Comprehension of Idioms by Children with Learning Disabilities: Metaphoric Transparency and Syntactic Frozenness

Third and fifth grade children with and without learning disabilities participated in this study. Syntactically frozen and flexible idioms and transparent and opaque idioms were used as stimuli to examine the ability to identify the correct idiom and to explain idiom meanings. Grade and diagnostic category affected performance on the explanation task but not on the forced choice task. Idiom type was also a factor affecting comprehension and explanation. Literal responses occurred rarely and were more likely to occur on the forced choice task.     

Idiom comprehension deficits in relation to corpus callosum agenesis and hypoplasia in children with spina bifida meningomyelocele

Idioms are phrases with figurative meanings that are not directly derived from the literal meanings of the words in the phrase. Idiom comprehension varies with: literality, whether the idiom is literally plausible; compositionality, whether individual words contribute to a figurative meaning; and contextual bias. We studied idiom comprehension in children with spina bifida meningomyelocele (SBM), a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with problems in discourse comprehension and agenesis and hypoplasia of the corpus callosum. Compared to age peers, children with SBM understood decomposable idioms (which are processed more like literal language) but not non-decomposable idioms (which require contextual analyses for acquisition). The impairment in non-decomposable idioms was related to congenital agenesis of the corpus callosum, which suggests that the consequences of impaired interhemispheric communication, whether congenital or acquired in adulthood, are borne more by configurational than by compositional language.     

Testing idiom comprehension in aphasic patients: the effects of task and idiom type

Idiom comprehension in 15 aphasic patients was assessed with three tasks: a sentence-to-picture matching task, a sentence-to-word matching task and an oral definition task. The results of all three tasks showed that the idiom comprehension in aphasic patients was impaired compared to that of the control group, and was significantly affected by the type of task and type of idiom. Whilst performance on the oral definition and sentence-to-picture matching tasks was similarly impaired, the patients performed significantly better on the sentence-to-word matching task. The results confirm the relevance of task and idiom type in drawing conclusions about figurative language interpretation in brain-damaged patients.     

Inferential language processes across adolescence: A test with novel idioms

Idiom comprehension relies on the ability to draw inferences from different cues in a communication situation. Adopting a developmental perspective, we investigated how this ability changes across adolescence. To this end, we designed a computerized system that allowed us to simulate a communication situation through short videos placing participants at the center of the interaction. Four groups of participants (11, 13, 15, and adult students) performed an idiomatic expression comprehension task, in which idiom familiarity was controlled. We manipulated the idioms’ transparency (vs. opacity) and presentation (supportive narrative context inducing an idiomatic interpretation of the expression vs. nonsupportive narrative context). Analyses revealed an improvement in idiom comprehension in terms of contextual inferences but they failed to reveal any significant difference in terms of semantic inferences. This study yields fresh arguments in support of the notion that inferential ability based on context continues to develop beyond childhood.     

Reading comprehension and understanding idiomatic expressions: a developmental study

The aim of the present study was to investigate idiom comprehension in school-age Italian children with different reading comprehension skills. According to our hypothesis, the level of a child's text comprehension skills should predict his/her ability to understand idiomatic meanings. Idiom comprehension in fact requires children to go beyond a simple word-by-word comprehension strategy and to integrate figurative meaning into contextual information. In a preliminary phase, we used a standardized battery of tests (Cornoldi & Colpo, 1998) to assess the ability of second graders and fourth graders to comprehend written texts. Three groups were identified at each age level: good, medium, and poor comprehenders. Children were then presented with familiar idiomatic expressions which also have a literal meaning (e.g., "break the ice"). Idioms were embedded in short stories: in Experiment 1 only the idiomatic interpretation was contextually appropriate, in Experiment 2 a literal reading of the string was also plausible in the context. A multiple-choice task was used in both experiments: children were asked to choose one answer among three corresponding to: (a) the idiomatic meaning; (b) the literal meaning; and (c) an interpretation contextually appropriate but not connected with the idiomatic or literal meaning of the idiom string. The results of both experiments showed that the ability to understand a text indeed predicted children's understanding of idioms in context. To verify whether possible improvements in children's comprehension skills might produce an increase in figurative language understanding, Experiment 3 was carried out. A group of poor comprehenders who participated in Experiments 1 and 2 was tested eight months later. The results of Experiment 3 showed that children whose general comprehension skills improved their performance on an idiom comprehension test.     

