Interlingual Transfer of Idioms by Persian Learners in EFL Sentence Writing

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate whether Iranian university students majoring in English utilize their knowledge of first language in producing idiomatic expressions in sentence writing. It was also intended to provide some information about the comparison between high and low proficient groups in utilizing interlingual transfer in production of idiomatic expressions. To achieve thispurpose, an NTC's practice test for TOEFL (Broukal&Wouds, 2000) was administered, and two groups of different language proficiencies (high = 30 and low = 30) were selected from a population of eighty male and female Iranian university students majoring in English according to their mean and standard deviation. The main instruments utilized for data collection were two tests, a translation test (containing 40 idioms in sentences) and a value-judgement test (containing 30 items). The two tests were given to 60 (high and low) proficient students. The obtained data through t-test from the translation test showed that both high and low proficient groups used knowledge of their first language, but the low proficient group used considerably more than the high proficient group. Also, the results of the value-judgement test through Chi-square showed that the low proficient group chose literal meaning of the idioms significantly more than high proficient group. The findings of this study are helpful for EFL adult learners to be aware of transfer strategy and its outcome, comparison and contrast of L1-L2 idioms, inclusion of bilingual glossaries in the EFL course books, and designing bilingual idiomatic dictionaries.