Cristina Cacciari

The comprehension of idioms

Abstract The access of idiomatic expressions was investigated in three cross-modal priming experiments. When the idiomatic string was predictable, subjects were faster at performing a lexical decision to idiomatically related targets than to literally related targets (Experiment 1). When the string was not recognizable as idiomatic until its completion, then subjects were faster on the target literally related to the last word (Experiment 2). Lexical decision for the same materials used in Experiment 2, when target words were presented 300 ms after the end of idiom was heard, was faster both for targets related to the last word and for the idiomatic meaning of the string, relative to control targets (Experiment 3). Neither the direct access model nor the lexical representation model seems adequate to explain the present findings. A new hypothesis concerning the representation and the processing of idioms is presented.

Children's comprehension and production of idioms: the role of context and familiarity.

Several studies have argued that children under the ages of nine or ten years rarely comprehend figurative language and therefore interpret it literally. Cacciari & Levorato (1989) showed that when idioms are presented within a rich informational environment, children are able to grasp the figurative sense at the age of seven, and also that children are less able to produce idioms than to comprehend them. In three experiments involving 264 children (whose age ranged from 6;9 to 11;9), we contrasted this global elaboration hypothesis with a partially alternative one, the acquisition via exposure hypothesis, according to which the frequency of exposure of children to idioms is the main factor explaining their acquisition and production. Results showed that familiarity (i.e. frequency of exposure) plays a minor role and only for children who are not yet able to use contextual information. Familiarity per se does not adequately explain how children acquire a figurative competence. A tentative model is proposed in order to account for figurative competence acquisition.

Understanding idiomatic expressions. The contribution of word meanings

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the meanings of an idioms elements that plays important role in idiom interpretation and use, depending on the particular type of idiom involved. Before considering the issue of idiom types, the evidence relating to the two major classes of idiom comprehension models: non-compositional, which assumes that idioms are a unique form of language, and compositional, which assumes that idioms may range from the non-compositional word-like phrase to fully compositional metaphor-like constructions are explained in the chapter. Idiom use and comprehension is an integral part of everyday conversation, and it is also an integral part of discourse processing, where the meanings of words and the compositional meanings of phrases and sentences are routinely generated and used to infer what a speaker intends to convey.

Semantic productivity and idiom comprehension

When people understand an idiom such as “spill the beans,” two kinds of meaning are simultaneously apprehended: the meanings of the words themselves and the idiomatic meaning. Standard models of language comprehension assume that the literal meanings of figurative expressions are rejected in favor of a nonliteral meaning. We propose an alternative approach in which literal meanings are systematically used to constrain the use and variation of conventional idioms and to generate novel idiom variants.

How Children Understand Idioms in Discourse.

Some studies have shown that children tend to interpret figurative language literally. Our hypothesis is that they can reach an idiomatic competence if idioms are presented within a rich informational environment allowing children to grasp their figurative sense. First and third graders were presented with narratives biased both to the figurative meaning of idioms (experiment 1) and to the literal meaning (experiment 2) and then given a comprehension task. Experiment 3 was designed to investigate childrens production of idioms as compared to the comprehension abilities explored in experiments 1 and 2. Results show that informative contexts can improve childrens ability to perceive idiomatic meanings even at the age of seven; and that children are less able to produce idioms than to comprehend them. Generally results emphasize that children seem able to perceive that language can be both figurative and literal.

Predictive mechanisms in idiom comprehension

Prediction is pervasive in human cognition and plays a central role in language comprehension. At an electrophysiological level, this cognitive function contributes substantially in determining the amplitude of the N400. In fact, the amplitude of the N400 to words within a sentence has been shown to depend on how predictable those words are: The more predictable a word, the smaller the N400 elicited. However, predictive processing can be based on different sources of information that allow anticipation of upcoming constituents and integration in context. In this study, we investigated the ERPs elicited during the comprehension of idioms, that is, prefabricated multiword strings stored in semantic memory. When a reader recognizes a string of words as an idiom before the idiom ends, she or he can develop expectations concerning the incoming idiomatic constituents. We hypothesized that the expectations driven by the activation of an idiom might differ from those driven by discourse-based constraints. To this aim, we compared the ERP waveforms elicited by idioms and two literal control conditions. The results showed that, in both cases, the literal conditions exhibited a more negative potential than the idiomatic condition. Our analyses suggest that before idiom recognition the effect is due to modulation of the N400 amplitude, whereas after idiom recognition a P300 for the idiomatic sentence has a fundamental role in the composition of the effect. These results suggest that two distinct predictive mechanisms are at work during language comprehension, based respectively on probabilistic information and on categorical template matching.

