the perspective of the semantic structure of a given unit. In this paper, we present a typology of motivation that captures all types of transparent idioms. The typology of idiom motivation connects our theory to the Cognitive Theory of Metaphor and to the Construction Grammar approaches.
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Siyanova-Chanturia, Anna, Kathy Conklin, and Norbert Schmitt. "Adding more fuel to the fire: An eye-tracking study of idiom processing by native and non-native speakers." Second Language Research 27, no. 2 (February 21, 2011): 251–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0267658310382068.
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Using eye-tracking, we investigate on-line processing of idioms in a biasing story context by native and non-native speakers of English. The stimuli are idioms used figuratively ( at the end of the day — ‘eventually’), literally ( at the end of the day — ‘in the evening’), and novel phrases ( at the end of the war). Native speaker results indicate a processing advantage for idioms over novel phrases, as evidenced by fewer and shorter fixations. Further, no processing advantage is found for figurative idiom uses over literal ones in a full idiom analysis or in a recognition point analysis. Contrary to native speaker results, non-native findings suggest that L2 speakers process idioms at a similar speed to novel phrases. Further, figurative uses are processed more slowly than literal ones. Importantly, the recognition point analysis allows us to establish where non-natives slow down when processing the figurative meaning.
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Cronk, Brian C., and Wendy A. Schweigert. "The comprehension of idioms: The effects of familiarity, literalness, and usage." Applied Psycholinguistics 13, no. 2 (April 1992): 131–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0142716400005531.
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ABSTRACTThe 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.
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Kurniasy, Dessy, and Eka Sonia. "AN IDIOMATIC EXPRESSION ANALYSIS ON AN AUTHENTIC MATERIAL “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE MOVIE” A MOVIE FROM JANE AUSTEN BOOK." JL3T ( Journal of Linguistics Literature and Language Teaching) 6, no. 1 (August 16, 2020): 55–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.32505/jl3t.v6i1.1883.
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The study was aimed to find and analyzed about how many idiom consist in Pride and Prejudice (2005) Movie, what are the meanings of idiom in Pride and Prejudice (2005). The data was taken from dialog line of the actor and actresses in the Pride and Prejudice (2005) where it was the script of the movie. Research design in this study was descriptive qualitative research. The technique used by the writer to collect the data was documentation. The finding showed that there are four classifications of idiom according to the Moon in Mabruroh (2015); those are transparent idioms, semi-transparent idioms, semi-opaque idioms, and opaque idioms. Transparent idioms are those idioms which are easy to comprehend its constituent meaning. Semi-transparent idioms are the idioms that usually have metaphorical meaning and their constituent parts have a little role in comprehending the whole meaning of the expression. Semi-opaque idioms are the group of idioms whose figurative meaning is not related to the meaning of their constituent words, in other words, the idiomatic expression is separated into two parts; a part with literal meaning, and the other part with a figurative meaning. The last is opaque idioms which is the idioms where the literal meaning of their parts have little to do with actual sense of idiom because it has cultural reference item. Transparent idioms that has been found in the movie is about 25 idioms, semi-transparent idioms is about 20 idioms, whether semi-opaque idioms are found about 17 idioms and the last, opaque idioms that has been found in the movie is about 18 idioms.
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Raflis, Raflis, and Rafli Candra. "An analysis of Idiom Using In “The Rising of The Shield Hero”." Jurnal Ilmiah Langue and Parole 3, no. 1 (December 31, 2019): 50–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.36057/jilp.v3i1.388.
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This study aims to find out the use, contextual meaning, and types of idioms in a film titled "The Rising of the Shield Hero". An idiom is an expression that contains words, phrases or clauses that often use figurative language that is often used in communication. The meaning of an idiom is very different from the literal meaning, the idiom itself does not describe one of the words that form it. The researcher used the theory of idiom types based on Boatner and Gates and contextual meaning based on Parera. The purpose of this research; identify what types of idioms in the film, and analyze the contextual meaning in the film. This research is qualitative method, the data has been taken from the film script and analyzed. The result is indicate that idioms can be found in each forms with idiom identified in the film: there are 72 idioms in 4 forms, 52 lexemic idioms, 16 phraseological idioms, 1 frozen idiom, 3 proverbs. The most idiom are lexemic and it is hard to find frozen idioms. Finally, all of these idioms have related meanings based on the contextual meaning in the film.
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Gibbs, Raymond W. "Linguistic factors in children's understanding of idioms." Journal of Child Language 14, no. 3 (October 1987): 569–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900010291.
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ABSTRACTThis 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.
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Zulnaidi, Zulnaidi, and Erna Januarini. "THE FORM AND MEANING OF IDIOM RELATED HUMAN BODY IN JAPAN AND MINANGKABAU LANGUAGE." Jurnal Kata 1 (May 21, 2020): 44. http://dx.doi.org/10.22216/kata.v1i0.5070.
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<em>This study discusses Japanese and Minangkabau idioms that relate to members of the human body, namely the head, face and hands. This research was conducted to analyze the form of idioms using a semantic approach with idiomatic theory. The method used in this paper was descriptive analysis of qualitative. Data sources were observed from the book that contained Japanese idioms and language Minangkabau. Based on the results of many studies. It is found that idioms with limbs that declare of good feelings in psychological feelings and personality feelings. In Japanese there is the idiom named "atama ga agaranai" and the Minangkabau language "gadang kapalo" which relates to the shape and meaning of the limbs. The meaning of idom in Japanese is not the real meaning. While the meaning of idioms in the Minangkabau language, the meaning of idioms shows the figurative meanings and many vocabularies in the form of poetry or “pepatah petitih” whose proverbs have meaning and form resembling idioms. Whereas in Japanese do not have rhymes, petitih and so on.</em>
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CARROL, GARETH, and KATHY CONKLIN. "Cross language lexical priming extends to formulaic units: Evidence from eye-tracking suggests that this idea ‘has legs’." Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20, no. 2 (April 20, 2015): 299–317. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1366728915000103.
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Idiom priming effects (faster processing compared to novel phrases) are generally robust in native speakers but not non-native speakers. This leads to the question of how idioms and other multiword units are represented and accessed in a first (L1) and second language (L2). We address this by investigating the processing of translated Chinese idioms to determine whether known L1 combinations show idiom priming effects in non-native speakers when encountered in the L2. In two eye-tracking experiments we compared reading times for idioms vs. control phrases (Experiment 1) and for figurative vs. literal uses of idioms (Experiment 2). Native speakers of Chinese showed recognition of the L1 form in the L2, but figurative meanings were read more slowly than literal meanings, suggesting that the non-compositional nature of idioms makes them problematic in a non-native language. We discuss the results as they relate to crosslinguistic priming at the multiword level.
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Sulikowska, Anna. "Zur Rolle der Bildhaftigkeit in der Konstituierung der Semantik von Idiomen." Germanica Wratislaviensia 141 (February 15, 2017): 319–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.19195/0435-5865.141.21.
