POZNAŃSKIE SPOTKANIA JĘZYKOZNAWCZE, t. 25 (2013)
POZNAŃ LINGUISTIC FORUM, vol. 25 (2013)
Iwona Osmańska-Lipka
University of Warsaw
In the idiomatic world of animals –
idiom comprehension in a foreign language
Idioms are widely considered to be a stumbling block in the process of learning and teaching a foreign language. Even advanced learners face many difficulties in understanding and using idioms. The approach to idiom processing, comprehension and acquisition has changed over time. A strict dichotomy between
compositional and noncompositional theories has appeared to be “insufficient to
accommodate data from psycholinguistic studies of idioms”1.
The actual definition of an idiom is complicated. According to some linguists2, an idiom is a conventionalized expression whose meaning cannot be
determined from the meaning of its parts. This definition stands in opposition to
the compositional approach to idioms in which individual words greatly contribute to the overall meaning of an idiom and might also suggest its figurative
meaning. It might also be difficult to make a clear distinction between an idiom
and a dead metaphor. What is more, idioms can be innovative and flexible to
such an extent that they sometimes escape the definition of conventionalized
meaning. It is difficult to define idioms as a category, they are not only dead
metaphors, proverbs or sayings. “The category of the idiom is a mixed bag”3, in
this bag we might encounter metaphors (e.g. spill the beans), metonymies (e.g.
throw up one’s hands), pairings of words (e.g. cats and dogs), similes (e.g. as
easy as pie, as good as gold), sayings (e.g. a bird in the hand is worth two in the
1
A. Cieślicka, On processing figurative language: towards a model of idiom comprehension
in foreign language learners, Poznań 2004, p. 83.
2
S. Irujo, A piece of cake: Learning and teaching idioms, ,,ELT Journal” 1986, 40 (3),
pp. 236–243.
3
Z. Kövecses & P. Szabó, Idioms: A View from Cognitive Semantics, ,,Applied Linguistics”
1996, 17, pp. 327.
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Iwona Osmańska-Lipka
bush) and phrasal verbs. Some scholars (for instance Cieślicka) adopt a broad
definition of idioms, others view proverbs and sayings as a different type of figurative language.
Idioms are not homogeneous. Taking into account different factors, there are
different kinds of idiomatic expressions. They can be divided into non-compositional, compositional and hybrid ones. Apart from different approaches to idioms, there
are also other factors like familiarity and transparency, which improve idiom comprehension; on the other hand many foreign idioms have no equivalents in L1.
According to the first, traditional approach, idiomatic phrases are noncompositional strings whose figurative meanings are not directly related to the literal
meanings of their individual words. This approach contains three different models of idiom processing: the literal processing model (the ‘literal first’ hypothesis)4,
the lexical representation hypothesis5 and the direct access model6. According to
Bobrow and Bell’s literal processing model there are three stages in idiom
processing. First, the language comprehension device constructs the literal interpretation of the idiom and, if the literal meaning is rejected, the idiomatic meaning is recovered from the special lexicon7. In the lexical representation hypothesis, Swinney and Cutler tried to demonstrate that the comprehension of idiomatic
expressions is not more time-consuming than that of non-idiomatic ones. They
claimed that there are simultaneous computations of the literal and figurative
meanings of the idiom. Finally, the direct access hypothesis contraducts the ‘first
literal’ model. The figurative meaning of an idiomatic expression is accessed
before its literal meaning.
In the second compositional approach, individual idiom components contribute to the overall sense of an idiom. Within this approach there are three
models: the idiom decomposition hypothesis8, the configuration hypothesis9
and Phrase-Induced Polysemy (PIP) model10.
S.A. Bobrow & S.M. Bell, On catching on to idiomatic expressions, ,,Memory and Cognition” 1973, 1, pp. 343–346.
5
D.A. Swinney & A. Cutler, The Access and Processing of Idiomatic Expressions, ,,Journal
of Verbal Language and Verbal Behavior” 1979, 18, pp. 523–534.
