Killing Two Birds with One Stone: Understanding Spanish VP Idioms in and out of Context

Abstract

This article describes the results of a study conducted with twenty-eight adult third-year learners of Spanish in order to investigate (a) the degree to which idiom type affects the speed and ease of idiom comprehension and interpretation, and (b) the effect that context (or lack thereof) exerts on idiom understanding. Findings indicate that (a) there are significant main effects for LL and PLL idioms in both context and non-context treatments: (b) the use of context is of great importance in the construction of idiomatic meaning; and (c) the degree of opacity between target and domain idioms influences the speed and ease of VP idiom understanding, as well as the transfer of L1 idiomatic knowledge, in significant ways. Implications for the classroom and for future research are also discussed.