contextual pragmatic clues, and lexical in idioms learning · for the essential role that idioms...

Etymology,ContextualPragmaticClues,andLexicalKnowledgeinL2IdiomsLearning

AbbasAliZareiAssociateProfessor,ImamKhomeiniInternationalUniversity,Qazvin

[email protected]

NahidRahimiM.A.,IslamicAzadUniversity,Takestan

[email protected]

Abstract

To investigate the effects of etymological elaboration, contextual pragmaticclues,andlexicalknowledgeonL2 idiomscomprehensionandproduction,60male intermediate levelEFL students in three groupswere selected.Eachgroup was randomly assigned to one treatment condition. Group oneparticipantswerepresentedwith the etymological explanationof idioms. Ingrouptwo,thesameidiomswerepresentedinshort,familiarcontexts,andinthe third group, the participants focused on the exact meaning of theconstituent parts of each idiom. At the end of the experimental period,comprehension and production posttests of idiomswere administered.Twoone–wayANOVAprocedureswereusedtoanalyzedata.Resultsshowedthattheparticipantsoftheetymologicalelaborationgroupperformedsignificantlybetter than the participants of the lexical knowledge group on idiomproduction.Thedifferencesbetweenthemeansinallothercomparisonswerenotstatisticallysignificant.Thesefindingsmayhaveimplicationsforteachers,learners,andsyllabusdesigners.

Keywords: Idioms,Etymology,Contextualization,LexicalKnowledge

Received:January2014; Accepted:September2014

IranianJournalofAppliedLanguageStudies,Vol6,No2,2014

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1.Introduction

Idioms,althoughneglectedbeforethe20thcentury,havereceiveda greatdealofattentionfrompedagogicalpointofview inrecentyears.Ithasbeenpartlybecause of the growing awareness that these inseparable aspects of humanlanguagearevery frequent ineveryday languageuse.Cooper (1999),arguingfor the essential role that idioms play in foreign language learning, declaresthatmost English speakers utter about 20million idioms in their lifetime;hence,usingproper figurativelanguagewouldbea markofnative-likespeechineverylanguage.

Ontheotherhand,teachingandlearningidiomsisoneofthemostdifficultareas in second language contexts becausemost of them have an arbitrarynature.As Charteris (2002) states, figurative idioms are challenging for SLteachersandlearnersbecausethemeaningsofmanyidiomsdonotarisefromthesumoftheirgrammaticalandlexicalparts,andthiscausesdifficultiesinthesystematic instruction of idioms in SL classrooms. As a result, applying aproperapproachtoteachingidiomshasalwaysbeenofoverwhelminginterestamonglanguageteachers.

Opposedtothisview,recentcognitiveandcorpuslinguistsbelievethatthemeaningofidiomsisnotcompletelyarbitrarytobemerelylearntthroughblindmemorization. They have inspired new insights into the field of appliedlinguistics suggestingmore insightfuland systematicapproaches toL2 idiomslearning(Boers,Demecheleer,& Eyckmans,2004)

Theobjectiveof thepresent study is to investigate three strategiesonL2idioms learning: etymological elaboration, contextual pragmatic clues, andlexical knowledge. Previous studies have shown the positive effect of thesestrategiesonL2 idiomlearning.Thisstudyisanattempttocomparethemwith

Etymology,ContextualPragmaticClues…

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eachotherinordertoseewhichoneisthemosteffective.So,thepresentstudywilladdressthefollowingresearchquestions:1. Are there any significant differences among the effects of etymological

elaboration, contextual pragmatic clues, and lexical knowledge on EFLlearners’comprehensionofL2 idioms?

2. Are there any significant differences among the effects of etymologicalelaboration, contextual pragmatic clues, and lexical knowledge on theproductionofL2 idioms?

2.ReviewoftheLiterature2.1.Idioms

SwinneyandCutler (1979,p.523)define idiomsas“a stringof twoormorewords forwhichmeaning isnotderived from themeaningsof the individualwords comprising that string.” According to Irujo (1986), an idiom is aconventionalized expressionwhosemeaning cannot be determined from themeaning of its parts. Similarly, Abel (2003) describes idioms as fixedexpressionswhose figurativemeaning isnotclear from the literalmeaningoftheirindividualconstituents.

