The Influence Of The Analyzability Of Idioms On Idiom Comprehension And Production Of Chinese EFL Learners

Traditionally, idioms are viewed as"dead metaphors"which are unanlyzable (Bobrow & Bell, 1973; Swinney & Cutler, 1979). However, from the cognitive perspective, idioms can be analyzed and they are contained with much of metaphoricity (Gibbs, 1994). This paper is aimed at investigating how the analyzability of idioms affects idiom comprehension and production of Chinese EFL learners and whether the conceptual metaphoric method for idiom-teaching facilitates idiom comprehension and production of Chinese EFL learners.With this aim in mind, an empirical study has been conducted. 60 juniors from a college in Changchun participate in the study. Among the 60 juniors, 30 of them come from Class 1 which is taken as the control group and the rest are from Class 2 which is the experimental group. At the beginning of the study, the participants from the two groups are required to take three tests: a test for examining the influence of idiom analyzability on idiom comprehension, a test for examining the influence of idiom analyzability on idiom production, and a pre-test for testifying the facilitating role that the conceptual metaphors play in idiom-teaching. During the study, methods of idiom instruction for the control group and the experimental group are different. The participants from the control group take the traditional semantic-interpretation method while the participants from the experimental group receive the conceptual metaphoric method, whose aim is to teach idioms by analyzing their semantic structures, which is believed to be motivated by the conceptual metaphors. At the end of the study, a post-test is carried out to check that whether the conceptual metaphoric method for idiom-teaching is effective.The collected data from the four tests are fed into SPSS 17.0 and analyzed by one-way ANOVA and Independent Samples Test, results of which indicate: The analyzability of idioms affects idiom comprehension of Chinese EFL learners; the more analyzable an idiom is, the more easily the idiom is comprehended. The analyzability of idioms does not affect idiom production of Chinese EFL learners; the production of idioms does not vary with the change of degrees of idiom analyzability. The conceptual metaphoric method for idiom-teaching facilitates idiom comprehension but does not facilitate idiom production.Based on the findings of the study, theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed at the end of this paper.