English idioms in the first language and second language lexicon: a ...

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Beate Abel 3491996b; 1997). Therefore, the same factors should account for theirspecific representations.The differences described in the fourth assumption have beenempirically supported. In Studies 1 and 2, nonnatives showed ageneral tendency to judge idioms as being decomposable, whereasnatives more often judged them as being nondecomposable.Nonnatives who read English texts daily and thus come acrossidioms more frequently, which leads to the development of idiomentries, start to judge idioms as nondecomposable, just as nativesdo. Furthermore, the fourth assumption is supported by statementsgiven by the nonnative participants. In the biographicalquestionnaire, they were asked what they do if they encounter anunknown idiom in an English text. The majority answered that theyconsider the literal meaning of the constituents and then try to puttogether the idiomatic meaning of the whole phrase. In this process,contextual and conceptual factors play an important role. Theseutterances show that nonnatives actually ‘decompose’, whereasnatives do not have to consider the constituent meaning, becausethey activate their existing idiom entry. In terms of Giora’s gradedsalience hypothesis (Giora, 1997; 1999; Giora and Fein, 1999) thiscan be interpreted as a difference in salience for the two groups.Giora (1999: 919) assumes that ‘the salient meaning of a word oran expression is its lexicalized meaning, i.e., the meaning retrievablefrom the mental lexicon rather than from the context’. Thisindicates that for natives, the figurative meaning of an idiom ishighly salient, which is reflected in the existence of an idiom entry,whereas for nonnatives it is less salient and leads them to activatetheir constituent entries. 10The DIR Model makes more assumptions than the four discussedabove (see Abel, 2003). For example, it considers the generalorganization and structure of the lexicon. In accordance withTabossi and Zardon (1993), it is assumed that access to the idiomentry is only possible after the first constituent entry has beenactivated. Furthermore it postulates that lexical redundancy rules(Jackendoff, 1975) link the constituent and idiom entries and thatfor decomposable idioms the semantic links between the variouslexical entries are stronger than in the case of nondecomposable10The compatibility between the model suggested here and Giora’s graded saliencehypothesis is due to the factors that influence decomposability and salience. Giora (1997:185) states that ‘[t]he salience of a word or an utterance is a function of its conventionality. . ., familiarity . . ., frequency . . ., or givenness status in a certain (linguistic or nonlinguistic)context.’ As has been argued here, these factors determine judgements aboutdecomposability as well (for a similar approach, see Titone and Connine, 1999).Downloaded from http://slr.sagepub.com at Shanghai Jiaotong University on March 7, 2009
350 English idioms in the L1 and L2 lexiconidioms (see Bybee, 1985; 1988; 1995a; 1995b). Additionally, the DIRModel postulates that the representation of idioms via constituentor idiom entries is variable, which means that the representationscan change through time. This implies that the lexicon should beregarded as a dynamically organized structure and not as a staticlist, as generative approaches usually assume.V Summary and conclusionsOn the whole, the present study conducted with nonnative speakersof English confirmed the results for native speakers reported byTitone and Connine (1994), although some systematic differencesbetween the two groups were identified. Existing hypotheses ofidiom processing are not extensive enough to cover therequirements of idiom representation, especially with regard to therole of concepts and the integration of the L1 and the L2 lexicon.The DIR Model was developed to provide these requirements. Thecentral assumptions and advantages of the DIR Model can bestated as follows: First, the model considers not only a lexical, butalso a conceptual level of representation. Secondly, at the lexicallevel the duality refers to the parallel existence of both constituentand idiom entries. The development of an idiom entry depends onthe idiom’s decomposability – nondecomposable idioms definitelyneed an idiom entry – and its frequency. The more frequent anidiom, the more likely it will develop an idiom entry.One of the DIR Model’s advantages is its compatibility withregard to the L1 and the L2 lexicon. The differences between thenative and the nonnative lexicon, which are mainly due todifferences in the frequency of exposure to idiomatic configurations,can be described and explained by gradual variation ofthe same theoretical assumptions. For decomposable idioms, idiomentries should be regarded as additional pieces of informationabout frequently-occurring linguistic entities and not as amandatory prerequisite to idiom processing.The claim of dual representations qualifies the special status thathas been attributed to idioms in, for example, generative models ofgrammar and which has been responsible for their treatment asexceptions. But, considering the abundance of idioms in language,it is not justifiable to treat them as something special. What isneeded is a representational model such as the one introduced inthis article that, on the basis of the same theoretical assumptions,is able to describe and explain expressions located at various pointson the continuum of compositionality and decomposability.Downloaded from http://slr.sagepub.com at Shanghai Jiaotong University on March 7, 2009
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