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Aus der semantischen Perspektive besteht die Bedeutung der Idiome aus zwei Komponenten: aus der literalen wörtlichen Bedeutung und aus der lexikalisierten übertragenen, phraseologischen Bedeutung. Üblicherweise wird angenommen, dass die beiden Komponenten voneinander unabhängig sind: Die Idiomatizität beruht nämlich darauf, dass sich die lexikalisierte Bedeutung nicht aus den Komponenten einer Mehrwortverbindung ableiten lässt. Die neueren kognitiven und psycholinguistischen Untersuchungen verweisen dennoch auf den Einfluss der bildlichen Komponente, die durch die wörtliche Bedeutung evoziert wird, auf die lexikalisierte Bedeutung des Idioms. In der folgenden Untersuchung wird an Hand von drei synonymen Idiomen überprüft, welche Rolle die bildliche Komponente in der Semantik der Phraseologismen spielt. On the role of pictorial aspect in idioms’ semanticsIn the semantic perspective the meaning of an idiom is built of two components: the literal verbatim and the lexicalized figurative meaning. The usual point of view is to regard the two meanings as independent from each other. The idiomaticity consists in the fact that the lexicalized meaning cannot be derived from components of a word group. The latest research in the field of cognitive science and psycholinguistics emphasizes the influence of the mental image which is evoked while receiving an utterance. This literal representation exerts an influence on the lexicalized meaning of an idiom. The present study proves on three idioms the role of pictorial aspect in idioms’ semantics.
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Cieślicka, Anna. "Literal salience in on-line processing of idiomatic expressions by second language learners." Second Language Research 22, no. 2 (April 2006): 115–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0267658306sr263oa.
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This article addresses the question of how second language (L2) learners understand idiomatic expressions in their second/foreign language and advances the proposition that literal meanings of idiom constituents enjoy processing priority over their figurative interpretations. This suggestion forms the core of the literal-salience resonant model of L2 idiom comprehension, whose major assumptions are outlined in the article. On the literal salience view, understanding L2 idioms entails an obligatory computation of the literal meanings of idiom constituent words, even if these idioms are embedded in a figurative context and if their idiomatic interpretation is well-known to L2 learners. The literal salience assumption was put to the test in a cross-modal lexical priming experiment with advanced Polish learners of English. The experiment showed more priming for visual targets related to literal meanings of idiom constituent words than for targets related figuratively to the metaphoric interpretation of the idiomatic phrase. This effect held true irrespective of whether the stimulus sentence contained a literal or a non-literal idiom.
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Nippold, Marilyn A. "Evaluating and Enhancing Idiom Comprehension in Language-Disordered Students." Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 22, no. 3 (July 1991): 100–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461.2203.100.
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Language-disordered children and adolescents often have difficulty comprehending idioms, a common yet complex type of figurative expression. This article discusses some of the unique properties of idioms and some recent findings from the developmental literature on idiom comprehension. Guidelines are offered for speech-language pathologists who seek to evaluate and enhance idiom comprehension in language-disordered students. The long-term goal of the treatment approach described is for the student to acquire a specific comprehension strategy for determining the meanings of unfamiliar idioms. Although individual idioms are taught, this approach differs markedly from one whose long-term goal is for the student to learn the meanings of a particular set of idioms. It is hoped that this article will provide direction for treatment efficacy research in idiom comprehension with language-disordered students.
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Abel, Beate. "English idioms in the first language and second language lexicon: a dual representation approach." Second Language Research 19, no. 4 (October 2003): 329–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0267658303sr226oa.
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In two empirical studies, judgements that native speakers of German make about the decomposability of English idioms were investigated. A decomposable idiom is an idiom whose individual components contribute to its figurative meaning, whereas the constituents of a nondecomposable idiom do not make such a contribution. The findings were analysed and compared to native judgements. The Model of Dual Idiom Representation is introduced in order to explain the differences between the two groups. At the lexical level, the model postulates the parallel existence of idiom entries and constituent entries. The degree of decomposability and the frequency with which the idiom is encountered determine its lexical representation. If there is no idiom entry for a particular idiom, conceptual representations are accessed during comprehension. Because nonnative speakers encounter idioms less often than native speakers, the first language (L1) and second language (L2) lexicon vary with regard to the number of idiom entries.
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Beck, Sara D., and Andrea Weber. "Context and Literality in Idiom Processing: Evidence from Self-Paced Reading." Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 49, no. 5 (July 14, 2020): 837–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10936-020-09719-2.
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Abstract In a self-paced reading study, we investigated how effects of biasing contexts in idiom processing interact with effects of idiom literality. Specifically, we tested if idioms with a high potential for literal interpretation (e.g., break the ice) are processed differently in figuratively and literally biasing contexts than idioms with a low potential (e.g., lose one’s cool). Participants read sentences that biased towards a figurative or literal reading of idioms and continued with resolutions that were congruent or incongruent with these biases (e.g., [The new schoolboy/the chilly Eskimo] just wanted to break the ice [with his peers/on the lake]…). While interpretations of high-literality idioms were strengthened by supporting contexts and showed costs for incongruent resolutions, low-literality idioms did not show this effect. Rather, interpreting low-literality idioms in a literal manner showed a cost regardless of context. We conclude that biasing contexts are used in a flexible process of real-time idiom processing and meaning constitution, but this effect is mediated by idiom literality.
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Robo, Lorena. "Discrepancies of Figurative Language Use Reflected Through Cross-Linguistic and Intercultural Differences in English and Albanian Language." European Journal of Language and Literature 6, no. 1 (January 1, 2020): 22. http://dx.doi.org/10.26417/ejls.v6i1.p22-30.
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The present paper aims at highlighting some cultural and cross-linguistic aspects of idioms causing miscommunication in language. Learning a foreign language shapes the language system of communication with its literal and figurative meanings. While the literal meaning is the direct reference of words or sentences to objects, the figurative sense is used for giving an imaginative description or a special effect. Gaining competence in language enrolls a good command of the figurative use of that language together with its frequent, spontaneous and appropriate use of idioms being an indicator of native or near native mastery of the language. When such command of a foreign language lacks then it gives rise to discrepancies in language, and idioms for the sake of truth become often subject to misconstrued utterances in a target language on the part of L2 learners. Using literal senses of words to trigger the recognition of idioms brings some potential problems. Thus, this article brings together the findings and insights of figurative aspect of English and Albanian language system and its cultural aspect to further the understanding of the phenomena of communicative failures and mismatches in language. The study seeks to analyze and present through a corpus analysis idiom occurrences of communication failure in both languages. A variety of figurative use of language is illustrated in certain contexts and situations to lighten up the usage of idiom mismatches in second language acquisition and provide the paper with rich examples as well.
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Gavilán, José M., Juan Haro, José Antonio Hinojosa, Isabel Fraga, and Pilar Ferré. "Psycholinguistic and affective norms for 1,252 Spanish idiomatic expressions." PLOS ONE 16, no. 7 (July 16, 2021): e0254484. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254484.
