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    The Graded Salience Hypothesis in Inter Language

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    romipku
    The document summarizes a study that tested the graded salience hypothesis in relation to idiom comprehension among native and non-native English speakers. The study found that: 1) Both native and non-native speakers were more likely to select the figurative meaning of idioms even when presented in a literal context, supporting the idea that figurative meanings are more salient. 2) When idioms were used figuratively, both groups correctly selected the figurative meaning at similar high rates (83% for both groups), contradicting the hypothesis that non-natives would perform poorer. 3) The results provide evidence that the graded salience hypothesis applies equally to both native and non-native

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    The Graded Salience Hypothesis in Inter Language

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    romipku
    157 views39 pages
    The document summarizes a study that tested the graded salience hypothesis in relation to idiom comprehension among native and non-native English speakers. The study found that: 1) Both native and non-native speakers were more likely to select the figurative meaning of idioms even when presented in a literal context, supporting the idea that figurative meanings are more salient. 2) When idioms were used figuratively, both groups correctly selected the figurative meaning at similar high rates (83% for both groups), contradicting the hypothesis that non-natives would perform poorer. 3) The results provide evidence that the graded salience hypothesis applies equally to both native and non-native

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    The document summarizes a study that tested the graded salience hypothesis in relation to idiom comprehension among native and non-native English speakers. The study found that: 1) Both native and non-native speakers were more likely to select the figurative meaning of idioms even when presented in a literal context, supporting the idea that figurative meanings are more salient. 2) When idioms were used figuratively, both groups correctly selected the figurative meaning at similar high rates (83% for both groups), contradicting the hypothesis that non-natives would perform poorer. 3) The results provide evidence that the graded salience hypothesis applies equally to both native and non-native

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    157 views39 pages

    The Graded Salience Hypothesis in Inter Language

    Uploaded by

    romipku
    The document summarizes a study that tested the graded salience hypothesis in relation to idiom comprehension among native and non-native English speakers. The study found that: 1) Both native and non-native speakers were more likely to select the figurative meaning of idioms even when presented in a literal context, supporting the idea that figurative meanings are more salient. 2) When idioms were used figuratively, both groups correctly selected the figurative meaning at similar high rates (83% for both groups), contradicting the hypothesis that non-natives would perform poorer. 3) The results provide evidence that the graded salience hypothesis applies equally to both native and non-native

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    of 39

    The graded salience

    hypothesis in
    interlanguage

    Advanced SLA Class Research


    Project
    Spring 2004
    Rebekah Johnson
    The Graded Salience
    Hypothesis
    3 things must be true:
     a. – salient (=conventional) interpretation has
    unconditional priority over less salient
    (=novel) interpretations – the salient meaning
    is always activated
     b. – novel interpretation of a salient meaning
    involves a sequential process (1st the salient
    meaning is processed, then the non-salient)
     c. – novel interpretation must be more difficult
    to derive  it requires more and different
    contextual support (Giora 1997)
    Definitions of Salience
    Giora 1997
     Salience = a function of its conventionality,

    familiarity, frequency, or givenness status in


    a certain context (p. 186)