GrantandBauers (2004)argue thatall thedefinitionsestablishedby thelinguistsareverygeneralandcanbeappliedtowide-rangingMultiWordUnits(MWU).They, therefore,proposea clearerandmorerestricteddefinitionofthenotionof idiomby classifyingMWUs into three categories:Core idioms(non-compositionalMWUs,themeaningofwhichcannotbederivedfromthemeanings of their constituents), Figuratives (MWUs with metaphors), andONCEs (one non-compositional element). Grant and Bauers add that intraditional definitions there are three recurrent themes which are not well


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defined:Non-compositionality,institutionalization,andfrozennessorfixednessamongwhich they conclude thatnon-compositionality is thekey criterion todefineanidiom.

Zhang(2009),ontheotherhand,statesthat“idiomsarea typeofmultipleword units that have both literal and figurativemeaning. Inmost cases, thefigurative meaning of an idiom cannot be readily derived from the literalmeaningoftheindividualconstituentintheunit.”(p.6)

The importanceof idiomshasbeenemphasizedby linguistsand languageteachersinrecentyears.Bortfeld(2003)believesthattheincreasingnumberofidioms inDictionary ofAmerican Idioms is indicative of the essential roleidiomsplayindailylanguageuse.Inthisregard,Moreno(2011)referstothreemainreasonswhyitissocrucialtoteachidioms,arguingthatbecauseoftheirhigh frequency, special attention should be paid to idioms and languageteachersshouldnotrelegatethemtoa secondarystateinthecurriculum:

First,frequentuseofidiomsmakeslanguagelearnersfluentspeakers,andfigurative competence in a foreign language is a sign of communicativecompetence.Moreover,idiomaticexpressionswhichgivelanguagevarietyandcharacter help learners penetrate into culture, customs, and lifestyle of thetarget language.Secondly, cognitive linguistic studieshavedemonstrated thecrucial role ofmemory in learning fixed expressions such as idioms.Finally,many idioms are constantly changing over time. In order to find out theirunderlyingessence,wehavetoresorttoculturalfactorsandadopta diachronicviewofthelanguage(suchasetymologicalelaboration).

Idiomshavebeen classified fromdifferentpointsofview, syntacticallyorsemantically.Makkai (1972) divides idioms into two categories: idioms ofencoding are those idiosyncratic lexical combinations that have transparentmeaninginvolvingcollocationalpreferencesandrestrictions,exemplifiedbyat


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inhedroveat70m.p.h.Idiomsofdecodingrefertothosenon-identifiableandmisleading lexical expressions whose interpretations could not becomprehended on the basis of only learned linguistic conventions. In otherwords,themeaningofdecoding idioms isnotpredicable.Expressionssuchasbeataboutthebushandflyoffthehandleareexamplesofthistypeofidioms.Idiomsofdecodingareclassified into lexemicandsememic idioms. (Makkai,1972)

The degree of ‘idiomaticity’ that an idiom carries is themost importantfeaturebasedonwhichdifferentscholarsand linguistshaveclassified idioms.Moon(1996)classifiesidiomsbasedon 'thespectrumofidiomaticity'intofourcategories:

Transparent idioms are those idiomswhich are easy to comprehend andtranslate and their meaning can be derived from the meanings of theirconstituent parts (e.g.,Back and forth). Semi- transparent idioms are thoseidiomsthatusuallyhavemetaphoricalmeaningandtheirconstituentpartshavea littleroleincomprehendingthewholemeaningoftheexpression,e.g. Breaktheice. Semi-opaqueidiomsareidiomswhosefigurativemeaningisnotrelatedto the meanings of their constituent words. In other words, the idiomaticexpressionisseparatedintwoparts;a partwithliteralmeaning,andtheotherpartwitha figurativemeaning,e.g.toknowtherope.

Opaque idioms are themost difficult type of idioms, because the literalmeaningsoftheirpartshavelittletodowiththeactualsenseofidioms;thatis,themeaningofanopaque idiomcannotbederived from themeaningsof itsindividualpartsbecausethereareitemswhichhaveculturalreferences,e.g.,toburnone’sboat.

Researchon idiomprocessingandcomprehension inEnglishhasresultedin the emergence of different idiom processing models, which have been


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summarized as five models (Bobrow & Bell, 1973; Gibbs, 1984; Gibbs &Gonzales,1985;Gibbs,Nayak,& Catting,1989;Swinney & Cutler,1979;Titon& Connie,1999).

