ACADEMIE ROYALE DES SCIENCES D OUTRE-MER BULLETIN DES SEANCES
Vol. 4 No. 2 May 2015 pp. 204-214
ISSN: 0001-4176
Persian second language learners' understanding of naturally-occurring figurative
language
Zeynab Salamat
Department of English Language, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Abstract: It has been shown that non-native speakers may find difficulties working out the meanings of
figurative expressions and in order to become proficient in the second language they really need to engage
with it. This study was an attempt to examine how the native speakers of British English and non-native
speakers of Persian compare in terms of the interpretations they give of naturally-occurring figurative
language in English. For this purpose, a figurative interpretation test was given to the participants. In order
to examine the extent to which the native speakers and the non-native speakers give the same response for a
word in terms of the semantic associations that they had in their minds, a word association test was also
given to them at the beginning or after they completed the figurative interpretation test. The results of the
study indicated that it is useful to provide second language learners with contextualized examples when
dealing with figurative expressions. It was found that having prior knowledge of words has considerable
effect on better understanding of figurative expressions. The findings also indicated that L1 is likely to
influence the non-native speakers' interpretation of the L2 figurative expressions in particular where an
equivalent of the L2 expression exists in L1.
Key words: Figurative Language Metaphor Context Word Association L2 Language Learning
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According to the traditional views there are two kinds
of meaning that can be distinguished: literal and
figurative meaning. They claim that 'while literal
language is precise and lucid, figurative language is
imprecise, and is largely the domain of poets and
novelists' (Evans and Green, 2006, p.287). However,
there is little consensus among the recent views to the
very definition of literal and figurative meaning. For
instance, the cognitive psychologist Raymond Gibbs
holds the position that there is no real evidence for a
principled distinction between literal and figurative
language (see Gibbs 1994, p.75). In addition, a practical
way of deciding whether an expression is figurative or
not, is to refer to the basic meaning of the word or the
figurative expression and if the meaning defers from the
contextual sense then it can be concluded that it has
been used figuratively (Littlemore and Low, 2006).
While for the native speakers an expression may not
even seem figurative, second language learners are
likely to be more analytical when dealing with
unfamiliar senses of words. This means that they may
not be able to process it as automatically as native
speakers do and they may try to understand each word
separately (Littlemore and Low, 2006).
INTRODUCTION
Of all the figurative devices, metaphor alongside
metonymy has gained much attention among cognitive
linguists. Due to the importance of figurative language
and its abundant presence in much of our everyday
communication, it is very important for the non-native
speakers to engage with it. It is apparent that language
learners do not have native language competence in the
target language. When faced with figurative language,
they may find difficulties understanding the meaning of
figurative expressions. Therefore, it is of great
importance to find a way of helping the second
language learners towards a better understanding of the
L2 (second language) since for the non-native speakers,
figurative language can be 'the great stumbling block in
language acquisition' as it underlies a great deal of
vocabulary (Verspoor and Lowie, 2003, p. 547). Much
of the studies in cognitive linguistics is based on the
native speaker informants who are exposed to figurative
language and less on the non-native speakers and only
recently has attention been specifically directed to
pedagogical aspects of figurative language items for
second language learners (e.g. Littlemore, 2004; Boers,
2004, Littlemore and Low, 2006).
Corresponding Author: Zeynab Salamat
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The data were gathered and analyzed which were then
used to address the following four research questions:
1. How do the groups compare in terms of the
interpretations they give of naturally-occurring
figurative language in English?
2. To what extent do the participants' figurative
language interpretations relate to the answers
that they provide on the word test, and does it
make any difference what order the tests are
given in?
3. Was the performance on the word association
test related to the performance on the
figurative language interpretation test?
4. Does the order of the test make any difference
on the results achieved on the figurative
language interpretation test?
METAPHOR
Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) publication of Metaphors
We Live By significantly increased interest in metaphor
among cognitive linguists. It also led to the emergence
of the 'Conceptual Metaphor Theory'. Within the
framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Lakoff and
Johnson (1980) argued that metaphor does not only
belong to the realm of language. They stated that:
Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we
both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in
nature (p.3).
Thus metaphor is no longer viewed as just one of many
tropes but along with many other figurative tropes 'they
shape the way we think and speak of ordinary events'
(Gibbs, 1999, p.61).
Under the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, there is a
differentiation of metaphor into 'linguistic metaphor'
and 'conceptual metaphor'. Linguistic metaphors are
words or expressions that are uttered or written and can
be represented as any part of speech, not just nouns, and
it is the words themselves that are considered important
which are conventionally written in italics (Littlemore
and Low, 2006).
However, conceptual metaphors are a representation of
our thinking and are thought to underlie typical ways of
describing abstract concepts in terms of a more easily
understood and perceived concrete entities (Lakoff and
Johnson, 1980). Within the conceptual metaphor it is
not the words that are important but the relationship
that underlies such expressions. They are always
written in capital letters and are explained in terms of as
A is B. The thing that is being described is the target
domain (A), and the thing that is being used to describe
it is the source domain (B).
