Abstract
Idiom priming effects (faster processing compared to novel phrases) are generally robust in native speakers but not non-native speakers. This leads to the question of how idioms and other multiword units are represented and accessed in a first (L1) and second language (L2). We address this by investigating the processing of translated Chinese idioms to determine whether known L1 combinations show idiom priming effects in non-native speakers when encountered in the L2. In two eye-tracking experiments we compared reading times for idioms vs. control phrases (Experiment 1) and for figurative vs. literal uses of idioms (Experiment 2). Native speakers of Chinese showed recognition of the L1 form in the L2, but figurative meanings were read more slowly than literal meanings, suggesting that the non-compositional nature of idioms makes them problematic in a non-native language. We discuss the results as they relate to crosslinguistic priming at the multiword level.
Highlights
IntroductionMulti-word units (idioms, collocations, lexical bundles) have become an important focus in psycholinguistics
Multi-word units have become an important focus in psycholinguistics
Research into the bilingual lexicon has routinely looked at the relationship between single words in a first language (L1) and second language (L2) (Chen & Ng, 1989; de Groot & Nas, 1991; Wang, 2007), but there is a relative paucity of research into how translation equivalence might scale up to formulaic units
Summary
Multi-word units (idioms, collocations, lexical bundles) have become an important focus in psycholinguistics They are ubiquitous (Erman & Warren, 2000), show phrase-level effects of frequency (Bannard & Matthews, 2008; Tremblay, Derwing, Libben & Westbury, 2011) and have a privileged processing status for native speakers (Wray, 2012). They do not fit neatly into a ‘words and rules’ approach to language, so how such ‘formulaic’ units are processed and stored is a key question when it comes to understanding the structure of the mental lexicon. We begin by reviewing the existing literature on monolingual and bilingual idiom processing
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