6
R.W. Gibbs, Spilling the bean on understanding and memory for idioms in conversation,
,,Memory & Cognition” 1980, 8, pp. 149–156; R.W. Gibbs, On the Process of Understanding Idioms, ,,Journal of Psycholinguistic Research” 1985, 14, pp. 465–472.
7
It is so called the idiom-list hypothesis. Idioms are stored and retrieved from the lexicon as
whole ‘long words’.
8
R.W. Gibbs, N.P. Nayak & C. Cutting, How to Kick the Bucket and Not Decompose: Analyzability and Idiom Processing, ,,Journal of Memory and Language” 1989, 28, pp. 576–593.
9
C. Cacciari and P. Tabossi, The comprehension of idioms, ,,Journal of Memory and Language” 1988, 27, pp. 668–683; C. Cacciari & S. Glucksberg, Understanding idiomatic expressions: The contribution of word meanings, in: Understanding word and Sentence, ed. G.B. Simpson, Amsterdam 1991, pp. 217–240.
10
S. Glucksberg, Idiom meanings and allusional content, in: Idioms: Processing, Structure
and Interpretation, ed. C. Cacciari & P. Tabossi, Hillside 1993, pp. 3–26.
4
In the idiomatic world of animals – idiom comprehension in a foreign language
3
The decompositional hypothesis claims that individual words in an idiomatic
expression seem to contribute to the overall figurative meaning of the idiom due
to the metaphoric potential that such words convey. It has been suggested that the
meanings of idioms are motivated by conceptual metaphors. For instance there
is a link between the idiom spill the beans and the metaphors MIND IS A CONTAINER and IDEAS ARE PHYSICAL ENTITIES. In the configuration hypothesis the meaning of idioms is associated with a particular configuration of words.
Idioms are grouped together with other memorized strings. The upgraded variant
of the configuration hypothesis is Phrase-Induced Polysemy. Words in the string
have a polysemous character, so lexical forms convey an extra sense, for example, in the string spill the beans, spill conveys an additional meaning of reveal
and beans conveys the meaning of secret.
The third approach to idioms is a combination of both noncompositional and
compositional models. According to hybrid proposals, idiomatic phrases behave
both noncompositionally and compositionally. In Titone and Connine’s hybrid
proposal11 idioms are categorized according to three semantic dimensions, namely, conventionality, compositionality and transparency. The compositional character of idioms is seen in conventionality and the compositional nature in that
they are decomposable and transparent.
One of the most distinctive models among hybrid proposals is Giora’s graded salience hypothesis12. Giora’s model postulates the priority of salient meanings via direct retrieval from the mental lexicon. The salience of an idiom is a
function of its conventionality, familiarity, frequency or givenness status in a
certain context. “The salience of conventional meanings, however, may be affected by, e.g., context. Thus, if a word has two meanings that can be retrieved
directly from the lexicon, the meaning more popular, or more prototypical, or
more frequently used in a certain community is more salient”13. The freshest
hybrid model is Coulson and Matlock’s space structuring model14. It is based on
Conceptual Blending15, which is said to be the processing mechanisms underlying the comprehension of both literal and idiomatic expressions. In this view, a
literal interpretation is constructed automatically as part of the parsing process.
Idiom interpretation requires the construction of a number of cognitive models
Titone D.A & C. M. Connine, On the compositional and noncompositional nature of idiomatic expressions, ,,Journal of Pragmatics” 1999, 31, pp. 1655–1674.
12
R. Giora, Understanding Figurative and Literal Language: The Graded Salience Hypothesis [J], ,,Cognitive Linguistics” 1997, 8 (3), pp. 183–206.
13
Ibidem, p. 185.
14
S. Coulson & T. Matlock, Metaphor and the space structuring model, ,,Metaphor & Symbol” 2001, 16, pp. 295–316.
15
Conceptual blending is a set of operations for combining cognitive models in a network
of mental spaces.