For instance, the conceptual metaphor TIME IS
MONEY consists of two domains where 'specific
features of source domain are transferred to (mapped
onto) the target domain' (Littlemore and Low, 2006,
p.11). Several linguistic metaphors can be realized
under this conceptual metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson,
1980, p.7):
a. You are wasting my time.
b. This gadget will save you hours.
c. I don't have the time to give you.
d. How do you spend your time these days?
e. That flat tire cost me an hour.
f. I've invested a lot of time in her.
g. You are running out of time.
h. You need to budget your time.
i.Put aside some time for ping pong
Since conceptual metaphors involve complex domains
the linguistic expressions that they produce may either
be similar or they may vary across languages. For
instance, in the Persian language the same conceptual
metaphor exists and time is also expressed in terms of
money. Therefore, due to such similarity it may be
easier for Persian second language learners of English
to understand the variety of linguistic metaphor that the
conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY forms.
However, in cases where there are differences in terms
of the underlying conceptual metaphors within
languages, it will not be so easy for the language
learners to understand the linguistic metaphors that it
forms.
Since much of our everyday speech also includes
metonymy the next section deals with the definition and
the role that it performs.
METONOMY
Like metaphor, metonymy was traditionally analyzed as
a purely literary device. However, Lakoff and Johnson
(1980) argued that metonymy is also a fundamental part
of our conceptual system and it is central to human
thought and language and they referred to it as
'Conceptual Metonymy'.
Psychological research in this area has provided good
evidence for the fact that the nature of our
communications is metonymic and that people reason
metonymically when understanding language (Taylor,
2003). According to Evans and Green, scholars have
gone as far as to say 'metonymy may be more
fundamental to conceptual organization than metaphor'
(ibid: 2006, p.311). This means that we think and
reason metonymically when understanding language.
For instance consider the following example:
A:
How did
you
B: I waved down a taxi.
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get
to
the
airport?
In this example speaker B, does not have to explain
exactly every detail since speaker A already has the
knowledge that travelling from one place to another
involves a series of actions. Thus by metonymically
mentioning a subpart of an event to stand for the whole
event, we rarely need to explain every piece of
information to convey our meaning to the listener in
everyday conversations (Gibbs, 1999, p.67).
of words and expressions are very much determined by
the richness of the contextual clues (Littlemore, 2004).
When native speakers and second language learners
encounter figurative expressions, there is a difference
between them in that they have different schemata
which they use to understand and interpret the
information. Schemata are the representations of the
world which we have in our minds which helps us to
comprehend incoming information (Cook, 1997).
Cognitive linguists refer to this term as encyclopedic
knowledge. Since different cultures have different
schemata or encyclopedic knowledge, it is very
important for second language learners to become
familiar with the L2 culture in order to become more
proficient in the L2.
PERSONIFIATION AND DYSPHEMISM
As discussed previously much of our everyday speech
involves figurative language and an expression is rarely
just a simple metaphoric or metonymic expression. In
many cases people personify inanimate objects with
human qualities or represent them as possessing human
form. This process is referred to as personification and
it is considered as a subtype of metaphor (Knowles and
Moon, 2006). For instance, example A2 in the
figurative interpretation test (Appendix A) involves
personification; Hostage takes a kitchen sink approach
to the thriller genre. In this example 'Hostage' is
attributed human qualities which is indicated through
the use of the verb takes.
People also often use ways of trying to sound impolite
deliberately. This is called dysphemism. According to
Allan and Burridge (1991):
A dysphemism is an expression with connotations that
are offensive either about the denotatum or to the
audience, or both, and it is substituted for a neutral or
euphemistic expression for just that reason (p.26).
For example as seen in example C1 in the figurative
interpretation test, the term 'a bunch of suits' was used
by the speaker to refer to the men wearing suits. Since
bunch is usually associated with fruits, as in 'bunch of
bananas', it is impolite to refer to people as ' a bunch'.
These examples all support the fact that different types
of figurative language interact with each other to
perform a variety of functions.
CONTEXTUAL MEANING AND ENCYCLOPEDIC
KNOWLEDGE
In an utterance a specific word can stimulate a variety
of encyclopedic knowledge. It has been argued that
since an utterance is surrounded by context, the context
narrows the kinds of encyclopedic knowledge that
come to ones' mind (Evans and Green, 2006). Therefore
according to cognitive linguists' belief, word meaning
(Semantic meaning) is always a function of context
(Pragmatic meaning) (Evans and Green, 2006). For
instance, according to the oft-cited example, it is
evident that safe can have different meanings in the
following sentences which shows that the meaning that
we select, emerges as a consequence of the context in
which words are used in.
a) The child is safe; meaning that the child will not
come to any harm
b) The beach is safe; meaning that the beach is a
safe environment which will not harm the child
and not that the beach will not come to any
harm.
c) The shovel is safe; meaning that it will not
cause harm to the child and not that the beach
will not come to any harm
Source: Evans and Green (2006)
FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ABILITY TO
UNDERSTAND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
There are several factors which can influence second
language learners’ tendency to use strategies in order to
work out the meaning of novel words or unfamiliar
expressions. One of the most important factors is 'word
concreteness' since it has been confirmed through
experiments that a word which is concrete will lend
itself more easily to image formation (Boers, 2004).