汉语惯用语的产生机制

惯用语是固定表达的一种。非构造观点认为, 惯用语已经词汇化, 惯用语理解是提取过程; 构造观点认为, 惯用语意义是建构的, 成分的字面意义对惯用语理解起重要作用。混合模型认为, 惯用语既有整体表征, 又有成分单词表征, 二者都可以成为表征和通达的单元。通过三个实验, 考察了汉语惯用语的产生机制。实验1考察在惯用语产生中是否存在整体表征和成分表征; 实验2考察在惯用语产生中是否存在从成分单词或成分词素表征到整体表征的激活; 实验3考察在惯用语产生中是否存在从整体表征到成分单词或成分词素的激活。结果表明: (1) 汉语惯用语属于混合表征, 既有整体表征, 又有成分单词、成分词素表征; (2)成分词素表征是惯用语整体表征和成分单词表征联结的桥梁; (3) 语义可分性影响惯用语表征。     

Comprehension of Idioms in Turkish Aphasic Participants

Brain damaged participants offer an opportunity to evaluate the cognitive and linguistic processes and make assumptions about how the brain works. Cognitive linguists have been investigating the underlying mechanisms of idiom comprehension to unravel the ongoing debate on hemispheric specialization in figurative language comprehension. The aim of this study is to evaluate and compare the comprehension of idiomatic expressions in left brain damaged (LBD) aphasic, right brain damaged (RBD) and healthy control participants. Idiom comprehension in eleven LBD aphasic participants, ten RBD participants and eleven healthy control participants were assessed with three tasks: String to Picture Matching Task, Literal Sentence Comprehension Task and Oral Idiom Definition Task. The results of the tasks showed that in overall idiom comprehension category, the left brain-damaged aphasic participants interpret idioms more literally compared to right brain-damaged participants. What is more, there is a significant difference in opaque idiom comprehension implying that left brain-damaged aphasic participants perform worse compared to right brain-damaged participants. On the other hand, there is no statistically significant difference in scores of transparent idiom comprehension between the left brain-damaged aphasic and right brain-damaged participants. This result also contribute to the idea that while figurative processing system is damaged in LBD aphasics, the literal comprehension mechanism is spared to some extent. The results of this study support the view that idiom comprehension sites are mainly left lateralized. Furthermore, the results of this study are in consistence with the Giora’s Graded Salience Hypothesis.     

Comprehension of familiar phrases by left- but not by right-hemisphere damaged patients

Single words, familiar phrases (idioms and speech formulas), and novel sentences (matched to the familiar phrases in length, frequency, and structure) were selected for a picture-matching auditory comprehension task and administered to left- and right-brain damaged (LBD, RBD) subjects. The groups did not differ in single word comprehension. A 2 x 2 ANOVA revealed opposite patterns on the two other tasks, with LBD subjects performing worse on novel than familiar phrases, and RBD subject impaired on familiar phrase but not on novel sentence comprehension. The role of grammatical/referential vs. holistic/inferential meaning in left and right hemisphere function is discussed.     

汉语习语理解研究

研究宗旨是探讨中国成人对汉语中三字习语的加工处理问题。研究材料包括：（１）动宾结构的惯用语,既有比喻意义又有字面意义;（２）动宾结构的一般三字词组;（３）偏正结构的三字惯用语,既有比喻意义又有字面意义;（４）偏正结构的一般三字词组;（５）动宾结构的惯用语。只有比喻意义而无字面意义;（６）三字词。它们都是被试所熟悉的。向３５名成人呈现这些词语和（７）无意义三字组合,要求他们作意义判别。结果表明,所有惯用语的判断反应均无显著性差异,各组惯用语的判断反应时均慢于单词,而快于一般词组。实验结果基本支持两种意义同时加工,但比喻意义优先完成的假设。此外,文章还讨论了习语的词汇化等问题。     

Spared access to idiomatic and literal meanings: a single-case approach

The current study examines how patients with aphasia access the meanings of idioms during spoken sentence comprehension. In our experiment, we had 4 subjects whose native language is German: 2 left-hemisphere damaged patients (Wernicke's and global aphasia); 1 right-hemisphere damaged patient; and 1 age-matched healthy speaker. Ambiguous two-element German noun compounds carrying an idiomatic as well as a literal meaning served as target words. While listening to contextually biasing sentences containing the target words, the subjects performed a lexical decision task at the offset of each compound. All the subjects, including the aphasic patients, accessed the compounds' literal and idiomatic meanings simultaneously despite the existence of contextually biasing sentences. The data are discussed by taking account of the findings of recent studies of lexical semantic processing in aphasia.     