The firstmodelof idiomprocessing,whichwasproposedbyBobrowandBell (1973), is idiom list hypothesis. According to this model, idiomaticexpressionsareaccessedfroma 'mentalidiomworddictionary'calledidiomlistthatisnotpartoftheperson'snormalmentallexiconandaccessfromthislisttakesplacethroughwhathasbeencalledidiommode. BobrowandBellbelievethat such processing strategy is different from the processing of literalexpressions and normal sentences.When a person first encounters an idiomhe/she would attempt to analyze it literally. If the literal analysis fails, thepersonwillaccessthementalidiomlistandthenwillinterprettheidiomnon-literally.Thismodelwas criticizedby later studies in that theessenceof thismodel implied serialprocessingof idioms,and therefore, couldnotmeasureon-lineorrealtimelanguageprocessing.SwinneyandCutler(1979)arguethattheresearchsupporting thismodelhasreliedonpost-perceptualmeasuresofidiomcomprehensionprocesses.

Thesecondmodelofidiomprocessingislexicalrepresentationhypothesis,whichwassupportedbySwinneyandCutler's(1979)study.Themainprincipleof thismodel is that idiomsaresimplycomplex longwords thatarestored inthementallexiconjustlikeallotherwordsandareprocessedinthesamewayasambiguouswords(e.g.,bugwhichhasmultiplemeanings).Thisassumptionwas supported by Titon and Connine (1999), whose study showed thatdependingonthedegreeoffamiliaritywitha particularexpression,idiomslikeother lexical entries are readily accessible.According to thismodel, duringidiom comprehension both literal and figurative interpretation of idiomaticexpressionstakeplacesimultaneouslyandinparallel,notserialmanner.


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The third hypothesis is direct access hypothesis (Gibbs, 1984), whichmaintains that non literal interpretation of idioms takes place before literalmeaning.Gibbs(1984)arguesthatwhena nativespeakerencountersa familiaridiomatic expression, s/hewill access its figurative sensedirectlywithout anyreferencetoliteralmeaning.

The fourth model of idiom processing is the compositional analysisproposed by Gibbs, Nayak, and Cutting (1989). Their study revealed thatsubjectsprocessdecomposable idioms faster thannon-decomposable idioms.Decomposable idioms are idioms whose figurativemeanings are related toliteralmeanings(e.g.popthequestion) whileinnon-decomposableidiomsthefigurative meaning cannot be derived from literal meaning (e.g. kick thebucket). According to the compositional analysis model, during idiomprocessing,peopleanalyzethemeaningsofindividualwordsoftheidiomsandthencomeupwiththeiroverallmeaning.

Finally,theHybridmodel(Titon& Connine,1999)gainedinsightfromallearliermodels. It has been suggested in thismodel that the ‘direct look up’modelaswellas the ‘compositionalmodel’are involved in idiomprocessing.TitonandConninearguethatnoneoftheaboveapproachesaloneisadequatefor idiom processing, and that compositional and non-compositional (directlook up) approaches are complementary and essential for idiomcomprehension. The hybridmodel is based on the belief that during idiomcomprehensionbothliteralandfigurativemeaningsareactivated.Abel(2003)extendedthemodelandintroducedthedualidiomrepresentationmodel.Theideabehind thismodelwas thatnon-decomposable idiomsareaccessed froman idiom entry while decomposable idioms are represented via theirconstituententries,whichcandevelopan idiomentry iftheyareencounteredmorefrequently.


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Apartfromcomprehensionofidiomaticexpressions,idiomproductionhasbeenofmuch interest inSLA.LeveltandMeyer(2000)proposeda modelofidiom production (Superlemma model) based on Levelt’s (1989) speechproduction model. Based on superlemma theory (Levelt & Meyer, 2000),idiomatic expressions are activated as superlemmas; then a superlemmaactivatesitsconstituentsinglelemmas.Therefore,inidiomaticexpressions,thelemma selection stage in formulator involves two stages which make theretrievalprocessandtheproductionoffigurativelanguagemorecomplexthannormalnon-figurativeexpressions.

2.2. Etymological Elaboration: An Effective Strategy in TeachingIdioms

Ilson(1983)hasdefinedetymologyina narrowanda broadconception.Whenetymologyisusedinlearner’sdictionaries,itmeansthesearchfor‘etyma’andcognates inorder to find its source inearlier stagesof the same languageorotherlanguages.Thebroaderconceptionofetymologyincludesthesearchforsourcesandparallels,andinformationabouthowa word,phrase,orsensehascometobeasitis.

Thesignificantroleofetymology inL2 vocabulary learninghas longbeenembraced by researchers in the literature. Zolfagharkhani and GhorbaniMoghadam (2011) conducted a studywith Iranian upper- intermediateEFLlearnerstoshowtheimpactofetymologicalinstructiononvocabularylearning.Theresultsoftheirstudyrevealedthattheparticipantsreceivingetymologicalinstructionintheexperimentalgroupoutperformedthoseinthecontrolgroup,whichfolloweditsnormaleducation.