The presence of 'contextual clues' around an unfamiliar
word also has considerable effect on second language
learners' interpretation. The extent of the effect of
context on interpretation, has been discussed by many
scholars and it has been shown that strategies employed
by language learners in order to understand the meaning
An encyclopaedic knowledge that resembles that of the
native speakers will have considerable effect on nonnative speakers' correct interpretations of figurative
language. This means that in order to interpret
figurative language correctly, language learners need to
have some background information about the culture
lying behind the L2. In other words they must have an
encyclopaedic knowledge of how things work in L2
culture. For instance consider the conceptual metaphor
PHYSICAL IRREGULARITY IS BAD. As suggested by
Charteris-Black (2003), in some cultures this may be
seen as a sign of beauty. Therefore the correct
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interpretation of the linguistic expressions that the
conceptual metaphor above produces, depends on the
encyclopaedic knowledge that the listeners/readers
have.
Not being aware of cultural differences could lead
listeners and readers to wrong interpretation.
Raising language learners’ awareness through a
comparison of figurative expressions in L1 and L2 may
also result in better learning and understanding since
the comparison of metaphors in L1 and L2 can be an
enjoyable and motivating experience due to the fact that
learners become more autonomous and are encouraged
to reflect on the differences that exist between their
own language and the target language (Deignan et al,
1997).
IMPLICATIONS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE
LEARNING
Despite the traditional theories which advocate the view
that figurative language is unsystematic and could only
be learned through blind memorization when applied to
FLA (foreign language acquisition), cognitive
semantics argue that there is systematicity in figurative
language (Boers, 2004). In fact it has been shown that
teaching vocabulary through using figurative language
is a very effective method of introducing new
vocabulary to second language learners. Research on
vocabulary acquisition has shown that organized
vocabulary is easier to learn and it is much better than
introducing learners randomly to a wide range of
vocabulary. A useful technique was demonstrated by
Boers in his studies where he showed that grouping
idioms under shared conceptual metaphor can give
structure and organization to a wide range of
vocabulary which may seem completely unsystematic
at first sight (Boers 2004, p. 213). For more information
on the categories used by Boers please see the examples
below.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FIGURATIVE
LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDING
Three related aspects concerning the interpretation of
figurative language are inferencing, the use of
implicatures, and understanding novel and creative
figurative expressions.
INFERENCING
For a non-native speaker, understanding figurative
language can be a great challenge. After all the
meanings of such expressions are not always clear and
are not stated as the obvious. Non-native speakers have
to become aware of the fact that meaning is not always
expressed explicitly since most of the information
conveyed in conversations is implied rather than
asserted (Grice, 1975). Thus understanding figurative
language crucially involves some kind of inference or
decoding on the part of the listener/reader in order 'to
detect what the speaker pragmatically implies on the
basis of what is literally said (Pérez-Hernández and
Ruiz de Mendoza, 2003, p. 1).
Consider the following example by Littlemore
(forthcoming) where one asks another if s/he should
'put the kettle on'. In cases where the meaning of this
utterance does refer to the act of making a cup of tea,
learners will not have so much difficulty interpreting it.
However, when the meaning deviates from its literal
sense, learners may encounter difficulty interpreting it,
since they have to undergo 'a greater cognitive effort'
(Gibbs, 1994, p. 83). In some cases where the utterance
'put the kettle on' is uttered by an English speaker s/he
could be inviting someone to discuss something that
will take some time. Thus it does not only refer to the
act of making a cup of tea.
One of the most influential ideas on the implicitness of
everyday speech comes from Grice's theory of
'conversational implicature' which will be discussed
next.
ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER
I was boiling with anger
she was all steamed up
she flipped her lid
ANGER IS FIRE
adding fuel to the fire
she exploded
ANGRY PEOPLE ARE DANGEROUS
he has a ferocious temper
don't bite my head off
Don't snap at me
It is also important for teachers to make their students
aware of the cultural differences between the L1 and
the L2. Indeed, figurative expressions contain cultural
references and if learners are to understand them
appropriately, knowledge of them is necessary. Bowers'
(1992) research on figurative language understanding
shows that the figurative meaning for different things
may vary from one language group to another (ibid,
1992). For instance, the conventional association in
British English between the color green, nature and
innocence might not be the same for speakers in other
cultures. Therefore in order to understand idioms
containing the word green as in 'to have green fingers'
(meaning a seemingly natural ability), second language
learners must be aware of the L2 cultural associations.
