Use of conceptual metaphors: a strategy for the guessing of an idiom's meaning?

Abstract

In the study presented here, Greek adult advanced-level learners of English guess at the meaning of unknown English idioms and describe the train of thought that lead them to an idiom's interpretation immediately after supplying an interpretation for it. Results indicate limited use of Conceptual Metaphors as a strategy for the guessing of an idiom's meaning, thus contradicting previous claims of no such use. This study also tests whether meaning guessing based of idiom-inherent features occurs more often when idioms are presented out of context than when in context. This hypothesis is supported for all such strategies except that the one utilising Conceptual Metaphor knowledge, possibly because of its rare occurrence in both context conditions. Some caveats about the reli­ability of the data are expressed.