Do Nonnative Language Speakers Chew the Fat and Spill the Beans with Different Brain Hemispheres? Investigating Idiom Decomposability with the Divided Visual Field Paradigm

The purpose of this study was to explore possible cerebral asymmetries in the processing of decomposable and nondecomposable idioms by fluent nonnative speakers of English. In the study, native language (Polish) and foreign language (English) decomposable and nondecomposable idioms were embedded in ambiguous (neutral) and unambiguous (biasing figurative meaning) context and presented centrally, followed by laterally presented target words related to the figurative meaning of the idiom or literal meaning of the last word of the idiom. The target appeared either immediately at sentence offset (Experiment 1), or 400 ms (Experiment 2) after sentence offset. Results are inconsistent with the Idiom Decomposition Hypothesis (Gibbs et al. in Mem Cogn 17:58–68, 1989a; J Mem Lang 28:576–593, 1989b) and only partially consistent with the idea of the differential cerebral involvement in processing (non)decomposable idioms [the Fine/Coarse Coding Theory, Beeman (Right hemisphere language comprehension: perspectives from cognitive neuroscience, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 1998)]. A number of factors, rather than compositionality per se, emerge as crucial in determining idiom processing, such as language status (native vs. nonnative), salience, or context.     

汉语动宾结构惯用语加工的基本单元：来自词切分的证据

采用词切分范式研究汉语动宾结构惯用语的理解机制, 探讨在惯用语理解中加工的基本单元, 揭示汉语动宾结构惯用语的表征方式。研究发现, 词切分范式对语义分解性不同的惯用语有不同的影响。在空格切分的形式下, 语素切分和非语素切分抑制了对语义高分解的动宾结构惯用语的通达, 却未影响对语义低分解的动宾结构惯用语的理解; 语素切分、非语素切分和空格切分均增加了对语义高分解的惯用语的错误率。在阴影切分的形式下, 非语素切分抑制了对语义高分解的动宾结构惯用语的加工, 同样未影响对语义低分解的惯用语的理解。整个研究表明, 在汉语动宾结构惯用语的表征中, 既存在着语素单元, 也存在着整语单元, 但整语是汉语动宾结构惯用语加工的优势单元。     

Literal and figurative interpretations are computed in equal time

The time courses for constructing literal and figurative interpretations of simple propositions were measured with the response signal, speed-accuracy tradeoff procedure. No differences were found in comprehension speed for literal and figurative strings in a task that required judging whether a string of words was meaningful. Likewise, no differences were found in processing speed for nonsense and figurative strings in a task that required judging whether a string of words was literally true. Figurative strings were less likely to be judged meaningful than were literal strings and less likely to be rejected as literally true than were nonsense strings. The absence of time-course differences is inconsistent with approaches to figurative processing that contend that a figurative interpretation is computed after an anomalous literal interpretation. The time-course profiles suggest that literal and figurative interpretations are computed in equal time but that the meaning of the latter is less constrained than that of the former.     

ERP Evidence for the Activation of Syntactic Structure During Comprehension of Lexical Idiom

The present study used event-related potentials to investigate whether the syntactic structure was activated in the comprehension of lexical idioms, and if so, whether it varied as a function of familiarity and semantic transparency. Participants were asked to passively read the “1+2” structural Chinese lexical idioms with each being presented following 3–5 contextual “1+2” (congruent-structure condition) or “2+1” structural Chinese phrases (incongruent-structure condition). The N400 ERP responses showed more positivity in congruent-structure condition relative to incongruent-structure condition in idioms with high familiarity and high semantic transparency, but less positivity in congruent-structure condition in idioms with high familiarity but low semantic transparency, idioms with low familiarity but high semantic transparency, and idioms with low familiarity and low semantic transparency. Our results suggest that syntactic structure, as the unnecessarity of lexical idiomatic words, was nevertheless activated, independent of familiarity and semantic transparency.     

Metaphor comprehension in Alzheimer's disease: novelty matters

The comprehension of non-literal language was investigated in 20 probable Alzheimer's disease (pAD) patients by comparing their performance to that of 20 matched control subjects. pAD patients were unimpaired in the comprehension of conventional metaphors and idioms. However, their performance was significantly lower in the case of non-conventional (novel) metaphor comprehension. This ability was not related to global cognitive deterioration or to deficits in the cognitive domains of attention, memory and language comprehension. On the other hand, the impairment in verbal reasoning appeared to be relevant for both novel and conventional metaphor comprehension. The relationship between novel metaphor comprehension and performance in the visual-spatial planning task of the Behavioral Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS) suggests that executive impairment, possibly related to prefrontal dysfunction, may be responsible for the pAD patients' poor performance in novel metaphor comprehension. The present findings suggest a role of the prefrontal cortex in novel metaphor comprehension.     