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UNDERSTANDING IMPLICATURES
As discussed previously, much of our everyday
conversation is implicit in nature, and a potential source
of miscommunication comes from the fact that nonnative speakers do not always derive the expected
message.
In some cases the hearer needs to supply some implicit
information that allows him or her to comprehend the
intended meaning of the speaker and this has been
labeled as Implicatures. This term was first used by
Grice (1975) to apply to cases where the meanings of
utterances are understood in terms of the context in
which it occurs and according to Green (1989, p. 92)
understanding implicatures
'is
an absolutely
unremarkable and ordinary conversational strategy'.
Consider the following implicature:
communicative ability it is necessary to include it
within the scope of second language courses since very
little attention has been paid to them (Bouton, 1994).
UNDERSTANDING NOVEL AND CREATIVE
EXPRESSIONS
In language, people are creative all the time so it is
important for language learners to be able to deal with
creative language use and keep up to date since
language change is often the result of creativity (Carter,
2004). This creativity exists abundantly within
figurative language. Swann (2006) refers to creativity
as:
A speaker/listener's ability to produce or understand a
(potentially) infinite number of sentences they have not
previously encountered (p.12).
In addition studies on figurative language
understanding have shown that conventional figurative
expressions are much easier for listeners to comprehend
than novel/creative expressions (Gibbs, 1994, p. 320).
However, such great difference may not exist among
second language learners who are not advanced, since a
conventional figurative expression may also seem novel
to them when they encounter it for the first time
A:
Did
you
enjoy
your
holiday?
B: The beaches were crowded and the hotel was full of
bugs
For Bs response to be relevant, (A) needs to have
access to the implicit assumption that crowdedness and
the existence of too many bugs do not sound too good
when one is on holiday because they interfere with the
ones personal comfort. Even though this information is
not explicitly stated (A) can interpret Bs response as not
having had enjoyed his/her holiday (Pérez Hernández
and Ruiz de Mendoza, 2003).
Studies have shown that non-native speakers do not
always have the necessary knowledge and skills to
interpret implicatures appropriately and that they do
find them difficult to interpret (e.g. Bouton, 1992, 1994,
1996). However it has been shown that significant
improvement does occur overtime in particular if they
are taught explicitly. In fact Bouton has concluded that
'why leave our students to learn in 3 or more years what
we could teach them in the matter of a very few hours'
(Bouton, 1994, p. 106).
It can be concluded that drawing learner's attention to
implicature is beneficial to increase their ability to
communicate more effectively (Bouton, 1992) and in
order not to leave any important gap in student's
METHOD
MATERIAL
In the study participants were given a series of tests. In
order to compare the three groups' interpretations of
daily and authentic figurative expressions, twelve
figurative expressions in context were chosen for the
test. They were extracts from film reviews, soap operas,
the internet, the daily mail online and a magazine which
were all a result of authentic figurative speech. In
addition, to show that different types of figurative
language are rarely a simple phenomenon, the types of
figures involved in each expression in the figurative
interpretation test were identified.
Types of figurative language identification in the figurative interpretation test
TYPE OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
EXTRACTS
IDENTIFICATION
The audience locks into: whole-for-part Metonymy
Open-jaw: Metonymy (usually when one is surprised s/he
The audience locks into an open-jawed chill
widens their mouth)
Chill :
Metaphor
Hostage takes : Personification
Hostage takes a kitchen sink approach to the thriller
Kitchen sink approach : Metonymy: Reference to a
genre
conventional idiom; everything but the kitchen sink
Tip of tongue: metaphor, metonymy,
Novel
extension of an idiomatic expression (the conventional
That’s the question on the tip of my brain
idiom is tip of my tongue)
Conventional idiomatic expression, Pragmatic Inference,
How long have you got?
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Let it sink in
A bunch of suits
Spur of the moment
Cradle snatching
Nobody bats an eyelid
Last the distance
Weathered the storm
Throw in the towel
In order to see to what extent the native speakers and
the non-native speakers give the same response for a
word in terms of the semantic associations that they had
in their minds, a word association test was also
administrated. The test shows whether prior knowledge
of words would influence the speakers’ interpretations
and to compare the result of three groups to see how
different the word association produced by them
differed systematically (For a copy of the word
association test please refer to Appendix B). The
participants were asked to write three associations that
came to their mind for the words that were also in the
figurative expressions given to them in the test. The
respondents could express their own thoughts and word
associations in their own manner, resulting in some
very interesting and unexpected answers in particular
by the non-native speakers. Later, the given word
associations were compared with the Edinburgh Word
Association Thesaurus (EAT) an empirical association
data that shows the count of word association as
collected from native speakers.
