A Contrastive Study Of English And Non - English Majors' Understanding Strategies In Commonly Used Idioms

Idioms, as a very common linguistic phenomenon, prevail in spoken and written language. For EFL learners, a good command of English idioms facilitates their mastery of authentic language. Because idioms’ meaning cannot be simply attributed to their constituents, in EFL context, both teachers and learners have difficulty teaching and learning English idioms. Yet relevant researches at home are inadequate.The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the online processing strategies used by Chinese EFL learners, ten English majors and ten non-English majors, when processing20most frequently used spoken American English idioms. All interviews are recorded.The major findings of this study are:1) most EFL learners adopt a comprehensive approach when processing idioms, employing various strategies; however, learners with different proficient levels tend to apply different types of strategies. English majors who are relatively proficient in English prefer guessing the idioms from the context (33%of the time), and guessing the meaning directly (29%) with high success rates (51%and27%respectively), while non-English majors who are, on the whole, less proficient EFL learners prefer discussing and analyzing (20%), repeating and paraphrasing the idioms and the context (20%) with low success rates;2) learners’proficiency does shape their idiom comprehension and their choice of strategies; contextual support plays a more significant role for proficient EFL learners in idiom comprehension;3) poor motivation, linguistic and metaphorical incompetence are major reasons why low proficient EFL learners cannot comprehend idioms effectively.Pedagogical implications are:1) teachers can adopt think-aloud protocols in class to investigate the strategies students use. Students should be encouraged and instructed to make guesses from the context;2) directly guessing to some extent confirms the direct access theory, so teachers can get students to familiarize themselves with the frequently used idioms in English;3) for low proficient EFL learners, teachers should focus on their linguistic and metaphorical competence development and boost their motivation through private talks.