Literal, fictive and metaphorical motion sentences preserve the motion component of the verb: A TMS study.

We used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to assess whether reading literal, non-literal (i.e., metaphorical, idiomatic) and fictive motion sentences modulates the activity of the motor system. Sentences were divided into three segments visually presented one at a time: the noun phrase, the verb and the final part of the sentence. Single pulse-TMS was delivered at the end of the sentence over the leg motor area in the left hemisphere and motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were recorded from the right gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior muscles. MEPs were larger when participants were presented with literal, fictive and metaphorical motion sentences than with idiomatic motion or mental sentences. These results suggest that the excitability of the motor system is modulated by the motor component of the verb, which is preserved in fictive and metaphorical motion sentences.

The creation of new figurative expressions: psycholinguistic evidence in Italian children, adolescents and adults

According to a developmental model of figurative language acquisition--the global elaboration model (Levorato & Cacciari, 1995)--the metalinguistic awareness necessary to use figurative language in a creative way is acquired late, and is subsequent to the ability to comprehend and produce figurative expressions. One hundred and eight children aged 9;6, one hundred and twenty-four children aged 11;3, one hundred and twelve adolescents aged 18;5 and one hundred adults participated in Experiment 1 which studied the development of metalinguistic awareness through an elicitation task. The subjects produced a high percentage of figurative expressions with a clear developmental trend that is concluded in adolescence. In addition, Experiment 2 showed that the production of comprehensible, appropriate and novel metaphors, as they were rated by adult judges, also increased with age. These results show that the ability to use figurative language in a creative and sensible way requires a long developmental time span and is strictly connected with the ability to reflect on language as a complex cognitive and interpersonal phenomenon.

Further evidence of gender stereotype priming in language: Semantic facilitation and inhibition in Italian role nouns

Two experiments tested the activation of gender stereotypes for Italian role nouns (e.g., teacher). The experimental paradigm was modeled on the one proposed by a study by Banaji and Hardin: participants were shown a prime word followed by a target pronoun (he or she) on which they performed a gender decision task. The prime words were Italian role nouns that had an associated female stereotype, an associated male stereotype, or no associated stereotype (control condition). The results of Experiment 1 showed no influence of stereotypes on the gender decision response to personal pronouns. However, when, in Experiment 2, the prime-target interval and the prime presentation times were prolonged, a stereotypical gender priming effect did emerge. A different inhibition pattern was found when the pronoun was preceded by a noun associated with a male stereotype instead of a female one.

Exploring the relationship between individuals’ speed of processing and their comprehension of spoken idioms

In two crossmodal lexical decision experiments we investigated the time course of idiomatic meaning activation for Italian participants listening to spoken idioms. Participants were grouped into fast and slow groups on the basis of their speed of correct response to visually presented targets associated with idioms that were auditorily presented. Participants whose mean lexical decision times were below the 45th percentile were considered slow participants and those whose mean lexical decision times were above the 55th percentile were considered fast participants. The results of Experiment 1 showed that slow and fast participants decided equally quickly the lexical status of the target words associated with predictable idioms. In contrast, whereas the slow participants responded to target words presented during predictable idioms more quickly than to target words presented during nonpredictable idioms, the fast participants responded equally quickly to targets presented during predictable and nonpredictable idioms. When a response deadline was introduced (Experiment 2), fast and slow participants activated the idiomatic meaning of nonpredictable idioms equally quickly, as reflected by the lexical decision times for the target words associated with idioms of this type. The results are interpreted in the light of current models of spoken idiom comprehension.