Returningtoidioms,associatingidiomswithinformationabouttheiroriginand source domains is called etymological elaboration. There are several


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theories that have been offered by specialists to explain the effectiveness ofetymological elaboration in the comprehension of idiomatic expressions,amongwhichconceptualmetaphor theoryanddualcoding theoryseemtobethemostsignificant(Boers,2001;Boers,Eyckman,& Strenger,2007).

Anessentialaspectincognitivescienceistheideathatmetaphorisnotjustan aspect of language, but constitutes a significant part of the conceptualsystem (Gibbs, 1994;Lakoff& Johnson, 1980).Murphy (1996) confirms thisclaim, arguing that mental representation is in part metaphoric and notcompletelya linguisticphenomenon.Theconceptualmetaphortheory,whichisbased on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) work, seems to contribute to idiomscomprehensionbecauseinextendedconceptualmetaphortheory,itisbelievedthatmetaphorshavechangedovertimeandhave losttheirmetaphoricityandnowexistwithinourmentallexiconasfrozenidioms,notasseparatesemanticunitsinthelexicon.(Gibbs,Bogdanvich,Sykes,&Barr,1997)

The dual coding theory (Paivio, 1991) claims that cognition involves theactivityofbothverbalandnonverbal systems.Themeaningsofwordscanbebetter recalled if learners associate their imagery representations with theirverbal code simultaneously.Etymological elaboration helps learners to buildupa mentalimagebyoriginalusageofidioms;therefore,verbalinformationofan idiomon theonehand,anda mental imageof iton theotherhand,helplearners to comprehend and recall its meaning more successfully (Zhang,2009).

Application of etymological elaboration to L2 idiom comprehension haslongbeenofparticularinterestinsecondlanguageacquisitionresearch.Boers(2001) conducted an experiment with two parallel groups of upper-intermediate Dutch students studying English as a second language. Thecontrol groupwould process idioms by the use of the context inwhich they


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wereused.Theexperimentalgroupwasaskedtosupplya possibleoriginoftheidiomsbylookinguptheliteralsenseoftheunknownwordswhichwouldhelpthemhypothesizeabouttheoriginoftheexpressions(imageryprocessing).Theresultoffollowuptasksshowedthatrelatingfigurativeidiomswitha concreteimagehada positiveeffectontheretentionofidiomaticphrases.

In another study (Boers, et al., 2004), two groupsof on-line participantsreceivedtwotypesofexerciseforidioms:identify-the-sourceandidentify-the-meaning exercises.This orderwas reversed for the control group.The highperformanceof theexperimentalgroupover thecontrolgroupconfirmedthesignificantroleofetymologyinidiomsacquisition.

Boers, et al., (2007) examined how source domain of idiomsmotivatedtheirfigurativemeaningswithregardtocross-culturalvariations.Thestudywasaccomplished through an idiom teacher exercise (A self-study techniqueconsisting of 1200 on-line exercises on 400 idioms). The exercises includedmatchingtosourcetaskfortheexperimentalgroupandmatchingtodefinitiontask for the controlgroup followedbya gap filling task forbothgroupsasapost test.Results revealed that etymological elaboration could help learnerseffectivelycomprehendandrecallfigurativeidioms.

Parallel to this study, Zhang (2009) designed a web-based learningexperiment with Chinese students in order to estimate the actual effect ofetymologyon receptiveandproductiveknowledgeof target idioms inanon-lineenvironment.Theparticipantsweregivenon-linelearningunitsthatweredesigned in different forms for two groups. In the experimental group, eachidiomwasassociatedwithinformationabouttheirorigin,butthecontrolgroupreceived only brief explanations about figurative meaning of idioms. Theresults showed that while etymological information did not have more


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influenceonL2 idiomacquisitionthantraditionalrotelearning,itwaseffectiveontheretentionandproductiveknowledgeoftargetidioms.

In the same vein, Bagheri and Fazel (2010) explored the role of thementioned technique in Iranian learners’ comprehension and retention ofidiomsonthebasisofdualcodingtheory.ThesametreatmentasBoersetal’s(2007) work was given to 50 advanced EFL learners in experimental andcontrolgroups.Theresultsofthisstudywere in linewiththepreviousstudiesandconfirmedthatetymologicalelaborationenhancedidiomlearning.

