Activation and Suppression of Context-Relevant and Context-Irrelevant Senses in the Processing of Nonliteral Language by L2 Learners

Abstract

Recent psycholinguistic literature has witnessed an astounding boom of research into the processing of figurative language. Whereas the majority of the figurative language research has been carried out with monolingual language users, a substantially smaller number of studies have addressed the question of how second language learners cope with figurative expressions. The aim of the present paper is, therefore, to fill the research gap concerning figurative language processing by second language learners. More specifically, the paper focuses on the degree to which literal and metaphorical meanings of L2 idiomatic phrases become activated, and consequently either retained or suppressed in the course of their processing by L2 learners. To measure the amount of activation and suppression of literal and figurative meanings of idioms, a word fragment completion test was carried out with a group of advanced Polish learners of English. Results of the test are interpreted against the existing idiom comprehension models postulated in the psycholinguistic literature and implications for the L2 processing model are discussed..