Metalinguistics and exposure as predictors of idiom comprehension in L2 users of Englsh

Abstract

A quantitative study was conducted with a group of twenty-six Nowegian upper secondary students and a group of twenty-six Norwegian university students. Both groups were tested for English proficiency and idiom comprehension. A third group of English native speakers was also given the idiom tests, to judge whether the tasks and idioms were appropriate. The idiom comprehension tests were divided into two part. In one they would respond to written alternatives, in the other they would respond to image alternatives. The study also gathered information about metalinguistic awareness through two proficiency tests, one testing for vocabulary size, the other for grammatical skills, as well as exposure to English, gathered through a survey. The study aimed to compare these results in order to find predictors for idiom comprehension through correlations between the different types of exposure and metalinguistic proficiency, and measure it against the results of the idiom tests. The results show that grammar was the strongest predictor of those tested, and provides evidence that metalinguistic proficiency seems to have a positive correlation with idiom comprehension in L2 speakers. The results for exposure, however, are inconclusive.