12 What native and non-native speakers' images for idioms tell us about figurative language

Abstract

Abstract In a series of experiments, native and non-native English speakers were asked to form mental images of familiar American English idioms. Even when given explicit instructions to base their images on the phrases' literal meanings, both groups of speakers reported images that reflected fusions of the phrases' literal and figurative meanings. In a subsequent rating task, non-native speakers were judged to have produced more natural sounding sentences using the target idioms after the imaging task than they did before the task. In a second experiment, non-native English speakers were asked to form images of unfamiliar American English idioms both before and after being told the phrases' figurative meanings. Non-native speakers' images did not noticeably change between the first and the second imaging session, indicating that their images were not dependent on explicit knowledge of the phrases' figurative meanings. Emergent properties of metaphorical language are discussed.