    Giora 1999
     Salient = can be retrieved directly from the

    lexicon
    The Literature
     Many contemporary cognitive
    psychologists believe literal and non-literal
    language requires and equivalence
    process (Gibbs, Glucksberg, Keysar…) ;
     Traditional theorists assume non-literal
    language requires a sequential process
    and is more difficult to understand (Grice,
    Searle)
     Combined: the graded salience theory
    Constructivist Theory
     Constructivists hold that language learners
    continually revise their ideas over a language
    each time they process a language chunk or
    item
     Constructions are “recurrent patterns of
    linguistic elements that serve some well-
    defined linguistic function” (Ellis, 2003, p. 64)
     Cognitive linguists say that the meaning of
    words depends on the perception of the
    world around us and the way things are
    organized and related
    Constructivist Literature
     Chunking and bracketing
     Associative learning
     Generic learning mechanisms (not UG)
     Emergentism (beyond generative grammar) – systematicity
    emerges from associations and connections
     Implicit learning in natural settings
     Natural Language Processing (NLP) and corpus linguistics
     Connectionism
     Data-driven processing
     Prototypical representations
     Emphasis on acquisition
     Incremental, context-sensitive, structure-sensitive
     Graded, distributed
     Construction grammar: Language
    acquisition is the acquisition of
    constructions (sequence: formula
    low-scope pattern construction)
     Formulae = lexical chunks resulting
    from memorizing the sequence of
    frequent collocations
     Sinclair: Idioms = semi-preconstructed phrases
    that constitute single choices (appear to be
    analyzable into segments but are not) – Sinclair,
    1991
     Collocations even more frequent in spoken than
    written language – “off the top of one’s head” and
    are made up of single clauses and are often highly
    predictable in terms of sequence
     Pulling language from old memory and making it fit
    the current context = context shaping
    Rationale
     Idiomatic phrases and formulae
    acquisition are essential for obtaining
    native-like competence
    The Original Study
    Giora & Fein 1999

    Question  to see if irony (a form of figurative


    language) is as easy to understand as non-ironic
    (literal) language

    The study:
     60 4th-graders in Tel Aviv
     used native language (Hebrew)
     20 target sentences put into literal or figurative
    (ironic) contexts
     on the page following the context story, there
    were 2 fragmented words printed, 1 related to
    literal meaning and 1 related to ironic
    Texts
     A. After he had finished eating pizza,
    falafel, ice-cream, wafers and half of
    the ice cream cake his mother had
    baked for his brother Benjamin’s
    birthday party, Moshe started eating
    coated peanuts. His mother said
    to him, “Moshe, I think you
    should eat something.”
     B. At two o’clock in the afternoon,
    Moshe started doing his homework and
    getting prepared for his Bible test. When
    his mother came home from work at
    eight p.m., Moshe was still seated at his
    desk, looking pale. His mother said to
    him, “Moshe, I think you should eat
    something.”
    Test Words

     l i __ __ l e (little)

     s __ __ p (stop)
    Results
     Giora and Fein (1999) found that the
    comprehension of ironic language involved
    both ironic and literal meanings (slightly higher
    literal meanings were more salient in the
    results than figurative for the ironic stories
     However, for the literal stories, mainly only
    literal concepts were activated
    Conclusion
     Giora and Fein (1999) concluded that
    the graded salience hypothesis was a
    good predictor of activation and
    understanding of ironic language –
    refuting the prior research’s claims
    that the literal meaning does not
    need to be processed when there is a
    figurative meaning
    This study
    Replicates Giora and Fein’s (1999) study
     8 idiomatic sentences embedded in story
    paragraphs,

     Assessment by controlling reaction time

     Tested on NSs and NNSs (all adults) – 8 per


    group (16 total)
    Changes in the current
    study
     Instead of using irony, uses idioms 
    Rationale: idioms are more important,
    more often learned by language learners;
    Irony is not the same as idiomatic &
    metaphorical language – it is very difficult
    and only learned at high levels of fluency

     Uses both NSs and NNSs

     Uses English
    Other considerations
     It is important to avoid the
    comparative fallacy (comparing NSs
    and NNSs)

     We also have evidence that mono-


    linguals are different from multi-
    linguals, cognitively
    Hypotheses
    This study hypothesizes that
     1. NNSs will not select the figurative
    meanings, even when the stories are
    using the idioms figuratively as often
    as NSs
     2. Figurative meanings may be more
    salient to NSs, even when the idioms
    are placed in a non-figurative context
    The Subjects
    n=16

    Male Female

    NSs 5 3

    NNSs 3 5

    8 8
    Non-Native Speakers
     L1s:
     1 Polish
     1 Portuguese
     2 Chinese
     4 Japanese

     Years spent studying English


     A range of 8-22 years
    Non-Native Speakers
     LOR in US
     Ranged from 8 months to 13 years

     Education
     All had BAs, many had MAs, some were currently MA or
    doctoral students