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This study provides psycholinguistic and affective norms for 1,252 Spanish idiomatic expressions. A total of 965 Spanish native speakers rated the idioms in 7 subjective variables: familiarity, knowledge of the expression, decomposability, literality, predictability, valence and arousal. Correlational analyses showed that familiarity has a strong positive correlation with knowledge, suggesting that the knowledge of the figurative meaning of an idiom is highly related to its frequency of use. Familiarity has a moderate positive correlation with final word predictability, indicating that the more familiar an idiom is rated, the more predictable it tends to be. Decomposability shows a moderate positive correlation with literality, suggesting that those idioms whose figurative meaning is easier to deduce from their constituents tend to have a plausible literal meaning. In affective terms, Spanish idioms tend to convey more negative (66%) than positive meanings (33%). Furthermore, valence and arousal show a quadratic relationship, in line with the typical U-shaped relationship found for single words, which means that the more emotionally valenced an idiom is rated, the more arousing it is considered to be. This database will provide researchers with a large pool of stimuli for studying the representation and processing of idioms in healthy and clinical populations.
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KHOSHNEVISAN, BABAK. "Spilling the Beans on Understanding English Idioms Using Multimodality: An Idiom Acquisition Technique for Iranian Language Learners." International Journal of Language, Translation and Intercultural Communication 8 (April 15, 2019): 128. http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/ijltic.20281.
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Idioms are ubiquitous in English language. Despite their ubiquity, learning idioms is a thorny issue for second language learners. Multiple researchers have scrutinized different aspects of idiom learning by second language learners: important factors in processing idioms in L2 (Cieślicka, 2015); the incorporation of technology in idiom learning (Khoshnevisan, 2018b); idiom assessment (Khoshnevisan, 2018a). A number of studies have been conducted concerning the application of the Idiom Diffusion Model—an L2 idiom processing model—to develop the idiomatic competence of learners, however, the pertinent literature is sparse: Greek, German, and French (Liontas, 1997); Greek (Katsarou, 2013); Korean (Türker, 2016). It turns out that the application of the model to Persian language learners is missing. To address the gap, the author conducted a qualitative study to explore the perceptions of Iranian language learners about using a website to learn idioms. The researcher employed an online questionnaire to delve into the learners’ perceptions. The findings imply that the majority of the participants used video and picture modules to arrive at the figurative meaning of the idiomatic phrases. However, in terms of semi and post-lexical idioms, most learners benefited from translations to decode the meanings. The findings corroborate the theory that translation facilitates learning idioms.
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van Ginkel, Wendy, and Ton Dijkstra. "The tug of war between an idiom's figurative and literal meanings: Evidence from native and bilingual speakers." Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23, no. 1 (February 8, 2019): 131–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1366728918001219.
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AbstractIn two lexical-decision experiments, we investigated the processing of figurative and literal meaning in idioms. Dutch native and German–Dutch bilingual speakers responded to target words presented after a minimal context idiom prime (e.g., ‘He kicked the bucket’). Target words were related to the figurative meaning of the prime (‘die’), the literal word at the end of the idiom (‘water’), or unrelated to both (‘face’). We observed facilitation in RTs for figuratively and literally related targets relative to unrelated targets for both participant groups. A higher frequency idiom-final word caused inhibition in responses to the literally related target for native speakers, indicating competition between the idiom as a whole and its literal word constituents. Native speakers further showed sensitivity to transparency of the idiom's meaning and the plausibility of the idiom as a literally interpretable sentence. The results are interpreted in terms of available L1/L2 idiom comprehension models, and a more detailed processing account for literal and idiomatic sentence interpretation.
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SANFORD, DANIEL. "Idiom as the intersection of conceptual and syntactic schemas." Language and Cognition 6, no. 4 (April 29, 2014): 492–509. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2014.13.
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abstractTwo key issues in the study of idiom are the metaphorical status of idioms (whether or not underlying metaphors are active in the on-line processing of figurative idiomatic expressions) and the compositional status of idioms (whether or not the overall meaning of such expressions is analyzable from internal elements). This study addresses these questions from the perspective of emergent metaphor theory (Sanford, 2012, 2013), arguing that key properties of such expressions − idiosyncrasy of both form and meaning, the potential for idiom to be manipulated in discourse, and diachronic patterns in changes of idiomatic meaning − follow from the status of metaphorical idioms as highly entrenched instances of both conceptual and syntactic mappings. In the case of both types of schema, the interaction of type and token frequency effects predict the metaphoricity and analyzability of idioms.
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Ngoc, Pham Thai Bao, and To Minh Thanh. "The Application of Conceptual Metaphors to Teaching English Idioms to English-majored Students in Viet Nam." Theory and Practice in Language Studies 9, no. 6 (June 1, 2019): 610. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0906.02.
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The discovery that several figurative idioms are semantically motivated by a common conceptual metaphor (CM) has opened up a path to more systematic and insightful learning. However, it was still unclear to what extent the elaboration of conceptual metaphors (CMs) could facilitate learners’ reception and production of idioms over time. To address this issue, a quasi-experiment was conducted, with the pre-test – post-test design, on a sample of 69 Vietnamese undergraduates. Results revealed that the explanation of CM was especially beneficial for the students’ idiom reception over time, and to a lesser extent for their use of idioms. Though not outstanding in the short term compared with the traditional method, this cognitive approach showed its relatively long-lasting value in terms of both idiom reception and production.
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Erfaniyan Qonsuli, Leila, and Shahla Sharifi. "Semantic comprehension of idioms." Review of Cognitive Linguistics 18, no. 1 (August 17, 2020): 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00048.erf.
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Abstract This study intends to test the Graded Salience Hypothesis, in order to investigate the factors involved in comprehension. This research considered predictions derived from this hypothesis by evaluating the salience of idioms in the Persian language. We intended to measure Reading Time (RTs), and the design comprised 2 Contexts (figurative, literal), 3 Types of Statements (familiar vs. unfamiliar vs. less familiar) and RTs (long, short, equal). Two types of contexts (figuratively inviting and literally inviting contexts) were prepared. The software for this experiment was prepared for the purpose of self-paced reading experiments. Two pretests were performed. In the first pretest, participants rated the expressions on a 1–7 familiarity scale. The second pretest was designed to confirm that contexts are equally supportive. Then, expressions were divided according to their familiarity (familiar, less-familiar, unfamiliar). Sentences were used so that, according to the second pretest, their contexts would be equally supportive. Sentences were displayed on a PC, controlled by Windows 7. The self-paced reading task was applied using the Moving Windows software. In the first part of the experiment, participants read each idiom in figuratively inviting contexts and their RTs were recorded. In the second part of the experiment, participants read each idiom in literally inviting contexts and their RTs were recorded. Results of testing these idioms support the Graded Salience Hypothesis, but not entirely. Such findings suggested that sometimes context affects the access of salient information and a semi serial process is witnessed. Results indicate that the salient meaning of both familiar and less familiar idioms is figurative. In addition, salient meanings in the space following the unfamiliar idiom and the first word of the next (spillover) sentence, were both, figurative and literal.