Time expressed in terms of possession : Metaphor
Sink in : Metaphor (allow time for the issue to be fully
understood, to become absorbed)
Bunch : Dysphemism (being not polite and actually less
polite)
Suits : Metonymy
(whole for part)
Conventional idiomatic expression
Cradle: Metonymy (where a baby sleeps in therefore but
here it is being used metonymically)
Cradle snatcher or snatching : Metaphor
Conventional idiomatic expression
Conventional idiomatic expression
Relationship is
expressed in terms of distance : Metaphor
Conventional idiomatic expression involving Metaphor
Conventional idiomatic expression (the phrase comes from
boxing , in which a fighter indicates surrender by throwing
the towel into the ring)
use their English knowledge for communication
purposes. In order to be accepted by the university they
had all achieved an IELTS score of 6.5 or above. Thus,
it can be assumed that they had a high level of English
proficiency.
The level of proficiency of those participants living in
Iran was also assumed to be high since they were
considered advanced learners in the Institute. In Iran,
studying English is compulsory at school and
University level. In most cases those who are very
enthusiastic in improving their English for different
reasons, attend classes which are held at private
language institutes. Therefore it can be inferred that
they were enthusiastic second language learners. The
participants studied English 4.5 hours a week with
having prior knowledge of English. They were all
university students studying in different fields. The
native speakers were chosen randomly and the majority
were students at Birmingham University.
PROCEDURE
All participants who were given the tests were asked to
write the interpretations of the figurative expressions
and then write three words that came to their mind for
the word association part. They were either given the
word association part first (order 1) or at the end (order
2). A group of the participants were asked to write the
interpretation of the expressions first and were later
given the word association part, while some other
participants were given the word association part first
and later asked to answer the interpretation part since I
was interested to find whether the relevant word
associations that individuals have in their mind would
influence their interpretations.
Although the questions were all asked in English, nonnative participants also had the choice of writing the
interpretations in Persian. Ten of the tests were given to
an English teacher in Iran who distributed them to ten
of her advanced level students. They answered the tests
PARTICIPANTS
Three categories of participants were used in this study;
native speakers and non-native speakers, with the nonnative speakers being sub-divided into Persian speakers
who had lived in United Kingdom for an average of two
to eight years and Persian speakers who currently lived
in Iran and had learned English at School, University or
Private Language Institutes. Overall, twenty Persian
speakers and ten English speakers within the age range
of 22 to 28 were recruited. The native speakers were
employed in order to compare their results with those of
the non-native speakers.
The Persian speakers in UK were chosen from the
Engineering Department of Birmingham University.
Some of the participants had only spent a maximum of
two years in England while others had lived in England
before. They were in an environment where they had to
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during their class hour under the teachers’ supervision
which took about 35 minutes. In order to create the
same condition for all the participants none of them had
access to dictionaries. Ten tests were distributed among
Iranian students in the Engineering Department of
Birmingham University and the rest were completed by
the native speakers.
After collecting all the data, the responses were
tabulated in both numerical and percentage terms. Both
the qualitative and quantitative results were then
transposed to excel spreadsheets where the results could
easily be compared and a conclusion could be reached.
RESULTS
One of the aims of the study was to compare the
interpretations of naturally-occurring figurative
expressions provided by the three different groups of
participants. As previously discussed, the data used to
address research question 1, were tests which contained
ten open-ended questions, having twelve figurative
expressions within them. Thus the tests were given to
the three groups, and then the results of the
interpretations were compared.
When the comparison was made it was seen that the
three groups differed in terms of the interpretations they
gave. The answers given by the non-native speakers
were much more various whereas the native speakers'
responses tended to be more similar to each other.
However, even though the non-native speakers
responded to the questions in different ways, there were
still salient similarities among their answers.
In the test, the first question containing the figurative
expression 'the audience locks into an open-jawed chill
' was rated the second most difficult question by the
three groups of participants (mean difficulty rating =
3.06). It is also perceived to be a difficult expression.
However, it was interesting to see that it was answered
correctly by almost all of the non-native speakers. Only
one of the non-native speakers in UK and three of the
non-native speakers in Iran answered it incorrectly who
gave interpretations that were related to the word lock,
which shows that the word lock may have had effect on
their misinterpretation since their answers conveyed the
notions of inability. For instance, they gave answers
such as 'they were scared a lot and couldn't do anything'
or 'the audience stuck strongly to the subject'. However,
it can be assumed that since most of the responses were
correct, it is likely that the expression enables some sort
of imagination in the mind of the reader and even if it is
a creative figurative expression, the readers (the native
speakers and the non-native speakers) found no
difficulty interpreting it. In addition to being novel, an
equivalent of this expression does not exist in the
Persian language. However, since an open-jaw conveys
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the feeling of astonishment the non-native readers could
easily imagine an open-jaw and associate the feeling of
surprise and astonishment, and guess the right meaning
for the expression.
The second question containing the figurative
expression 'hostage takes a kitchen sink approach to the
thriller genre' was answered correctly by eight out of
ten non-native speakers in UK (mean difficulty rating =
3.53). However, nine participants in Iran either
misinterpreted it or left it blank. It is interesting to point
out that this question was rated as the most difficult by
the three groups of participants. Those who responded
incorrectly only restated the expression in a different
way which showed that they had not understood it at all
and those who interpreted it correctly referred to their
encyclopaedic knowledge of kitchen sink as in
throwing everything and anything and did not grasp the
clue behind it.
