Can't make head or tale of it

Abstract

One important aspect of figurative language learning are idioms (Heredia & Cieślicka, 2015, p.208). However, L2 learners seem to struggle with the use of idioms (Zyzik, 2011, p. 414). Within the current study, the influence of lexical knowledge of L2 speakers of Dutch on idiom recall has been investigated. Also, the influence of transparency and a difference between idiom recall and idiom recognition has been researched. Scores increased with increasing idiom transparency and with an increasing lexical knowledge of the L2 speaker. Also score type was of significance. Participants scored significantly higher on idiom recognition, compared to idiom recall. When investigating the interaction of score type and idiom transparency, and the interaction of score type and lexical knowledge on score, no significant effect was found.