11
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Iwona Osmańska-Lipka
and “metaphor comprehension requires the transformation rather than pure transfer of properties from one domain to another”16.
Following Titone and Conine’s hybrid account of idioms, Cieślicka suggests
that” idiom representation may vary in the learner’s lexicon, so that some idioms
may be represented more holistically while others in a more distributed fashion”17.
She proposes the LISAR model (the literal-salience resonant model of L2 idiom
comprehension), which assumes the primacy of literal over figurative senses of
idiom constituents and claims that resonance18 is the major processing mechanism driving language comprehension. Cieślicka underlines processing differences between nondecomposable and decomposable idioms in L2.
From the above outline of theories, models, hypotheses and approaches it
seems reasonable to conclude that the dynamics of idiom processing and comprehension is difficult to explain, and many theories and experiments and findings are contradictory. It is impossible (at least at this stage of research in the
field) to provide a single, unitary model of idiom processing and comprehension.
“It may never be possible for a single model to fully and exhaustively capture the
dynamics of (idiom) acquisition, mental representation, comprehension and esthetic appreciation”19. There are substantial factors that affect idiom comprehension and acquisition in a second language. First of all, the idiom type affects the
process. The easiest idioms seem to be those idioms that are familiar20 and have
a direct equivalent in L2. The role of emotional involvement and mental imagery
involved in the situation might be crucial to idiom comprehension.
Right until the late seventies the main trend in idiom analysis was to view
these expressions as non-compositional items, whose overall meaning cannot be
deduced from the meanings of the constituents and in which the meanings of
particular components cannot contribute to the meaning of the whole idiomatic
expression. In this traditional view, idioms are considered to be a special set of
the larger category of words21. They are viewed as items in the lexicon independent of the human conceptual system, regarded purely as a matter of language.
Moreover, they are isolated from each other at the conceptual level. According to
generative linguistics the mental lexicon is separate from the mental grammar
but enslaved to it (esp. to syntax). Idioms are viewed as opaque and unanalysable
units and treated as evidence for the existence of syntactic transformations. In
the generative framework, idioms are linguistic expressions whose overall mean S. Coulson & T. Matlock, op. cit., p. 306.
A. Cieślicka, op. cit., p. 160.
18
This term is a modern formulation of the process known in psycholinguistics and psychology as spreading activation.
19
A. Cieślicka, op. cit., p. 292.
20
W. Schweigert & D. Moates, Familiar idiom comprehension, ,,Journal of Psycholinguistic
Research” 1988, 17, pp. 281–296.
21
M. Carter & R. McCarthy, Vocabulary and Language Teaching, London 1988, p. 19.
16
17
In the idiomatic world of animals – idiom comprehension in a foreign language
5
ing cannot be predicted from the meanings of their constituent parts. Kövecses
and Szabó22 partly agree with the traditional view that idioms are not entirely
predictable, they suggest that “there is a great deal of systematic conceptual motivation for the meaning of most idioms. Since most idioms are based on conceptual metaphors and metonymies, systematic motivation arises from sets of ‘conceptual mappings or correspondences’ that obtain between a source and a target
domain in the sense of Lakoff and Kövecses23. ”This approach is known as cognitive linguistics. Cognitive linguists have begun to challenge many dogmas and
theories concerning the study of language. Cognitive linguistics is an approach
to language that originated in the late seventies and early eighties in the work of
the American researchers24. In this approach, language is viewed as an instrument for organizing and processing information. It does not reflect ‘objective’
reality, but is a ‘window’ into cognitive functions, providing an insight into the
structure of thoughts. This new approach in linguistics affected all aspects of
language and linguistic phenomena, including idioms. According to the new
school, idioms are products of our conceptual system, they are not a matter of
lexicon. “An idiom is not just an expression that has meaning that is somehow
special in relation to the meanings of its constituent parts, but it arises from our
more general knowledge of the world (embodied in our conceptual system)”25.