2.3.IdiomsandContextualClues

Physicalanddiscourseenvironmentsconstrain thepossible interpretationsofphrasesor sentencesand the referentof their constituents.Using contextualclues to infer themeaning of unknownwords is an effective strategywhichhelpslearnersacquireskillsandaidsvocabularylearning(Dunmore,1989).Inaddition,usingcontextualpragmaticcluesseemstohavea considerableeffecton L2 idiom comprehension, particularly in understanding opaque idiomswhosemeaningcannotbeinferredfromtheindividualwordmeanings.

As Swinney and Cutler (1979) state, most idioms have the feature ofambiguity.Thismeans that idiomswhicharegrammaticallywell formedhavean acceptable literal meaning as well as figurative meaning. So, thecomprehension of such idioms will be problematic. In the case of normalphrases and sentences, this ambiguity seems to be resolved through priorcontext.Inotherwords,contextualcluescaninfluencetheinterpretationofanambiguous sentence with literal and non-literalmeanings (Bobrow & Bell,1973).Hence,contextualcluescanaccountforambiguousidiomstoo.

Studiesonusing contextual clues inL2 idiom comprehensionhave foundthatguessingfromcontextisaneffectivestrategyandisrecurrentlyusedinL2


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idiomcomprehension.Cooper(1999)usedthethink-aloudresearchmethodtoinvestigate thekindofstrategiesL2 learnersemploy in thecomprehensionofunfamiliar idioms.The results showed that themost frequentlyused strategywasguessingfromcontextasitledtocorrectanswers75%ofthetime.

Ina similarvein,TowseandKnight(2009)investigatedthecontributionofinference from context to young children’s understanding of idiomaticsentences.Resultsshowedthatveryyoungchildrenweresensitivetomeaningsincontextandcouldprocesslanguageatthephrasalanddiscourselevelwhilethese processing skills, which help idiom comprehension, were not fullydevelopedin11-12year-olds.

2.4.LexicalKnowledgeandIdiomLearning

Lexicalknowledgeinvolvesnotonlyknowingtheliteralmeaningofa word,butalsohavingknowledgeaboutitsdifferentconnotations,morphologicalaspects,and syntactic structure.Research in the area of SLA has demonstrated thecrucialroleofwordknowledgeinlearners’levelofproficiencyinreceptiveandproductive knowledge ofEnglish.August,Carol,Dressler, and Snow (2005)examined the critical role of vocabulary development for English languagelearners. Their study showed that students with low vocabulary knowledgeperformedpoorlyincomprehendingEnglishtexts.

Apart from the significant role which lexical knowledge has incomprehendingnormalsentencesandexpressions, itseemstofacilitate idiomcomprehension and production. Contrary to the traditional view that themeaningofmost idioms isquitearbitraryandthat themeaningsof individualwordsinidiomaticexpressionsdonotcontributetotheiroverallinterpretation,thecompositionalviewisbasedonthenotionthatthemeaningofanidiomisbuilt out of literal word meanings and the special interpretation of word


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meaningsina particularcontext,muchlikeotherliteralandfigurativeaspectsoflanguage(Titon&Connine,1999).

Cieslicka(2006)addressedthequestionofhowtheliteralmeaningsoftheconstituents of idioms contribute to their comprehension. The literalassumptionmodelisa modelwhosemajorassumptionisthatunderstandingL2

idiomsentailscomputationof the literalmeaningsof theirconstituentwordseven if the idioms are used in a figurative context. The experiment wasconductedwithadvancedPolish learnersofEnglish,and itsresultssupportedtheeffectivenessof the literalmeaningsoftheconstituentwordsof idioms inL2idiomslearning.

Inthesamevein,Zyzik(2011)examinedtheacquisitionofSpanishidiomsintheclassroomsettingthatwassupplementedwithexplicitinstructionovera10weekperiod.TheresultsofhisstudyindicatedthesignificanteffectofpriorlexicalknowledgeinthecomprehensionofSpanishidioms.

In sum, idioms are an important aspect of figurative language anddiscovering effective strategies to teach idioms isone of themost importantconcerns of researchers and teachers.Research onL2 idiom comprehensionhassuggesteda numberofstrategiesthathavebeenconfirmedtobeeffectiveinteachingandlearningidioms,amongwhichthreestrategieswillbeexaminedinthisstudytoseewhichoneismoreconducivetothecomprehensionaswellasproductionofidiomaticexpressions.

3.Method3.1.Participants

Theparticipantsofthisstudywere60maleEFLstudentsatintermediatelevelof proficiency. All of the participants were studying Top notch, an


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internationally well-known course book, under the instruction of the sameteacherinShokuhlanguageinstituteinAbhar,Iran.Theageoftheparticipantsrangedfrom16to30,andtheywereselectedfromamong75participants;theyweredividedintothreegroupstoreceivedifferenttreatments.