That’s the way the cookie bounces: Syntactic and semantic components of experimentally elicited idiom blendsß

Idioms are sometimes viewed as unitized phrases with interpretations that are independent of the literal meanings of their individual words. In three experiments, the nature of idiom representation was explored with a speech-error elicitation task. In the task, speakers briefly viewed paired idioms. After a short delay they were probed to produce one of the two idioms, and their production latencies and blend errors were assessed. The first experiment showed greater interference between idioms with the same syntactic structure, demonstrating that idiom representations contain syntactic information. The second experiment indicated that the literal meaning of an idiom is active during production. These syntactic and literal-semantic effects on idiom errors argue against a representation of idioms as noncomponential lexicalized phrases. In the final experiment, no differences were found between decomposable and nondecomposable idioms, suggesting that the lexical representation of these two types of idioms is the same.     

Attentional resource and processing speed limitations during sentence processing in Parkinson's disease

Several studies have suggested that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have sentence comprehension difficulty in part because of their limited executive resources. However, these assessments confound the executive resources contributing to sentence comprehension with the resources needed for task performance. In the present study, we used a word detection technique that minimizes task demands in order to evaluate attentional and processing speed resources during the comprehension of simple sentences without subordinate clauses and sentences containing subject-relative and object-relative center-embedded subordinate clauses. We found that PD patients have poor sensitivity to phonetic errors embedded in unbound grammatical morphemes, regardless of the clausal structure of the sentence, suggesting difficulty attending to grammatical morphemes. We also found that PD patients are significantly slowed in their sensitivity to phonetic errors in content words embedded in object-relative center-embedded sentences. Slowed sensitivity to content words in object-relative sentences was correlated with timed executive measures of planning. On a traditional measure of comprehension, these PD patients were impaired for sentences containing object-relative center-embedded clauses compared to sentences with subject-relative center-embedded clauses, and comprehension of object-relative sentences was correlated with executive measures. Our findings are consistent with the claim that limited executive resources for strategic attention and processing speed contribute to the sentence comprehension difficulties of PD patients.     

Idiom Comprehension in Mandarin-Speaking Children

This study examines the effect of familiarity, context, and linguistic convention on idiom comprehension in Mandarin speaking children. Two experiments (a comprehension task followed by a comprehension task coupled with a metapragmatic task) were administered to test participants in three age groups (6 and 9-year-olds, and an adult control group). Laval (Journal of Pragmatics 35(2):723–739, 2003) showed that familiarity had an effect on idiom comprehension for French 9-year-olds. However, our finding showed that familiarity was important for 6-year-old Chinese children when a context was not given. Abkarian et al. (Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 35:580–587, 1992) claimed that context has little or no effect on comprehension for children under 6. Our results show that context has an effect on 6-year-old children’s understanding of idioms in a different way. Overall, our major research findings are: (1) Familiarity first appeared in responses at age 6. (2) Context played an important role in idiom comprehension and had different effects on different age groups. (3) Linguistic convention starts from age 6 on, and a significant effect took place at the age of 9. (4) Metapragmatic knowledge showed at the age of 6 and could surface even younger. As context and linguistic convention have a substantial effect on the comprehension of idioms, it is necessary to take them into account to explain language functioning and communicative situations.     

The relation between children's reading comprehension level and their comprehension of idioms

We report an investigation of 9-year-olds' ability to interpret idioms in relation to their reading comprehension level. We manipulated whether the idioms were transparent or opaque, whether they were real or novel, whether they were presented in isolation or in a supportive narrative context. As predicted, children were better able to explain the meanings of idioms in context than in isolation. The good and poor comprehenders did not differ in their abilities to interpret transparent idioms in context, but the poor comprehenders were significantly worse at using context to work out the meanings of opaque idioms. The explanation task revealed the source of information used by the children to derive nontarget interpretations. We discuss these findings in relation to idiom processing strategies and Levorato and Cacciari's global elaboration model.     

Idiom literality judgments in younger and older adults: age-related effects in resolving semantic interference

To study age effects in the resolution of idiomatic semantic ambiguity, we focus on decomposability, the extent to which a literal reading of an idiom's words shares meaning with its figurative interpretation. Younger and older adults judged whether decomposable and nondecomposable idioms and nonidioms had a literal interpretation. Older adults were slower at making literality judgments and more sensitive to conflicts between literal and figurative meanings. The results support claims of decompositional analysis of idioms during later processing stages and of obligatory activation of figurative meanings. They also lend support to research that has shown age-related effects in ambiguity resolution.