Beck Sara D, Weber Andrea
SFB 833, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Psycholinguistics and Applied Language Studies and SFB 833, English Department, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2021 Apr 15;12:591364. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.591364. eCollection 2021.
Native (L1) and to some extent non-native (L2) speakers have shown processing advantages for idioms compared to novel literal phrases, and there is limited evidence that this advantage also extends to memory in L1 children. This study investigated whether these advantages generalize to recognition memory in adults. It employed a learning paradigm to test whether there is a recognition memory advantage for idioms compared to literal phrases in adult L1 and L2 learners considering both form and meaning recognition. Additionally, we asked whether the presence of unfamiliar vocabulary interferes with phrasal learning by looking at recall of such unfamiliar words. When encountering new idioms, L2 learners often must cope with both figurative meaning and unfamiliar vocabulary. While single word meaning need not interfere with idiomatic meaning, it is a building block for the meaning of literal phrases. In Experiment 1, L2 learners showed equal recall for the form and meaning of literal and idiomatic phrases in which either all words were highly familiar, or one word was unfamiliar. However, unfamiliar words decreased overall recognition and were also remembered significantly better in literal compared to idiomatic phrases. In Experiment 2, L1 speakers also showed no recall differences between phrase types, but they displayed a trending increase in recognition in the presence of unfamiliar words. We conclude that there is no inherent recognition memory advantage for idioms based on figurativeness alone, and word- and phrasal meaning interact differently in learner groups.
以母语为第一语言（L1）的人以及在一定程度上以非母语为第二语言（L2）的人，与新颖的字面短语相比，在习语处理方面表现出优势，而且仅有有限的证据表明这种优势在L1儿童中也延伸到了记忆方面。本研究调查了这些优势是否能推广到成年人的识别记忆中。它采用了一种学习范式，以测试在考虑形式和意义识别的情况下，成年L1和L2学习者对习语与字面短语相比是否存在识别记忆优势。此外，我们通过观察此类不熟悉单词的回忆情况，询问不熟悉词汇的存在是否会干扰短语学习。当遇到新的习语时，L2学习者通常必须应对比喻意义和不熟悉的词汇。虽然单个单词的意义不一定会干扰习语意义，但它是字面短语意义的一个组成部分。在实验1中，L2学习者对字面短语和习语短语的形式和意义表现出相同的回忆率，其中所有单词要么都非常熟悉，要么有一个单词不熟悉。然而，不熟悉的单词会降低总体识别率，并且与习语短语相比，在字面短语中被记住的效果也明显更好。在实验2中，L1使用者在短语类型之间也没有表现出回忆差异，但在有不熟悉单词的情况下，他们的识别率有上升趋势。我们得出结论，仅基于比喻性，习语并没有内在的识别记忆优势，并且单词和短语意义在不同学习者群体中的相互作用有所不同。