Group 1 received instruction through etymological elaboration; therewere 21learnersinthisgroup.

Group 2 receivedinstructionthroughcontextualizationandhad16participants.Group 3 received instruction through explicit teaching of vocabulary. The

numberofparticipantsofthethirdgroupwas20.

3.2.Instruments

Inthepresentstudythefollowingmaterialsandinstrumentswereused:In order to homogenize the participants, the vocabulary subtest of a

standardKETgeneralproficiency testwasused.The subtest consistedof 20multiplechoiceitems.

To minimize the effect of participants’ prior knowledge of the targetidioms, a pretest was administered. The test included 100 items containingidiomswhichwouldbepresentedduringthetreatment.Eachitemconsistedofa shortsentencewhich includedone idiom.Theparticipantshad towrite thePersiantranslationoftheidioms.

Themainmaterial presented to the participantswas 100English idiomsselectedfromAmericanHeritageDictionaryofIdiomswithstrongetymology,fromamongwhich60idiomswereselectedandusedintheposttests.

Twoposttestswereusedinthisstudy:a 30- itemmultiplechoicetestwasusedtomeasuretheparticipants’receptiveknowledgeof idioms.Another30-item fill-in-the-blanks test was used tomeasure the participants’ productive


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knowledge of idioms.The Persian definition of the idiomswas given in theparenthesestohelpthestudentsfillintheblanks.

3.3.Procedure

To beginwith, the figurative idiomswere selected based on criteria such astheir frequency inEnglish,havinga clearetymology,andunfamiliarity toourintermediate participants. Sixty intermediate level learners with the afore-mentionedcharacteristicswereselected,theparticipantswerein3 groups,andeachgroupwasrandomlyassignedtooneofthethreedifferenttreatments.ThevocabularysubtestofKETwasusedtohomogenizetheparticipants,datafromthosewhoscoredmorethanonestandarddeviationaboveorbelowthemeanwereexcludedfromallsubsequentanalyses.

Tominimize theeffectof theparticipants’backgroundknowledgeof thetarget idioms,a pretestwasadministered.The test included100 idioms,eachpresented in a sentence, and the participants had to write the Persiantranslation of the idioms. Only those idioms that were unfamiliar to theparticipantswereusedintheposttests.

Asmentionedabove,theparticipantswere inthreegroups,eachgroupofparticipantsreceiveda differenttreatmentwhichlastedfor6 one-hoursessionsineachofwhichtheparticipantswereexposedto15-17idioms.Ingroupone:each idiom in the list was associated with its etymology and origin. Theparticipantswere given the etymologicaldefinitionsof idioms. In group two,the same idioms were presented in short contexts which were likely to befamiliar for the participants, and theywere asked to read the sentences andinferthefigurativemeaningofeach idiomusingcontextualclues.Inthethirdgroup, the participants were exposed to the same idioms followed by theEnglish definitionwithout any etymology and context,while an attemptwas


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made in the thirdgroup to teach the lexiconof the idiomsexplicitly,and theparticipantswereaskedtofocusontheexactmeaningoftheconstituentpartsofeachidiom.

Attheendoftheexperimentalperiod,twopost-testswereadministeredtoinvestigatetheeffectsofetymologicalelaboration,contextualclues,andlexicalknowledge on learners’ comprehension and production of idioms. Thecollecteddatawereorganizedandsubmittedtostatisticalanalysis.

3.4.DataAnalysis

Toanswertheresearchquestions,twoseparateone–wayANOVAprocedureswereused;onetoinvestigatetheeffectsofetymologicalelaboration,contextualclues, and lexical knowledge onL 2 idioms comprehension, and the other toinvestigatetheeffectsofthesametechniquesonL 2 idiomsproduction.

4.ResultsandDiscussion4.1.InvestigationoftheFirstResearchQuestion

The first research question sought to investigate the effects of etymologicalelaboration,contextualclues,and lexicalknowledgeonIranianEFL learners'comprehension of idioms. To answer this question, a one-way ANOVAprocedurewasused.DescriptivestatisticsarepresentedinTable1:Table1.DescriptiveStatisticsfortheANOVAonIdiomComprehension

groups N Mean Std.Deviation LowerBound UpperBoundetymology 21 17.47 2.37 16.39 18.55

contextualization 16 17.43 2.12 16.30 18.57lexicalknowledge 20 16.00 3.72 14.25 17.74

