Exploring The Effects Of Alliteration On The Retention Of English Idioms In Different Experimental Tasks

In recent years, researches in SLA have emphasized the importance of formulaic sequences in language learning, because knowledge of such units is believed to help learners to become fluent, native-like and accurate L2 speakers. Idioms, as the most fixed and difficult part of formulaic sequences, used to be recognized as non-compositional. However, researches in cognitive linguistics hold that the meaning and lexical composition of many idioms are motivated rather than arbitrary. Under this assumption, researchers have been trying to find some mnemonic techniques to make the learning of idioms more efficient and easily manipulated. Boers and Lindstromberg (2005) found that the phonological feature of alliteration shared by a large number of idioms is an effective mnemonic technique to help L2 learners memorize the form of English idioms. However, they didn't reveal whether alliteration can particularly enhance learners'retention of idioms'meaning. Based on this research, the present study, empirically explores how alliteration takes effect in L2 learners'retention of the meaning and form of idioms in different experimental tasks. The results reveal that alliteration is positively effective for the retention of the form of idioms in the form-focused experimental task but not effective for the retention of the meaning of idioms in the meaning-focused task. Based on the theories in cognitive psychology like"Transfer Appropriate Processing","Distinctiveness Hypothesis", and"Capacity Model of Attention", this thesis proposes that alliteration's noneffectiveness in the meaning-focused task may result from the incongruence between the nature of the task and alliteration and subjects'lack of attentional resources to process alliteration. However, in the form-focused task, the nature of the task is congruent with the nature of alliteration and subjects were likely to have enough attention to process alliteration. In this case, the positive effect of alliteration on the retention of idioms'form was highlighted. In addition, the study suggests that it is the distinctiveness of alliteration that makes the form of alliterating idioms visually and aurally salient and easy to be perceived and memorized.