An Empirical Study On Comprehending Different Types Of English Idioms For Non-english Major Postgraduates

English is known for its abundant idioms.Idioms,as the cream of English national language,are playing increasingly significant roles in English learning.Although whether a second language learner could use idioms accurately and expertly has been regarded as an important indicator to measure one's second language proficiency,thanks to their characteristics-abundant types and cultural connotations,universal application and special semantics,it is still difficult for English learners to grasp idioms.There has been a long history for linguists home and abroad to study English idioms.They mostly focused on idiom definitions,sources of idioms and their features.Recently,with the further study on idioms,linguists embarked on idiom acquisition,factors which influence idiom comprehension,idiom cognitive patterns and idiom translation.They have made great achievements in these respects.But there exist defects as well.Due to the extensive types and the traits that idiom meanings can not be figured out from its constituent words,linguists thus classified idioms into different types from different angles.This thesis mainly constructs a contrastive classification framework of English and Chinese idioms based on their concepts and linguistic forms,it classifies idioms into five types,which could be conducive to understanding the influence of L1 on idiom comprehension.In addition,numbers of researches have investigated the role that context plays in idioms study,yet,whether context and language proficiency level impose different effects on various idiom types are worth being explored.Moreover,the majority of researches adopt the strategy classification of Cooper's(1999)on idiom comprehension.But because of the difference of learners' native language and thinking modes,the strategies employed by learners can not be completely identical.Thus,the study supplements other strategies adopted by Chinese learners on the basis of Cooper's strategy category.Taking all the factors into account,the empirical study classifies idioms into 5 types by comparing concept and linguistic forms between Chinese and English idioms to investigate the strategies used by non-English postgraduates with different English proficiency.The study is intended to answer the following three questions in details:Research Question 1: What influences does the pattern of idiom presentation with or without context have on learners' idiom comprehension when processing different idiom types?Research Question 2: To What degree does learners' L1 have on their comprehending different types of English idioms without context?Research Question 3: What effects does postgraduates' language proficiency level have on idiom comprehension? And what kinds of strategies do postgraduates with high and intermediate English proficiency levels employ respectively in idiom comprehension in context?105 non-English major postgraduates from Jiangnan University engage in this experiment.To fulfill the empirical study impartially,the study integrates both quantitative and qualitative research methods.The empirical study is divided into two experiments,one is idiom comprehension test and the other is think-aloud task.90 valid papers are collected and the data from idiom comprehension test with context and without context are input into SPSS.23.0 for further analysis.Then 9 advanced learners and 9 intermediate learners are interviewed in order to explore their comprehension process.Several findings are found as follows:(1)Context plays a decisive role in idiom comprehension,however,when different idiom types are processed,the influential degree of context is different.When learners process the equivalent or similar idioms with Chinese,context exerts little influence on idiom understanding,but with the gap between Chinese idioms and English idioms enlarging,context plays an increasingly significant role.(2)For second language learners,the easiest idioms to process are the idioms equivalent to Chinese ones both in concept and linguistic forms(Type1 idiom),and the most difficult ones to understand are the idioms with totally different meanings both in concept and linguistic forms(Type5 idiom)with Chinese.(3)Advanced learners tend to use more strategies to process idioms than intermediate learners.Advanced learners generally expert in Guess Strategies,butintermediate learners are better at adopting Preparatory Strategies.Moreover,idiom types affect learners' strategy election.The findings provide several pedagogical implications for postgraduates' teaching and learning.On the one hand,the study proposes a relatively novel perspective to classify idioms by comparing Chinese and English idioms based on the concept and linguistic forms,which is helpful for the teaching and learning.On the other hand,teachers should guide students to be able to comprehend and memorize idioms by making use of context.Last but not least,teachers have to teach students in accordance with their capacity because learners with different proficiency levels have tendency to adopt different strategies.In addition,teachers should help students to broaden their vision and expand their imagination in terms of using strategies.