Total 57 16.947 2.90 16.17 17.71


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Based onTable 1, it can be observed that the group instructed throughetymologicalelaborationhas thehighestmean, followedcloselyby thegroupinstructed through contextualization. The group taught through lexicalknowledge has the lowest mean. In order to see if group differences arestatisticallysignificant,theonewayANOVAprocedurewasused,theresultsofwhicharepresentedinTable2:Table2.ANOVAResultsonIdiomComprehension

SumofSquares df MeanSquare F Sig.BetweenGroups 27.66 2 13.83 1.67 .19WithinGroups 445.17 54 8.24

Total 472.84 56

Table2 shows that thereareno statistically significantdifferencesamongthe three groups.Therefore, it can be concluded that different strategies ofteachingidiomshavenodifferentialeffectonlearners’idiomcomprehension.

4.2.InvestigationoftheSecondQuestion

Thesecondresearchquestionsoughttoinvestigatetheeffectsofetymologicalelaboration,contextualclues,and lexicalknowledgeonL2 idiomproduction.To this end, another one-way ANOVA was used. Table 3 contains thedescriptivestatistics:Table3.DescriptiveStatisticsfortheANOVAonIdiomProductionGroups N Mean Std.Deviation LowerBound UpperBoundEtymology 21 17.52 2.92 16.19 18.85Contextualization 16 15.62 3.48 13.77 17.47lexicalknowledge 20 14.05 3.50 12.41 15.68Total 57 15.77 3.56 14.82 16.71


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Based on Table 3, it is evident that the group instructed throughetymological elaboration has the highestmean, followed by the group thatreceived contextualized idioms; the lexical knowledge group has the lowestmean.Thesecondone-wayANOVAprocedurewasused tosee theextent towhich theobserveddifferences among thegroupsare statistically significant.TheresultsareshowninTable4:Table4.ANOVAResultsonIdiomProduction

SumofSquares Df MeanSquare F Sig.BetweenGroups 124.09 2 62.04 5.71 .006WithinGroups 585.93 54 10.85 2η = .17Total 710.03 56

AsitisclearinTable4,theobservedF valueandthesignificancelevelareindicativeofsignificantdifferencesamongthegroups(F(2,54)= 5.71;p ְך .05).This means that there are significant differences among the effects ofetymologicalelaboration,context,andlexicalknowledgeonidiomproduction.Atthesametime,theindexofthestrengthofassociationindicatesthat17%oftotal variance in thedependent variable (productionof idioms) isaccountedforbytheindependentvariable,namely,techniqueofpresentation.Thismeansthat theremaining83%of thevariance is leftunaccounted for.To locate thestatistically significant differences among themeans, a Post-hocScheffe testwasused.TheresultsarepresentedinTable5:Table5.Multiplecomparisonsofmeansforgroups’idiomproduction(I)group (J)group MeanDifference(I-J) Std.Error Sig.Etym context 1.89 1.09 .23

lexicalknow 3.47 1.02 .00Context lexicalknow 1.57 1.10 .36


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BasedontheTable5,itcanbearguedthatthereisa significantdifferencebetween the group instructed through etymology and the lexical knowledgegroup.Inotherwords, theparticipantsof theetymologicalelaborationgrouphave performed significantly better than the participants of the lexicalknowledge group. Table 5 also shows that although the etymology groupoutperformed the contextualization group, the mean differences are notstatisticallysignificant.

4.3.Discussion

The present study attempted to investigate the effects of etymologicalelaboration,contextualclues,and lexicalknowledgeon idiomcomprehensionand production of intermediate EFL learners.Regarding the first researchquestion, the results showed no significant differences among the threeexperimental groups. This means that etymological elaboration, contextualclues, and lexical knowledge had no differential effects on learners' idiomcomprehension.

Thisfindingisnotconsistentwitha numberofstudiessomeofwhichwerereviewedearlier(e.g.,Baleghizadeh& MohammadBagheri,2012;Bagheri&Fazel,2010;Boers,2001;Boers,etal.,2004;Boers,etal.,2007).Whileallthesestudies confirmed the significant role of etymological elaboration in idiomcomprehension, this study did not find evidence in support of the use ofetymologicalelaborationinenhancingidiomcomprehension.