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Whyte, Elisabeth M., Keith E. Nelson, and K. Suzanne Scherf. "Idiom, Syntax, and Advanced Theory of Mind Abilities in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 57, no. 1 (February 2014): 120–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2013/12-0308).
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Purpose When researchers investigate figurative language abilities (including idioms) in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), syntax abilities may be more important than once considered. In addition, there are limitations to the overreliance on false-belief tasks to measure theory of mind (TOM) abilities. In the current study, the authors investigated idiom, syntax, and advanced TOM abilities in children with ASD compared to children with typical development (TD). Method Twenty-six children with ASD, ages 5 to 12 years, were compared to individuals in each of 2 control groups of children with TD: 1 matched on chronological age and nonverbal IQ, and 1 matched on syntax age-equivalence and raw scores. Idiom comprehension, syntax, vocabulary, and 2 measures of advanced TOM abilities were examined. Results Although children with ASD performed worse on idiom comprehension compared to the age-matched group with TD, they exhibited comparable idiom performance to the syntax-matched group with TD. Advanced TOM abilities were related to idiom comprehension for children with ASD, but not for children with TD, above the contributions of basic language abilities. Conclusion Syntax abilities should be used as a matching variable when examining figurative or other late-developing language skills.
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Shanti Manipuspika, Yana, and Damai Reska Julia Winzami. "Translation of Idioms: How They are Reflected in Movie Subtitling." Arab World English Journal For Translation and Literary Studies 5, no. 1 (February 15, 2021): 113–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol5no1.8.
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Idiomatic expressions are expressions with a figurative meaning different from their literal meaning, and therefore, they cannot be understood literally. This study aims to scrutinize some aspects of the translation of idiomatic expressions in a mystery movie entitled ‘Murder on the Orient Express’. Seventy-seven idiomatic expressions were found in the movie. The idioms can be categorized as follows: keywords with idiomatic uses (16) idioms with nouns and adjectives (2), idiomatic pairs (1), idioms with prepositions (7), phrasal verbs idioms (26), verbal idioms (5), idioms from special subjects (1), idioms with key words from special categories (16), and idioms with comparison (3). Phrasal verbs idiom was the most frequently occurred because idioms are mostly organized by verb comprising the combination of verb and preposition or verb and adverb. Further, the rendering of the idioms from English as the Source Language (SL) into Indonesian as the Target Language (TL) employed some strategies; translation by paraphrase was the highly frequent translation strategy. The strategy of using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form was also located in the high-frequency position of the continuum. Furthermore, using an idiom of similar form and meaning and translation by omission were the translation strategies of low frequency. Translation by paraphrase was frequently used because the translator wanted to convey the meaning as clearly as possible while also considering the cultural difference between SL and TL. To sum up, the idiomatic expression dominantly used in the movie was phrasal verbs (34%), while the strategy that was mostly applied in translating them was translation by paraphrase (56%).
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Burbules, Nicholas C., Gregory Schraw, and Woodrow Trathen. "Metaphor, Idiom, and Figuration." Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 4, no. 2 (June 1989): 93–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327868ms0402_2.
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Umar, Aliyu Muhammad. "The structure of idioms in Nigerian English." English Today 35, no. 3 (August 28, 2018): 29–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266078418000238.
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The term ‘structure in linguistics’ is mostly used to refer to a sequence of units that are in a certain linguistic relationship to one another. Thus no matter how minimal a sequence is, if it can be analysed in terms of a relationship within it, then that is a structural unit. For example, one of the structures of a noun phrase may be ‘article + adjective + noun’ as in the vicious circle (Richards & Schmidts, 2002). Structures entail relationships which may be syntagmatic or paradigmatic. According to Finnegan (2014) when we say language structure we are essentially talking about syntax, semantics and phonology of a language. When it comes to idioms the same principles apply. The structures of idioms are essentially their syntactic behaviour. This behaviour cannot be predicted solely on the basis of their form or figurative meaning alone, but it must be due to some relation between the form and meaning (Gibbs & Nayak, 1989). An idiom is an institutionalised and conventionalized sequence of at least two words or free morphemes that is semantically restricted so that it functions as a single lexical unit, whose meaning cannot or can only to a certain extent be deduced from the meanings of its constituents. (Skandera, 2003: 60). To Nurnberg, Sag and Wasow (1994), idioms are characterised as having conventional meaning, figuration, inflexibility of form, and proverbiality. Idioms have been called ‘multiword units’ (Grant & Bauer, 2004), metaphors (Gibbs, 1993; Toris, 2011), phrasemes (Howarth, 1998), fixed expressions (Moon, 1997; Carter, 1998) and formulaic expressions (Wray, 2002). Structurally, idioms do not form a unique class of linguistic items such that all idioms belong to it, but that they share many of the same properties normally associated with more literal expressions.
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Schmale, Günter. "Zur Interaktion von materiellem und idiomatischem Bild in deutschen Printwerbungen." tekst i dyskurs - text und diskurs, no. 13 (2020) (December 30, 2020): 235–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.7311/tid.13.2020.12.
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Print advertising very frequently refers to idioms containing verbal expressions of images conveying a figurative meaning. “Material” idiom's (photos, drawings, cartoons, etc.) in print adverts, in one way or another, depict the idioms’ literal meaning. Advertising plays on numerous forms of interaction between the idiomatic and material image (representation of literal meaning, implicit relation between visual element and verbal idiom, etc.). Following preliminary considerations on figurativeness and metaphoricity, 14 German print adverts are analysed with a focus on the role of the material image. Based on these analyses, reflections on the interpretability of the relation between idiomatic and material image by native speakers and foreign language learners are discussed.
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Zhumanbekova, Nurkesh Zeynullovna, Yevgeniya Victorovna Bentyaa, and Anargul Dzharbulova. "The figurative idioms of English, German and Kazakh in contrast." Contemporary Educational Researches Journal 8, no. 3 (August 24, 2018): 83–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.18844/cerj.v8i3.589.
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This article discusses the figurative phraseological units, namely the idioms of English, German and Kazakh languages in comparative aspect. It appeals to the phraseology of imagery due to the fact that the imagery - a defining component of semantic derivation and semantics of phraseological units in particular. The main goal is to make a contribution to the theory of phraseology, based on the tradition of comparative phraseology. After determining the subject and object of the research, a brief review of domestic and foreign publications in the field of comparative phraseology the article describes the results of practical analysis of idioms in three languages. The main features of the analyzed units are multi-component structure, stability, idiomaticity that distinguishes them from other expressions. They can be interpreted in two different conceptual levels: in the literal sense, which is the basis of the inner form of a linguistic unit and in a figurative sense. The role of a semantic element between the two levels assumes shaped component values (image component) (Dobrovol’skij, 2009). Phraseological images are of cultural significance and informative, revealing a particular fragment of culture. For example, in the base of the inner form of English idioms “ to show one's true colour” (figurative “to show one's real face”, to show who you are”), of German idiom “ins Fettnapfchen treten (literary “stepping on a pot of lard”; figurative meaning “to step on smb's toes”); of Kazakh idioms “er tokymyn bauyryna aldy” (literary “hug the saddle”; figurative “to be angry” ); shabyna shok tusti( literary “hot coal got to the groin”; figurative “to be nervous”) lay some prototypical situations. In the analysis are used the method of field simulation. The study aims to identify and develop a model describing visual images as elements of the cognitive system. They are variably implemented in the content of figurative means of German, English and Kazakh.