In the Persian language, an equivalent of this
expression does not exist and this may be the reason
why only one of the participants in Iran answered it
correctly while many of them misinterpreted it and
found it very difficult. They may not have known the
meaning of all the words in this expression whereas
most of the ones in the UK knew the meaning and with
the help of clear contextual clues surrounding the
expression and somehow by referring to their
encyclopaedic knowledge of the word 'kitchen sink',
were able to figure out the meaning. In fact, the
meaning of the expression is in a way stated in the
sentence that comes after the expression; 'throwing in
elements from all types of similar films'. However,
those participants in Iran did not use this clear
contextual clue. For the native speakers this expression
is also counted as a novel expression, nevertheless since
they are familiar with the famous saying 'I threw
everything at it but the kitchen sink' they were able to
interpret it correctly.
The third question containing the figurative expression
'that’s the question on the tip of my brain' was
answered correctly by most of the participants. In fact,
almost everyone answered it correctly and nine out of
the ten non-native speakers in UK and nine out of the
ten non-native speakers in Iran understood the
figurative expression accurately. Those who did not
respond correctly somehow associated the meaning of
challenge with it. This question was rated among the
easiest question by both of the non-native participants
and the reason lying behind this may be that a similar
figurative expression exists in the Persian language.
However, the Persian expression is similar to the
conventional idiomatic expression 'it's on the tip of my
tongue' but it shows that the mind of the reader is
somehow creative and that the mind has the ability to
deal with even creative expressions since this
expression was a novel one for both the native speakers
and the non-native speakers.
The fourth question containing the figurative expression
'how long have you got?' was answered correctly by six
of the non-native participants in UK and only one
participant in Iran. It shows that the ones that live in
UK were more familiar with the expression as they had
seen its usage in context in the past. For the native
speakers this expression might not even seem
figurative. However, even among the correct answers it
was seen that most of the non-native speakers
interpreted it as 'How much time do you have' and did
not grasp the idea that the speaker was trying to imply
that he had many problems and that it may take time to
explain them all. It is important to note that the reader
needs to supply some implicit information that allows
him or her to understand the meaning behind the
expression. In fact, many of the non-native participants
searched for the meaning on the surface. However, they
did not refer to the hidden meaning whereas this was
not the case among the native speakers since they
understood the implicit meaning behind the expression.
Among the incorrect answers, they tended to say 'how
long do u know Grant' or 'do u know what he's like' and
it was interesting to see that some the participants who
provided these answers mentioned the fact that
contextual clues were not enough to help them interpret
this expression.
The fifth question containing the figurative expression
'Let it sink in' was answered correctly by nine nonnative participants in UK and only three participants in
Iran. Most of the ones that interpreted it incorrectly
referred to their knowledge of kitchen sink and that the
sink absorbs the food into it. For instance, in some of
the answers given, where they misinterpreted the
expression, they responded with answers like 'getting
rid of something' (in some cases getting rid of the baby;
abortion) or 'not talking about the subject anymore'. It is
clear that those who misunderstood the expression may
have mistaken the word 'sink' for a 'kitchen sink'. Later,
when I compared the given interpretations with their
word association tests it was interesting to discover that
when the word association test was given to the nonnative participants at the beginning they tended to refer
to kitchen sink, water or dishes. However, if they were
given the word association test after they had seen its
usage in context they were more likely to refer to
abstract meanings of the word 'sink' (e.g., understand,
think). Most of the non-native speakers in the UK were
able to interpret it correctly and this shows that they
may have seen its usage while living in the L2
community.
The sixth question contained the figurative expression
'a bunch of suits'. Of particular interest was the fact that
among the native speakers only one of the participants
grasped the negativity of this expression. The term
bunch is not usually associated with people and, it is
used in an informal and impolite manner. For this
expression, most of the non-native participants referred
more to it as high class people, men wanting to get
married, ceremony and less to professional aspects,
while the native participants referred to business men
and professional men. The responses provided by the
non-native speakers reveals that cultural differences
were likely to cause comprehension problems, since in
the Persian culture, it is usually grooms who wear suits
and men wear suits in ceremonies more than in business
situations.
Indeed, the professional connotations of suit-wearing
were less often referred to by the non-native speakers,
indicating perhaps that this idea did not feature
prominently in their existing schemata. It is worth
mentioning that the non-native speakers did not find
this expression difficult to understand. However, they
too, did not grasp the negativity of the word 'bunch' and
referred to it as 'a group of professional men'.
