An Empirical Study On Processing Strategy Of English Idioms For Non-english Major Postgraduates

Idioms are the essence of a language. It is important for EFL learners understand and produce English idioms even though idioms are difficult to learn. The present study is designed to investigate Chinese non-English major postgraduates’ initial processing strategies that they use to derive the figurative meanings of idioms. Although idiom learning has gained wide attention, few empirical studies concentrate on non-English major postgraduates. As a special group, postgraduates’ learning is more advanced,sophisticated and investigative. Therefore postgraduates need to develop good learning strategies according to their learning tasks. Besides, many studies have been conducted on the relation between idiom processing strategy, proficiency levels and context. The results have shown that there is a link between them. As for semantic analysis, previous research has not agreed on the role of constituent words on the comprehension of idioms. Moreover, most studies have analyzed the factors affecting idiom comprehension. It needs further research into idiom processing strategies.Therefore, the effects of learner’s proficiency levels, semantic analyzability and context are explored to find if they have impact on learners’ idiom processing strategies.The following four research questions are put forward. 1. Whether there is a significant difference in comprehending English idioms between two groups of students with different proficiency levels? 2. What strategies do participants employ in processing novel English idioms? What are the most frequently used strategies? 3. What’s the difference of semantic analyzability in choosing idioms’ processing strategies for two groups of students? 4. What’s the difference of context understanding in choosing idioms’ processing strategies for two groups of students? According to the quantitative and qualitative results, we draw the following conclusions:1. Firstly, the results of the current study have revealed that there is a significant difference in comprehending English idioms between two groups of students with different proficiency levels.2. The non-English major postgraduates have resorted to a variety of strategies tocomprehend English idioms. The results of the current study reveal that guessing the idioms meaning from context, using literal meaning as a key to figure out the figurative meaning, and discussing and analyzing the idiom or the context constitute the three most frequently used strategies. It is noteworthy that among the other strategies, some participants are aware of the using of conceptual metaphor and the meta-cognitive strategy.3. The role of semantic analyzability on choosing different processing strategies is apparent.4. The results confirm the effect of context in choosing processing strategies.The study has provided pedagogical implications on the teaching of idiom processing strategies and general academic English for postgraduates. Firstly, the non-English major postgraduates should be aware of the importance of using strategies to figure out the intended meanings of the unknown idioms. Secondly, it is necessary for teachers to provide a variety of types of idioms input and proper teaching of processing strategies in the classroom to aid the idiom learning to students. It is necessary for teachers to help students to gradually cultivate their own appropriate strategies to interpret the unfamiliar idioms and encourage students to use idioms.