The meaning of an idiom is always motivated, not arbitrary, and it may be motivated by several cognitive mechanisms: metaphors, metonymies, blending and
conventional knowledge. The conceptual metaphor is one of the basic mechanisms for understanding and experience26. It refers to the understanding of one
idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another. Lakoff and Johnson have seen
metaphor as pervasive in our conceptual system, not only in language but also in
our thought. “We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature”27. It should be mentioned that the motivation for idioms rarely
comes from a single source. It rather comes from a combination of different
sources, which might compete with each other.
Z. Kövecses & P. Szabó, op. cit., p. 326.
G. Lakoff & Z. Kovecses, The cognitive model of anger inherent in American English,
in: Cultural Models in Language and Thought, ed. D. Holland & N. Quinn, Cambridge 1987,
pp. 195–221.
24
G. Lakoff & M. Johnson, Metaphors We Live by, Chicago 1980 (2003); R.W. Langacker,
Foundations of Cognitive Grammar Vol. 1: Theoretical Prerequisites, Stanford 1987; L. Talmy,
Force Dynamics in Language and Thought, ,,Cognitive Science” 1988, 12, pp. 49–100.
25
Z. Kövecses & P. Szabó, op. cit., p. 330.
26
G. Lakoff & M. Johnson, op. cit., p. 211.
27
Ibidem, p. 3.
22
23
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In this paper I focus on animal idioms as a special case among a wide set of
idiomatic expressions. Most idioms that contain an animal in the phrase are metaphorical idioms (according to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory28), which are
based on the general conceptual metaphors: MAN IS ANIMAL. The source domain is not strictly ANIMAL but its features, behavior and characteristic associations that people have with it. The target domain is MAN who is or behaves
like a particular animal. For instance as busy as a bee, to be a bull in a china
shop. Most animal idioms are compositional, where individual words in an idiomatic expression contribute to the overall figurative meaning of the idiom. Animal idioms may produce rich mental imageries connected with the constituents
of an idiom. According to many researchers, compositional idioms are easier to
comprehend, because their constituents give us portions of meaning, clues that
suggest the figurative meaning of the whole expression. In the case of animal idioms, it is easier to deduce the idiomatic meaning because animals are perceived
in a similar way by different cultures, e.g. bees are considered hardworking,
bulls are dangerous, furious or even clumsy.
In an informal experiment, I have tried to show the unique character of animal
idioms, their universality and similarity, to some extent. I have taken into consideration such factors as equivalence, compositionality, familiarity and the mental
imagery of the idioms. The assumptions that were made were as follows:
1. Easiest to understand are those idioms which have an equivalent in L1 and
the most difficult are those which have no precise equivalent in L1.
2. Compositional idioms are the easiest to comprehend.
3. If students do not understand the whole idiomatic expression, they rely on
its constituent parts, trying to figure out the meaning.
4. Students strongly relate to L1 to find the meaning.
5. If students are familiar with an idiom, they understand it figuratively, paying little attention to its constituent parts.
6. Using imagery in idiom comprehension helps students in understanding
the meaning of an idiom.
The informal experiment was divided into two parts, one of the tasks was
Mental Imagery of Idioms, the other concerned Idiom Comprehension. The participants were 22 secondary school students at the pre-intermediate to intermediate level of English. All the individuals were Polish, and English was their subject at school. All the participants were tested in the classroom at their school
during two 45-minute sessions. There were four such sessions, as there were two
different groups involved in the experiment. Both tasks (Mental Imagery of Idioms and Idiom Comprehension) contained the same set of 40 idioms, 30 of them
Ibidem; Z. Kövecses, Metaphor: A practical introduction, New York 2002; G. Lakoff, The
contemporary theory of metaphor, in: Metaphor and thought, ed. A. Ortony, Cambridge 1993,
p. 202–251.