Keywords: imagery; visuality; imagery means; imagery structure
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حازم حسين, كمال, and اشرف عبد الواحد ذنون. "Strategies Used by Iraqi EFL Students To Process English Idioms." Al-Adab Journal 1, no. 119 (December 24, 2018): 33–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.31973/aj.v1i119.335.
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Idioms are considered to be a type of phraseological units which are largely figurative in nature and widely used in human languages. In fact, the level of command of idioms serves as an important indicator of language proficiency. Many non-native learners of English do their best to be fluent and have a native-like proficiency; this entails, among other things, a good mastery of multiple words expressions in general and idioms in particular. Perhaps the most difficult part in learning idioms for EFL learners is learning both literal and figurative meanings of these expressions. The present research attempts to investigate the strategies used by Iraqi EFL learners of English to identify the meaning of unfamiliar idioms. To achieve the aim of the present research, it is hypothesized that there is no statistically significant difference among EFL university students as far as the guessing strategies are concerned. To examine the validity of this hypothesis, a sample was chosen from the second–year students at the Department of English (College of Education for Humanities / University of Mosul) during the academic year 2012-2013. The sample consisted of 39 students. Since the present research requires preparation of two tools, the researchers designed an idiom familiarity questionnaire and a questionnaire to identify the strategies used by the subjects to infer the meaning of idioms. The results reveal that there is statistically significant difference among EFL university students as far as the guessing strategies are concerned.
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AKYALÇIN, Necmi, and Damla AYDOĞAN. "AN EVALUATION OF IDIOMS AND OTHER WORD GROUPS IN OXFORD DICTIONARY OF IDIOMS (VII)." Zeitschrift für die Welt der Türken / Journal of World of Turks 13, no. 2 (August 15, 2021): 47–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.46291/zfwt/130203.
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The headings that cannot be idioms in the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, İ, J, K and L in the English idioms dictionary named “Oxford Dictionary of Idioms” have been examined in six previous studies. This work is a continuation of other works. In the study, the structures that cannot be an idiom among the 297 headlines under the letter M in the dictionary of idioms were revealed with numerical data. Different from other studies, some structures that are common with 154 headlines in the idioms dictionary prepared by Longman have been drawn attention and structures that cannot be idioms have been revealed. In addition, attention was drawn to 72 common structures between the head of the article under the letter M of both dictionaries and the interpretation was made by explaining how many of these structures were idioms. In these two dictionaries, some proverbs, which are considered as idioms under the heading of the letter M, have been evaluated by taking into consideration the dictionary named “The Facts On File Dictionary Of Pro ve r b s”. As it is known, idioms are not found only in Turkish. There are also idioms in languages (Turkish, English, German, etc.), which are generally rooted, have many speakers and writers, and are spoken in a large geographical area. Idioms are figurative phrases consisting of at least two words. Idioms in English are given with their explanations in the dictionary named “Oxford Dictionary of Idioms”. The universe of this study is the idioms that have a head in the dictionary named “Oxford Dictionary of Idioms”. Its subject consists of examining the structures that are considered as idioms at the beginning of the items under the letter M in the same dictionary but cannot be an idiom, and revealing the structures that can actually be idioms with their numbers. Key words: Idioms, Oxford Dictionary of Idıoms, VII.
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Arseneault, Madeleine. "An Implicature Account of Idioms." International Review of Pragmatics 6, no. 1 (2014): 59–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18773109-00601004.
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The traditional approach of treating idiomatic phrases as lexical items has been criticized for failing to account for the semantic and syntactic flexibility such phrases can exhibit. Pragmatic accounts of idioms are now being proposed, according to which the words of the idiomatic phrase contribute their ordinary semantic content as the basis for a pragmatic interpretation of the idiom. After examining the strengths and weaknesses of Andy Egan’s Pretence view, I argue that idioms convey their idiomatic sense via conversational implicature. Idiomatic phrases in their typical use are explained as cases of generalized conversational implicature, while the figurative modification and extension of idioms identified by Egan are explained as cases of particularized conversational implicature. I show that the Implicature view is compatible with both the stereotypical inflexibility of idiomatic phrases and the observation that the understanding of idioms does not seem to proceed by a process of deriving the idiom’s meaning on the basis of the ordinary meaning of the idiom’s constituent words.
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Kalashnikova, Larisa V. "Special Features of Idioms Interpretation at the Stage of Eye-Mindedness in the Cognition Process of a Subject (as exemplified in L. Carroll «Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland»)." Current Issues in Philology and Pedagogical Linguistics, no. 2(2020) (June 25, 2020): 103–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.29025/2079-6021-2020-2-103-112.
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The article deals with the investigation of the specific features of idiom interpretation at the eye-mindedness stage. The ability of a subject to perceive the external resemblance of objects makes their hidden features invisible. In the cognitive process the subject learns to perceive and to interpret the outside world as the complex of objects, situations as a whole for self-identity and developing the capability to identify himself regarding this reality. It is a matter of common observation that one of the most complex forms of metaphorical thinking is the subject ability to interpret a figurative meaning. In the course of the imagination intentional development the acquired ability to think metaphorically influences the comprehension of many aspects of language, including the correct interpretation of idioms. Integrated meaning of phraseological units and idioms causes serious problems in the process of the child language aquisition. Due to limited background knowledge and corresponding cognitive structures, the child tries to interpret each component separately, losing the figurativeness, but at the same time giving the idiom or phraseological unit an individual and unusual sense. Young researchers, relying on objective thinking, perceive idioms as sentences where words are freely combined. The study revealed that the idioms interpretation depends on a number of internal and external factors, as well as the background knowledge about the reality and the rules of successful speech interaction. Various language means reflect the children’s speech dynamics within the process of formation of the subject’s ability to interpret a figurative meaning. When interacting with the surrounding reality, the subject’s awareness of his personal “Ego” inevitably generates contradictions of the reality cognition priority and new information. Integration of the old and new information results in creation of a problem situation and its comprehension. Scarcely ever new facts fit the framework of known concepts and behavior algorithms. Efforts to resolve the problem situations by search and creation of the new ways and solution methods, images and senses discovering the outworld new features, show the subject’s cognitive activity.
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Oliveri, Massimiliano, Leonor Romero, and Costanza Papagno. "Left But Not Right Temporal Involvement in Opaque Idiom Comprehension: A Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16, no. 5 (June 2004): 848–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/089892904970717.