The seventh question contained the figurative
expression 'spur of the moment'. Even though this is a
conventional idiomatic expression and an equivalent of
it does not exist in Persian, six non-native participants
in Iran and seven non-native participants in the UK
interpreted it correctly. Since the non-native
participants in Iran were advanced level students, they
were able to figure out the meaning and their correct
understanding of this expression may have been
influenced either by the enough contextual clues or
their familiarity with the idiom. Most of the incorrect
responses, interpreted the expression as 'good times
which are unforgettable' which indicates that their L1
may have had an effect on their understanding. In
Persian, there is a similar expression however it
conveys exactly the sense of good times which are
unforgettable. Therefore, it shows that those who
misinterpreted it were under the influence of the Persian
expression.
The eighths question contained the figurative
expressions 'cradle snatching' and 'nobody bats an
eyelid'. The former expression was rated as the third
most difficult expression by the three groups (mean
difficulty rating = 2.9), whereas the latter was found to
be easier (mean difficulty rating= 2.3). For the first
expression, only four responses among the non-native
participants in UK and only one among the participants
in Iran were accurate. Most of them interpreted the
expression as 'stealing, grabbing or catching a baby or a
young boy', 'doing something evil' or that 'something
important had happened and that everyone had noticed'.
Most of their answers tended to refer to the literal
meaning of the expression.
211
However, the expression 'nobody bats an eyelid' was
interpreted correctly by most of the non-native
speakers. Only one from each group misinterpreted it.
Again, there is a similar expression in Persian and clear
contextual clues may have been helpful in order for the
non-native speakers to guess the correct meaning.
The ninth question contained the figurative expressions
'last the distance' and 'weathered the storm'. Eight of
the non-native participants in UK were able to guess the
meaning of the former expression. It is of particular
interest to point out that the participants in the UK were
away from their home country for some time and
somehow their answers may have reflected their
experiences. Those participants whose interpretations
were wrong associated the feelings of 'homesickness'
and 'nostalgia' which again perhaps reflects their own
feelings about being away from home. In addition, only
four participants in Iran guessed the correct meaning.
Those who answered it incorrectly only played with the
words and restated it, in order to come to a meaning
(e.g. one participant has written 'I did not think this was
the last of our separation').
The expression 'weathered the storm' was answered
correctly by most of the non-native speakers which may
be due to clear contextual clues. In Persian, storm also
connotes the sense of difficulty and disruption.
However, the equivalent of this expression does not
exist in the Persian language.
Finally, the last question contained the figurative
expression 'throw in the towel'. Since this figurative
expression does not exist in the Persian language only
four participant in Iran answered 'give up' for the
meaning of this expression, while those who
misinterpreted it tended to refer to 'a bad relationship,
getting divorce, having an affair and not staying faithful
to one and another'. They tended to respond with
negative interpretations and the reason behind this may
be that they imagined the act of taking off a towel
which means uncovering one's body and therefore they
related this act to having an affair or cheating. Six of
the non-native speakers in UK interpreted it correctly.
It is interesting to point out that the expression 'throw in
the towel' is a conventional idiomatic expression, the
phrase comes from boxing, when a fighter shows that
he has gave up by throwing his towel into the ring and
therefore, since the native speakers have this
knowledge, they surely find no difficulty understanding
it. However the Persian non-native speakers do find
difficulty understanding it, since they do not have
encyclopedic knowledge for this expression.
Another influential factor was that, those expressions
which have an equivalent in the Persian language were
interpreted correctly by most of the non-native
participants. This shows that L1 is likely to influence
the non-native speakers' interpretation of the L2
figurative expressions, in particular where an equivalent
of the L2 expression exists in L1. Raising students'
awareness through a comparison of metaphors in L1
and L2 may result to better learning and understanding.
Nevertheless, even though the equivalent of the
idiomatic expression 'how long have you got?' exists in
Persian and Persian speakers are familiar with the fact
that time is expressed in terms of possession or money,
the non-native speakers found difficulty figuring out the
implied meaning which means they were not aware of
the fact that the meaning of the expression was implied.
It is worth mentioning again that in cases where the
meaning is implied and it is not stated as the obvious,
we have what are called implicatures (see
understanding implicatures) and since much of the
information that is conveyed through every day
conversation is implied rather than asserted it seems
necessary to make learners become aware of the kinds
of implicatures in order to help them increase their
ability in understanding the L2 more efficiently.
It is evident that clear contextual clue does help the
readers to understand a figurative expression. However,
it was interesting to see that even though question 2,
had enough contextual clues many of the non-native
participants did not use it, which may be due to the fact
that they may have become too thrown by the apparent
difficulty of the expression itself which may have
caused them a lack of concentration and motivation in
continuing to answer the question. It was of particular
interest to see that many of the non-native speakers in
UK expressed their feelings about being away from
home. For instance, in the expression last the distance,
it was clearly evident that their emotional state had an
effect on their interpretations. Thus, what was in their
mind at that particular moment may be another factor
which may have had effect on the interpretations of the
figurative language expressions.
212
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
To what extent do the participants' figurative language
interpretations relate to the answers that they provide on
the word test, and does it make any difference what
order the tests are given in?