28
In the idiomatic world of animals – idiom comprehension in a foreign language
7
were animal idioms and 10 of a different kind. Each idiomatic expression was
a verb phrase, there were no phrasal verbs included in the list. In the case of animal idioms there were three kinds of them, each included ten idioms and all the
animal idioms were presented in a different random order. The first group contained idioms that have direct or almost direct equivalents in L1, for example it’s
a dog’s life, to take the bull by the horns, to fight like a tiger, as free as a bird.
The second group were idioms that exist in L1 but the animal used in the idiom
is different, for instance like a bull in a china shop, where there is an elephant
instead of a bull in L1, to work like a horse, to see pink elephants. The third set
of animal idioms were those which do not have equivalents in L1, for example to
let the cat out of the bag, to look like something the cat brought in, to have a frog
in one’s throat. The last ten idioms, which did not contain an animal, were given
in order to compare their mental images and comprehension to mental images
and comprehension of animal idioms. All the idioms were given without any
context in order to evoke mental imagery relying only on the idioms and their
constituent parts. The students were told that the experiment was anonymous and
not assessed by the teacher. They were also asked to work on their own as there
were no wrong answers in the Mental Imagery Task. Before the individuals started, they were given a few examples of mental imagery and comprehension of the
idiom. The participants were informed that the meanings of all the phrases were
not literal but figurative. Some instances were given of mental imageries and
comprehension of Polish and English idioms. In order to help some students the
teacher translated vocabulary that was unknown to the students, but this did not
influence the main purposes of the tasks.
In this study, the students were tested on their mental imagery and comprehension of English animal idioms. It was predicted that the easiest to interpret
were the idioms which had equivalents in Polish. It was also assumed that compositional idioms were much easier to comprehend than non-compositional ones,
as their constituent parts suggested the figurative meaning. There was a strong
association between the mental imagery and the comprehension of idioms, for
instance in an idiom that has no equivalent to look like something the cat brought
in, most of the participants interpreted the idiom as something very ugly. What is
more, using imagery in idiom comprehension shows that students understand
idioms through particular scenarios, situations, including emotions and their own
experience. The mental images often included personal experience and traces of
memories from childhood connected with particular situations. There were also
a lot of extreme feelings in the participants’ imagery.
In conclusion, the study has shown that Polish students rely on the idiom’s
constituent parts in trying to figure out the meaning of idioms. Interestingly, if an
idiom has an equivalent in L1, the students look intensively for it and do not even
pay attention to the meaning of the constituent parts, e.g. to throw sb to the
wolves is almost always understood. Relating to L1 to find the meaning of a fa-
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Iwona Osmańska-Lipka
miliar idiom appeared stronger than the meanings of the constituent parts of this
idiom, e.g. let the cat out of the bag is very often mistaken for Polish kupić kota
w worku. It is striking that in some cases the students tried to guess the meaning
of an idiom taking it as a whole, they looked for the figurative meaning rather
than breaking the idiom into parts. The most difficult idioms for students appeared to be the opaque and non-compositional ones, e.g. to cook sb’s goose, to
kick the bucket. No one was able to interpret the idioms properly. However, the
participants were able to comprehend the meaning of an idiom correctly when
there was a different animal used in the equivalent L1phrase, e.g. to work like
a horse was interpreted as ‘to work very hard’. Many of the students did not pay
attention that the animal used in the Polish idiom is an ox (wół), not a horse. This
seems to prove that comprehension of idioms is conceptual in nature. We refer
strongly to images and associations we hold connected with perceiving and understanding things. These are in our minds and undergo mental processes, even
if we are not conscious of these phenomena. Additionally, the study shows that
animal idioms in English and Polish are universal to some extent, as animals are
perceived in similar ways, similar associations are connected with them and similar features are attributed to animals and then transferred onto man. Interestingly, observations about animals are very often based on people’s guesses and
stereotypes, they do not have to be confirmed by science or experience, e.g. the
Polish idiom spocony jak mysz (all nervous and bathed in sweat; literal translation: sweaty like a mouse) does not mean that mice can sweat, but is probably
based on observation or judged by appearances.