Based on the results of this study, instructing idioms throughcontextualization had no statistically significant effect on L2 idiomcomprehension. This contradicts the findings of Cooper (1999), who foundevidence in favor of the benefits of contextual clues compared with otherstrategieswhichwereinvestigatedinhisstudy.Oneofthepossiblereasonsfor


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suchdifferencesbetween thepresent studyand theabovementioned studiesmay be partially because of the cultural variations. The participants of thepresent study were Iranian learners, but they were Belgian and Korean inBoers’ andCoopers’ studies, respectively.Another possible reason could bethedifferencesintheproficiencyleveloftheparticipants.Inthisresearch,theparticipantswere intermediate learners. InBagheriandFazel’s (2010) study,the participants were advanced EFL learners, and in Boers’ study, theparticipantswereupper-intermediate.

The resultsof this studyarealso in conflictwithanother study.Sadeghi,Dastjerdi, and Ketabi (2010) showed the important role of context in theinterpretationofidiomaticexpressionsandconstructionofidiomaticmeaning.Butinthisstudy,theeffectofcontextualcluesonthecomprehensionofidiomsdidnotturnouttobesignificantincomparisonwithotherstrategies.

Similarly, the findings of this study are different from those ofCieslicka(2006)andZyzik(2011).Thepresentstudyshowednosignificantdifferencesamong the effects of lexical knowledge and the other strategies on idiomcomprehension,butCeislicka (2006)andZyzik (2011)showed the significanteffectofhavinglexicalknowledgeinthecomprehensionofL2 idioms.

It isworth noting that one important reasonwhy the participants of thelexical knowledge group had the lowest scores in both comprehension andproductionposttestscouldhavebeentheidiomtype,whichwasnottakenintoaccount inthepresentstudy.Indecomposable idioms,the literalmeaningsoftheconstituentpartscontributetotheunderstandingoftheidioms.Butinnon-decomposable idioms, themeaningsof the lexicalelementsof idioms cannothavea significantroleintherecognitionofidioms.

Unlike the above results, there is a study the results of which are inaccordance with the findings of this study. Cain, Towse and Knight (2009)


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foundthatusingcontexttounderstandidiomscouldbeeffectiveonlyforveryyounglearnersandadultswerenotsuccessfulinusingthementionedstrategytocomprehendidioms.

Regarding the second research question, the results showed thatetymological elaboration had more significant effect on participants’ idiomproduction than lexicalknowledge.This finding is in linewith thatofZhang(2009),who found that etymology had no significant influence on L2 idiomcomprehension,whileitwaseffectiveontheproductionofidioms.Itshouldbenotedthatthereisa differencebetweenthisstudyandthatofZhang(2009)inthat it examined the effect of etymological elaboration on the learning ofidiomsinweb-basedandon-linelearningenvironments.

5.Conclusion

The results of the present study showed that in vocabulary comprehension,although the differences observed among the groups were not statisticallysignificant, etymological elaboration turned out to be the most effectivetechnique, followed by contextualization. Lexical knowledge was the leastconducive technique tovocabularycomprehension.Invocabularyproduction,thedifferencebetween theetymologygroupand the lexicalknowledgegroupwas statistically significant.However, the differences between the etymologyand contextualization groups, and between the contextualization and lexicalknowledge groups were not statistically significant. Still, the same order ofeffectivenesswasobservedhere.Thatis,etymologicalelaborationwasthemosteffectivetechnique,followedbycontextualization,andlexicalknowledge.Thisimplies that etymological elaboration was the most effective of the threepresentationmodesonbothvocabulary comprehensionandproduction.Oneobvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that the present study seems to


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providesupportforthenoncompositionalviewofidiomsinthesensethattheknowledgeofthelexicalconstituentsofidiomsdidnotcontributemuchtothecomprehensionandproductionofidioms.Onthecontrary,learnersseemedtohave a tendency to regard each idiom as a unitwhich had an independenthistoryofitsown.Atthesametime,contextualizationseemedtobesuperiortolexical knowledge in both receptive and productive learning of idioms,suggestingthatidiomsshareanotheraspectofindividuallexicalitems;thatis,theyare learntmoreviably ina meaningfulcontext than throughmemorizinglistsofisolateditems.Inshort,basedonthefindingsofthepresentstudy,itisconcluded that idioms seem to behave more or less like lexical items.Therefore, itmaybebeneficial toapply thealreadyestablished techniquesofpresentationofwords to idioms.Thismeans that the findingsof thepresentstudy canhave far-reaching implications for teachers,and syllabusdesigners.Rather than applying a singlemethod in teaching idioms, teachers can usemultiple techniques in their idiomclasses inorder toenhance their students’learningof idioms.Also, syllabusand textbookdesigners canprovide idiomsbooks which are more palpable for students through incorporating moreeffectivepresentationtechniquesofidioms.

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contextual pragmatic clues, and lexical in idioms learning · for the essential role that idioms...

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