On The Comprehension Of English Idioms Of Body Parts By Chinese EFL Learners

From the view of conceptual metonymy,present study investigates the effect of idiom type and English proficiency on the comprehension of idiom of body parts.With reference to the classification of Laufer's,idioms in the present study are sorted into four types on the basis of the linguistic and conceptual similarities and differences between Chinese and English.They are:1)exact translation idiom;2)partial translation idiom;3)L1 different idiom;4)L1 non-idiom.Participants consist of 17 low-level,15 intermediate and 15 advanced Chinese EFL learners.They are required to complete an idiom comprehension test and a think-aloud task.The quantitative data are processed by SPSS while the comprehension strategies are identified.Based on the results,the thesis comes to the following four principal conclusions:1)Both intermediate group and advanced group outperform low group significantly.No significant difference,however,is observed between intermediate and advanced group.2)The effect of idiom type on the comprehension of idioms of body parts is statistically significant.Type ? is the easiest to comprehend,followed by type ? and type IV.Type ? poses the greatest challenge for all the participants.3)Eleven strategies and seven effective strategies are identified on the basis of the transcription of think-aloud protocols.4)Strategy CM is less frequently used.Intermediate learners are the most active in making use of strategy CM,followed by advanced group while low group performs poorest in this aspect.Some suggestions for future idiom teaching are put forward at the end of the thesis.