The Importance Of Idioms In Learning A Second Language

This chapter divides into two main parts. The first part of this chapter is theoretical background. In this part, different definitions of idiom and its various roles in language learning are presented. Next, the importance of idioms and syntactic restrictions of idioms are discussed. Then the types of idioms and comprehension of L2 idioms are presented. After that, difficulties in teaching and learning idioms and processing idioms are reviewed. Then, the presentation techniques, namely visualization, lexical awareness, and storytelling for teaching L2 idioms are presented. The final part of this chapter, presents the previous empirical studies. 2.2. Theoretical Background

2.2.1. Definition of idiom and its role in language learning

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In addition, students learn better when they are provided with effective activities. In the next part of this chapter, the importance of idioms in learning a second language will be presented.

2.2.2. Are Idioms Important in Learning a Second Language? The importance of idioms has been emphasized by linguists and language teachers in recent years. Many studies in the domain of SLA have concluded that idioms are important in learning a foreign language. For example, Cooper (1999) believes that learning idioms is very important in the domain of second language acquisition. Cooper (1998) adds the research in the domain of idiom learning has reached to a number of findings that have pedagogical implication for idiom instruction. Swain (1993) believes that by applying target language in routine conversation, fluency will be enhanced. This issue exists not only in one aspect of language learning, but also in the other aspects like learning

The first hypothesis that is the literal first hypothesis, is sorted into two styles: one style identifies the literal meaning and the other processes the nonliteral use of language. The former is frequently the active one, however, the latter is utilized when the literal meaning is stressed. The second hypothesis, named simultaneous processing hypothesis, asserts that idioms are stored and recovered in the mental lexicon as chunks. This hypothesis claims that literal and figurative meaning act reciprocally and the interpretation that best fits the context is sorted out. The third hypothesis, named the direct access model, only utilizes the figurative meaning of an idiom. This hypothesis suggests that a literal analysis of an idiomatic expression is very uncommon. According to Gronk and Schweigert (1992), “no clearly superior theory for idiom processing has emerged, although support has been mustered for each of the three models” (cited in Cooper, 1998, p.