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It has been suggested that figurative language, which includes idioms, is controlled by the right hemisphere. We tested the right hemisphere hypothesis by using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently disrupt the function of the frontal and temporal areas of the right versus left hemisphere in a group of normal participants involved in a task of opaque idiom versus literal sentence comprehension. Forty opaque, nonambiguous idioms were selected. Fifteen young healthy participants underwent rTMS in two sessions. The experiment was run in five blocks, corresponding to the four stimulated scalp positions (left frontal and temporal and right frontal and temporal) and a baseline. Each block consisted of 16 trials—8 trials with idioms and 8 trials with literal sentences. In each trial, the subject was presented with a written sentence, which appeared on the screen for 2000 msec, followed by a pair of pictures for 2500 msec, one of which corresponded to the sentence. The alternative corresponded to the literal meaning for idioms and to a sentence differing in a detail in the case of literal sentences. The subject had to press a button corresponding to the picture matching the string. Reaction times increased following left temporal rTMS, whereas they were unaffected by right hemisphere rTMS, with no difference between idiomatic and literal sentences. Left temporal rTMS also reduced accuracy without differences between the two types of sentences. These data suggest that opaque idiom and literal sentence comprehension depends on the left temporal cortex.
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RAMONDA, KRIS. "The role of encyclopedic world knowledge in semantic transparency intuitions of idioms." English Language and Linguistics 23, no. 1 (July 31, 2017): 31–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1360674317000284.
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This article reports on the role pragmatic inferencing plays in accounting for the ways in which native speakers perceive and interpret the semantic transparency of idioms. Although previous studies have suggested that semantic transparency intuitions of idioms are partly motivated by the conceptual metaphors that underlie them (Gibbs 1992; Gibbs et al.1997), findings from other studies (Keysar & Bly 1995, 1999) have raised questions concerning the arbitrariness of such intuitions. This study seeks to further address the discussion on the nature of semantic transparency by examining the role of pragmatic inferencing and encyclopedic world knowledge for understanding how native speakers interpret the relationship between the literal parts and figurative meanings of metaphorical idioms. To this end, semantic transparency ratings were elicited among fifteen native speakers of English for 222 metaphorical English idioms. Furthermore, raters provided qualitative support by justifying their ratings for a smaller subset of 30 idioms. These initial results were then triangulated by a follow-up exploratory study surveying etymological notes from a number of idiom dictionaries. The findings suggest that pragmatic inferencing via encyclopedic world knowledge plays an important role for the non-arbitrary way in which native speakers perceive the semantic transparency of idioms.
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Ouma Ogal, George, Moses Gatambuki Gathigia, and Joseph Nyehita Maitaria. "When two Horses Become Minji na Ndengũ (Peas and Green Grams): A Cognitive Integration Analysis of Blended Idioms of Political Campaign in Kenyan Newspapers." Advances in Language and Literary Studies 10, no. 4 (October 1, 2019): 21. http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.10n.4p.21.
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Political campaigns are emotive activities that rely on language to attract the attention of the public. In fact, electioneering periods in Kenya are heavily laced with idiomatic expressions such that one would be required to use the interrelatedness between language and cognition to understand the utterances of a speaker. It is against this backdrop that the present study analyzes the cognitive processes of the idiom minji na ndengũ (peas and green grams) vis-à-vis the canonized form. The idiom minji na ndengũ (peas and green grams) drew a lot of attention during the Kenyan official electioneering period (May and October, 2017) and was extensively used in both the print and social media platforms. The study is anchored in three objectives: to categorize the idiom minji na ndengũ (peas and green grams) in terms of compositionality; to establish the vital relation between the blended idiom and the canonical form; and to interpret the blend using the Conceptual Integration Theory. The study employed the descriptive research design. The study purposively sampled the blended idiom minji na ndengũ (peas and green grams) which is a blended form of the idiom two horse race. Using content analysis, the study classifies and presents a diagrammatic conceptual interpretation of new knowledge based on metaphorical mappings to illustrate the emergent structure. A general finding of this study is that political campaigns create new meanings using deliberately blended idioms of war to improve figurative competencies. Further, one needs to immerse themselves in pragmatic inference in order to reveal the meaning of a blended idiomatic expression. The findings of this study imply that whenever the provisions of grammar prove deficient in unpacking certain messages, cognitive linguists, idiom theorists and researchers should apply the postulates of Cognitive Linguistics. The study concludes that blended idioms of political campaigns achieve creativity and novelty. Further, the comprehension of blended expressions requires the understanding of pragmatic inferences of the local context. The study recommends that for a better understanding of blended idiomatic expressions, one should consider the local contexts expressed in language.
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Jelčić Čolakovac, Jasmina. "Where Culture and Metaphor Meet: Metaphoric Awareness in Comprehension of Culturally-Specific Idioms." Open Journal for Studies in Linguistics 3, no. 2 (October 30, 2020): 67–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.32591/coas.ojsl.0302.03067j.
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The goal of the present study is to investigate whether the comprehension of oligosemic, i.e. culturally-specific (CS) idioms is raised with awareness of underlying conceptual metaphors (CMs) as seems to be the case with idioms motivated by metaphors (CM idioms). An experimental study was conducted involving the metaphor-aware Experimental group and the Control group which was unaware of the existence of CMs. Metaphoric awareness was achieved through brief 15 minute-long lessons on metaphor and underlying motivation. The Control participants were given general information on figurative language in order to ensure equality of input. The instrument containing 35 items was administered to both groups whereas the Experimental group was also provided the underlying CM motivation. An ANOVA test for repeated measures was used to compare CM data to CS data. There was a statistically significant effect of motivation on idiom comprehension, F(1,77)=67.203, p=.000 which suggests that CM idioms are better understood than CS idioms. The t-test results for the CS idioms indicate there is a significant difference between the Control and the Experimental group when it comes to the comprehension of CS idioms in favor of the Experimental participants; it seems the comprehension of CS idioms is raised with metaphoric awareness.
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Lindstromberg, Seth. "Surplus interword phonological similarity in English multiword units." Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 16, no. 1 (May 27, 2020): 95–118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2017-0013.
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AbstractPrevious studies found that English figurative idioms alliterate at above chance levels. To permit estimation of amounts of surplus alliteration Gries (2011) calculated baseline levels using an analytic method. This article reports a follow-on investigation covering types of multiword unit (MWU) and types of interword, intraMWU phonological similarity (PhS) considered neither by Gries nor by an even earlier study. In contrast to Gries (2011), baseline levels of PhS were estimated using a stochastic method. In samples of figurative idioms upward departures from baseline levels – expressed as standardized effect sizes – ranged from small to medium for assonance, up to large for alliteration, and even larger for rhyme and alliteration-with-assonance. For samples of (relatively) non-idiomatic MWUs upward departures from baselines were generally small or, in the case of academic collocations, downward. The practicality of the stochastic method is discussed, as are a possible role of interword PhS in the conventionalization of word strings and possible roles of interword, intra-idiom PhS in oral communication. Overall, the findings are problematic for a non-usage-based theory but compatible with a cognitive linguistic theory in which motivation can operate entirely within the phonological pole of a MWU.
