A Constructionist Approach To The Acquisition Of English Idioms By Chinese EFL Learners

Idioms, as a special language phenomenon, form an essential component part ofthe English language. However, the rich cultural information and profoundconnotation embedded in idioms and their idiosyncratic properties in semantics,syntax and pragmatics make it one of the most difficult aspects to master in theEnglish language. Therefore, the study of English idioms has gained extensiveattention. Although idioms have been studied from various perspectives, such as thestructuralism, TG, psycholinguistics and Cognitive Linguistics, and idiom acquisitionhas also been studied empirically at home and abroad, only a few scholars have everapproached idiom acquisition from the perspective of Construction Grammar, letalone empirical studies on how to teach and learn English idioms effectively inclassroom settings in EFL environments. Therefore, it is of great theoretical andpractical significance to approach the acquisition of English idioms in the frameworkof Construction Grammar in an EFL environment. This thesis, inspired by the latestdevelopment of Cognitive Construction Grammar (CCxG), proposes theconstructionist approach to idiom teaching and learning and conducts anexperimental study among Chinese non-English majors, proving that theconstructionist approach offers an effective way to teach and learn English idioms aswell as to provide some enlightenment for foreign language teaching and learning.The research results indicate that:Firstly, the application of the constructionist approach can produce good effectsin idiom teaching and learning in an EFL environment. The experiment shows thatboth the immediate effect and long-term effect of the constructionist approach ismuch better than those of the traditional semantic method. So it can be seen that theconstructionist approach is much more effective than traditional semanticexplanation, and it really helps Chinese EFL learners achieve better performance intheir learning of English idioms. Secondly, the constructionist approach helps narrow the gap between learners’productive and receptive idiomatic knowledge. The experiment shows that althoughlearners’ receptive and productive idiomatic knowledge do not develop evenly withinboth groups with the former developing much faster than the latter, the gap betweenthem is larger within the control group than within the experimental group.Thirdly, idiom acquisition in essence is construction acquisition. Idiomconstructions can only be learned effectively through generalization on the basis oflarge amount of exposure to usage-events in multiple contexts, instead of massivemechanical de-contextualized pattern drills proposed by structural linguistics, letalone the complex syntactic computation advocated by TG.The present study, which applies theories of CCxG to the study of languageteaching, is a good attempt to combine Construction Grammar with appliedlinguistics. On one hand, it enriches the study of idiom acquisition in EFLenvironments; on the other hand, it provides a new perspective for foreign languageteaching and yields some pedagogical implications for EFL teaching and learning.