     Age
     Ranged from 23 to 60
    Non-Native Speakers
     Other languages spoken
     5 spoke only English in addition to L1
     3 spoke 2 or more additional languages
      multilingual
    Method
     Participants were told to read each
    text quickly, only once, and to turn the
    page and fill in the first word that
    came to mind, not going back to the
    story

     After doing the task, the researcher


    generally asked participants for
    feedback about the tool
    Text - Literal
     While painting the walls of his house, an
    old man suddenly felt tired. He climbed
    down from the ladder he was on and
    tried to avoid stepping on the paint
    bucket and many brushes on the ground
    near the ladder, but he couldn’t avoid all
    of the paint supply items. He stumbled
    over some paint brushes. Then he made
    a real mess. The old man kicked the
    bucket.
    Text - Figurative
     While painting the walls of his house, an
    old man suddenly felt tired. He climbed
    down from the ladder he was on and
    stumbled over some paint brushes. He
    clutched at his heart and suddenly fell to
    the ground. The man’s neighbors called
    911 and the paramedics soon arrived,
    but they were too late. The old man
    kicked the bucket.
    Test Words

     d __ __ d (died)

     s p i ___ l e __ (spilled)
    Tool Variation
     8 of each set of idioms was used
    (each set differed on whether it was
    the figurative of literal use of the
    idiom phrase and these were
    randomly ordered

     The researcher created the tool and


    briefly trialed it with native speakers
    Results
    Native Speakers
     1 thrown out (filled in both words)

     Mainly correctly chose figurative


    word when figurative context, but
    often also chose figurative word even
    with literal context
    Results
    Native Speakers
    Matching Non matching

    Figurative 24 5
    29 items 83% 17%

    Literal 10 17
    27 items 37% 63%
    Results
    Non-Native Speakers
     NNSs, like NSs, matched more of the
    figurative words with the figurative
    stories and with the literal stories

     Results are essentially the same for


    NNSs as for NSs
    Results
    Non-Native Speakers
    Matching Non matching

    Figurative 25 5
    30 items 83% 17%

    Literal 13 21
    34 items 38% 62%
    Revisiting the Hypotheses
    This study hypothesized that
     1. NNSs will not select the figurative
    meanings, even when the stories are
    using the idioms figuratively as often as
    NSs

     The results do not support this – NNSs


    performed nearly the same as NSs
    Revisiting the Hypotheses
    The second hypothesis was that
     2. Figurative meanings may be more salient
    to NSs, even when the idioms are placed in
    a non-figurative context

     This seems to be true – for both NSs and


    NNSs, figurative meanings were more
    salient for not only the figurative uses (83%
    for both groups) but also for the non-
    figurative uses (63% and 62%)
    Implications
     It seems that the graded salience
    hypothesis works in the same way for both
    NSs and for NNSs

     Figurative meanings seem to be more


    salient in the case of idiomatic phrases,
    perhaps due to the fact that the figurative
    uses are more frequent (thus more salient)
    than literal uses for idioms
    A caveat
    There are limitations to this study, however:
     The main limitation is the data collection tool.
    There are many possible explanations for results
    and the tool should be re-formatted and re-trialed
    to overcome these issues
     The NNSs in the study are highly educated, often
    graduate students, with long exposures to English
    and may not be representative of NNSs in general
     A small sample was used and a small number of
    text examples were used
    Tool Trouble
    Feedback from participants noted:
     The shortest word was often easiest to “see”

    first (results favor shorter words)


     The first word was the most noticeable (also

    reflected as more often filled in)


     The stories sometimes seemed contrived

     Some of the stories were ambiguous (could

    have been a literal or figurative sense)


    Future Research
    Future research should
     Use more varied NNSs with different educational
    backgrounds and more diverse exposure to English
     Use a larger sample population and more texts in the data
    collection tool
     Re-design the tool to avoid issues discussed in feedback
    sessions
     Do a longitudinal study, testing NNSs at different intervals
    to see if prolonged exposure to English or longer LORs in
    the U.S. changes the saliency of idioms
    That’s all, folks!

    Rebekah Johnson
    [email protected]

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