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Lei, Chunyi, and Pamies Antonio. "A comparative study of idioms on drunkenness in Chinese and Spanish." Yearbook of Phraseology 10, no. 1 (December 18, 2019): 89–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/phras-2019-0006.
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Abstract This study, based on the Cognitive Theory of Metaphor and Conventional Figurative Language Theory, presents a cross-linguistic comparison of the idioms on drunkenness in Chinese and Spanish, applying the analytical method with three hierarchical levels (iconic models > archi-metaphors > particular metaphors). The findings show that, on the one hand, though linguistically and culturally very distant, these two languages share some iconic models (i.e. animal, movement, body part, plant and aggression) in their idioms on inebriation; on the other hand, they also have their own ways in expressing drunkenness, due to their particular cultural backgrounds, i.e. religions, superstitions, history, ethnic prejudices, legends, etc. The present investigation also proves the universality of the cognitive thinking model of human beings as well as the cognitive specialization in different cultures, giving an insight into idiom comprehension and intercultural communication.
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Lechner, Ilona. "CONSTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS OF GERMAN AND HUNGARIAN IDIOMS." Philological Review, no. 1 (May 31, 2021): 58–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.31499/2415-8828.1.2021.232664.
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The subject of the study is the examination of figurative meaning in Hungarian and German. In the present study, I present the interpretation of figurative meaning within the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics by analysing idiomatic expressions in Hungarian and German on the example of the concept of ‘time’. In this contrastive research, I primarily look for the answer to how ordinary people use cognitive tools to grasp intangible abstract concepts such as ‘time’ and what connections can be observed between literal and figurative meaning.
The examined Hungarian and German idioms are the linguistic manifestations of the conceptual metaphor time is money (valuable resource). The study aims to support the assumption that in any language an abstract meaning can only be expressed with a figurative meaning.
Time is an abstract concept that is present in the everyday language use of all people. The expressions time passes, the time is here, my time has come, it takes a lot of time – to mention just a few, have become so conventionalized in our language that we take their meaning literally. Nonetheless, they are based on conventional conceptual metaphors that we use to make the concept of time more tangible to ourselves. The linguistic manifestations of these conceptual metaphors are created and understood without any mental strain.
In the first stage of the research, I searched for possible German equivalents of Hungarian expressions, and then I used Internet search engines and idiom and monolingual dictionaries to select the most frequently used equivalent in German. As a next step, I examined 1) the word form, 2) the literal meaning, 3) the figurative meaning, and 4) the conceptual metaphor of idioms in both languages, which were either been identical or different. Because they are different languages, the word forms are inherently different. At the end of the study, I compared the formed patterns from which I drew conclusions, which support that figurative meaning is figurative in another language as well.
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Muliawati, Ida, Nyak Mutia Ismail, and Fera Busfina Zalha. "Acehnese adolescents’ awareness of Acehnese idiom and simile." Studies in English Language and Education 6, no. 2 (October 1, 2019): 319–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.24815/siele.v6i2.14180.
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Acehnese language is rich in its figurative languages such as in forms of idioms and similes. Acehnese people have been magnifying the idioms and similes over decades to soften utterances, and they are inherited from generation to generation. Consequently, this study aimed at investigating Acehnese adolescents’ understanding of Acehnese idioms and similes. Qualitative research designed was used, and data were collected through a questionnaire consisting of 10 Acehnese figurative language expressions. There were 51 respondents, aged within 18-21 years old who all are indigenous Acehnese. The result suggests that Acehnese adolescents are still knowledgeable about them. There is 72.8% of respondents who are considered to understand the idioms asked in the questionnaire set. Meanwhile, those who did not understand the expressions come from different language continuum areas. In conclusion, Acehnese adolescents are still aware of the Acehnese figurative language, and this positivity shall help in preserving the values of Acehnese language for the next generation to come.
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Njambi Kiguta, Purity, Moses Gatambuki Gathigia, and Catherine Waithera Ndung’u. "A Semantic Analysis of Absent Subjects of Idioms in Gĩkũyũ." Advances in Language and Literary Studies 11, no. 3 (June 30, 2020): 9. http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.11n.3p.9.
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Idioms have been studied for a considerable time by linguists with a view of explaining their meaning. In Gĩkũyũ, for example, the meaning of most idioms can be derived from constituents that form them. However, in some Gĩkũyũ idioms, the meaning is hindered by the absence of the subject in the idiomatic utterance or sentence. It is against this background that this study sought to conduct a semantic analysis on selected idioms in Gĩkũyũ. Thus, the objective of this study was to establish the absent subject in the selected Gĩkũyũ idioms through etymological elaboration and then conduct a semantic analysis of the idioms. The study was based on the Conventional Figurative Language Theory (Dobrovol and Elisabeth). The study employed the descriptive research design and purposively targeted 20 Gĩkũyũ idioms. Data was collected through focus group discussions involving 10 participants who are native speakers of Gĩkũyũ. The study used the content analysis method, which is within the qualitative research paradigm. The data was presented in form of tables and themes. The Gĩkũyũ idiomatic expressions and the established subjects were listed and their gloss provided. Through etymological elaboration, a semantic analysis of the idiomatic expressions was conducted. The findings of the study are that the absence of the subject in idioms greatly hinders their comprehensibility. Further, etymological elaboration is required in order to establish the absent subject. The findings therefore imply that whenever the comprehensibility of an idiom is compromised by the lack of the subject in the utterance, cognitive linguists should process the meaning by using etymological elaboration The study concludes that interpretation of idiomatic expressions in Gĩkũyũ can be enhanced by establishing the absent subject through etymological elaboration which provides clues that aid interpretation .Secondly, semantic analysis of the idioms enhances comprehensibility. The study recommends further research on absent subjects in Gĩkũyũ idioms that were not part of this study. Secondly, other idiom processing strategies for example contextualization (Copper, 2004) can be used to establish the absent subjects in idiomatic expressions. Thirdly, further research can be conducted to establish other aspects of idioms that hinder comprehensibility of idioms not only in Gĩkũyũ but also in other languages. The study will not only provide valuable linguistic knowledge on the study of idioms in Gĩkũyũ but will also encourage further research on idioms in other languages.
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Tien, Adrian. "Compositionality of Chinese idioms: the issues, the semantic approach and a case study." Applied Linguistics Review 7, no. 2 (June 1, 2016): 149–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2016-0007.
