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Processing figurative language: Evidence from native and non-native speakers of English

In recent research on figurative phrases, factors (e.g., familiarity, transparency, meaning, and decomposability) have played a significant influence on how native and non-native English speakers (various L1 and L1 Arabic) acquire, process, and comprehend figurative language. These factors are not a...

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Autor principal: Alkhammash, Reem
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9743972/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36518963
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1057662
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author Alkhammash, Reem
author_facet Alkhammash, Reem
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description In recent research on figurative phrases, factors (e.g., familiarity, transparency, meaning, and decomposability) have played a significant influence on how native and non-native English speakers (various L1 and L1 Arabic) acquire, process, and comprehend figurative language. These factors are not always described and operationalized precisely and are frequently considered autonomous. This study explores these factors in terms of language users’ ratings and their abilities to accurately infer meaning from a variety of familiar English and translated idioms and novel metaphors. A total of 123 participants from various language groups engaged in this study. The findings showed that familiarity is a strong predictor of transparency. In the ability to infer the meaning correctly, the best-fit model included an interaction between transparency and familiarity. The findings showed that guessing the meaning correctly led to a greater increase in the scores of transparency and decomposability. We explore how these factors work together to enable speakers to infer the meaning of both known and new figurative words at various levels. These results have significant implications for the learning and teaching of figurative phrases in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context, as they indicate variables that may make a figurative phrase valuable in terms of teaching time and effort.
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spelling pubmed-97439722022-12-13 Processing figurative language: Evidence from native and non-native speakers of English Alkhammash, Reem Front Psychol Psychology In recent research on figurative phrases, factors (e.g., familiarity, transparency, meaning, and decomposability) have played a significant influence on how native and non-native English speakers (various L1 and L1 Arabic) acquire, process, and comprehend figurative language. These factors are not always described and operationalized precisely and are frequently considered autonomous. This study explores these factors in terms of language users’ ratings and their abilities to accurately infer meaning from a variety of familiar English and translated idioms and novel metaphors. A total of 123 participants from various language groups engaged in this study. The findings showed that familiarity is a strong predictor of transparency. In the ability to infer the meaning correctly, the best-fit model included an interaction between transparency and familiarity. The findings showed that guessing the meaning correctly led to a greater increase in the scores of transparency and decomposability. We explore how these factors work together to enable speakers to infer the meaning of both known and new figurative words at various levels. These results have significant implications for the learning and teaching of figurative phrases in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context, as they indicate variables that may make a figurative phrase valuable in terms of teaching time and effort. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9743972/ /pubmed/36518963 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1057662 Text en Copyright © 2022 Alkhammash. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Alkhammash, Reem
Processing figurative language: Evidence from native and non-native speakers of English
title Processing figurative language: Evidence from native and non-native speakers of English
title_full Processing figurative language: Evidence from native and non-native speakers of English
title_fullStr Processing figurative language: Evidence from native and non-native speakers of English
title_full_unstemmed Processing figurative language: Evidence from native and non-native speakers of English
title_short Processing figurative language: Evidence from native and non-native speakers of English
title_sort processing figurative language: evidence from native and non-native speakers of english
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9743972/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36518963
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1057662
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