The study concerned one of the segments of idiom comprehension in a foreign language, animal idioms. It should be stated that not all the factors that
might influence the process of understanding were taken into consideration, like
the level of English ability and the role of context. As was mentioned earlier, this
was done on purpose. It could also be fruitful to conduct thinking aloud protocols on the choices of every participant. All in all, the mysterious and multifaceted nature of idioms demands more careful consideration and further exploration, not only in the world of animals.
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Appendix
TASK 1. MENTAL IMAGERY
it’s a dog’s life
it was enough to make a cat laugh
to fight like cat and dog
to let the cat out of the bag
to look like something the cat brought in
there’s hardly enough room to swing a cat
to play cat and mouse with sb
I could eat a horse
to flog a dead horse
(straight) from the horse’s mouth
to work like a horse
to be like a red rag to a bull
to take the bull by the horns
like a bull in a china shop
to twist the lion’s tail
to have a memory like an elephant
to see pink elephants
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Iwona Osmańska-Lipka
to fight like a tiger
as free as a bird
to kill two birds with one stone
a wolf in sheep’s clothing
throw sb to the wolves
to cook sb’s goose
to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs
as busy as a bee
to be like a bear with a sore head
to have ants in one’s pants
to buy a pig in a poke
as blind as a bat
to have a frog in one’s throat
a piece of cake
to kick the bucket
to play with fire
to paint the town
to pull sb’s leg
to turn back the clock
to bury the hatchet
to tie the knot
to take a back seat
to rock the boat
TASK 2. COMPREHENSION
it’s a dog’s life
it was enough to make a cat laugh
to fight like cat and dog
to let the cat out of the bag
to look like something the cat brought in
there’s hardly enough room to swing a cat
to play cat and mouse with sb
I could eat a horse
to flog a dead horse
(straight) from the horse’s mouth
to work like a horse
to be like a red rag to a bull
to take the bull by the horns
In the idiomatic world of animals – idiom comprehension in a foreign language
11
like a bull in a china shop
to twist the lion’s tail
to have a memory like an elephant
to see pink elephants
to fight like a tiger
as free as a bird
to kill two birds with one stone
a wolf in sheep’s clothing
throw sb to the wolves
to cook sb’s goose
to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs
as busy as a bee
to be like a bear with a sore head
to have ants in one’s pants
to buy a pig in a poke
as blind as a bat
to have a frog in one’s throat
a piece of cake
to kick the bucket
to play with fire
to paint the town
to pull sb’s leg
to turn back the clock
to bury the hatchet
to tie the knot
to take a back seat
to rock the boat
Iwona Osmańska-Lipka
In the idiomatic word of animals – idiom comprehension in a foreign language
Idioms are among the most difficult areas of foreign languages; they can pose problems
even to advanced students. Understanding idioms is not a homogenous process as there are
various types of idioms and modes of processing them. Because of their structure, some idiomatic expressions are easy to comprehend while other remain hard to decipher. The world
of animals has an abundance of metaphors; animals, their characteristics and connotations
provide a basis of abstract thinking. In the case of idioms featuring animals, many of them
bear some similarity as visual associations are similar across languages. One of the most helpful ways of understanding idioms is to imagine them, to have a mental picture of them. This
is very useful in the case of idioms which have no equivalents in the learner’s first language.
The presented pilot experiment shows that intermediate students of English could guess the
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Iwona Osmańska-Lipka
meaning of idioms by resorting to mental images even if the idioms had no counterparts in
Polish. Imagery proved conducive not only for understanding idioms featuring animals but
also memorizing them.
In this presentation I would like to emphasize the concept-related nature of idioms featuring animals and the role of imagery as an effective tool for understanding idioms. I will refer
to the conceptual metaphor as one of the basic cognitive devices.
Keywords: idiom comprehension, mental imagery, cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor
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