As previously discussed, the data used to address
research question 2, were obtained through a word
association test with the words being part of the
figurative expression. Thus, half of the participants
were required to do the word association test at the
beginning, whereas the other half were given the test
after they answered the interpretation part.
In addition, the analysis of the results through SPSS
showed that a significant difference did not exist
between the native speakers and the non-native
speakers as a whole group, in terms of the closeness of
their associated words with ETA. However, there was a
significant difference between the native speakers and
the non-native speakers resident in Iran (p<0.05). Thus
it can be concluded that being part of the L2 community
does in fact have major influence on their tendency to
provide native-like associations.
Was performance on the word association test related to
performance on the figurative language interpretation
test?
Comparing the performance of both parts of the test for
the group as a whole, it was shown that if the
participants did well on their word association test, it
was much more likely that they would understand the
meaning of the figurative expressions and achieve a
higher score. There was a highly significant relationship
between the total score and how close the respondents'
produced word associations were with the EAT
(p<0.01). There was also another highly significant
relationship between the total score and the total
relation of both parts of the test (p<0.01) which means
if the respondents' word associations were related to
their answers in the interpretation part, it was more
likely for them to guess the correct meaning of the
expression. However, these significant relationships
were not found for the native participants.
Thus to make it short, in cases where the respondents
produced associations similar to EAT and where their
associations were similar to their interpretations, they
were much more likely to interpret the figurative
expressions correctly. Therefore, it can be concluded
that prior knowledge of words and the ability to
produce native-like association, helps non-native
speakers to understand the figurative expressions
correctly.
The results of the non-native group as a whole also
showed that a significant relationship existed between
their score and closeness of their word associations to
EAT (p<0.05) and indeed their total score and the
overall relation of both parts of the test (p<0.05).
Furthermore, these results were not found among the
native participants. The results suggest that if language
learners have encyclopaedic knowledge that resembles
that of native speakers, they are much more likely to
interpret figurative language correctly. Therefore it can
be concluded that building up deep vocabulary
knowledge should be an important part of the language
curriculum.
Does the order of the test make any difference on the
results achieved on the figurative language
interpretation test?
Since half of the participants were required to answer
the questions on order 1, and the other half on order 2,
some interesting results were achieved. The results for
the group as a whole showed that in order 2, where the
participants were presented the contextualized
examples first and later the word association test, there
was more similarity between the associated words and
the interpretations, and a much stronger relationship
existed between answers on both parts of the test when
presented with contextualized examples first, which
means that a highly significant relationship was found
between order 2 and the total relation (p< 0.01).
The results for the non-native group also showed that
there was more similarity between the associated words
and the interpretations in order 2, which means that a
significant relationship between both parts of the tests
was found, when the participants were presented with
contextualized examples first (p<0.05). However, for
the native participants, the fact that which order of the
test they were given did not have any significant effect
on their results.
Furthermore, it can be concluded that, in the study,
things the respondents, in particular the non-native
speakers, thought about as a result of a contextualized
activity were relevant to help them with a noncontextualized activity, but not the other way round.
CONCLUSION
213
Although language learners have the advantage of
knowledge and experience of other languages over
monolingual native speakers they tend to face
difficulties when it comes to understanding figurative
language (Littlemore and Low, 2006). Therefore, The
chief concern of this study has been to compare the
native speakers and second language speakers/learners,
in terms of the interpretations they give for naturallyoccurring figurative language and the extent the they
find such expressions difficult. It has also examined the
extent to which the native speakers and the non-native
speakers give the same response for a word in terms of
the semantic associations that they had in their minds.
The findings of the study are as follows. First, there was
a clear difference between the native speakers and the
non-native participants in terms of their correctness of
their given interpretations with many of the non-native
participants, both in UK and Iran finding the
expressions much more difficult than the native
speakers. However the years that the non-native
participants were spending in the UK had clear
influence on their results and they had interpreted more
questions correctly. The findings lead us to believe that
living in the L2 community can have great influence on
better understanding of naturally-occurring figurative
expressions. Nevertheless, even though the non-native
participants in the UK achieved a higher score on the
test than the non-native participants in Iran, they still
had difficulties understanding the expressions and
achieved a score which was significantly lower than the
native speakers.
The native speakers produced word associations that
were similar to the EAT. However, one further point of
interest concerning the resemblance of the three groups
to the EAT was that the non-native speakers resident in
the UK produced more word associations that was
similar to the EAT than the non-native participants
resident in Iran, which also shows that living in the L2
community does help the second language
speakers/learners to provide native-like associations.
Another interesting result showed that the non-native
speakers responded to the figurative expressions with
more correct interpretations when they were presented
with contextualized expressions first. They also
achieved a higher score. Furthermore, they had
significantly performed better on their word association
test when they had seen the usage of words in context.
By performing better in the word association test it
means that the similarity between their produced word
associations and the EAT increased significantly.
9.
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