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AbstractIdioms – or something like idioms – occupy a special place as a speech genre in languages. It is compelling that the issues of what idioms are (or are not) and how they distinguish themselves from other related, though different, linguistic and phraseological categories, are of concern to all. This paper first examines various linguistic issues concerning the idiom genre before going into a detailed discussion about the chengyu in Chinese, which is an approximate yet by no means identical counterpart of the idiom as it is understood in English. It is argued that, as phrasal structures, Chinese chengyus are not all lexically fixed, neither are they all semantically non-compositional. By virtue of the example of the sememe zhong lit. ‘(bronze) bell’ and its incorporation into certain chengyus, it is demonstrated that the sememic constituents of a chengyu can be only not compositionally significant semantically speaking but also, they may well hold the key to the reason why the literal meaning of a chengyu should be closely integrated into its intended, idiomatic (figurative) meaning. Chengyus that incorporate the sememe zhong comprise an idiomatic analogy and, in fact, zhong as a lexical item is represented in the content of this analogy as a cognitively real element. This paper adopts the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework as the basis for semantic analyses of such chengyus.
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Pasechnik, Tatyana B., and Inna G. Savelieva. "What is the Colour of the Feeling (A Case Study of English Idioms with Colour Components)." RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics 10, no. 3 (December 15, 2019): 714–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.22363/2313-2299-2019-10-3-714-721.
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The present article explores English phraseological units with the meaning of emotion that have been fully or partially rethought and have a colour component. The emotive component of the idioms mentioned, is, thus, the object of the present study. In this paper we endeavor to show that the colour nominations which correlated to the concepts of ‘warmth’ and ‘coldness’ define the semantics of the whole idiom which is used for figurative naming human emotions. Looking at the use of colour components in an idiom, we cannot, but consider the key element of an idiom, i.e. idiomaticity, which we understand as the reinterpretation of an expression and the murkiness of its meaning. The article contains the analysis of both idioms which can be traced to free collocations and expressions which are not used in their literal meaning. The group of idioms in question primarily comprises the expressions of murky semantic structure. The examples of colour names exemplify the situation, when reinterpretation can apply no just to a single expression, but also to its components. In this case the colour component of the idiom acquires new semantics, i.e. It no longer means the colour in its literal sense, thus adding the meaning of ‘emotion’ to the semantic structure of the idiom, giving it a new meaning. It is worth pointing out that the number of colour nominations that can be viewed from this perspective is limited. At the same time a huge number of words denoting colours and shades have now emotive meanings whatsoever. However, if we look at other languages, we might find such examples, which in turn can be explained by the fact that people of different cultures perceive the world differently. Language is very good at capturing similarities and differences. The questions raised in the article are of utmost importance as they resonate with the current trends in linguistics, namely with the theory of secondary nomination in various languages and the issues of ideas’ verbalization in phraseological units. Typological and etymological studies of dozens of languages have revealed a set of universal mechanisms in the system of color naming. However, along with universal mechanisms, there are language and culture specific ones. The analysis of such kind gives us a better understanding of this part of the worldview in different cultures.
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Bortfeld, Heather. "Comprehending Idioms Cross-Linguistically." Experimental Psychology 50, no. 3 (January 2003): 217–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1026//1617-3169.50.3.217.
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Abstract. Speakers of three different languages (English, Latvian, and Mandarin) rated sets of idioms from their language for the analyzability of the relationship between each phrase’s literal and figurative meaning. For each language, subsets of idioms were selected based on these ratings. Latvian and Mandarin idioms were literally translated into English. Across three experiments, people classified idioms from the three languages according to their figurative meanings. Response times and error rates indicate that participants were able to interpret unfamiliar (e.g., other languages’) idioms depending largely on the degree to which they were analyzable, and that different forms of processing were used both within and between languages depending on this analyzability. Results support arguments for a continuum of analyzability ( Bortfeld & McGlone, 2001 ), along which figurative speech ranges from reflecting general conceptual structures to specific cultural and historical references.
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Negro Alousque, Isabel. "The motivation of french colour idioms." Epos : Revista de filología, no. 26 (January 1, 2010): 351. http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/epos.26.2010.10649.
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The use of figurative language is not limited to poetry but rather pervades everyday speech. Figurative language has been a central research subject in the last years which has been approached from different perspectives: psychological, cognitive and linguistic. The present contribution paper focuses on a central set of figurative expressions, colour idioms, in the French language. The study concerns the different types of motivation (metaphoric or cultural) underlying French colour idioms.
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Cacciari, Cristina, and Maria Chiara Levorato. "How children understand idioms in discourse." Journal of Child Language 16, no. 2 (June 1989): 387–405. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900010473.
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ABSTRACTSome studies have shown that children tend to interpret figurative language literally. Our hypothesis is that they can reach an idiomatic competence if idioms are presented within a rich informational environment allowing children to grasp their figurative sense. First and third graders were presented with narratives biased both to the figurative meaning of idioms (experiment 1) and to the literal meaning (experiment 2) and then given a comprehension task. Experiment 3 was designed to investigate children's production of idioms as compared to the comprehension abilities explored in experiments 1 and 2. Results show that informative contexts can improve children's ability to perceive idiomatic meanings even at the age of seven; and that children are less able to produce idioms than to comprehend them. Generally results emphasize that children seem able to perceive that language can be both figurative and literal.
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Petrič, Teodor. "Ratings of Affective and Non-Affective Aspects of German Idioms in Second Language Processing." Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition 5, no. 1 (June 30, 2019): 11–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.31261/tapsla.2019.05.02.
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AbstractIn this paper psycholinguistic and emotional properties of 619 German idiomatic expressions are explored. The list of idiomatic expressions has been adapted from Citron et al. (2015), who have used it with German native speakers. In our study the same idioms were evaluated by Slovene learners of German as a foreign language. Our participants rated each idiom for emotional valence, emotional arousal, familiarity, concreteness, ambiguity (literality), semantic transparency and figurativeness. They also had the task to describe the meaning of the German idioms and to rate their confidence about the attributed meaning. The aims of our study were (1) to provide descriptive norms for psycholinguistic and affective properties of a large set of idioms in German as a second language, (2) to explore the relationships between psycholinguistic and affective properties of idioms in German as a second language, and (3) to compare the ratings of the German native speakers studied in Citron et al. (2015) with the ratings of the Slovene second language learners from our study. On one hand, the results of the Slovene participants show many similarities with those of of the German native speakers, on the other hand, they show a slight positivity bias and slightly shallower emotional processing of the German idioms. Our study provides data that could be useful for future studies investigating the role of affect in figurative language in a second language setting (methodology, translation science, language technology).
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Ita, Fitria. "SEMANTIC ANALYSIS ON JAPANESE IDIOM WHICH LEXEM HAND." IZUMI 3, no. 2 (July 9, 2014): 38. http://dx.doi.org/10.14710/izumi.3.2.38-45.
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This research is aimed to explain relation of lexical meaning and figurative meaning on Japanese idiom which use part of body`s hand as well as to find out the change meaning of hand on Japanese idiom. The conclusion of the semantic analysis on Japanese idiom which use part of body`s hand is: (1) Japanese idiom have two syntaxes that is positive verb and negative form. (2) te + ga + Adj. structure syntaxes`s idiom doesn`t have negative form. (3) one idiom possibly have different meaning (4) idiomatic meaning can be find out when right substance with left substance have compared.